5: Shape Your Thinking About Missions

In this podcast episode, I delve into conscious and reactive thinking concepts, drawing from my personal experiences with my sons' missions. I explore the differences between these modes of thought and offer practical examples and strategies to become more aware and intentional in your thinking patterns and responses. The aim is to guide you toward a more mindful approach to your thought processes.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the podcast. I am really excited to talk about this topic because it's something that I had been working on. And I imagine it's something that I'll be working on most of my life., what we really want is we really want to be right. And our brain goes about gathering evidence that we are. So if our brain is running around Willy nilly and we're reacting to everything. And we're writing stories in our mind, then we aren't consciously choosing what we want to think. This is especially impactful. If we've had any type of negative or perceived negative experience that we consider the shouldn't have happened, or that we have like judgment about. So I want to give you an example of reactive thinking. When my older son was on his mission. I emailed the mission president about a situation that my son had dealt with. And the mission president emailed me back and said, That it was none of my business. So you can probably imagine. I lost my mind. I started having all these reactive thoughts, like what. Mission presidents are supposed to be jerks. How dare he tell me my son isn't my business. This mission stuff is such a joke. All mission presidents are worse than drill sergeants. And then what happened was I started down a path of gathering evidence that I was right. I talked to friends. They told me about wonderful mission presidents. And so then I was like, My son's must be an epically bad vision president. This kind of went on. Until I was introduced to this subject. And there's other areas in my life as well. And in most of our lives, because our brains are running all the time and we have our subconscious and our conscious. And we can't really control what's going subconsciously, but we can control. Consciously what we're thinking. And so there's also been times. In my life when I've been thinking things and I'm like, why am I thinking about this? Or won the world. Where did that come from? And I've dismissed it without an issue. It's when I've grabbed hold of a thought and I've let it spiral. Then I've gotten into a. Rabbit hole of reactive thinking. But an example of conscious thinking. And then my current son. Left to serve his mission. But before you left, I got an email, you know, from the mission office or the mission president. And I could see myself at first going down the same narrative. And I was able to interrupt it. And. Think. Let me just sit with his email. For a few days. And I'm just going to send some love. Through a little prayer for the mission office and the mission president, what they were trying to do. Which was basically walking, welcoming us to the mission. So I decided to think about him. In like a very gratitude expressing way. And very conscious of the things I was thinking. Cause this was. A total stranger. And I had no idea. What he was going to do or how he was going to lead. My son and the other missionaries in the mission. this was really helpful instead of like the reactionary thinking that I had before. So the reason that this is important. Is that we have to start to believe that our missionaries life is happening for them and it's not happening to them. So that we're not setting them up in our mind or in theirs. That in no way, they're a victim of their circumstance. And that no matter what's going on, somehow, there's some good that's going to come from it. And we'll be able to learn from it. Some of these concepts I learned from a book called the gap in the gain. Which basically talks about we're in the gap. We're comparing our kids' missions to other people's missions, or we're comparing to what we think, ideally what emission should be like. And we're thinking about them in a way that leaves a lot more to be desired. And we can think about that in like mission president's mission companions. Companions parents. As opposed to the gain when we're grateful or conscious that even difficult companions. We're difficult. Mission presidents. Or somehow a gift. In some way. And there's something to be learned from the situation. And maybe it's learning patience. Maybe it's learning how to communicate better. Maybe it's learning how to set boundaries, which is all beneficial in the long run. And the mission is just the current canvas that they're learning on. And it takes effort to be. Onto yourself and what your brain is up to. So I wanted to give you a couple of tools. You can help yourself be more conscious about what's happening. So first off in the morning, If you write down some things that you're grateful for about your kids' mission. And they can be anything. Like I'm grateful for the bucket. That they have to do their laundry. And so that they have clean clothes. And this starts to steer your brain to look for the good things. There's tons and tons of science. About writing gratitudes. And this. Practice will impact your life in a very positive, conscious way. A second thing is when your brain starts to go down a rabbit hole. Of how everything's gone wrong. You can use your full name out. Loud and you can stop the spiral. And you can do this. When you see yourself starting to have a negative train of thought and you can interrupt it. And I learned this from a book called chatter by Ethan Cross, And it talks about like the chatter in your brain and the act of calling your name. To yourself out loud. Interrupts that narrative and then you can consciously redirect it so that, what would that look like for me would be. Michelle. That's enough. We're not going to go down that train of thought. And that helps us be able to really redirect. And be conscious about what we're thinking. Last at the end of the day, you can write down where you felt the most aligned during that day. And what you were afraid of. So I learned this technique from one of my coaches. Kim job. And once we can see what it is that we're afraid of, then we can start questioning it. And we can also, when we write down, when we're the most aligned. We can start to be very conscious. Of what that feels like. So that we can really start to cultivate that in our life. Sometimes. Even when we're having thoughts that aren't serving us, we, we may want to keep them for a time. And then. We'll be able to loosen our grip on the thought and possibly shift it. To something else that serves us better. I remember talking to a coach one time and I had nothing to do with my son's mission, but I was like really bugged. With a situation. And she said. Is this thought serving you? And I said, No, but I'm angry and I want to keep it right now. And she was like, okay. And it was really helpful for me to be able to not try and just get away from some of those thoughts, but to allow the emotion behind it. To kind of pass through my body. So this is something that I'm not perfect at, but I try to be very aware of what my brain is serving me, especially about my son's mission. And be very conscious about what I'm thinking about. Hopefully this helps you while your missionaries out serving. And it doesn't mean. That you're like trying to make. Everything into lollipops and gumdrops. All it means is that you're steering your brain consciously. As opposed to subconsciously letting it run a muck. And be very reactionary. My first son, when he served his mission. Everything was a shock. And I was like, I mean, everything came as a surprise. like, what, what do you mean somebody is your companion and he doesn't want to be out there or, oh my gosh. What do you mean that the mission president. You know, sent me an email like this. I mean, everything came very, was very shocking and very jarring. But it doesn't have to be that way. And just the last thing that I want to mention. Is. When something happens. Remind yourself, like there's no surprise here because we're doing life and they're doing life as well, even though they're out on a mission. And there's going to be things that we didn't foresee. Or we couldn't anticipate. And we can still say there's no surprise. Because they're in a situation that's different. It's new. And it's completely unique. For the two years or the 18 months that they're out serving. All right, everybody. That's what I got for you today. I hope this is helpful. And I hope that you guys can all start being a little bit more conscious of what's going on in your brain. All right, we'll see you next week. Bye bye.