Vol.35 | Break the TEA cycle.
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What's up guys welcome back to my podcast yeah why not if you like what you hear right now please subscribe share comment like anything helps and enjoy episode hi guys welcome back

I know it's been a while, it's like almost 3 months which is kinda crazy the last episode I did, I think it's in December 2024 and now it's almost March 2025 so I wish y'all a belated happy new year thank you for your support yeah without you guys I wouldn't be here talking to you guys right now so yeah I really appreciate that

Before we dive into this topic, I want to update a little bit what I did during these three months. I actually had a two weeks trip to Vietnam.

And yeah, it was really fun. And then after that, and I went back to my hometown for celebrating new year, you know, the Chinese new year and stuff. And I spent some time with my family and I just got back here. Yeah. So now I feel fresh, excited to be back here again, talk to you guys. All right. Um, without further ado, let's dive into today's topic. Today I want to talk about something called the T-cycle, T-E-A-C-I-C-L-E.

but it's not the tea we drink it's something else it's actually a psychology term i heard this from my girlfriend but i kind of knew this thing exists i just didn't know what it called i think it's really interesting i want to talk with you guys about this first i want to talk about my situation i don't know if this happens to you guys but

For me, you know, sometimes at night I will be planning what I want to do. Tomorrow I want to do this and that, you know. And then the next morning I wake up. When I wake up, I usually will scroll my phone for a little bit just for my brain to be totally awake. You know, when I just open my eyes, but my brain is probably still sleepy. So I'll just, you know, scroll my phone for a little bit. And sometimes I will forget the time.

And time just passed. It can be like half an hour or even one hour. And I'll be like, oh, damn, it's one hour already. And now I have this feeling that I waste a lot of time. I have a lot of things to do, you know. So this kind of...

thoughts will make me feel really unmotivated to get up and do things. So I'll just probably end up procrastinating, just staying back and keep scrolling phone, watching some videos and stuff. I mean, that was just one of the examples. I had a lot of other situations, but similar to this.

So this got me thinking like why is it like this? You know, I feel like I kind of fall into this kind of a loop. It's keep going and going again and again and keep bringing the negative things to my life. I want to stop it. So that's why I want to talk about this T cycle. T actually stands for thoughts. E stands for emotion and A stands for action.

So it's kind of like a cycle. The thought leads to certain emotions and the emotion leads to certain actions. Okay, imagine this. You're walking on the street and you see one of your friends across the road. So you just naturally wave your hand and say hi.

and he turn around you guys maybe have eye contact but you're not sure and then he just turn around keep walking so because of this you have some thoughts you'll be like wait did he see me why he ignore me is he mad at me or something and these thoughts will probably lead to a certain emotions that you'll probably feel like

rejected or even sad and and this sad and rejected emotions will probably lead to certain actions like you want to isolate yourself you don't want to talk to him no more or even you want to talk to other friends you'll feel like why everybody's like this i don't want to talk to no one and this action will actually got you think more and you have more thoughts the thoughts will keep feeding your emotions and keep feeding your actions and it goes on and on

But this is just an example on how it works. It can actually apply to a lot of situations, a lot of scenarios in your life, the things that you do. And here's the thing. How do we break this cycle? Like not keep thinking about something and having those emotions and do certain actions. Can we break it? Make it a positive cycle? And that's what I wanted to do.

So in my opinion right now, there's two ways. So let's imagine this again. You see your friend on the street and you say hi. He turned around. You guys probably had eye contact, you're not sure. And then he turned back and keep walking. And then you'll be thinking, wait, did he see me? Why he ignored me?

Is he mad at me or something? And then you pause. Stop yourself for making those assumptions. The fact is that the road is probably busy and crowded. So maybe he didn't see you. Maybe he forgot his glasses or something. So he doesn't have a good eyesight or something like that. Anything can be possible. And this kind of thoughts will lead to a confusion. Emotions like you don't know what's going on. So you probably call him.

and you call him and you just confirm like, "Oh, I say hi to you, but you ignore me" and stuff like that. And things can be totally different. So this is one situation that you just stop. Stop yourself from making those assumptions and you can actually break the cycle. And here's another situation. Back to the example I said before, "Oh, I was scrolling my phone on bad."

Then I feel like I wasted time and then I stopped myself feeling that way I just get up and started to do the things I wanted to do and then I

I kind of break the cycle because I didn't let the thoughts form the emotions to my head and lead to certain actions. I actually break it and reversed it. Okay, I have those thoughts. I feel like I wasted the time. I get up and do stuff, which is the actions, right? The action is that I'm doing the things I wanted to do. And then it will give me the positive feelings that, um, yeah, I wasted some time, but I'm still doing it.

I might not finish everything but I can finish most of it. And then these thoughts will give me the positive emotions and will push my action forward and it becomes a positive cycle. So this is the two ways I think that can help to break this cycle. You know for me, I overthink a lot of things.

So it's extremely important and understand how this tea cycle affect my life. So now I want you to pause for a second and think about your own situation. Is this kind of things happen to you, to your life during the day? If you do feel like you also in this tea cycle, I'm really happy to, you know, you find out and

Hopefully you'll take action to actually stop it. I feel like this happens a lot, especially for those who overthink. You know, I'm one of the overthinkers. I love overthinking a lot of things. I will always be thinking about something that happened in the past or it's going to happen in the future. I will make assumptions. I will, you know, have to imagine dialogues, a lot of things. So yeah, it's pretty bad.

And all those things are affecting my behaviors, my actions. But I just want to say that sometimes the things that you feel, the emotions that you feel, the thoughts that you have is actually not related to the reality, to the truth. We just create it.

everything in our mind and we believe that you know that's how it is but in reality it might not be true you know so we're just making assumptions you know all that so yeah let's break the cycle let's be self-conscious

And stop making assumptions about the things that happen or the people that you see, that you talk to. And hopefully we'll all live a healthy and easier life. And this is today's episode. And I will see you in my next one. Bye.