How to control your emotions with The Bean Jar

By: Michelle L. Taylor, M.S., LPCC

Control Your Emotions, They Say

Is this even possible to do? To control your emotions? Isn’t this something your amygdala in your brain does naturally? Yes and no. It is possible to change your emotions, but it takes practice. And practice. And more practice.

I was going to see one of my clients who struggles with anxiety and depression, and I wanted a metaphor that would help the client understand the link between thoughts and emotions. Control the thoughts you focus on and you can control the emotions.

I looked around my house, and I found some unused mason jars. Without knowing the direction I wanted to go with these, I knew I needed something to fill the mason jars. And, the only thing I found in my house that was relatively cheap and disposable were dried beans. This day, I started with kidney beans and black eyed peas. But, since then, I have added all sorts of beans. Let me explain.

HOW MANY THOUGHTS DO WE HAVE ON AVERAGE A MINUTE?

I honestly wanted to know how many thoughts we have in a day. So, I Googled it. And, I found that on average, we have around 50,000-70,000 thoughts a day. That averages to be about 60 a minute…

We have ONE thought every ONE second. WOW.

So, I filled a jar with 60 beans. Representing one minute of thoughts. And I filled another jar with 600 beans, representing 10 minutes of thoughts.

Then I wanted to know how many of my thoughts am I actually aware of? Why do some thoughts seem so much more important than others? Why do some feel so big?

I did a quick trial on myself. I decided to time myself for one minute, grab a bean for every thought I said out loud… I was certain I could find 60. I’m competitive. I can do at least 40, I thought.

• “I’m going to get 60 beans.”
• “I am good at this, ha!”
• “I think this is going to be easy.”
• “I am grabbing beans!”
• “This is hard.”
• “Oh no… I’m losing time.”
• “Hurry!”
• “There is only a minute.”
• “Umm… this is a bean.”
• “Uhhh…. it is red.”
• “Uhhh…..ummm….”

Then, it got more and more difficult to name thoughts. All the sudden, around 20 seconds, I couldn’t think of anything. (Or so I thought)…

Our brain has thoughts that we don’t pay attention to. We choose which thoughts we focus on. And this is why we can experience different feelings at any moment. Too many of those “bad” thoughts, and we can experience depression, anxiety, PTSD, phobias, OCD, etc.

See video below for One Minute Intervention with Bean Jar.

RED, WHITE, GREEN BEANS

I started to notice a separation in my thoughts when I did this exercise. Some thoughts popped out faster than others, some I had to dig down and find. Some brought feelings: fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, boredom… Some were just neutral.

“I’m not going to finish” = fear, anger, disgust

“I am good at this” = joy, confidence

“This is a bean” = neutral

The more and more I tried this exercise, the more simple and neutral my thoughts got.

• “I’m in a room.”
• “I’m Michelle.”
• “I have a hand.”
• “I see beans.”
• “I’m holding beans.”
• “I am here.”
• “There’s a table.”
• “Wall.”

I also noticed I was calm at the end of the exercise, and I did not carry emotion with it. In fact, I realized I had just created a mindfulness activity.

I started to classify the beans into red (kidney) beans, white (black eye peas) beans, and green (lentil) beans.

Red= “bad, negative” thoughts

White= “good, positive” thoughts

Green= “neutral” thoughts

Control your emotions: Therapy Practice

Thoughts and emotions are temporary

Remember when I said we have 60 thoughts a minute? Well, if we were to fill jars full of beans that represent positive, negative, and neutral thoughts, our “minute jars” would look different every minute. Some minutes, we may only have red beans with some green. Some minutes, maybe after we receive good news, are filled with white beans and some green.

The point is, no “minute” looks the same. Thoughts are temporary. Feelings are temporary. At the end of the day, perhaps you have a lot of red beans. But, don’t worry, another day will be filled with white beans.

And if it seems that you have years and years of mostly red beans, perhaps you are not focusing enough on the green beans. (See the Reducing Anxious and Depressive Thoughts exercise below)

Control your emotions by Setting boundaries

I was running a self-esteem group and I brought some jars full of beans. Some jars had all red beans, some all white beans, some a mix.

I asked the group to pick out some beans and share some thoughts with each other. If they had red beans, they share a negative thought, white beans, a positive thought.

I noticed that many of the group members only would pick out white beans… sharing thoughts like, “I like your shirt”, “This is a fun exercise.” “I hope this group works for me.”

The people with the red beans stood there frozen… waiting. Until they got some white beans from other members, and then they grabbed those beans and shared positive thoughts with them back.

I shared my observations with the group, “I noticed that most of you did not share any red beans, only white beans. What is that about?”

One member replied, “I don’t want to bring them down with negative thoughts.”

Another replied, “I don’t think they want to hear negative thoughts.”

I responded, “Why don’t you ask them if they can hear red beans.”

They did. And of course, the other members said, “Yes, I can handle hearing your negative thoughts.”

And we began a discourse about boundaries and asking for permission. When are we able to listen to other people’s negative thoughts and when do we need to hear positive thoughts.

Control your emotions by reducing anxious and depressive thoughts

In the same group, we discussed why we choose red, white or green beans. One member mentioned, “The red beans feel bigger, so I grab them more.”

It’s true, oftentimes, we ruminate on negative thoughts because they feel bigger. “I’m not good enough. No one likes me. I’m a failure. I am unloveable. I can’t do anything right.” But, the truth is, all thoughts are the same size. Emotions just make them feel like they are different sizes.

In these moments, it take effort to release focus on these thoughts and grab the green beans. The green beans are purposely small, because we have to work at finding them and grabbing them.

Some might think the cure to negative thoughts is to say positive thoughts. Not true. The cure for negative thinking is to focus on the neutral thoughts until the negative beans don’t feel so big.

Remember when I said there are around 60 thoughts a minute? And remember when I could only name about TEN of them in a minute? Well, this is where the other 50 thoughts are… they are neutral. They don’t stick out. They don’t feel big. You have to search for them.

The goal here is not to get rid of negative thoughts. The goal is to just observe them gently as you observe neutral thoughts. The goal is to reduce the size of the thought by placing equal focus and importance on all thoughts you experience.

And bam! You’ve just learned the basics of Mindfulness!

All thoughts matter, all thoughts are just temporary, all thoughts are valuable.

CONCLUSION

These bean jars have been so helpful in understanding thoughts and emotions. I challenge you to use them yourself. Make a jar full of beans representing all colors of beans. And remember, there aren’t simply three kinds of thoughts (positive, negative, and neutral)… I have just simplified them into those three for Mindfulness 101.

To be truthful, thoughts and emotions are fluid, it is not so black and white. There are all different sizes and colors in between. So in your jar, fill it will all sorts of colors. Practice finding the neutral thoughts. You’ll find you will be more in control of your emotions and not as controlled by your passing thoughts.

A healthy life looks like this colorful mixture of beans!

Contact Me

Let’s use the bean jar method in your life. Call me for a free consultation or email me your struggles and lets talk!