I was talking with a friend yesterday via Skype and as soon as the call connected I could sense something was wrong. After asking her what was going on, she burst into tears and told me that she was completely overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty about her finances, her relationships and why she was even here in the first place. She was being dominated by a very hungry ego, who had clearly decided it was time to generate all of this anxiety in order to feed on her fear and grow stronger and unstoppable.
We went onto discuss the inner conflict between her heart and her head that was taking place and she shared with me that she had spent the past two days praying for guidance and clarity and meditating in order to nourish her soul and restore her connection with the divine. She asked me what could she do to get herself off of this emotional rollercoaster she was experiencing. My answer was simple. “What have you been doing to nourish your mental body?” a silence ensued…
I explained to her that the reason she had been feeling like this, was because she had been nourishing and developing her physical body- (eating healthily, she doesn´t drink alcohol, use drugs or smoke, drinking alot of water, exercising) her spiritual body (prayer, meditation, reiki, chakra balancing) she had not been attending to her mental body atall. She was out of balance.
What many people don´t realise about healing, or spiritual practice is that in order to transform yourself and remain emotionally stable and balanced, is that you need to train your brain. Our emotions are triggered by worldly things- people, places and things, our re actions are controlled by our conscious mind and when you are in a state of emotional overwhelm, your ability to rationalise and respond from the heart is debilitated and you react to a trigger with thoughts, words and actions directly fuelled by the Ego. You feed your pain body with negative emotion and the more you allow this to happen, the stronger it will grow. If your ego and emotion is being triggered by worldly circumstances, you must match it and overcome it with worldly reponses. That means USING your conscious mind to make a choice whether or not you will remain victimised by your emotions, or if you will take back your power and direct your own life.
You can go and have a healing with the best healer in the world, but unless you commit yourself to re programming your brain to form new mental pathways and thinking processes, a new habit can not be formed and before long you will fall back into the same habits and patterns. It is choice, not chance that determines our destiny. So what is the key to overcoming extreme emotional charges and taking back control? Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique. You need to consciously make the effort to pull yourself up everytime you experience a negative thought or emotion and challenge it. It is a process, which requires practice and persistence, in order for this new way of thinking to become instinctive.
When you are experiencing emotional overwhelm, here is a process you can do to get you started on your path to inner peace, empowerment and stability.
1. You need to keep in the forefront of your mind that YOUR EMOTIONS DO NOT DEFINE YOU. THEY ARE NOT WHO YOU ARE AND YOU HAVE A CHOICE whether or not to engage with them. If you find yourself in a state of emotional overwhelm, you need to move! change something- ANYTHING to start shifting energy and raising your vibration. If you are sitting down, stand up. If your eyes are closed, open them. Emotion is energy in motion. Everything is energy, so literally speaking if you make a small change to your posture, breath or activity energy WILL shift. That doesnt mean you will automatically feel better, but you will feel different- and change is always good 🙂 a useful tip that helps me when I am feeling low is to clench your teeth and make yourself smile as wide as you can for 20 seconds- do this in front of a mirror.
2. When you get caught in a negative thought process, identify and get clear on what the emotion actually is- be as specific as possible. Once you have identified the emotion. Recognise it and acknowledge it to yourself. EG fear- say to yourself ok, I know this is fear and i refuse to feed it further, so I´m not going to get involved with it, and allow it to pass. it will.
3. Now you can start to do a bit of digging. Humans are designed to forecast what is going to happen, based on what past experience has shown us. If you are romantically involved with someone who has continuously shown you in the past that they are not reliable, or truthful, our instinctive reaction is to doubt that they will be anything other than that in the future. People do change, but all you can change is yourself. So, if you are experiencing EG- fear of financial failure, doubts about yourself etc ask yourself the following questions.
– Is this thought actually true? is it backed up by facts and does everyone else completely agree- or is it just my perception of what will happen. Take a step out of yourself and try to look at the situation objectively. Detach.
– If I look over all the times in the past I have had a similar fear, has it actually happened? for example- have you ever been homeless? have you ever been without a penny in your wallet? have you ever been left completely and utterly on your own? and if so, what did you do THEN to get yourself through it? if not, why would you think that this time your fear will actually occur? what factual evidence are you basing this on?
– What is the worst that could happen if this fear/doubt were actually to come true? What would that mean? and more importantly what would that say about me? If you peel away the layers of the onion, you will find a limiting belief which is fuelling this thought.
4. Have faith. When we come into this life, we set ourselves challenges to evolve and grow- the Universe will test us, ESPECIALLY when it is regarding something we really want to work out, but as much as the Universe tests us, it also provides the tools and guidance we need to overcome the challenge. It is our birthright to be happy and thrive, so the Universe does not set out to “ruin your life” or to completely screw you over. The source is divine love, and that is who we really are, underneath our ego´s. Sometimes we are put through tests to learn that lesson- have faith. Do everything you can to achieve a goal, or to make something happen, but there comes a moment where you need to let go and let God. When we surrender, that is when miracles happen.
5. Count your blessings, not your problems. Due to the amount of media we are exposed to surrounding negative events, financial crisis, the society we live in, the people we are around- it is very easy to get into the mindset of thinking about and speaking about everything that is wrong with our lives- but what about the things that are right with it? Like attracts like and the more we continuously think about what we don´t want, the more we are going to attract it into our lives. Maybe things are not as you would like them to be right now- but nothing stays the same forever, at some point in your life you have experienced moments when you have felt blessed. Hold onto those memories, and get rid of all the rubbish that is polluting your brain.
6. Intention. Intention is living from the heart. Responding, rather than reacting. Living from cause, rather than effect. At the beginning of each day, set the intention that today is going to be a good day. Set the intention to rise above your ego and live in the heart.
7. Daily practice- Practise makes perfect. If you want to re condition yourself to maintain stability and peace of mind, you are going to have to commit to forming this new habit, which takes approximately 21 days. You need to be doing things on a daily basis, every day in order to over ride the ego. This means practising mindfulness and following the above steps every time you experience emotional overwhelm or negativity and doing this consistently. Your brain will eventually make the connection that everytime you experience negative emotion, that is how you respond and before long you will start to see a big change in the way you respond to people and circumstances in your life, you won´t have to think about it, you will just do it automatically. Practise the following every day:
– Gratitude list. Every night before you go to bed, write down or at least mentally go over all the things you are grateful for in your life, no matter how small or insignificant they might seem.
– Begin the day with clarity. Before you jump out of bed into the ratrace of everyday life, take a moment to clear your mind and more importantly to get clear on your intentions.
– Exercise. This is not only important for physical health, but also for mental health. Increase your levels of seratonin and endorphins and show yourself that you care for yourself. No matter how busy you are, busy people make time for important things- so it depends on how important your emotional stability is to you, as to whether or not you will commit to this.
– Watch your language. I am not talking about swearing here- be aware of the words you are saying about yourself and to others. Everything has a vibration, so be cautious of what requests you are putting out to the Universe- you say “I can´t” Universe says “OK then you can´t” and vice versa.
8. Stop the spiral and BREATHE. If your day is spiralling out of control just take a moment and STOP. Stop what you are doing, stop talking, stop thinking and just focus on your breath. In for three, out for three. This is like a reset button and will give your head and heart a chance to slow down.
9. Be mindful of the situations and people that you are choosing to engage with. If you know something or someone makes you feel bad, just don´t do it. If someone triggers you, make the choice to decide not to see or speak to them for a while. No explanation is needed, because you are nobody elses priority but your own. You may argue, but it´s my job I have to. In which case it is probably time to start looking for a new job.
10. Time alone is the devil´s playground. If you don´t choose to fill your mind and free time with things that you enjoy, someone else will fill it for you. Take back your control and start to plan how you will spend your time and what you will focus on. If you enjoy Yoga, then plan to take a class, or spend time with someone who also shares that interest when you have a spare afternoon, instead of sitting around on facebook looking at posts and photos of a friend of a friend who you think is thinner/prettier/wealthier/happier than you. Don´t fuel your own fire.
When we are able to dissolve emotional charges and reprogram the way we think about life, we are able to overcome our ego and choose to live from the heart. Only love is real, and the more we reconnect with that truth, the more we will see more of what we want in our lives, and less of what we don´t want. I encourage you all to choose yourself and to set off on your path to personal success.