What If You Don’t Have To Believe Everything You Think?

What if you don’t have to believe everything you think?

This week, I’m sharing one of our Friday Live Q&A conversations from the Pure Possibilities Podcast Facebook Community because this conversation felt too good to keep inside the group.

We’re talking about noticing your thoughts, questioning the stories your mind creates, perceived judgment, supportive self-talk, and what becomes possible when you create enough awareness to choose a different response. I also share a simple breathing practice for those moments when you’re feeling scattered or disconnected, and we explore how our past experiences and beliefs can influence the way we interpret what’s happening right now.

And if you joined me live, don’t skip this one. Sometimes when we hear something again after having a few days to notice how it’s showing up in our own lives, we hear something completely different.

This week’s practice: Continue noticing your thoughts. You don’t need to immediately change or fix anything. Get curious about what you’re telling yourself and remember that having a thought doesn’t mean you have to believe it.

And the card pull at the end? You seriously cannot make this stuff up. 😂

This conversation also leads us right into where we’re going next as we explore what it actually means when I say you are the foundation of every relationship in your life.

Transcript

Shannon 0:54

You're listening to the Pure Possibilities Podcast. I'm your host, Shannon. This week we are doing something a little bit different. Every Friday, I go live inside the Pure Possibilities podcast community. It's a private group that I have on Facebook. Anyone is welcome to join, where we continue the conversation from that week's episode and we talk about the weekly practice. I answer questions. And honestly, we just see where the conversation takes us. And of course, I pull a card every single week. Last Friday was one of those conversations that it felt too good to keep just inside the community. So I wanted to share it with you here on the podcast. If you were with me live on Friday, please don't automatically skip this one because sometimes when we hear something again, especially after we've had a few days to notice how it's

Why This Live Conversation Matters

Shannon 1:48

showing up in our own lives, we can hear something completely different. It is slightly edited to remove names of members of the community. And if you've ever been part of a Facebook Live, you are aware of some of the delays with comments. So I did try to shorten some of those delays so that you didn't have to sit with a bunch of dead air. And let's just say that the card I pulled at the end could not have been more perfect if I had chosen it myself. In this conversation, we are going deeper into noticing our thoughts, the stories we create, and what becomes possible when we stop automatically believing everything our mind is telling us. And this conversation is also really a beautiful bridge into where we're going next because I want to start getting into the nitty-gritty of what it actually means when I say you are the foundation of every relationship in your life. And this week, although I'm sharing the community live, I would like to invite you again this week to continue to notice the thoughts that you're having and get curious about them. So whether this is your first listen or your second, I invite you to notice what you hear this time. Let's dive in. Hello. There we go. All right. Happy Friday. I was gonna start with a little something, but I want to give people a minute to like get here. Been an interesting week, a little, a little busy. Went out of town last weekend. It was super fun and got to see some of my favorite people and spent time with my sister. And it was kind of a late birthday celebration for her. We went wine tasting, we went to top golf. I got to ride a smart chair in the airport. It was an interesting experience. And then this week, my sister took me to see Benson Boone, which was an awesome concert. And I navigated Climate Pledge Arena just in my boot and not using a scooter. So that was exciting. The walking is happening. So hi, happy Friday. Welcome. We are gonna get started. And what I wanted to do today is we're obviously gonna talk about this week's podcast and the practice. But as we get started, I wanted to sometimes when our mind and our heart aren't in coherence, we can feel scattered and disconnected. And so I wanted to do a little breathing practice to kind of get grounded a little bit before we get started. So if it feels comfortable and safe to do so, you can go ahead and put your hand on your heart and one hand on your belly and close your eyes. And we're gonna breathe, and we're gonna breathe in for three, hold for four, and exhale for five.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Four, three, two, one. Breathe in for three. Hold for four three exhale for five.

A Quick Breath To Recenter

Shannon 6:00

And if you just take one minute out of your day to do that, if you're just feeling off or, like I said, scattered, if you feel disconnected from yourself, if you're just feeling like everything is a little bit crazy, just do that. And it kind of just helps you reconnect and uh kind of put your put your mind back online. So, all right. Let's see, a few things. The priority list is still available for the Pure Possibilities Collective. I have not yet made all of the official announcements, and the collective is a space that I am creating. It's a monthly membership. And I feel like what happens is a lot of times we will gain awareness on what we need to be doing, what we should be doing, and all the things. And then we don't necessarily integrate it into our lives as daily practices. And one thing that I've really noticed over the last several years is that I just naturally do things now. I just naturally regulate my nervous system. I am very aware of what's going on with my thoughts. I'm very aware of what's going on with my body, and I've really been able to maintain that connection.

Building Daily Nervous System Resilience

Shannon 7:18

And now it's just how I am. And life is not perfect. Life is not always easy. Things are always coming up. And so, what this space is that I'm creating is to help you get to a space where it's just how you naturally live and how you are navigating through all of the ups and downs in life and building that resilience within your nervous system because we're not always looking for a calm nervous system. That's not what you want. You want to be able to move in and out, feel like you can express what you're feeling and move through this crazy thing that we've got called life. So, anyway, the founding member priority list is available and there's live coaching, there's gonna be different workshops and bonuses. I'm actually offering a bonus one-on-one 60-minute session to the founding members. I'm intentionally keeping the group small to start, and then it'll eventually open up to everyone. But if you want to be on the founding member list, go ahead and the link should be in the description or in the comments. And I just did some changes with some of my, I just actually completely moved my website. It's so funny. I obviously I ran a movie theater for 25 years, and now I'm like working with website domains and email automation and all of these things that I'm like, I never thought that this would be the life that I'm living. And I love it and I've learned so much, and I've gotten so good at a bunch of this tech stuff that I had no idea that I would ever be good at. But I completely moved my website over the last couple of days, and so it impacted some of the links. So I did update the links that I posted last week and then the link that is here in the comments. So, anyway, if you're interested, if you're even just a little bit curious, go ahead and fill that out and you will be on for the first announcement. The founding members will get to maintain the founding member pricing for as long as they remain active members, which is awesome. So let's dive in to this week's practice. So, as I mentioned earlier, I traveled this last weekend and it was very interesting with navigating through the airport. I ended up asking for wheelchair support. And it was so funny when we got to CTAC, it was super convenient. They had the wheelchair access right there for me, which was awesome. And then they took me to this other area and were having me switch to a different chair. And it was, it was actually a smart chair that they programmed it to take me from one concourse to another. And it took like nine minutes. It only goes two miles an hour. But it was so fascinating just having this automatically. It's got sensors and cameras and all the things. The only thing that was a little bit scary, I mean, it had a I could pause it on my own if I needed to, but it would get me like really close

Airport Judgments And The Thought Spiral

Shannon 10:26

to people before it would stop. But that was interesting. But anyway, so I started having these thoughts as I was moving through the airport. And I kept thinking that people were judging me. I kept thinking that because like I got to go ahead in the TSA line, I got to be one of the first people on the plane. And so all of these thoughts kept coming into my head. And what I realized is that we absolutely have zero control over the thoughts that come into our head. However, once you have the thought, when you're aware and you're paying attention to the thoughts that you're having, it gives you the opportunity to shift the thoughts. I was having thoughts about how I should be able to do this. It shouldn't be something that I need to get help with. I wanted to be able to do all, you know, who doesn't want to feel independent and do things on their own? But I couldn't, I didn't, I wasn't able to stop the actual thought coming, but I did have the choice to redirect it and not go down a spiral of all of these horribly unsupportive things that I was saying to myself at the time and assuming that other people were judging me, but I was actually judging myself and it really wasn't them. So that's why this week's practice is all about noticing. Because if you aren't noticing the thoughts that you're having, you keep yourself from having the ability to shift it. If you are talking unkindly to yourself, if you are berating yourself for something that you should have done or something that um judging yourself, or you know, whatever the thoughts are that are coming into your mind, when you pause and notice them, that allows you a different opportunity to choose a different thought, to maybe sometimes I just need to get out of my head because I just keep thinking. And so I will go and dance or move my body however, however, I feel like I need to express it. And one thing that I really want to emphasize is that this isn't, we're not suppressing what we're feeling, but sometimes we just start like our mind just goes and goes and goes, and you just need to like interrupt it and redirect it to something else for just a minute or two, even if you do that breathing practice that I showed you in the beginning. Sometimes that's all you need. Maybe something doesn't actually need to be expressed, it just needs the interruption. So, did anyone try that practice this week? It's really, it's really life-changing, honestly, when you start to pay attention to that, because we don't have to believe all the things that we think. We just don't. So, what have you got for me? Did you have any questions? Did anything surprise you when you were paying attention to what you're noticing? I think the story creation is huge. Like, what stories am I telling myself? What stories am I creating about whatever the situation is that's going on? And oh, the judgment or perceived judgment. We often think people are judging us and they're really not. Most of the time, people aren't even paying attention to you. Like we think they are. We think people are paying attention to us, but they're not. I see there's a few people here. I can't see who everybody is. I see that here, and but I can't see that anybody else is here. So if you're here, please say hello. I'd love to know do you have any plans this weekend? Are you celebrating anything? Are you noticing your thoughts? Tell me all the things. I'm also going to obviously pull a card. I also started a couple of weeks ago, I started sending out the Pure Possibilities Weekly. It's a newsletter that I've been wanting to do for a long time. And I finally started it, and I've gotten some really great feedback on it. I pull a card when I'm writing the newsletter, in addition to it's just got a little recap of the podcast episode for the week, and then just some random thoughts that I'm having or things that have come up. I feel like there's something else. Oh, and then updates on anything that might be coming soon. For example, like the Pure Possibilities Collective. Hi, welcome. Hope you're doing well. I think I'm gonna pull from the magic of what if card deck volume one. I always default to number two because I do like it more. It was obviously the second deck that I made. The first one was like the okay, this is something I've really wanted to do for a long time, and I'm just gonna do it. And uh, but the messages are still really good, but the font on the newer deck is easier for me to read. Something about being in my 50s, I really generally need to wear reading glasses, and I just don't always do that. Okay, so let me see. I see has got some things here. I'll need to listen to the episode. Good topic. I read a book about being your best roommate. When negativity creeps in, change the response. Be a good roommate to yourself. I think it's the same idea. Absolutely. It's like your your inner voice, your inner roommate. And we are not always kind to ourselves. And so when we are noticing that we're not being kind to ourselves, why be so mean to yourself? I mean, you're with yourself all the time, all the time. And so when you can shift those negative thoughts, which most of them aren't even true, they're not true, they are based on past experiences, they are deeply rooted things that are in our subconscious. They are, I mean, if you think about it, we all have obviously different experiences and

Your Inner Roommate And Subconscious Loops

Shannon 16:18

we've had different lives, we had different childhoods, like my childhood, my perspective of my childhood is very different than my sister's perspective of her childhood. And we grew up in the same house, you know, and so whatever your past conditioning is, whatever your past habits are, all of those things create the thoughts that we have. And you're repeating the same thoughts over and over again. Like 95% of your thoughts are from your subconscious, and they're coming from all of these things that aren't even right now in the present moment. And so when you're paying attention to those thoughts and you can shift them, then you start to reprogram into your subconscious the things that are actually true. So you're driving. Be safe, be safe. It's such a beautiful day. I had physical therapy this morning and I had my sunroof open and my window down, and I was blasting music and one of my favorite things to do. Unfortunately, I can't drive my convertible right now because of my foot. I'm just barely driving at all, let alone uh a manual stick. Uh okay, I'm gonna stop shuffling and I'm gonna draw a card. Okay. So you seriously can't make you saw me sitting here shuffling for like several minutes. Do you want to know what the card is? Of course you do. What if I don't believe everything I think? What if I don't believe everything I think? You cannot make this up. What if I don't believe everything? You don't have to believe everything you think. You don't. And I God, the universe, your higher power speaking to all of us right now on the exact topic that we've just been talking about. I mean, seriously, if that's not a message, I don't know what is. Love it. Love it. Oh

The Card Pull That Nails It

Shannon 18:23

my gosh. You seriously cannot make that up. That makes me so happy. Just remember, you always have a choice. You have a choice to believe the thoughts that you're having, or you can shift them. You can. That choice is always up to you. I don't have to think or believe that I'm an incapable human being because I'm recovering from surgery. You know, I don't have to think that because it's not even, it's not even true. It's not even true. So, whatever it is that you are moving through, just remember that you don't have to believe all of the crappy thoughts that you're thinking. Replace them with empowering, loving, kind, compassionate thoughts. Because if we can think the bad thought, we can think the good thought too, you know. All right. So I did not see any questions in the comments yesterday. I'm kind of changing things up a little bit here and there with the podcast, with business things. I'm super excited to roll out the monthly collective. That is going to be, it's obviously this is, you know, a free community, whereas the other one will be a paid membership. And I certainly offered to do coaching in here, but when we are in that other space or even in my group programs, it's an opportunity to really be able to work more deeply with you and go deeper into whatever it is that you're that you're moving through. Because we've all got stuff. We've all got stuff. And ultimately, I mean, my intention for the monthly membership is I want you to get to a space where it is just how you naturally live, that you are paying attention to your thoughts, that you are allowing yourself to express your feelings in a healthy way, that you're setting boundaries, that you are being the same person with this group of people that you are with that group of people, that you are in your workplace, that you're just you. You're being your most authentic self, no matter where you are, who you're around. That's what I want for everyone. And not have all these masks up and pretending to be people that we're not. Thank you. I'm on a leave, and this topic helps. You're very, very welcome. I hope you're feeling better. Sometimes we're forced to rest. And uh, I know for me it was really helpful. Obviously, it's not easy to navigate through situations like that, but just I was able to gain a lot of clarity on things and realize that even though it felt like I didn't need the rest, I actually did. So hopefully you are embracing that time for you while you're healing. Good, good, good. Glad to hear it. All right. Well, thank you guys for joining me today. Well, if you guys don't have anything, I still can't believe I pulled. Well, I can believe that I pulled that card, but I love that I pulled that card. Reach out if you need anything and I will be in the community. And I don't know what next week's topic is for the podcast yet. Do you have any ideas? Anything you want me to talk about? I'm still rolling with the relationship series because I really do truly believe that everything is a relationship and you are the foundation of every single relationship you have, whether it's with people, whether it's with food, your body, your money, all those things. So take care of you. Pay attention to those thoughts, notice what you're thinking, and allow yourself the opportunity to shift those thoughts. Thank you guys for being here with me today. I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day and an amazing week. You

Authenticity And The Relationship Series

Shannon 22:19

are so very welcome. It's my pleasure. I love, I love being here with you guys. Have a great week. Much love.