Challenge your state of mind
The mind is a powerful challenge and challenging it is amazing and challenging. Firstly, we must accept that we can challenge it. The mind is about a perception we have made and if we don’t like it we can change it.
To change what the mind is telling us is challenging and it takes perseverance. Anything we achieve or don’t achieve is about the mind. Of course if we are athletic we must have physical attributes, but a poor mind and the best physical body will not achieve results.
We do believe what we tell ourselves even if it seems ridiculous. This is especially true if we have had an upbringing involving verbal inappropriateness.
Get professional help if you need a kick start. If you tell yourself you are lonely or sad or hopeless your mind will then provide examples of this to reinforce this feeling. Stop beating yourself up. Be proactive and force yourself to get out into society and see what opportunities arise. Initially maybe just go to your favourite shop and browse. Then ring a friend. Do something that is challenging and prove to yourself you can and slowly rebuild your confidence.
Feeling down at times is very normal. Having strategies to combat the low periods is vital and helpful.
Dave C says
“Everyday in Everyway I’m Getting Bettter and Better” – EEIGBB
This is a famous mantra developed by Émile Coué. He was a pharmacist and a pioneer in hypnosis. He believed in “autosuggestion” (self-hypnosis). He noticed that remedies given with positive autosuggestion worked better than the remedies alone. He also was known to state that each person had the solution to their own problem; “You have in yourself the instrument of your cure.”
Coué often worked with patients to build their self-image or self-esteem. He did this by utilizing his “Law of Concentrated Attention.” The Law of Concentrated Attention states that whenever attention is concentrated on an idea over and over again, it spontaneously tends to realize itself. That’s where “every day…” came in. Yes Doc, We know that it works like a charm for anyone who constantly thinks negative thoughts – they wake up everyday thinking it will get worse and worse – well hello, yeah!!!
Coué maintained that curing some of our troubles requires a change in our unconscious thought, which can only be achieved by using our imagination. Although stressing that he was not primarily a healer but one who taught others to heal themselves, Coué claimed to have effected organic changes through autosuggestion. There are a multitude of self hypnosis MP3s on any imaginable subject now available to download and that will help you do just this.
It was actually Coué who discovered what later came to be known as the famous “placebo effect”. Where a certain drug is substituted with a sugar pill and achieves the same result just because patients thought it would. He became known for reassuring his clients by praising each remedy’s efficiency and leaving a small positive notice with each given medication. Someone once substituted my coffee with decaf and I never knew! I have also seen people acting drunk on orange juice when they thought it had vodka in it!
So……. Find a quiet moment whenever you can, take a deep breath and visualise exactly the sort of person you want to be and how you want to feel (NEVER focus on what/where you are as that will ensure you stay that way) and repeat the mantra over and over “Everyday in Everyway I’m Getting Better and Better”. The only way to grow or to get better is to move out of our comfort zone and not fear failure or ridicule. Challenge yourself to do something every day that maybe you havent done before or scares you or is “just not me” (but will be the new better you) – it is way way too easy to hide behind that facade or excuse – you will be amazed at how good that feels and how much better others will feel to see you having a go – never knock or say you don’t like anything until you have tried – it doesn’t have to be climbing Mount Everest – maybe even complimenting someone you really havent really liked very much, do the thing you have been promising to do for ages, taking up a challenging new sport or hobby, tell someone how you really feel (good or bad), get up early and add a walk to your morning routine. I was dragged kicking and screaming to the ballet once and actually liked it. I really dont like smoked salmon sandwiches but I will try to pretend to enjoy them with someone who really does and I am warming to them!
I have found that the absolute best therapy for anyone feeling lost or lonely is to try and make someone else feel good – thru a joke or a hug or a compliment (a real one about them, not just: “I like your dress”, try adding “you have excellent taste” or “makes you look really huggable”) or just a random act of kindness. It is infectious. If someone does this for you, the worst thing you can do is play it down or make them feel bad and say: “D’oh shucks” or “oh you shouldnt have” or “i dont know what to say” or “I’m embarrased now” (even though those responses are likely to be in your comfort zone – you have to make make an effort because they did for you!!!!!). They are doing it to make both you and them happy, hopefully they are not expecting anything in return except your happiness – confirm that they have succeeded and why (eg “oh thankyou 🙂 , it took me ages to find this dress, and I wasnt sure how I looked in it – coming from you that makes me feel good”), show gratitude, perhaps return an equally nice sincere compliment about them and they will do it again and again and again.
Stevo says
So true Dave about the power of random acts of kindness! Last night I had to go to a sporting presentation straight from work, never had time for dinner and was starving. Friend of mine had earlier invited me over for lamb shanks which I had to reluctantly decline. I texted her just before I went into the room to say how nice they would have been. She said “I’ll have to deliver them” I just smiled, thought it was another of her little jokes and sat down and texted back “yeah that’d be great”. Then I’m in the middle of introducing myself and I get another text saying “on our way”, still thought it was a joke , then another text “2 mins”, then another “please come out we are near your car”. Yikes, I freaked, still not sure if it was a joke. So I got up in front of 100 odd people, excused myself and squeezed my way out (this is straight after introducing myself and saying how much I was looking forward to hearing the presentation). Sure enough there she was with her daughter, standing there both with a beautiful smile, crockpot, knife and fork and a bottle of water!!!!! You had to be there, but I was completely overwhelmed and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both 🙂 🙁
This might sound weird but that simple random act would have to rank as the nicest thing anybody has ever ever done for me. I was embarrased, I was flattered, I was confused, I was happy, I was stunned, I was completely overwhelmed, probably reacted like a complete goose at the time ……….. I definitely will not sleep tonight due to the wonderful high that loving thought and gesture has given me :-). 40 years of building up a cynical disregard for man’s desire to want to do good deeds for another was undone in an instant. That act was worth a 1000 love poems full of endless drivel! It wasn’t a premeditated act just a spontaneous reaction to do something nice for someone, cos thats the sort of person she is 🙂
I rang her after and just could not express enought my gratitude, joy and appreciation for what she had just done. When I finally got to eat it, dunno if it was the way it was delivered or the way it was cooked but it was also most definitely the very bestest meal I have ever had 🙂 I hope she reads this, my public acknowledgement of her as the awesomest, most wonderful, gorgeous, thoughtful person on this entire planet 🙂 I so wish I could have enjoyed that meal with you!
My advice to everyone, try it some day – you will LIKE, even better if you are lucky enough to know someone who would be considerate enough or admires you enough do it for you!!!!
Shaz says
This is a great Mantra…wow..I like to think I am a positive person.
Doc says
Another excellent post Shaz – as I have said many times previously: perception is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to fabricate a mental representation through the process of transduction, which sensors in the body transform signals from the environment into encoded neural signals. Our perceptions are based entirely on our experiences and directly influences our behaviour. BUT it is entirely up to us how we choose to experience, percieve and behave. If constructive thoughts are planted by us in our own minds then positive outcomes will be the result. Plant the seeds of failure and failure will follow. All of our negative thoughts do surely become self fulfilling prophecies.
All of the sad and negative people we know are very confident in their ability to predict a gloomy outcome for their future – they will it to be so! You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you! How I despise the term “once bitten, twice shy”! Way too many people have a bad experience or dismall failure and therefore will never attempt another go or if they do, they feel almost certain they are doomed to fail again. And, have a guess what? – they pat themselves upon the back and say “Oh good on me, I knew I would fail, how clever am I”.
WHO DARES WINS! FAILURE IS NEVER AN OPTION!
Another activity, so fraught with extreme danger, is to hang out with negative, pessimistic people – they will soon bring you down to their own sad level with their multitude of tales about how they have so many times predicted their own or others demise!!! Thier lives are one vicious circle of failure, a downward sprial of disappointment but they, for some reason take solace and security from that? Sure, optimistic people are sometimes diappointed but, for the most part, they are NOT! A truely happy person can say of their failure “I am proud of myself for having a go and I am a better person for it”. Oh how I wish we could all live by that mantra, the Universe does so want to be on our side and will give us exactly what we want and deserve!
ahhhhhh tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all…………
The great Albert Einstein once said: The significant problems we face in life can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
Our minds even to tend to exaggerate the real significance of our perceptions. As a little example may I refer your readers to this page where you will find images of things that are slightly out of place or order, they really make absolutely no difference in the scheme or functioning of things yet may make some people very uncomfortable and others will not be able to function properly in these environments: http://formyhour.com/check-yourself-on-the-pedantry