Have you ever felt confronted and even threatened when someone says “no” or disagrees with you?

Sometimes, a small incident on the outside triggers something much larger on the inside, and before you even fully register what is happening, your nervous system gears up to defend and protect you from potential loss or danger – full on self-preservation mode.

Most of us learned early on to read the environment around us and adjust ourselves accordingly. We learned to anticipate, accommodate, react, and stay attuned to whatever feels unstable or unpredictable. 

Without noticing it, we become thermometers in our own lives, reacting to changes in our external world like the mercury in a thermometer reacting to the rise and fall of the air temperature. 

I had an incident occur recently, when my sense of security was challenged. I was reminded how easy it is to lose my cool and slip into that pattern of “fight”/protection mode. 

In the middle of selling our home, there was a moment during the negotiation of the terms of the sale when the buyers pushed back in disagreement to our offer.

Their reactivity hit my system before I could even name what was happening. My emotions surged, I felt the hairs on my neck rise up, readying myself for a fight, my mind spun through every possible worst-case scenario, like “What if we lose the sale???!!”

Their response shook the foundation of my inner “okay-ness”. If you’d interviewed my nervous system, right at that moment, it would have admitted to fearing for its life.

It was remarkable how quickly I went from feeling calm and clear on the outcome we were negotiating to experiencing a full on threat to my safety. It left me thinking, “Why does this happen and can I just eliminate that roller coaster of emotion from ever happening again?” 

Thankfully, in the middle of that curfuffle, something inside me relaxed just enough for me to pause. I remembered that I did not have to engage in or react to the discomfort of being disagreed with by our buyers. I had a choice.

I could sit with the part of me that was afraid without letting it run the show. I could breathe, witness the reaction moving through me, and reconnect with the steadiness of my own presence. 

And in that space, a teaching I’ve returned to many times reminded me of the relationship I have with my own mind and how much power lives in my ability to think a different thought.

My reactivity wasn’t just emotional. It was mental. My thoughts of, “What if we lose the sale?”, surged, spiraled, and built an entire story before I had a chance to interrupt it. 

That is what thermometers do. Their entire function is to measure the outer environment, but they do not shape it.

A thermostat, on the other hand, determines the environment and is a chosen way of being. We each have that inner thermostat which is the part of us that sets our inner temperature. 

It is the part of you and me that knows our internal climate is not determined by circumstances, but by the thoughts we honor and the presence we return to. Meaning, we each get to decide what quality of being, what “energy” we will presence, in any given situation.

So, instead of trying to control my emotional reaction, which by the way took me on an adrenalin-pumping, nerve-fraying ride that I would never willingly have paid for in an amusement park, I focused on choosing an empowering thought. 

“What quality or feeling would I love to bring to the situation?” I let that question guide my attention rather than giving the fear I’d originally felt take the lead.

From that place, solutions became visible. Communication eased. I responded from my values rather than my fear. I regained my center and saw more opportunities, not because the situation changed first, but because I reclaimed my relationship with my own thinking.

Our thinking is powerful, but it is not meant to be in charge of our lives. It is meant to follow the deeper truth within us. 

When our dominant thoughts are fear-based we react to everything around us. But when the mind follows our sparks of intuition, (a.k.a. creative, possibility-guided thoughts), life begins to feel more aligned, less chaotic, and far more spacious.

 “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”-Albert Einstein

The most important part is this: 

A thermometer is not just an emotional reflex. It is the automatic, subconscious thinking process that happens beneath the surface, the thoughts that generate our emotional responses before we consciously choose them. 

A thermostat is not just emotional balance. It is holding the thought, “I am greater than this circumstance/apparent threat. I get to influence the tone and the outcome by focusing on the quality I want to bring to the situation”, like calm and confidence, for example. 

I get to remember the outcome I want most. And you can too, which allows us to think beyond the immediate challenge and not get tangled in a survival-based reaction.  

Every feeling we experience, every behavior we express, every reaction we have is shaped by the baseline of our thoughts, most of which we’re not aware of.

Understanding this and putting this into practice is incredibly liberating, because it means you do not have to manipulate your emotions or force yourself into calm. You can simply choose a more empowering thought, and that new thought gently redirects the entire inner emotional pattern that follows.

This is the deeper work of inner mastery. It is the recognition that your thinking shapes your emotional life, your reactions, and ultimately the results you create. 

When you become aware of the thoughts that are running away with the show, interrupt them, and in their place choose thoughts that align with what you would love and who you are choosing to be, you begin to move through the world with greater clarity and inner authority. 

You meet challenges from a place of grounded truth rather than urgency. You respond to situations with intention rather than reactivity. Your life becomes an expression of your inner alignment and what you would love more of rather than being derailed by external pressures.

And with practice, this becomes not only possible, but natural. You begin to feel the difference between thinking that elevates you and thinking that drains you. 

You notice when you start acting like a thermometer and can return to the intention and equilibrium of your thermostat with more ease. You build a relationship with your own mind that supports your freedom instead of undermining it.

This is where real transformation begins. Not in the absence of challenge or in the perfection of emotional responses, but in the moment where you choose the thought that aligns you with the version of life that is anchored in love.