How your thoughts can affect your feelings and behavior

__________JJ Thiret__________ The question which came first the egg or the chicken? And for me when it comes to thoughts and feelings and behaviors, I decided that first comes the thought, and then the feeling and then the behavior would you agree with that? __________Timothy Hayes__________ Absolutely. You can test it out for yourself and wh- I do this often whenI'm giving lectures, I'll ask people to let themselves feel sadness, close their eyes, take a deep breath and go to the emotion of sadness and then I'll have them take a breath and let it go and I'll say now go to the emotion of anger, have them take a breath and let it go and go to the emotion of fear, then I'll have them it go and say now take a deep breath and go to the emotion of joy and aliveness and open your eyes. And I'll ask, "now how many were able to feel these different emotions are and almost always, the hands go up. And then we asked and say "so how did you get to feel those emotions?" and they say "well, I had a thought. I thought of something in the past that made me happy, I thought of something in the past that made me sad, I thought of something in the past it made me fearful, I thought of something of a pass it made me angry." And so there we've just demonstrated, that's how I create my own experience that my thoughts, if I hold the thought of happiness long enough I'd start to feel happy feelings. If I hold the thought of anger long enough "that had a person had no right to do that to me!", if I hold that thought long enough, I literally generate the physical sensations of that emotion. __________JJ Thiret__________ Right __________Timothy Hayes__________ And it doesn't work any other way and people say to me "Yeah, Dr. Hayes, I think that it happens sometimes but, you know, there's a lot of times I'm just sitting there and all of the sudden I'm just overcome with anger and I wasn't thinking angry thoughts." __________JJ Thiret__________ Yeah, you were. __________Timothy Hayes__________ If you want to believe that, you have to understand that neuroscientist today estimate that if you really pay attention to your thoughts for the next hour, you're going to be able to be aware of five out of every one hundred thoughts that go through your mind. That means, ninety five percent of the things you are thinking, which make you decide what..which route to drive to work and what to eat and want to put on, they're happening back here where you can't see him. And, so when somebody says to me "I was just walk along and I was feeling fine all then all of a sudden I got angry, I was overcome with sadness and I wasn't thinking sad thoughts", I have to say to them "yes you were, and just because they're happening back here, doesn't mean they're not having an impact on you." if people have anxiety and panic attacks, they don't come out of nowhere, they come out of the unconscious, the processing part of my mind that I'm not able to stay consciously aware of...