This series is to make it easier for you to become the person you want to be. Keep in mind that I’m not a therapist, and take my suggestions as you would from a friend.
Try achieving these goals every week. They’re short and doable, and it’s to increase your confidence, step by step.
To keep things simple, we only have 3 categories (external, mental and physical) which will have one goal each.
These are posted every Thursday.
External :
-Compliment someone today.
- It should be something that they can control, such as their shoes, how nice their hair looks, how they did a good job on X project.
- Refrain from talking about body shape, facial features (acne, etc), even if it’s positive. It could be a trigger point for them.
Mental :
- Sit cross legged on your bed as you face south east.
- Set a timer for 5 minutes.
- Close your eyes.
- Take deep inhalations and exhalations.
- Don’t respond to notifications and don’t get distracted for 5 minutes.
Physical :
- Do 10 minutes of light stretching.
- YouTube has a lot of options, choose something that adheres to your level of strength.
- Yoga with Adrienne, Satvic movement, Yoga with Bird are some good options.
Healing is a constant state. You don’t have to be “fully healed” to give or receive love, to chase after that dream, or to get yourself to that next level.
Its hard to tell if I’m supposed to fight against the slamming door, or if I’m supposed to accept it. Welcome to the season of growth, I truly hope I come out of this wiser and happier.
Unconditional Love vs The Ego - What’s The Difference?
We have all heard of the term ‘unconditional love’ but what does it mean exactly? It is defined as the type of love that has no limitations or restrictive boundaries between two people. It is the complete acceptance of one another, their past hurts and traumas, their quirks and their imperfections. When you love someone unconditionally, you are still affectionate, compassionate and forgiving towards them; even when they annoy or upset you. This is the kind of relationship that many of us crave throughout life at any age; young or old. The reason is because unconditional love is the purest and highest vibration that a human being can experience. For some, it is the ultimate goal in their life.
However, one needs to go on a journey of introspection and self love to be able to experience real unconditional love. I always believe that to really know someone on a deeper level, one has to know themselves as well. By doing this you will begin to understand yourself much more; your emotions, your insecurities, your fears and your thoughts, which will help you become more open with your partner. This helps with building vulnerability, intimacy and trust between two people, which are essential for developing healthy, long-term and stable relationships. However, when we love someone conditionally or by our ego, this is where problems start to arise to the surface.
Unhealthy attachments, obessions, shame, guilt, fear, clinginess, narcissism and codependency all stem from our ego. You will know when you are in a conditional love based relationship because you will feel constantly empty inside when they are away from you or even when you are in their presence, but yet you still stay with them because you don’t want to feel lonely and disconnected. This is why many relationships breakdown, as many people mistake this kind of behaviour and love as normal, when it completely isn’t. Looking for love shouldn’t come from a place of searching to fill an empty part of you, as it isn’t a romantic partner’s responsibility. They can guide you along the way, but only to a certain point. Everyone has their own insecurites and imperfections and that’s okay. What is important here - is acceptance not aiming to be complete or free from flaws and emotional scars.
You will find that ego based love is always focused on the outside, never from within. These kind of relationships can spark up feelings of self-doubt and denial as well. Many people live in a delusion of being in a happy relationship, but inside they feel totally dissatisfied, leading to anxiety and depression. This is very common with people who are in codependent and dysfunctional relationships. Superficial relationships like this often show incompatibility between two people, hence why many partnerships break up very quickly and have very short timelines. Feelings of lust are one of the strongest components for developing superficial love, as you need to be magnetically drawn to them on a sexual level.
This is the common type of relationship which many people fall into when they feel like there is something empty inside themselves, so they look for someone who will have the responsibility to fill up that hole. Sometimes this can be a wound that has been inflicted upon us since we we children; such as a craving for love, validation and affection that we didn’t receive from our parents. This kind of trauma is possibly the biggest causes for love addiction. When we are children we are dependent on our parents to keep us warm, safe, loved and appreciated. This is why neglect and loneliness can be incredibly damaging to us as we grow into adults.
To overcome this, you can practice unconditional love to yourself to help you understand that you are not perfect and it is totally okay to feel any emotion - whether that is positive or negative. I find the more you judge and criticise yourself, the more you will criticise others. Completely let go of resistance and judgement of yourself - as doing this serves you no purpose at all. All it does is make you live in a bubble of negativity and negative energy. Allow yourself to surrender and release the urge to always be in control. You deserve to be happy and experience healthy and fulfilling relationships.
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What Does It Mean To Think Catastrophically & Mindfulness Techniques To Help Overcome It
Catastrophic thinking is a type of irrational thinking, which is very common in people who suffer from anxiety disorders such as social anxiety disorder, avoidant personality disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, OCD, panic attacks and PTSD. This type of thinking usually has continuous thoughts about the future in a very negative way. These thoughts are usually what I call ‘What if?’ thoughts, and its these types of thoughts that lead to fear, dread, worry and distress. The main reason why many people with anxiety think this way is because they have a severe phobia of the unknown and what will happen to them in the future.
Psychologically speaking, these thoughts are just in our imagination from stored images from previous experiences such as traumas from our past. This is called fragmentation. After witnessing a trauma, our brains store the experience into images, which will be placed into our subconscious mind. This is the reason why some thoughts may come up and not make any sense to you or the people around you at all. Sometimes these distressing thoughts can come up in dreams and that is why many patients with PTSD and C-PTSD often have nightmares and night terrors.
However, there is a way of overcoming and healing from this dysfunctional type of thinking. Living in the present moment is the best way to heal from catastrophic thinking. This is because it gets you in tune with what is going on right now, at this moment in time - not yesterday, not tomorrow or in five or ten years from now. Knowing that you or your loved ones are completely safe at this very moment is a very good tool to use to stop disastrous thinking. Being here in the present, listening to your breath and being mindful of your thoughts and feelings will help with any kind of anxiety disorder.
As someone who has suffered from severe anxiety in the past, I have realised from my own experience that a lot of it stems from a lack of trust towards ourselves and others. When we lack trust, we start looking for reassurance and whether not we are making the right decision or not, and continuously ask for advice leading to frustration and even more doubt. This is why learning and allowing yourself to fully surrender and let go in a state of anxiety is important part of the healing process. I have previously written about trust and surrender here on this blog, if you want to read those.
Anxiety Visualisation Exercise
Close your eyes and imagine yourself sitting in the eye of a storm, the calm centre that lies behind the chaos that is going around it. You see pieces of debris floating around of all different sizes, which represent the thoughts you carry with you. Observe them and look at what they are showing to you, like you are watching a movie. You know that you are completely safe and serene in this eye of a storm and you know that it will not hurt you. Suddenly, you begin to see the storm move swiftly across, taking all of your negative thoughts with it. You feel a sense of deep peace and emotional freedom, like someone has taken a heavy bag off of your shoulders. You stand up and begin to walk towards the sun that is shining in between the clouds smiling, feeling liberated and full of joy. When you have finished this visualisation exercise, open your eyes.
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I’m so introverted and introspective that interaction with the outside world has always been tedious and terrifying. I fought to become better acclimated to societal interaction. It wasn’t easy, but I’m pretty good at it now. I have exactly as many friends as I want, and I am capable of functioning like an adult. A lot of people don’t even know that I’m an introvert, but the girl who was afraid to call to order a pizza and petrified of asking for help in the grocery store will always be inside of me somewhere. I can fool other people and even myself, but on some level, I’ll always struggle with this.
in my mind’s eye, you’re frozen in time, in place not even revolving, never evolving
taxidermied, preserved, stuffed
until the next time we meet, face to face and you ask me to reassure you, learn you all over again
this time: i see you
you look soft and spiky, like a tumbleweed happier drifting with the wind and your thorns but when you latch on to your chosen rock, they’re stuck with you, more often than not…
because you’re endearing, as much as you’re wearying.
again, you ask me to reassure you i hear you
you said: i’m ready to bloom and i said: let me take a step back, and you can have the room and i wait it seems i’m always waiting on you to let go, to latch on to latch on to me, preferably… ha!
instead, i see you grow i hear you, and i know
it’s my problem, not yours but i’d like to cultivate my roses, too and i can’t do that if i’m letting you still my room, waiting on you to see me and the space that i need.
You don’t have to compete against or compare yourself to anybody else - their accomplishments don’t diminish your own, even if their timeline is different from yours. The only person who you should be aiming to be better than is yourself from the past.
If your healthy boundaries upset someone, let them work it out. If your self-compassion upsets someone, let them work it out. If your well-being upsets someone, let them work it out. If your joy upsets someone, let them work it out.
