Do you find it hard tackling new tasks, especially in areas you feel you have little competence?
It feels like you are out of your depth right from the start and having a deadline adds to the stress and feelings of overwhelm.
Do you feel like there is something wrong with you? After all others can tackle new tasks with ease. Why can’t you?
Do you feel like others will never like, understand or accept you?
Do you rely heavily on others to feel a sense of self worth, happiness and security?
Do you feel you are unable to support yourself and worry a lot?
If you have answered yes to one or more of the above questions, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have joyful, happy times.
However, you may swing from feeling good in your life to feeling low and vulnerable and you may not know what has triggered the change in how you feel.
For this reason I feel it is vital that you learn to become more consciously aware. More aware of your inner chatter and how you talk to yourself.
This is because what you tell yourself has an affect on how you feel. If you are constantly repeating unsupportive thoughts such as:
- I am stupid
- I will never accomplish anything in life
- I will never make friends
- I am not intelligent enough
- I don’t know how to cope, I’m out of my depth
How does this make you feel?
The above self criticisms tend to have you feeling a failure, not good enough in certain areas of your life. Your self worth is in your boots and various feelings such as sadness, anxiety, anger will surface.
When this happens it is really hard to take action, step outside your comfort zone, to learn new tasks and achieve the results you want.
When you don’t achieve the results you want or unable to take the action required and procrastinate a lot, you prove to yourself that those thoughts must be true. Your confidence shrinks and your world becomes smaller.
These thoughts are not truths though. Equally If you believe the thought “I can accomplish anything I set my mind to” you feel happy, self confident and naturally take the appropriate action to achieve the results you want, thereby proving that thought to be true.
In addition your skill set improves as you learn a ton of things along the way, your confidence grows and you have expanded your comfort zone and in that way your world expands.
I wish It was as easy as that. However there are ways to make lasting changes to the way you habitually think, to quieten the inner critic.
Start helping yourself with breathing exercises
At this stage it doesn’t matter whether you are aware or unaware of your thoughts when you feel bad.
When you feel anxious, sad, angry or overwhelmed stop whatever you are doing and sit comfortably, somewhere where you will be warm and know you are not going to be disturbed. I suggest allowing at least 5 mins, but the idea is to stay doing this breathing exercise until the feelings shift and change.
Make sure your lungs are empty of air and then breathe in very deeply and slowly. When your lungs are full of air hold your breath for as long as possible, and then as slowly as you can let all the air out of your lungs and hold your breath out for as long as possible, before you begin to breathe in again. You repeat this for as long as it takes for your feelings to change, and you feel more calm, centred and grounded.
What you may notice during this process
You may start to notice what you are repeatedly saying to yourself and how that makes you feel.
Some of these thoughts when you really listen to them may sound bonkers so job done, as those thoughts may not come back into your mind again.
Other thoughts though hold some meaning for you and you believe them, and as you think them your feelings become more intense. These thoughts may be attached to some story from the past. It is likely that you will need to do some deeper work here, in order to witness, experience and release pain from the past.
For now though when these thoughts come in just acknowledge them by saying “I’ve heard that” or “ I’ve got that” and turn your focus to your breathing and let them go. Do NOT give them your attention at this stage. If you do you will find yourself being drawn into past stories and thoughts, which keep you stuck in the feelings. This will take you away from the present moment and the feelings will stay.
Another way to keep your focus in the present moment whilst doing the breathing exercise is to repeat the following, “I can stay safe” “I am safe in this moment” I can keep myself safe” over and over throughout the breathing exercise.
What you are doing here is becoming more aware of your internal chatter and inner critic
This is important because some of those negative thoughts will disappear, because you felt they were “bonkers” thereby reducing the amount of thoughts that make you feel bad.
You become more aware of what is causing you to feel certain feelings. This helps you because you can then apply the breathing exercise above, to help you stay with the feelings for a while and then let them go in that moment.
By practicing the above exercise you are starting to learn how to manage your emotions
You gain greater insights on where you may need further help from a Transformational Life Coach to recover from various issues, so you can experience relief and lasting change in your life.
In order to make lasting positive changes in your life, it is necessary to start with becoming more aware of what is going on in your inner world.
A good place to start is to notice what you say to yourself. Thoughts determine how you feel, which affects the actions you take or don’t take and in turn the results you experience.
Did anything in this blog resonate with you?
Did you feel inspired to try the breathing exercise?
I would love to hear from you.
I will read every single one, your comments are valuable to me.
Caroline
