Are You Inside or Outside of Yourself

Inside or Outside of Yourself

You have to understand where a thought, or emotion is coming from in order to work on stopping or changing it.

What is the cause of that thought? That emotion? The cause is not what may have happened to you – an external occurrence. The cause may be how you internally processed the situation. Some will recognize this as the difference between having an external or internal locus of control.

A strong reaction to a situation is likely from a deeply rooted place within you that you may not even be aware of. Self-reflection will help you become aware of your feelings. Analyzing your feelings will help you understand your thought process.

Learn to be aware of why you feel the way you do; to understand the thoughts you have. If you always think it’s because of an external occurrence, you’ll never understand your own heart; your own mind.

If you allow external occurrences to dictate your thoughts and your emotions, you’re giving up control of yourself to another person or situation. You’re giving away your power of self-control. What I’m speaking of is holding yourself accountable for the things you do and challenging you to think differently. You’re accountable to have healthy emotions and appropriate expressions of those feelings.

You owe it to yourself to know yourself, why you think the way you do, and to be able to identify your feelings and where they originate from. Knowing yourself and holding yourself accountable to your thoughts and emotions will help you build and maintain healthy relationships with others. 

Having read the above article, do you tend to allow yourself to be controlled by external situations or internal processing? I’d love to read your thoughts below.

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(this article is cross-posted from deborahldixon.com and will be followed by a new article providing examples of persons with an internal and external locus of control. Subscribe for automatic notification of that post.)

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Dion

I journeyed from GED to a PhD in Psychology. I decided to focus on my writing once I retired from the clinical field. I write in various genres and have several WIPs for publication once edited. I post articles on this website for intellectual and entertainment purposes.

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