The Illusion of Outside Circumstances
Reprinted, with permission of the publisher, from
Unsinkable: How to Bounce Back Quickly When Live Knocks You Down
© 2011 Sonia Ricotti. Published by New Page Books a division of Career Press, Pompton Plains, NJ. 800-227-3371. All rights reserved.
Often we get so caught up in what is happening outside of us that we believe the way we are feeling is the result of these external circumstances. This isn’t true. That belief is all an illusion. For instance, let’s say your boss just yelled at you, and your reaction is anger and frustration. You may believe you are feeling those negative feelings because your boss just yelled at you. However, there is a missing component here. There is something that occurs between your boss’s behavior toward you and your feelings after it happens. What is it that occurs? You have a thought.
That thought you had the moment after your boss yelled at you is what caused you to feel angry and frustrated. It isn’t his actual yelling at you that caused those negative feelings, but rather what you chose to make it mean and what you said to yourself at that moment. It all happens in a split second.