The facilitator of the zoom meeting was posing the question, “What is catching your attention right now?” Just as my turn to answer came I glanced out the glass door to see a white turkey appear in the front field. I wasn’t expecting that!
I recalled that earlier in the week I reacted to another ‘I wasn’t expecting that’ moment.
The turkey moment was amusing; the other moment had triggered anguish. I became curious about my reaction to surprise information and the emotions that were aroused.
Let’s talk turkey…
Sometimes surprise happenings create intrigue or joy. Sometimes we will experience shock or grief with what catches our attention — and that moment of impact can hold us captive to memory recall for days, months, or years.
As with toxic relationships, toxic thinking can distort the reality of the situation. We believe what we’ve trained our mind to believe — until we choose to believe something different.
Making that change requires self-awareness and curiosity to ask ourselves the uncomfortable questions, “What is the story I am telling myself about what is happening?” “Is it the truth, or my perceived truth of the situation?” “Would my emotional reaction shift if I believed something different?” “What do I want to believe instead?”
My turkey visitor has not returned but I now attend to a negative emotional reaction as a ‘white turkey moment’ — a fleeting visitor that I don’t invite into my mind to scratch up a painful memory.
History cannot be repeated except in our minds.
Changing our thinking changes our responses … and changes history for us.
Trish
https://www.facebook.com/lifecoachingwithTrish