Tag: stress

Find Peace in These Challenging Times by Connecting with Your Higher Self

by Mandie

Connecting with our higher selves can calm our nerves, bring us clarity, bring us comfort, and get our minds and bodies back in balance when life has turned upside down. And there’s no doubt that these are challenging and stressful times right now. It’s not always easy to get in touch with that part of ourselves, and it is particularly hard to do so in a crisis because all the the worry, stress, and anxiety is clouding over our thinking and we’re stuck in a fog.

According to The Law of One, a channeled text from a being known as Ra (a collective of soul consciousness that serve as a memory data bank), our higher self is actually us from the future. It’s essentially a version of our soul that’s further along its path of evolution and is accompanying our physical self as a sort of guide/mentor. (If you want to learn more about what Ra has to say click here.)

Connecting with our higher selves can give us a glimpse of our true nature – which from my limited understanding is like a pure love energy with unlimited potential and no fear and resistance. It gives us a reprieve from the anxiety we feel as a result of everything going on in our lives.

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
– Buddha

Clear the Clutter

You can’t expect to be able to go from feeling stressed out and overwhelmed to a calm and clear state of consciousness. The struggles of life sometimes need to be addressed in a practical way, or at least make an actionable plan of something you can do toward resolving the problems. Some things are obviously outside of our control, and we’re forced to make the best of things the way they are.

Clear up the clutter in your mind so you can stop spinning your wheels and mentally relax.

Write down everything that’s on your mind – what your thoughts and feelings are about what you’re struggling with. If there are any actions you can take that would help ease your mind, pick one and do it.

“Suffering is due to our disconnection with our inner soul. Meditation is establishing that connection.”
– Amit Ray

Meditate for 5-10 Minutes

I know it sounds short, but here are my reasons:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had a very busy mind. When I try to meditate for 20 minutes or so, I either start getting frustrated with how much my mind wanders, I start falling asleep, or I never even meditate at all because I don’t have enough time.

When I decide to meditate for less time, there’s a higher likelihood of me actually doing it.

Sit in a way that’s comfortable, in a chair or on the floor. Try to have decent posture, and if that’s difficult due to body tension or injury you can sit with your back against a wall or lean against the back of a chair. This tip came from my husband, who’s been studying martial arts/healing arts/mind-body training for over 20 years. You can even lie down to meditate, just proceed with caution if you tend to fall asleep when you relax!

You don’t actually have to be sitting in a traditional posture with your thumb and fingers touching to calm your mind. Although this may be ideal, our busy lives don’t always provide us the luxury of being able to do things in the best possible way. It’s better to make time to practice meditating when and however we can than not do it at all because we don’t have an ideal situation for it.

In fact if we can get better at relaxing our body and mind in any given situation throughout the day, we begin to live in the present moment more and more of the time.

I like to focus on feeling one part of my body relaxing at a time, every time I exhale. Working from the top down, I start with relaxing the face and head, then the neck, shoulders, upper back and chest, stomach and lower back, pelvis, and so on until I get to my feet. I do a few breaths for each body “section.” This gets my focus away from my thoughts and releases tensions I didn’t even realize I had.

Another thing I’ve found helpful is to not get upset when I notice my mind wandering. Just acknowledge the thought, then bring your attention back to your breathing or physical body.

Read something in the spiritual genre

Read something in the spiritual genre that feels true to you. Some of my favorite books, are The Art of Happiness by The Dalai Lama, The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman, A Course in Miracles or related works. Or listen to related podcasts or radio shows. These help remind me that we are more than our bodies and minds and are part of something much, much bigger.

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Photo credit: Kirsty Barnby on Unsplash

March 26, 2020
How to Protect Yourself From Other People’s Negativity

by Mandie

When I was a kid, it seemed like I felt pain more than anyone else around me. Not just physical pain, but emotional pain. I cried easily, over many things. I had an especially hard time when people were fighting around me, and I didn’t even have to be involved. I could feel the negative energy and felt upset and overwhelmed. I didn’t have a constructive way of handling it.

Maybe other people felt just as much pain as me and were simply better at not showing it. Or maybe they learned how to not let it get under their skin the way I did. I will never know. (I don’t believe being sensitive is a bad personality trait that we need to get rid of. It’s driven me to become good at relationships and communication and it’s in large part the reason why I have a compassionate and empathetic personality.)

For years I’ve searched for ways to maintain inner peace, or ways to stop mental and emotional chaos once it’s started.

Here are the most powerful lessons I’ve learned, broken down into five sections below:

1. The real source of our pain

Your thoughts and judgments cause emotional pain – not other people’s words or actions. I used to focus my attention on trying to get other people to change, or my environment to change, to make myself feel better. Although these things can influence how we feel, if we focus only on changing our surroundings and not ourselves, we’ll be playing a game we can never win. Eventually, I grasped the idea that trying to control another person’s behavior is impossible. I shifted my attention to the only thing I could control: myself.

Once I began researching this idea more in depth, I came to understand that not only is controlling someone else’s behavior impossible, it’s also pointless. Whatever problem we’re blaming them for really resides within our thinking.

Here’s what I mean: Two different people can witness the same interaction and perceive different levels of negativity in the exchange. This is due to our own unique set of beliefs through which we view the world.

“Negative” interactions can actually give us opportunities to change something profound in ourselves if we let them. If we perceive things as negative, we are affected negatively. If we perceive things as positive, or at least try to find a silver lining, we are affected positively.

2. Responsibility

Learning that my perceptions and judgments were the true source of my emotional pain is changed my outlook on life significantly. I learned I could influence how much or whether or not I suffered, and I no longer felt afraid of how others were going to act or how I was going to react.

It’s empowering knowing this. But, like Uncle Ben says in Spiderman, “…with great power comes great responsibility.” Once you understand that your interpretations of things matter more than whatever anyone else does, you can’t deny your responsibility – for the way you treat others, the way you treat yourself, and how happy or miserable you are.

It’s easier to blame other people than take responsibility for your inner peace. You feel better about yourself if you can blame others. You get to be the victim and receive attention from others for your suffering which makes you temporarily feel better. You can’t blame others for your suffering anymore. If you do, you’re lying to yourself.

“Accountability breeds response-ability.”
– Stephen R. Covey

3. The two selves: love and fear

I believe that we are more than our bodies and our minds. I believe we have some sort of soul, spirit, or higher consciousness that is beyond our bodies and minds that we have yet to fully understand.

This part of us is said to be our true self – which is pure unconditional love, creative, limitless, cannot be harmed, and never dies. In many spiritual schools of thought, this higher part of us is made up of the same energy that makes up the entire universe and binds everything together.

Some people call this part of us God, or at least say that it’s connected with God. However, when we are young and begin to develop language and understand our place in the world, our minds create an idea about who we think we are (called the Ego in psychology), and how we think the world works based on fear, lack, and limitation. We suffer because we believe the lies our mind creates and try to live as if they were true.

4. The more someone is hurting, the more hurtful they will usually act

Remember the last time you heard someone say something to you that hurt you? The truth is more than likely they were stressed out and/or upset. They were probably functioning from fear. If you reacted by feeling attacked/defensive and wanting to attack back, that means you let their fear pull you in so that you started operating from fear as well.

Albert Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that created it.” You can’t solve fear with more fear. The only way to solve fear is to meet it with love. If you can recognize that when someone is attacking you they’re in a state of fear and then you respond from love instead of attacking back, you will help them as well as yourself.

Of course, you can still communicate to them how you felt about what happened and stick to your boundaries, and that doesn’t mean you’re coming from fear. It means you’re acknowledging the situation and having an honest dialogue to improve your relationship. Acting rude, cold, passive aggressive, or attacking back means you’ve let fear win.

“If you do not have control over your mouth, you will not have control over your future.”
– Germany Kent

5. Accept your emotions – don’t try to change them

Sometimes when I’d get upset about other people’s negativity, I would end up being more upset about how I felt about it than about what originally happened. Because I did not want to be so easily upset all the time, I would get upset with myself for feeling upset! As you can imagine that only made things worse. If you understand that your feelings can’t hurt you unless you stay in that negative state for a long time, you can accept them and move on much easier.

You can say to yourself, yes, I feel really pissed off and really upset about what happened and that’s okay. Your feelings will pass like clouds in the sky. When you don’t like how you feel, you try to make yourself feel differently. That’s when you get stuck. You’re trying to force your feelings away because you see them as being bad, and you will only feel worse and worse. Acknowledging that it’s okay to feel upset will lead to a much faster turnaround from your state.

What strategies do you use for handling other people’s negativity? Add your favorites in the comments!

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(Also published on Addicted2Success.com. Image credit: Unsplash)

November 27, 2019
The Paradox of Choice (short post)

“Indecision is the enemy of progress. Not saying ‘yes’ to one possibility is saying ‘no’ to them all.”
– Micheal Haggstrom

Have you heard of the Paradox of Choice? American Psychologist, Barry Schwartz (author of Why Less is More), says that although autonomy and freedom of choice is critical to our well-being, too many choices has a negative effect on us. Schwartz argues that the sheer number of choices we have to make in developed Western societies can lead to stress and even paralysis (inaction). Rather than choose “wrong” we don’t choose anything at all, because we’re afraid of missing out on a better experience.

We have way more options for material goods than ever before in history, we have unlimited access to information via the internet, we have so many more career and lifestyle options as well… I think the Paradox of Choice is a great thing to keep in mind to make sure we don’t fall victim to our own inaction. Maybe the solution is to get clear on our goals and priorities in life, to make it easier for us to make decisions and take action without dwelling on the what-ifs or fear of missing out.

November 21, 2019
Stressed Out? Here Are 7 of the Most Effective Strategies for Centering Yourself

By Mandie

We all know what it feels like to be stressed out. Our mind races, we feel overwhelmed, anxious, irritable, and sometimes depressed. Small problems tip us over the edge because we haven’t got all our other problems “under control.” We just don’t want to deal with life anymore. I had a tendency to get easily overwhelmed and have worked hard to improve my ability to handle stress.

Here are the 7 strategies that have proven to work best for me over the years:

1. Determine if you’re stressed about something you CAN change, or something you CAN’T change

You should be able to know which kind of stress it is with a little bit of reflection. By knowing this, you can proceed with handling the stress more effectively. Is it one thing you’re afraid of? Is it one problem that seems insurmountable? Are you overwhelmed with too much on your plate? Or do you feel stuck and unable to change an undesired situation?

2. Don’t make excuses. TAKE ACTION!

Don’t complain if you’re not going to take any steps toward changing your situation. Don’t make excuses or put off doing things that could help you. Don’t listen to your thoughts that say there’s no point in trying.

Make a plan of action. f you’re stressed because of an unknown, figure out a way to get more information. If you’re afraid of not having enough money, figure out how you might be able to make more.

I like to write to-do lists in my phone where I can check things off, and write down events and reminders to call people etc. in my phone’s calendar with reminders turned on. Prioritize and be realistic about what you can accomplish. If you try to take on too many tasks you won’t accomplish any of them.

Follow through on your plan: Set a reminder or alarm in your phone if that’s what it takes.

Reevaluate: If things change and you either can’t follow through on your plan or it’s no longer applicable, go back and make a new plan of action.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor E. Frankl

3. If there’s nothing you can physically do, adjust your mindset

Sometimes what you’re feeling stressed about is outside of your control. If that’s the case, there is still one thing you can change, your perception.

4. Know the real cause of stress

The real cause of stress is not actually what’s happening in your life, it’s what’s happening in your mind. Often, we blame other people and things that happen as the source of our stress, but the truth is those things are not the real culprit. How you perceive things (what you think about everything), is the real source of your stress. Sure, some things are harder or easier to get stressed about. But if you understand stress comes from your mind, it’s easier to handle when a stressful situation is outside your control.

5. Don’t resist your thoughts and feelings

When you resist what is, you suffer. If you criticize yourself, fight your thoughts and feelings, or worry about feeling stressed, you will only feel worse. Stress can actually be a motivator for making positive change. Try to accept the fact that you feel stressed, and use it to your advantage instead of resisting how you feel.

6. Ask yourself, what am I afraid of?

If you want to know the real underlying source of your stress, look for what scares you the most. Stress is really fear in disguise. We feel fear, or stress, when we are afraid of losing something. It doesn’t have to be loss of anything obvious or physical – it could be loss of security, loss of love, loss of respect or status, loss of freedom, etc.

After you’ve determined what you’re afraid of, examine that fear to see how realistic it actually is. Fear does not come from the rational part of our minds. Many fears are over embellished and unrealistic once we put them in the light of truth. Think of as many things as you can, that you know are true, that disprove your fear.

7. Don’t force yourself to think positively

You’ve probably heard about how positive thinking is good for you. Yet, maybe you’ve noticed times where you just can’t do it. Trying to think positively when I’m stressed never works for me. Trying to change my thinking from one extreme to another only frustrates me. I’m not saying positive thinking is bad, but I think doing it consciously has its time and place.

I think feeling stressed indicates something that needs adjusting in your life or in your mind. If you only try to think positively instead of investigating why you feel how you feel, you may miss opportunities for growth and change.

“Ten years from now, you’ll laugh at whatever’s stressing you out today. So why not laugh now?”
Tony Robbins

When you feel stressed, first determine whether things are inside or outside of your control. If you can physically do something, make a plan and take action! When stressors are outside of your control, remember that the real cause of stress is what’s happening in your mind in response to life. Don’t resist your thoughts and feelings.

Try to accept how you feel and use stress as motivation. Explore your fears that may be behind your stress and then disprove them. Don’t force yourself to think positively without first addressing the reason you are stressed.

What strategy works best for you when it comes to handling stress? Let me know in the comments below!

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(Also published on Addicted2Success.com. Image credit: Unsplash)

April 29, 2019

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