And what about the feelings that this state suggests to you? Have you found yourself thinking and projecting something that is just about to happen but doesn’t depend on you to change the course of its direction? Have you realized that you can lose focus on the present because your mind is projecting a future that does not happen yet?
Quite often, being anxious is an unconscious state, but if we become aware of how much energy we spend on this state of being, we can re-directed our attention for what really matters: the present. And aware of this present, where everything happens, we can control our attention to performing what really depends on us to achieve the desired goal.
The process isn’t simple, but it is possible, and this is the challenge that Coaching intends to support you to overcome. If we do not have control over our thoughts, our mind can bring us to a state of restlessness where we don’t explore most of our potentialities.
To address your attention for what is really important to you is one of the benefits of a coaching relationship. Furthermore, Coaching offers you a space to grow and to reflect on your priorities. By ourselves is quite hard to separate enough time to translate all of our dreams and aspirations into practical action, even because while we don’t express those thoughts, they are just ideas in our minds.
To understand more about this phenomenon of self-realization, we need to talk, verbalize and share those ideas to allow them to become real possibilities. Therefore, this professional interaction will help you organize your ideas, considering your reality and available resources, to create an action plan that will inspire you to create a positive attitude towards your goals.
Finally, you will realize that the same energy you spent being anxious you can now spend being productive.
Cognitive Behavior Approach to Recognizing Destructive Patterns
I want to borrow from the cognitive-behavioral classification of negative thought/emotional patterns because these categories are easily recognizable in both anxiety and depression. Recognition of your habitual patterns is a key factor in learning how to face anxiety and depression consciously.
These habitual reactions and thought patterns include:
- Polarized Thinking
- all-or-nothing thinking: viewing the world in absolute, black-and-white terms
- often associated terrible childhoods, e.g., unloving or otherwise abusive parents
- Filtering
- disqualifying the positive: rejecting positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason
- often associated with negative mothers
- Automatic negative reactions
- having habitual, scolding thoughts
- parents who constantly scolded or judged
- Catastrophizing
- magnifying or minimizing the importance of an event: making a bigger deal about a specific event or moment
- repeated exposure to disappointment by a trusted caregiver
- Over-generalization
- drawing overly broad conclusions from a single event
- Personalization
- taking things too personally or feeling actions are specifically directed at you
- Jumping to conclusions
- immediately judging a situation without reflection
- Control fallacies
- external control fallacy: we are helpless victims (I can’t help it! syndrome)
- internal control fallacy: we are responsible for how others feel (did I do something wrong? syndrome)
- childhood and family relationship issues
- Fairness fallacies
- judging everything in terms of fairness
- childhood and family relationship issues
- Blaming
- holding others responsible for how we feel about ourselves
- never feeling loved by primary caregivers
- Shoulds
- imposing our particular rules on others
- terrible injustices suffered as a child
- Emotional Reasoning
- buying into what you feel about reality when it may not be the truth about reality: I feel stupid, so I am stupid. They didn’t invite me because they hate me.
- lack of development in the thinking function
- Global Labeling
- generalizing a few qualities into a global, hyper-emotionally charged negative judgment: someone you don’t like is automatically a jerk
- Always being right
- striving to prove you are right/getting the last word
- Reward/Punishment
- expecting sacrifice and denial to payoff or scorekeeping
- unresolved religious conflicts
Shift That Anxiety
It has become prevalent for women to suffer from an anxiety disorder at some point in their life. Sometimes it can be situational: your husband loses his job, you get downsized, your child goes off to college, or your real estate business has been affected by the economic crisis. Some women suffer from panic attacks that are unprovoked and occur for no particular reason. Other women have generalized anxiety because of their mindset. They see the glass as half empty, or they are waiting for the other shoe to fall.
Are you the type of person who lets fears and anxieties permeate your existence? Maybe your life is going well, but you worry too much to be able to enjoy it. Perhaps your past keeps you from living in the moment and enjoying the here and now. Regardless of the type of anxiety that you might suffer from….you can utilize some skills that will assist you in managing it.
How do you reduce it? Well, you may not know this, but it is impossible to have 2 simultaneous thoughts at the same time. Therefore you can learn to shift your anxiety with an alternative and balanced thought, greatly reducing it. I worked with a young mother who feared for her daughter’s health. She constantly fretted that her daughter would become ill because she was exposed to other children’s germs. She created a more realistic thought that reminded her that the germs would strengthen her immune system. This greatly reduced the anxiety.
These next 7 mindset shifts will give you an understanding that even though life isn’t always fair, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still be happy.
1. Accept That Life is a Challenge
I’m going, being honest…life is challenging — being an adult is far from being easy. This is a fact that we have to face our reality and learn how to adjust to it. Once I started to really (REALLY) comprehend and accept this reality, my anxiety triggers diminished. Before, I used to ask myself “why” all the time. “Why” is this happening to me? “Why” can’t things be different? “Why” does life have to be so hard? I would get frustrated easily, cry easily, and worry anytime things didn’t go as planned. But I’ve learned to accept that life isn’t always fair (“accept” being the keyword) and that I have to work hard to get the things I want. Of course, we all wish things could be easier, and we wish we never had to feel pain, but that’s not always the way life is, unfortunately.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way out, and we have to work for what we want.
It’s painful to force ourselves to get out of bed and get ready for work every day. It’s painful having to study hard to get a college degree. It’s painful to force yourself to exercise and eat healthily.
The majority of our day consists of ongoing challenges.
Not only do we have to force ourselves to do the things that we don’t feel like doing, but we also have to go through the mental and emotional pain of thinking about all of our responsibilities. And it’s not just you.
Everybody goes through it!
Everybody experiences pain in their life, whether that be pain from working day and night to reach their goals, pain from heartache, or even physical pain…it’s all inevitable. It’s easier to accept the fact that life isn’t easy for any of us! It’s not just you. It’s not just me. It’s all of us! Life is a work in progress, and it will not be the easiest all the time.
There will always be new challenges in our life that we need to confront, and being able to accept life’s ups and downs is how you will reach peace of mind.
If you spend your life being bitter and angry about being responsible, you will only make things worse on yourself, and everything will seem 10x’s harder than they actually are. Anytime you have to convince yourself to push through tough times, keep reminding yourself that this is just part of life and that you will get through it like you always do.
2. Mistakes are part of life
We all make mistakes, whether we like to admit it or not. Some mistakes might be minor, while others can be somewhat detrimental.
However, there isn’t a single mistake that we can’ be forgiven for or a lesson that we won’t learn from each mistake that we make.
As long as you recognize your mistakes and you’re learning and growing from them, there is forgiveness.
3. Believe in yourself
Sometimes, we can be our own worst critics and be so full of doubt that it prevents us from doing what’s best for us. Self-doubt is a common issue when it comes to making a lot of decisions in our lives.
You might be trying to decide on a career, starting a business, ending or beginning a relationship, etc. And although the answers you’re looking for are usually within you and are as clear as can be, you will still experience self-doubt.
Self-doubt is our way of trying to protect ourselves from the road of failure.
A common reason people are afraid to start a healthy diet or a new exercise routine is that they already think they will fail to follow through with it. We don’t want to fail because failure leads to pain, and remember, our instinct is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Trusting yourself enough to know that you will do whatever it takes to make it to your desired destination will allow more opportunities to show up in your life.
Don’t doubt or underestimate your abilities to do what you fear you can’t.
4. Living in Gratitude
Sometimes we take things for granted without even realizing it. We have so much to be thankful for, yet, we are always seeking more.
It’s always good to strive for more, but at the same time, trying to replace what you already have won’t make you any happier.
Instead, you will kill yourself trying to get more and more, and you will lose sight of what you already have. I like to practice gratitude throughout the day by being thankful for not just the big things in my life (family, job, friends, etc.), but I also like to recognize the small, insignificant things too. It takes some mindfulness practice to appreciate the small things in life because the smaller they are, the more they tend to get overlooked unless we intentionally acknowledge them.
Mindfulness can be achieved by paying more attention to details and feeling grateful for every little thing that brings value to your life, whether big or small.
5. Embrace criticism
No matter how much we try, we will still be criticized to some extent. Recently, I saw a post on Facebook about how famous people were being criticized for their body image.
This is another point that I want to make about life being unfair and not allowing it to affect you. Because no matter how hard you try, people will have an opinion about you and judge you for no reason at all — somehow, they will find a reason to criticize something about you. There are just some people out there like that, unfortunately. Rather than acknowledging that no two people in this world are the same and that there’s beauty in every person on this earth, people will still have negative things to say. Whether they’re expressing their own insecurities or dislike a particular person, people will try to bring others down to make themselves feel better. Think about what type of person judges others on their image. Do you think they’re kind people? Do you think their opinions should matter to you? No, their opinions shouldn’t matter because why should you try to impress these types of people? I would never want to impress a person who is ugly on the inside.
A kind person with a good heart would never say or do these things to intentionally hurt someone. So try to remember that when you’re trying to impress certain people.
If they’re worth your time, they won’t be mean or ugly to you.
Whatever goal you’re trying to reach or whatever insecurities you might have about yourself, don’t allow society’s idea of what beauty looks like to affect how you feel about yourself.
6. Enjoy the Process
Life is a process. Every few years, we become different people than we were the years prior. Every year we set new goals. Even every day, we set small goals that we’re trying to reach.
Rather than trying to race to your end goal, try to slow down and enjoy the process as best as you can.
If you want to run a mile every day to stay fit, enjoy the process of being out in nature or listening to the music that’s pumping you up for that run. Or, when you’re in the beginning stages of a relationship, instead of taking things so seriously and stressing yourself over trying to make it work, enjoy every moment and the lessons that you’re learning from that relationship, and try to be yourself.
Staying present in every moment is how you will learn to appreciate the little things in life and take time to slow down to really enjoy them.
7. Take Risks
Lastly, try to loosen up when it comes to life in general. Our brains are not always our best friends. Based on our previous behaviors, our brains will always try to repeat behaviors that feel best and safe for us.
However, if you listen to that little voice that tells you not to take risks and always to be afraid of change, that’s the voice that will keep you stuck and stagnant.
Of course, you want to use your best judgment when taking risks, but weigh out the pros and cons and trust yourself enough to know that you will figure it out eventually.
Even if you take risks and they don’t work out the way you hoped, at least then you will know that you gave it a shot.
Rather than spending your life wondering what the outcome could’ve been if you had just taken that risk, at least you will be moving forward instead of living in fear and regrets.
Here’s how all of this looks in real life
You find yourself deeply worried about a situation that may result in you losing your job. Negative scenarios are just swirling in your head, and you can’t think clearly. You feel fear and anxiety rising.
Stop for a second and get back to presence. Look around, tune into your senses (touch something, smell something, and such), focus on your breath. Don’t fight those thoughts and accept that this moment feels unpleasant. Be ok with it.
Then try to see those thoughts as not part of you, but rather just clouds floating around. The same thing with emotions – watch them, observe them. Do not be judgemental about them or yourself.
Spend some time accepting the fact that you are in this situation. Again – not the situation itself but just the fact that it “sucks now.” Do not try to resist it with thoughts like “I wish it never happened” or “I just want it to be over right this second.” The more you fight it, the worse you will feel, and you can’t turn back time anyway – so why suffer? It already happened.
Once you stop resisting what is, disidentify yourself from the thoughts and emotions, bring your attention to the present – you will feel that the fear subsides, and your mind starts to clear.
And when you feel calm, you can then think about what you can do at this moment to make things better. Evaluate your options and make decisions.
The funny thing is, once you start thinking from your rational mind (not the reactive one), the solution often comes up naturally. And if there’s absolutely nothing you can do (this is rare, though), accept that fact too. Acceptance takes fear and denial and transforms it into peace and stillness.
Manifest in the Midwest
