What Are You Avoiding?

January 30, 2017January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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Last weekend, my best friend came to visit me in Los Angeles and we engaged in some serious self-care – I’m talking spas, hot tubs, museums, and kombucha on tap. And even though her whole trip was filled with non-stop fun and a lot of new experiences, the weekend was truly ignited by our first stop: tarot card readings with a psychic.

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I’m not going to go into detail about what we were told, because I want to keep the experience intimate and personal (see also: do not want to share all of my vulnerabilities with the entire internet, all of which is reading this post, as this is the most popular blog of all time). She did make, however, a statement that really made me reconsider things.

She sat behind worn tarot cards in a tiny closet-space of a room, and in an elusive accent said, “There are emotional blocks here. You’ve pushed them down because you don’t want to deal with them, but you have to.”

My initial response was, obviously, defensive. Of course I deal with my emotional blocks. I have a blog about mental wellness and self-care! I’m a therapist! Psychics aren’t real!!

But as I continued to reflect on what I was told, I realized that maybe I do still have some emotional blocks. Because maybe we all do. Maybe that’s a normal part of being a young woman navigating life. And maybe being defensive about how “emotionally blocked” we are or aren’t is kinda missing the point.

So I ask you to join me in really honestly asking yourself:

What am I avoiding?

What part of my life – spiritual, romantic, occupational, creative, familial – contains elements that I’ve avoided dealing with due to some kind of fear?

Take a moment to quietly reflect. When you think about your life and read the phrase “unfinished business,” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? A goal you want to achieve but are holding yourself back from? A family relationship that was tarnished in your past but never really dealt with? A gut feeling that maybe you and your partner aren’t thriving together in the way you hoped you would?

The emotional blocks we have behind our avoidances are sneaky. They aren’t obvious. If they were, we’d probably be more proactive in dealing with them. But the thing is, we have to give these avoided areas of our lives the respect they deserve. They deserve to be fully felt and fully dealt with. When we treat aspects of our lives with avoidance, we only set ourselves back. We are not full and we are not whole. We are hiding.

Consider your blocks. Consider your fears. Consider your unfinished business.

Now go and do something about it.

And P.S. – Sorry about what I said about psychics. I think maybe they’re real.

Don’t Take It Personally

August 29, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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“It’s not all about you.”

“Nobody’s thinking about you that much.”

“You don’t have that much power.”

At first glance: rude statements, right? I admit, I’m a sensitive soul, but I think most would agree that these quotes seem to come with a little sting.

Well, sometimes when we are spiraling downward into a black hole of negative self-talk and harsh self-criticism, we have to be a little blunt with ourselves.

If you live with symptoms of depression or anxiety, you might be (all too) familiar with ruminating thoughts. Rumination comes up for people after a stressful event, a negative interaction, or even just an awkward situation. You think about how whatever you just did or said was so (dumb, rude, wrong, bad). You think about how your co-worker looked at you some type of way so she must (hate you, think you are bad at your job, find you stupid, wish you would leave). You think about how you didn’t get into that school, so you (won’t ever get a job, must be unintelligent, have no hope, will never get anywhere in life).

You know, those kinds of pleasant thoughts.

That thinking gets us nowhere except in a bad mood and a sea of self-hatred. So these are the moments, then, when we might want to consider using those snappy quotes up there to fight our rumination. We know our intentions, so we know it’s coming from a place of love.

The thing to remember is this: Don’t take it personally.

In Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, “Don’t take anything personally” is the second agreement. On page 48, he writes:

“Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.”

It reminds me of a thought I had frequently when I spent the summer in Chicago with my best friend. We were in a gorgeous condo right in the heart of the city, and the long and lean buildings were all packed closely together. I’d sit on the ledge along our window and stare at the building next to us: the lights weaving on and off in different rooms, the shifting colors of TV blurs, the differently shaped shadows of bodies moving fast, moving slow.

And I’d think about how amazing it is that we are all living these unimaginably complex lives simultaneously, right next to one another, and we are somehow unaware of it. The stranger in the apartment across the street – she has dreams, she has goals, she has family problems, she has a an amazing best friend, she has childhood memories, she wants a tattoo, she just got a job promotion, she can’t get over her ex-boyfriend, she loves green tea, she hates Tuesdays. She is the star of her own movie, just like you’re the star of yours. She can’t ever fully understand your world, and you can’t ever fully understand hers.

When someone says or does something to us that is hurtful, whether it is real or perceived, we don’t have to take it personally. We can remember that the person we were hurt by has a life of his or her own – a life that includes bad moods, personal insecurities, and emotional distractions. They’ve got so much going on in their lives. You’re not the star of their movie. So take a step back. Don’t let yourself fall down into the self-hate black hole. After you’re hurt, notice the feeling you have and let it go. Everyone’s got their own stuff going on. It’s not all about you. Don’t take it personally.

And I say that with so much love.

Be my friend! Follow me on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram 🙂

Learning to Ride the Wave

June 20, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about going with the flow – which is super easy when you are are Type A, sorta a perfectionist, and maaaybe a little tiny bit of a control freak. For me, thoughts about going with the flow tend to be a pretty good indication that things aren’t going exactly as I’d like them to.

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And when things aren’t going the way we’d planned them, we’ve got a few options. We can push down our negative feelings and pretend that everything is SO fine and we are SO okay and nope, definitely NOT bothered by this new direction.

Alternatively, we can play up our negative feelings and stir in the irritability and anxiety, and now nothing’s going right and everything sucks and we’re never going to recover.

Or, we could find a happy medium by taking a tip from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and riding the wave.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) was initially created by Marsha Linehan as a way to treat suicidal individuals who have Borderline Personality Disorder. Since then, it’s been used to treat depression, substance abuse, PTSD, and eating disorders. Like most other therapy modalities, I’m finding that its components are really applicable for every day life, whether you’re living with any of these mental illnesses or not.

DBT encourages us to practice both self-acceptance and self-improvement. “Riding the wave” serves as a metaphor for being mindful of our negative emotions and really feeling them as they come up, accepting them as they are, until they eventually pass (and they always do).

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Imagine the ocean waves in all of their unpredictability. Sometimes they are symbol of soothing and calm – when the waves are small, uniform, unaffecting. They’re easy to swim with and cool to the touch, a welcome relief under the hot, sticky sun. And other times, waves are rough and choppy. They’re loud with unsteady crashes and they’re so monstrous that they could consume us. We’re not sure when the waves will be soothing and when they’ll be treacherous – that depends on the weather, which we sure as hell have no control over (a point made abundantly clear by the 108° Los Angeles temperature outside as I type this).

And so, waves are like emotions: sometimes pleasant and easy, and other times seemingly out of control. Like the weather that controls ocean waves, our emotions are guided by our external surroundings – our romantic relationships, our jobs, our families. Trying to control ocean waves is pointless; you won’t get anywhere. Try as we might (and yes, we do try), a lot of the details of our surroundings are out of our control too. We can’t control what kind of mood our partner is in, or how hard that exam is going to be, or whether our request for a pay raise will be accepted.

When we ride the wave, we stop trying to control everything. We stop trying to suppress or elevate our emotional responses to stressors. We become mindful of whatever emotion it is that we’re feeling – angry, devastated, resentful, jealous, irritated – and we resist the urge to get swept up by the tide. We learn how to tolerate the negative emotions. When we do this, our emotions have less power over us.

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Ben Caunt writes about how to ride the wave of an emotion:

Observe your feeling

Pause and notice it.

Experience your feeling

Resist pushing your feeling away and instead, really feel it. Where do you feel it in your body?

Remember that you are not your feeling

You aren’t defined by this feeling and you don’t need to act upon it. Remember other times when you’ve felt differently. Remind yourself that feelings aren’t permanent.

Become more comfortable with your feeling

Do not judge your feeling. Accept it fully, as it is. Stay with it until it passes.

As Kanye West once said, “Waves don’t die, baby” and in the words of Jon Kabat-Zinn, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” Sometimes quotes from a rapper and a master of mindfulness work nicely with one another to remind us to chill out and go with the emotional flow.

Be my friend! Follow me on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram 🙂

Discovering Self-Compassion

June 6, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

Today’s post is one I’ve been excited to write for about a month now, which is weird because it’s kind of just a glorified book review. But guys, over the past month, I’ve been like…spiritually awakened by Kristin Neff’s book, Self-Compassion. “Spiritually awakened” is kind of dramatic but listen. The drama is justified. The book (and more so, the concept of self-compassion) is like finally finding the key to unlock the shackles of judgment imprisoning our thoughts (okay, maybe that’s too dramatic).

I first heard of self-compassion when reading Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly, in which she references Kristin Neff’s research on the subject. Being kind to ourselves in times of suffering? Mindfully acknowledging personal flaws and pain without beating ourselves up for it? Living a life so gentle and forgiving – it sounded almost like a dream. I ordered Neff’s book Self-Compassion immediately.

I devoured Self-Compassion, in a way that I haven’t yet with a personal-growth book (I can’t use the phrase “self-help book” without picturing like, a disheveled divorcée in the fetal position at a Barnes and Noble. “Personal-growth” it is). The concept just spoke to me – maybe because it relates to my own personal set of internal challenges, or maybe because it would relate to anyone’s. With the state of American values right now – the importance of a strong education, a successful career, a gorgeous body, a happy family – and the near impossible standards that are set, so many people suffer from a raging, abusive inner critic. We chastise ourselves for not being ______ enough (fill in the blank with anything and everything). We wallow in the negative feelings that come with criticizing ourselves. We exaggerate our flaws and pay little attention to our strengths.

It leaves us feel defensive in romantic relationships. Insecure in our career paths. Unaccepted by our peers. It makes us feel unloved.

It’s not an easy thought pattern to disrupt, and Kristin Neff understands the difficulty of being self-compassionate. Her book is sprinkled with stories of her own personal journey to self-compassion, and honestly, I was so into these parts. Girlfriend has lived. She writes about her detached relationship with her father, the affair-induced break up of her first marriage, the discovery and acceptance of her son’s autism diagnosis, and her international travels to visit Shamanic healers with her family. She is basically a badass. Her stories often don’t portray her in the best light, and I find that vulnerability so refreshing. I am turned off by the personal-growth books that imply that the author has it all figured out, and the concept they’re preaching has catapulted them into a perpetually serene, storybook life. Neff is honest about the mistakes she has made in the past and the difficulties that still arise. I appreciate that she isn’t selling self-compassion as a quick fix for a perfect life. It isn’t quick and it doesn’t make life perfect. Instead, it allows us to accept the good and bad as parts of the rich, complex lives we are so lucky to lead.

In Self-Compassion, Neff writes about the core components of the concept:

“First, it requires self-kindness, that we be gentle and understanding with ourselves rather than harshly critical and judgmental. Second, it requires recognition of our common humanity, feeling connected with others in the experience of life rather than feeling isolated and alienated by our suffering. Third, it requires mindfulness – that we hold our experience in balanced awareness, rather than ignoring the pain or exaggerating it.”

— Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion, page 41.

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The book individually explores these concepts deeper, making it easy to grasp the way that they apply to our own personal thoughts. Each chapter has practical exercises to guide your self-compassion practice, which I’ve been using when facilitating self-compassion-based therapy groups. For the more logical readers, Neff supports her claims about self-compassion with research that suggests its proven psychological benefits. Additionally, she focuses in on how self-compassion is more influential than self-esteem, and how it plays a role in our compassion for others, parenting, and romantic relationships.

I’m grateful that I read this book – it’s helping to reshape my daily thinking to be kinder, gentler, and less critical. I’d recommend checking out Kristin Neff’s website here and taking her quiz to test how self-compassionate you are here. I took the quiz before reading the book and after and it was very cool to see my score increase.

I’d really love to hear your thoughts on self-compassion in the comments!!

Challenging Materialism

May 23, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

Last night I spent a half hour or so scrolling through Instagram. Looking at pictures of my friends? No. Looking at inspiring art? Hell no. I was straight up devouring photos of potential new skincare purchases.

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And the thoughts go like this:

I really want that serum. I see that so many people love it. But it’s so expensive! I’m sure it’s worth it. Oh shoot, and sunscreen! Definitely need to buy that before next weekend. My haircut this Sunday is already gonna be at least $65 but I obviously need that and also sunscreen. Dang, what am I even going to wear next weekend? All my shoes are horrible. I need new summer clothes. I could really use a new…

Blah blah blah literally could go on FOR LIFE if I don’t notice it and get a hold of myself. Sometimes I have to close my computer or shut off my phone and set it on the table next to me, vibrating with this energy of temptation, non-verbally begging me to pick it back up and keep shopping.

Here’s the thing: we want stuff. We want the things that products sell us – beauty, success, happiness, and a sense of interconnectedness with each other. We want what’s trendy so we can feel like part of the gang. If every cool girl on Tumblr is wearing strappy wedges, we wanna get strappy wedges too, because we want to be a part of it. We don’t want to feel left behind. And further, we want to spend our energy thinking about shoes because it’s a lot easier than thinking about the “real life” stress of our work, relationships, and intrinsic dissatisfaction.

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We often search for a feeling of belonging and happiness in our possessions, but the truth is that we just don’t get it. Sure, we might feel a rush after making a purchase, but that isn’t sustainable. Research shows that materialism is associated with lower social and personal well-being, impulsive spending, increased debt, and even depression and social anxiety.

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And in a way, having intense feelings of materialism is kind of like addiction, isn’t it? I’m in the midst of reading In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Dr. Gabor Maté, which is centered on Maté’s experience treating chronic drug users. One of the most interesting parts in the book so far though has been his dissection of his own impulsive spending (on classical music CDs! Which I thought was kind of cute) and how his constant yearning for more is relatable to an addiction.

“When you get right down to it,” he writes, “it’s the adrenaline I’m after, along with the precious reward chemicals that will flood my brain when I hold the new CD in hand, providing an all-too-temporary reprieve from the stress of my driven state. But I’ve barely left the store before the adrenaline starts pumping through my circulation again, my mind fixated on the next purchase.”

We have it in us to beat this cycle. It takes mindfulness and redirection.

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1. Note the reason behind the feeling.

You’ve been on Pinterest pinning the crap out of images of home décor photos lately, and you just can’t stop thinking about all the new pieces you want to buy to glam up your apartment. These thoughts can come on quickly and go a mile a minute. Stop to consider them. Why are you spending so much time thinking about your shopping list? It might be that there’s something else you’re avoiding. It might be that you’re seeking external validation. It might be that you’re just bored. Recognizing the reason behind longing for possessions is helpful because it reminds us that, a lot of times, it’s about more than just really wanting to buy a new TV.

2. Shift your thoughts: what do you already have inside of you?

I love the quote from Gabor Maté because it reminds us that yearning for possessions is an endless cycle. Buddhist monk Sakyong Mipham said, “’Just one more’ is the binding factor in the circle of suffering.” Let’s try to stop needing more by honoring what we have inside of us. What can you create? Are you a writer? Shift your thoughts toward your next storyline. A photographer? Plan a weekend trip somewhere new to shoot. Take inventory of your talents and interests and make something. Get invested in it. Get so excited about it that you don’t want to think about anything else. It’s a way better adrenaline rush than buying a new video game.

Like everything else, fighting materialism relies on self-awareness. Know what’s going on with you. It’s not such a mystery if we take the time to think about it.

Thumbnail photo by ashleyelladesign,com.

Moving On From Those Kinds of Days

May 2, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

This article was originally published for #AllTheVibes, a collaboration between I AM THAT GIRL and Biossance Skin Care. I really loved writing this because it gave me a chance to pass along practical tools for stress management that I’ve learned in my professional and personal studies. Let me know if you find any of these tips helpful in the comments!

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Some days, we could really use a reset button. We’re stressed out about a test, recovering from a painful breakup, or totally bummed about not making the volleyball team, and the whole day seems lost in bad feelings. Finding your way out of a rut can feel impossible – but the good news is that it isn’t. Here are some ideas about how to move on from those sucky days in a healthy way and be our own reset button.

· Repeat the mantra: I am enough.

Dealing with stress, heartache, or feelings of rejection can really affect our self-esteem. Close your eyes, put your hands over your heart, and say out loud, “I am enough.” Regardless of the test grade you get or your status as single or taken, you are worthy of love, just the way you are. Once you believe that, there is less reason to stress.

· Accept the situation.

Ask yourself, “Is there anything I can do to change this situation?” If the answer is no, we need to learn to accept it. The poetry magazine came out and your poem wasn’t selected to be featured. Right now, you can’t do anything to change that. Accept that this is the situation in the present moment – but find peace in knowing you will have so many future opportunities to excel.

· Practice deep breathing.

When we’re stressed, our breathing quickens, our heart rate speeds up, and we start feeling like we had too much panic-flavored coffee. When we practice deep breathing using our diaphragm, a large muscle found at the base of our lungs, oxygen levels in our blood increase and our heart rate slows down, returning us to calm. Put one hand on your chest and another below your ribcage. Inhale through your nose, counting to 6. Feel your stomach expand as your lungs fill up with air, and feel your chest remain as still as possible. Exhale through your mouth, counting to 8.

· Visualize your worries floating away.

If you’re really hung up on a particular worry, try this visualization technique. Close your eyes and imagine that you are sitting beside a slow, steady river. As you watch the river, you notice a leaf on the water in the distance. Imagine that the leaf represents your worry. Watch it come closer toward you, floating on top of the clear, fresh water – and then watch the leaf pass by. Watch it float along the river into the distance, and notice it getting smaller and smaller until you can’t see it anymore. Like the leaf, imagine that your worry has floated off into the distance, becoming something that you can no longer see, hear, or feel. Let your worry disappear.

It can be tempting to sink into bad feelings, because it’s tricky to pull ourselves out of them. Shifting perspectives and choosing positivity is a powerful way to reshape even the worst of days, and we all have the tools inside of ourselves to do it.

Change Your Thoughts

April 4, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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Out of all the things we have no control over in life, our brain isn’t one of them. No one knows 100% what we’re thinking – never have, never will. It’s actually kind of cool. We all have this secret space entirely to ourselves, where we can think whatever we want with no spectators, no punishment, no reward, no judgment, no boundaries. With endless ideas and concepts and room for growth and imagination, we can literally think about millions of things.

So it’s super cute that the things we often choose to think about are rooted in the same foundational concept: “I suck.”

I recently wrote an article for I AM THAT GIRL called, “When You’re Your Own Bully,” and today I want to get deeper into that topic. The article focuses on the negative thoughts we have about ourselves and the ways that these thoughts influence our lives. Negative thinking is a common struggle for lots of people, and dissecting that thinking is a typical practice in therapy.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is one of the most well-known and research-backed psychotherapy approaches. It focuses on the connection between our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Each of these things influence each other – what we think affects how we feel, which then prompts particular behaviors. How we behave then affects how we feel, which shapes the way we think.

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It makes sense, then, why it’s so crucial that we carefully manage our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. They work together to create our mood and shape our quality of life. In cognitive-behavioral therapy, clients work with a therapist to identify their negative thought patterns and find ways to reframe those thoughts, encouraging healthier behaviors and comfortable emotions.

The first step of recognizing negative thought patterns is becoming familiar with our automatic thoughts. After an event occurs, into our brain pops an automatic thought, so quickly that most of the time we don’t even stop to think about it. Automatic thoughts aren’t always bad, but for the sake of this blog post we are going to talk about negative automatic thoughts.

So for example, let’s say the event in question is that you come into work and your (usually friendly) boss makes eye contact with you but doesn’t smile. Immediately, the anxiety-prone will have an automatic thought: Oh shit, she’s mad at me. I did something wrong. You’re then left feeling worried, scared, or maybe even defensive.

These negative automatic thoughts are often not based in reality. They aren’t facts, and they aren’t supported by concrete evidence. They are often what psychotherapists call cognitive distortions, which are unrealistic ways of thinking that we are prone to when we’re stressed, depressed, or anxious.

I made a graphic to show four common cognitive distortions that my friends, my clients, and I tend to gravitate towards. If these ways of negative thinking don’t resonate with you, check out this list of some other common cognitive distortions (there are, unfortunately, plenty to choose from).

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Learning about cognitive distortions is so important because it puts us back in the driver’s seat. If we learn to slow down, catch our negative automatic thoughts, and recognize them as cognitive distortions, we are putting ourselves back in control over our thoughts. Our negative thinking patterns can’t have power over us if we recognize our thoughts as exaggerated, fueled by anxiety, and based in nothing but assumptions.

Identifying cognitive distortions takes self-awareness and a whole lot of practice. And it’s not always easy – we can be really convincing when we tell ourselves all the reasons we suck and all the ways our lives are gonna be shitty forever. But by learning to recognize our go-to cognitive distortions, we are setting ourselves up to challenge those thoughts and replace them with healthy, positive, and rational ones.

In a future post, we’ll get into detail about challenging negative thoughts and cognitive distortions. For now, just practice noticing your automatic thoughts and whether they are negative or positive. Are your automatic thoughts cognitive distortions? What type? When do you notice distorted thinking coming into play – when you’re anxious? Depressed?

And hey, this week let’s try to tell ourselves that we don’t suck. Okay?

Thumbnail photo from Elizabeth Lies.

Healthy Choices in the Morning: How They can Change Your Whole Day

March 14, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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Good morning, lovelies! I’ve got a post today that I’m hoping will especially inspire you if you’re reading in the AM, so grab your coffee, slide open your curtains, and let’s do this.

(And if it isn’t morning when you’re reading, that’s ok. Please keep reading. Dear God, please do not leave. I have readership goals to achieve, here.)

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This weekend, I had a particularly productive Saturday morning, including (but not limited to!) reading, stretching, yoga, running, working on my blog, and cleaning. All this for a girl that’s susceptible to hours of Internet stalking, donut eating, and ultimately feelings of super crankiness if she doesn’t watch out? That’s pretty good.

It got me thinking of a concept that is so simple and almost certainly leads to better habits and more satisfying days, and that concept is this:

All of our choices are interconnected.

They lead into one another. Healthy choices encourage other healthy choices, and unhealthy choices perpetuate more unhealthy choices.

And the good news: starting our day off with healthy choices makes it way, way easier to continue making healthy choices throughout the day.

Take my Saturday, for example. I had gone to bed early enough that I was well-rested on Saturday morning – this was Healthy Choice #1, and it set the foundation for the whole day. Because I was well-rested, I was able to really enjoy leisurely take some time practicing self-care by reading (HC #2). Indulging in self-care satisfied my need for relaxation, making me totally down to take some time exercising and engaging in physical activity, like stretching, yoga, and running (HC #3).

Working out at the beginning of the day encourages tons of healthy choices, making things that are normally a struggle for me something I want to do — like drinking tons of water, which makes us feel fuller, eat less, and stay energized (HC #4), and taking a cold shower, which boosts our immune system and is great for our skin and hair (HC #5).

Starting the day with a workout also sets up how we eat for the rest of the day. Sure, I may still give in to that Taco Bell craving for dinner, but in my experience, I’m much more likely to follow up my workout with a healthy snack or green smoothie (HC #6), because my mindset is stuck on continuing the healthy choices I’m making.

When we make daily life choices, we feel the results of them. We know how bad it feels to wake up at noon with a hangover, to spend 5 hours watching Netflix, to eat fast food 3 nights in a row and feel our credit card bills racking up. And alternatively, we know how great it feels after we tidy up our apartment, go for a walk, call our mom, practice yoga, or eat a healthy meal.

We feel great. We feel nourished. We feel confident. We start to believe that we are the kind of person who makes healthy choices, and that feels really good.

So my food for thought this week is this: let’s not make it hard on ourselves. Let’s make good, healthy, positive choices from the moment we open our eyes in the morning, so that it’s easy to keep making them. Keep it simple. Start your day off with some morning wellness – let’s see where it takes us.

(Hey, Morning Wellness! Now I get it 😉

Visualizing Your Best Self

February 24, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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As I continue to shape and define the kind of site I want Morning Wellness to be, I’ve noticed an instinctual gravitation toward writing on topics related to finding ourselves (through vision boarding, values clarification exercises, and asking ourselves weird-sounding but research-supported therapeutic questions, to name a few).

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Today I want to share an exercise that’s not only related to defining our goals and desires, but also believing that we are capable of achieving them.

When you think about the big things that you want to do in your life, can you picture them happening? Are your dreams clear enough that you can envision them, and is your confidence strong enough that you believe they could happen?

In doing my own self-reflection, I realized that having goals doesn’t necessarily guarantee confidence that you can achieve them. And that sucks. If I have a professional or personal goal and my mindset is just, “Yeah, I think that I could possibly do that in a couple years if all goes okay,” then how am I going to go about working toward my goals? It’s not an attitude that encourages going the extra mile, taking risks, or making ourselves vulnerable. It encourages leaving everything up to fate and just hoping it ends up okay.

I found this Best Possible Self visualization exercise on the Greater Good in Action website, and I think it’s perfect for anyone looking to define what they want in life and build confidence that they can achieve it.

Visualizing Your Best Possible Self

Picture living the best possible life you can imagine. Reflect on different areas of your life – your career, friendships, family relationships, romantic relationships, health, habits, creative pursuits – and imagine them reaching their greatest potential.

For 15 minutes over the course of two weeks, write continuously about this best possible future. Get detailed – where are you? Who’s there? What specifically are you doing? Putting aside your anxieties and barriers, simply write about your best possible future, as if it’s the most possible thing in the world.

Researchers have found that people who completed this practice over the course of two weeks got a positive mood boost.

Why not give it a try? I’m going to! I know that I could use some help in clarifying what exactly I want to make of my life and build my self-confidence around my creative capabilities.

For more details on this exercise, be sure to check it out here.

I wrote Monday about valuing ordinary moments, and this post isn’t meant to discredit that. I wholeheartedly believe in the power of small moments, and I don’t want to ignore them in favor of extraordinary ones. I think there’s a way to balance appreciation for the ordinary moments with working hard to create extraordinary ones.

So, this week’s Morning Wellness reader (and writer) goal: be grateful for the ordinary moments while believing you will certainly live extraordinary ones too.

Finding Joy in Ordinary Moments

February 22, 2016January 6, 2018 ~ Lindsey ~ Leave a comment

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What do you think about when you picture yourself experiencing the utmost amount of joy?

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I’ll tell you how I would have answered that a few weeks ago. Picturing joy would mean imagining living a life that was perfect. I’d have the exact job I want and I’d be successful – people in my professional field would know my name and be familiar with my work, and non-social workers would also know all about me because my influence would be just THAT great. I’d be living in a spacious (but cozy) and gorgeously designed (but not over the top) house with windows-a-plenty. My partner and I would be in complete harmony – no arguing ever and no fear, anxiety, or challenges would come between us. I’d be spiritually enlightened, eternally calm, and yeah, hella stylish.

My view of joy changed when reading

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Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly. Brené conducted research to determine the difference between happiness and joy, and she found this:

“Participants described happiness as an emotion that’s connected to circumstances, and they described joy as a spiritual way of engaging with the world that’s connected to practicing gratitude.”

— Brené Brown

This idea was interesting – that, theoretically, we can be happy but not full of joy, or full of joy but, in that moment, not necessarily happy.

Reading on, I was stopped dead in my tracks by her other discovery about joy:

“Joy comes to us in moments.”

In talking with research participants who have experienced great losses,

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Brené found that what they missed the most was simple, ordinary moments. She writes that we are at a risk of letting joy pass us by if we disregard the ordinary moments while chasing after the extraordinary ones.

It makes so much sense. In a life that puts such a significant value on being busy, on “hustling,” on making it, on getting out of the suburbs and moving to the city, on being somebody – there’s pressure to live an exciting life, and a fear of living a boring one. Our focus leans closer toward achieving more than it does toward being grateful for what’s in front of us.

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I think we can take this concept of joy coming to us in moments and use that to cultivate joy in our everyday lives. We let the simple moments pass through us and we often don’t think twice about them because they’re ordinary. They’re the every day. They’re your boyfriend’s jokes, they’re your sister’s text messages, they’re your best friend’s phone calls to just see how you’re doing. They’re the real, authentic, life-shaping moments of connection we have with each other that will just slip through our fingers if we aren’t careful, because we’re used to them.

But we don’t have to let that happen.

We can put down the books about finding our happiness and we can stop picturing joy as a result of a perfectly crafted, Instagram-ready life. We can stop thinking we’ll be happy when we’re more successful, with more money, with better clothes, with a perfect relationship. We can stop with these broad ideas of concepts that will make us happier and instead, look at what’s right there in front of us and what always has been.

Imagine that big beautiful house with the high ceilings and big windows.

Zoom in and picture yourself sitting on your leather couch in your designer dress and your manicured nails.

Zoom in and picture talking to your partner, with your great careers and your awards hanging on the wall.

Zoom in and picture the small smile on his face when he reaches for your hand and asks what you want for dinner.

That’s the joy. Not the house, not the windows, not the dress or the career. It’s you, your partner, and the feeling of palms pressed together.

Let’s stop seeking joy. We already have it. Now, let’s savor it all.

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morning wellness

where mental health meets real life.

Mindfulness

What Are You Avoiding?

Don’t Take It Personally

The thing to remember is this: Don’t take it personally.

Discovering Self-Compassion

Challenging Materialism

1. Note the reason behind the feeling.

2. Shift your thoughts: what do you already have inside of you?

Moving On From Those Kinds of Days

· Repeat the mantra: I am enough.

· Accept the situation.

· Practice deep breathing.

· Visualize your worries floating away.

Healthy Choices in the Morning: How They can Change Your Whole Day

All of our choices are interconnected.

Visualizing Your Best Self

When you think about the big things that you want to do in your life, can you picture them happening? Are your dreams clear enough that you can envision them, and is your confidence strong enough that you believe they could happen?

Visualizing Your Best Possible Self

Finding Joy in Ordinary Moments

“Joy comes to us in moments.”