Believing In Yourself Again

“Who’s in there?”

“Me”

“Who’s me? Ok, the ‘me’ that’s in there, ‘are you willing to let go of the parts of you that are being held back so that you can be in love with life?’

The greatest battle that we face is the one we have with our own mind.

How many times do we find ourselves worrying about something that hasn’t even happened? How many times have we rerun bad memories in our mind? How many times do we create scenarios in our mind that lead to feelings such as frustration, anger, anxiety or sadness? When you have a creative idea, do you decide against it because the voice inside your head tells you there’s no way you can pull it off so forget it? And then we wonder why we feel stuck, anxious, can’t sleep, why we’re short tempered, why we’re bad at listening, why we suffer from indigestion, acid reflux, headaches and ongoing exhaustion. We want to make changes; we want to grow and progress, but we’re held back by the voice in our head that reminds us of our limiting beliefs.

The big question is, why do we do this to ourselves, why do we choose to listen to the voice in our head that talks us out of change, that reminds us of our bad decisions and worst moments? Why do we allow the voice in our head to hold us back? The past does not define who we are today, so why do we give our past experiences such priority, such importance so much so that we allow it to rule all our future choices? So, if we failed at something in the past, should we never try to do that again? Every great person in history knows that failures are inevitable on the road to success. It’s about getting back up after every knock down, remaining persistent and enjoying the journey.

If we don’t have control over our own mind, what do we have control over?!

We live in 2 states of consciousness, the inner world of thoughts and feelings and the external world of things, places, people and events.

Our mind is so powerful it certainly does have the ability to make our life miserable or to make it a beautiful experience no matter what. If we learn to become far more aware, more present and spend less time on autopilot allowing the subconscious mind to run the show, the mind can indeed be a gift. It has the power to perceive the beauty and grace in everyone and everything. It has the power to respond to situations from a higher state of consciousness. It has the power to choose. And with a regular mindfulness practice we can certainly train ourselves to be very much aware, present and observant of the thoughts that run endlessly in our mind.

We’re so driven by how we feel inside that the quality of our life is measured on what we can get in the external world to make us feel good inside. From a young age we reach out for things that will temporarily change our inner state. We fall in love, it feels great, we go on holiday, we feel energised, we buy a new pair of shoes, we feel happy. However, because we have no control over the external world or of other people, we are opening ourselves up to be crushed at any given moment. Our partner ends our relationship, we feel devastated. We’re made redundant, our identity has been taken away, we are mortified. Living this way, we are at the mercy of every event we find ourselves in! This reliance on the external environment to give us a temporary fix of feeling ‘happy’ is a sure way to always be playing roulette with your own emotional state.

But what if we could master our own mind and choose how we feel, no matter what’s going on ‘out there?’ Is it possible? Can we think greater than how we feel or are we condemned to always allow how we feel to control our thoughts?

Buddhists tell us yes, we can be joyful, happy and content without acquiring anything. As I travel on this journey of self-improvement and working to think greater than how I feel, the first thing I learnt was that I needed to take full responsibility for every aspect of my life in the present moment. This was a little more daunting than it seemed. I wrote out every aspect of my life: career, education, finances, possessions, relationships, habits, health, hobbies and leisure, my likes and dislikes. Then next to each of these I wrote if I’m happy with the present situation and if not why not. This is where I came face to face with my regrets, my bad decisions, my terrible ideas, and even worse blaming another person or an event on why things are the way they are right now. Before going any further on my journey, I used time out in meditation every day to let go of all the blame, shame, guilt, resentment, judgment and frustration. In particular I had to work on accepting the current situation in the here and now and come to terms with the fact that nothing from my past can be rewound.

The tough part of acceptance is we all have a subconscious ‘blueprint’ of how we think our life should be. ‘I should have better health, more money, be in a loving relationship, live in a house overlooking the ocean, have the perfect body, I should have time out to enjoy myself.’ And if your life doesn’t look like your ‘blueprint’ then you’re left feeling frustrated, unfulfilled, depressed or even worse, envious of those who seem like they have it all.

We tend to quite naturally place most of our focus on the external world. And yet it’s only the inner world, how we feel inside our body that really matters to us. Every choice we make, from cleaning our teeth to getting married, we subconsciously decide on how we think it will make us feel.

So how about every day making a commitment to be aware of the thoughts in your mind. Choosing what you’re going to feel each day and creating thoughts that will generate those feelings. Choosing thoughts of what you are grateful for in your life is a great place to start. Another little trick I like to use is purposefully noticing all the small things that I usually don’t take time to appreciate such as the water on my skin in the shower, the cool tiles under my bare feet, the texture of the clothes I’m wearing, the tree you drive past each morning, the colours of the sky, the smile from a stranger. These small seemingly insignificant things are what can change your state of being from that of depressed, fed up, frustrated, to a place of calm, grateful and content. This is the place we want to be from which to progress, move forward and make changes in our life.

“Who’s in there?”

“The new aware me; fully accepting my life exactly how it is and ready to make changes from a higher state of consciousness.”