Change Your Conditioned Response

When we feel anxious, stressed, or experience negative emotions, we often have a thought that leads to a feeling, which then leads to a conditioned response. This conditioned response is an automatic response that exacerbates the feeling, which in turn increases the thoughts. It’s a vicious cycle. Trying to change the thought itself is ineffective, since thoughts are often uncontrollable and come to us naturally. 

Don’t Think of an Elephant

A classic example of this would be me telling you, “don’t think of an elephant.” Were you able to follow that instruction? Of course not—as soon as we hear or see the word “elephant,” we start picturing a large gray animal with big ears and a trunk. We have tens of thousands of thoughts a day. 

Attempting to change our feelings can also be difficult and may lead to feelings of invalidation or frustration. If you were feeling sad, and I told you, “stop feeling sad, you need to feel better,” more than likely, you would think that I don’t understand what you’re going through. In the same way, when you tell yourself to stop feeling one way or another, you’re invalidating your own experience of emotion. Your emotions will change on their own.

Changing the Conditioned Response

Instead, we can focus on changing our conditioned response, which is within our control. All of our responses are conditioned, so we can shift them. We do this through creating a space between the thoughts/feelings and the response to them, and then shifting to a different response. By practicing responding differently, we can create new, more empowering automatic responses.

One of the most significant issues we face through life is our belief system and what it consists of. Often what is underlying our thoughts is the belief that we don't deserve good things and the belief that we have to prove ourselves continually. These beliefs are not grounded in reality and hold us back from living a fulfilling life. As an example, a negative belief might be, “I don’t deserve,” the thought is, “I’ll never get that,” the feeling is, “I’m sad,” and the conditioned response might be a general malaise of boredom or discontent.

We can change this conditioned response. We may believe, think, and feel a certain way, and we can choose not to stay in that energy by the content and breadth of our response. We can choose to take a breath, move a muscle, or walk away to interrupt the pattern. By being aware of our response patterns, and when they take place, we can challenge ourselves to take another course of action. We may choose to say “yes” when we usually say “no,” or vice versa.

One at a Time

It is important to focus on shifting one behavior at a time. While it may be easy to get caught up in an irrational belief that we need to be perfect and change all of our behaviors at once, this will lead us to stress and disappointment. 

Changing our conditioned responses takes time and effort, but it's the key to unlocking the door to freedom and fulfillment in our lives. Instead of trying to control our thoughts and feelings, we can focus on changing our behavior, and the beliefs, thoughts, and feelings will follow suit. Once we shift one, then we move on to another, and the small shifts turn into major changes in our lives.

Much Love,
Noel Neu, The Songwriting Therapist™