Blog Short #246: The One Thing That Has the Biggest Impact on How You Feel
Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu
One thing? Really? Numerous things affect our emotions, so how is it that “one thing” has the “biggest” impact?
Because it does.
That one thing is: “How you interpret what happens to you.”
You interpret everything that occurs in your life. Some things in depth, and others very fleetingly. It depends on how it affects emotionally. Yet, even that’s open to interpretation.
Most of us are aware that we interpret things as they happen, but we do it automatically most of the time and don’t consider the impact it has. It’s huge!
What this means is that it’s important to monitor your interpretations because they determine the strength of your reactions.
It’s natural to interpret what happens, but not necessarily to monitor that process. We often omit that second step because it requires a different type of attention.
Today, I’ll guide you through that process so you can use it more effectively and take greater control of your life.
Meta-Cognition
Interpreting is an act of making assumptions or drawing conclusions about something.
When you interpret an action or experience, you’re assigning meaning to it. You’re deciding its significance and how it will affect you.
If you did it intentionally and with deliberation, you would be asking and answering these questions:
- How does this directly impact me?
- What’s the emotional significance?
- How is it affecting other people who are important to me?
- What action is required, if any?
- What does it mean for the future?
- How serious is it?
- How much mental and emotional space is it taking up in my mind?
- Is it ongoing, or can I do something and then let it go?
You can tell if something has a small or bigger impact on you, depending on the amount of energy you expend thinking about it.
Things with little impact come and go. You notice them, have a minor reaction, and then dismiss them.
But if you ruminate and can’t stop thinking or talking about something, or have intense emotional reactions to it, it becomes more significant.
In situations like this, your interpretation strongly affects how long and how deeply you remain focused on it.
This is when you need to pay attention and seriously consider how you’re interpreting your experience.
To do this, you need to use meta-cognition, which simply means “thinking about what you’re thinking.”
You need to observe from afar. There are two parts to this:
- Identifying your thoughts and feelings regarding the situation
- Looking at it with some distance and interpreting what it means
The Two Sides of Self-Awareness
The process I’ve just described is having self-awareness. However, there are two aspects of self-awareness, and we often focus primarily on only one of them, which is that first step: identifying what you’re feeling and thinking.
Much attention has been given to this first step because many people find it difficult.
You suppress uncomfortable feelings, deny things you don’t want to face or think you can’t, or defend yourself against what feels like an attack on your worth. That prevents you from accurately assessing your thoughts and feelings.
Much of psychology and psychotherapy focuses on removing suppression and denial and helping people identify what they’re struggling with. It’s a worthy goal, but it’s only half of the process.
Once you know what you’re thinking and feeling, you need to take the next step and review it. The review process involves evaluating:
- The accuracy of your impressions and assumptions
- Whether the meaning you’ve assigned fits in with the facts
- Whether or not your reaction is defensive
- What you might be ignoring, denying, or needing to address
- Whether you’re exaggerating, conflating, or overreacting
- What’s triggering you, if anything
That’s a lot to consider. You can usually condense those concerns down to a more singular question:
How accurate is my interpretation, and what’s the true emotional impact?
When you can fully answer that, you’ll know what the experience means to you and whether any action is necessary. You can then make a more informed decision about how to approach it.
Interpretation and Time-Consumption
It’s impossible to accurately measure how much time you spend interpreting what happens daily because interpretation is a cognitive process that goes on constantly.
What you do know is that every experience you have is open to your interpretation.
Interpretation is the single most crucial skill you have as a human, but how often do you evaluate its accuracy?
You just do without question, which can be dangerous because your emotional needs greatly influence it.
All right, let’s keep going.
The Audience
The “audience” is one of my favorite quirks that humans deal with.
Because we’re social beings who need others to witness and appreciate our lives, we create an internal audience.
This is fun to think about.
When you’re ruminating about something, do you get a sense that someone is watching or listening to you?
It might be yourself, but do you sometimes imagine an audience that’s hanging on your every word, or having certain thoughts about you? Be honest. It’s normal.
Not everyone does this, or is aware of it, but many people do.
The purpose of the audience is either to:
- Protect your ego and help you feel more valuable or better about what’s happening, or
- To serve as a critical panel that’s hot-seating you at the moment.
The audience reflects your feelings about yourself, your desires for recognition, or validation of your interpretations. It’s the group (or individual) that either affirms your narrative or challenges it.
But, either way, it’s you.
What’s humorous is that you can create entire worlds as you unfold your interpretations of how things are, and for better or worse, totally rewrite what is. If you’re a novelist, it’s a gift. If you’re a scientist, it’s not so helpful.
Regardless, it’s crucial to use your meta-cognition to carefully review the facts without exaggerating or rewriting them, so you can stay as close to reality as possible. That allows you to accurately understand what’s happening and what it means for you.
Story-telling is an integral part of life, as is imagination. It’s how we reach beyond ourselves to solve problems, dream, and evolve. But accurately interpreting the present is equally important.
You have to use the right approach for the right situation. When interacting with others and building relationships, accurate interpretation is the best approach.
Back to Strategies
The basic strategy is simple:
When you find yourself reacting or simply thinking about a situation, person, or something that’s happened, follow these steps:
- Identify the facts of what happened first. Be very careful when you do this to remove your biases.
- Identify your feelings about it. All of them.
- Now, step back mentally and assess the accuracy of your perceptions. You may need to take some time to calm your emotions before doing this.
- Finally, consider what it means for you and whether you need to take any action or give it further thought.
The most important part of this process is separating identifying your thoughts and feelings from evaluating and interpreting their accuracy and meaning.
Interpretation is often done so quickly and without any meta-cognition that we simply accept it and act on it. When you separate identification from evaluation, you significantly slow down the process and achieve greater accuracy in your interpretations.
The other benefits are that you can:
- Reduce rumination and overthinking
- Become more aware of your emotions and triggers
- Be more thoughtful and have more control over your behavior
- And be less reactive
The more you practice, the more automatic that process becomes. It saves you a lot of unnecessary emoting and pain in some instances.
Observe your interpretations for a week and see what you discover about yourself.
That’s all for today.
It’s nice to be back! I hope you have a great week!
All my best,
Barbara