What do we do when we notice we’re feeling like something’s wrong? Dang it, we’ve stumbled upon a new problem, or that old problem bubbles up again. 🤬 I swear we were fine a minute ago! Here’s what’s going on…

Imagine there are three levels. There’s the thinking level, the feeling level and the doing level. We think something. We have some kind of feeling about the thinking. We do some behavior in response to the feeling we’re having. So, thinking causes feelings which causes behavior. That’s a pretty well understood theory in Psychology. Most of today’s solutions to mental wellness deals with making changes at the behavior level. After you already had the thought and subsequent feelings, but before you take action. Because, the action is usually the part we’re trying to change and is often habitual – overeating, smoking, drinking, binge eating, gambling, panicking, feeling anxious, etc. 😨

So we try to change what we are thinking. But, it’s too late, we’re already thinking about what we thought and almost immediately feel it. I don’t know about you, but trying to change a thought is a whole lot of work. It’s so much work and it’s exhausting. And then you have to constantly monitor what you’re thinking. No one’s got time for that! ⏳

But, what if the answer lies in the feeling? Say you’re going about your day and everything’s fine. Let’s use what I experienced yesterday as an example. I’m doing research for this YouTube channel I’m creating called Living Beyond the Weight where I’m talking about the mental and emotional side of medical weight loss using medications/GLP1-s or bariatric/metabolic/weight loss surgery.

It’s early on in the process and I’m starting to have A LOT of thinking about it- is this a good idea and do people want this? Why can’t I find similar channels about this? Does this mean it’s a terrible idea or a great idea? Can I make a successful channel on this topic and make a living doing this? Imposter syndrome is creeping in and who am I to even talk about this? None of the thinking made me feel great. I started second guessing about this project. I started thinking I should maybe not go forward with it. Even though when this idea came to me, I was so excited and inspired by it that I knew I wanted to do this.

Based on traditional advice, I should now try and change my thoughts so that I can change my behavior. IE not quit. Now, that’s even if I want to keep at it after all that negative thinking I’m having about it. At this point, in the past, I would have talked myself out of it and my behavior would have been to quit altogether. Bye Bye idea #9457 that I didn’t follow because I got scared and insecure about it. 👋

But what if the FEELING I was having was the actual key indicator here? What if it wasn’t about my idea, but is really just me feeling insecure and lacking confidence because I just thought myself out of confidence? This time, I recognized that I was really starting to feel deflated, bummed out and insecure about my ability to even help anyone with this topic. Hell, in addition to the worry about whether or not I can do this as a coach, I also started having thoughts about my own weight again. Should I have lost more than the 100+ pounds I’ve lost since I started this weight loss journey? Am I not doing enough to lose more weight? I hadn’t really thought about regaining weight until I saw that other people are worried about it. Now I’m wondering if I need to worry about it, too.

You see how all this is working in my mind, right? 🧠 It’s starting to pile on. First, my career potential success and now something more personal like my weight, too. If I keep going in this direction, who knows what else I’ll start grabbing on to. My mentor, Dr. Mark Howard, once described this as being on the bargain basement floor of consciousness.

Imagine our wellbeing and state of mind is like being in a high-rise elevator. The elevator of consciousness/mood goes up and down all day. Remember, I was feeling fine and dandy earlier in the day and now after all this thinking, I’m at a very low floor on the elevator of consciousness and I walked out of the elevator at this floor. Everything is on sale! 🏷️ Look, here’s some imposter syndrome! Oh, and look at all this self-doubt available?! It’s so cheap and I start grabbing it all. My arms are stuffed full and then I see something out of the corner of my eye… it’s generalized anxiety! I definitely need some of this! 🛒🛒🛒

On this low level, it seems like a good idea to stuff my pockets full of worry, second guessing, doubt, etc. Kind of like when you see a really good sale of things you know you don’t really need, but it’s too good of a deal to pass by so you buy the dumb stuff anyway. Later, you’re sitting there and you see the stupid trinkets and ask yourself- why did I impulsively buy that. I don’t need that.

That’s what happens when your feeling state goes down. Recognizing that your feeling state has gone down is the absolute best way to prevent those unwanted behaviors. You don’t even have to do anything else! You don’t need to try and talk yourself into better thinking or analyze what was I thinking that made me feel this way and what do I need to think instead. Literally, just realizing you’re feeling kinda gross, down, or uncomfortable is like an alarm going off. (﹙˓🚨˒﹚)

The alarm is NOT telling you anything about what you’re thinking about. In my case, it’s telling me nothing about whether or not my business idea is a good one and what I should do or change about the idea or if I’ve lost enough weight and whether I should make drastic changes there, either. It is only telling me that my level of consciousness has dropped, aka my mood. And all I need to do is NOT get off on that level and start collecting armfulls of crappy thought trinkets. 💭📦

The elevator will go up on its own. It seems to go up a bit faster when I notice my feeling, or state of mind has gone down. The noticing is what makes a difference. Recognizing the feeling you’ve dropped into seems to derail the negative thought train on its own- without any action or behavior on my own.

What if we’ve been going at it all wrong by trying to change our behaviors and all the subsequent efforting that happens? What if all we have to do is notice when we’re feeling down and remember that those thoughts we’re having right now may not be ones we need to trust or listen to? For me, this isn’t a what if. This is 100% how it works- every time.

Once I realized I was feeling insecure about my business and then my weight, something clicked. Oh, I’m just in a low mood right now. There is literally nothing else I need to do. No more thinking about what I was thinking about that made me feel insecure. I see, insightfully, that those are just some silly thoughts I’m having because my mood dropped. I’m also getting over a cold, so that isn’t helping, either. I find that when I don’t feel good physically, my mental state can sometimes take a dive, too. It’s a good clue for me to notice that the elevator went down. 🔽

This is a play-by-play of what happened yesterday, but I hope it illustrates what I said in the beginning about how trying to attack a “problem” at the level of doing or thinking isn’t very helpful or effective. The Feeling level is where it’s at! ⚡ I’ve always known feelings were important, but I didn’t understand exactly why until the last few years. Our feelings are our guide. It’s like the hotter/colder game we played as a kid. We’re either getting closer (warmer) or farther (colder) away from our happiness/direction/well-being and our feelings tell us if we’re warmer or colder. 🔥❄️

Once I realized I was just feeling low and insecure in the moment, I was able to say to myself, Oh, that’s okay. This is normal. I’m just feeling low right now. That’s natural. Oh, yeah, I do know that when my mood drops, I do have a tendency to worry about career type things and start thinking about how I’m not measuring up in some way. How I’m not good enough. It’s not true, but it’s familiar and it’s habitual. Like realizing my hand is on a hot stove ♨️, I instinctively pulled my hand of attention away from the painful thoughts. I didn’t DO anything.

Relaxing because I don’t have to change my thoughts anymore. Photo -Urip Dunker

My mood lifted and then, I realized, you know, when I get back to why I wanted to create this YouTube channel I remember why it was so inspiring in the first place. I KNOW there are people who are having a hard time with the emotional, mental and spiritual part of medical weight loss and people aren’t talking about it enough. Even my bariatric surgery handbook– from one of the top rated hospitals in the world– has TWO, 22 point font, double-spaced pages in the mental health tab and FIVE, 10 point font, single-spaced pages on plastic surgery! And I went to an excellent program and have zero complaints! My program had multiple sessions with a Psychologist before and after the surgery. My understanding is that this is more than many other programs out there.

When I was taking GLP-1 medications 💉, like Ozempic/Wegovy/Semaglutide and Mounjaro/Zepbound/Tirzepatide, there was ZERO support for the emotional and mental changes going on. And there were changes, for sure! My first hand experience and talking to others on weight loss injections is probably all the “research” I really need to start this project and see what happens. After all, I am a coach and I am two days out from my one year gastric bypass “surgiversary”. 💪

I’ve learned so much about how our minds work and it’s made a huge difference in my recovery and weight loss journey. I know I can help others going through the same thing. That knowing, is a feeling. That’s my guide. Not the “evidence” I’ve gathered for why this is a good business idea. I also know I’m perfectly happy with my weight loss thus far now that I’m back to my normal mood and state of consciousness. And when I dip again, I’ll notice the feeling state I’m in and know what to do. Absolutely nothing. That’s so much easier than any other tips, tricks and hacks out there. 🧙‍♂️

This is the kind of thing I work with clients on – understanding how thought works, seeing you’re not broken, getting unstuck. If you’d like to talk about what you’re going through, I offer a free initial call to see if coaching might help. Send me a message here