A few weeks back I talked about self-care of your body. This week I want to talk about the self-care of your mind. The mind is a very powerful thing and can be your best ally or, if you allow it, can be your worst enemy. That little voice inside your head can control you if you aren’t careful, and the people around you will control you as well. Your mind and people will speak to you of things that aren’t true and work overtime to take away your self-esteem and self-confidence. When you aren’t in control you believe them and their distorted truth becomes your distorted truth. When you are in charge people around you can speak and say anything, and it won’t affect you. When you aren’t in charge and instead looking to the outside world for validation then everything affects you. The lesson is to stand your ground and trust yourself. Learn how to quiet your mind and control your own thoughts so you are the only one in charge. When you start waking up and wanting to heal this may seem like a very hard thing to do, but I am living proof that it can be done.
We all have a good side that lives inside of us and a dark side as well. That dark side is full of lies and is a very negative space. This voice will tell you that you aren’t good enough, you are wrong, and everything else to make you doubt yourself. This voice is like an unruly child who talks non-stop and screams to be heard. The good pure part of us is the opposite of that and is soft-spoken and only has good things to say and always comes from a place of grace. Learn to listen to this voice and quiet down the other. When you are first setting out to make changes it is hard to decipher the two. Remember the voice coming from a place to give you the best life that God intended for you will never speak loudly or talk down to you or say anything negative. That voice is your true guide. Learn to journal that negative voice right out of your life. Write down everything this voice tells you and then let it go. Remember who you are. Remember that you have all the power inside of yourself to live your life as the best version of yourself.
Signs that change and self-care of your mind is needed is if you are seeking external validation or feeling overwhelmed or staying in situations out of fear, guilt, shame, complacency or because you gave up - those are signs change is needed, and you are not where you should be in life. You are not making decisions from a healthy place, but from a place where you are giving your power away to someone or something else. Trust your mind and trust your intuition and follow through. When something needs to end in your work life or your personal life, then end it and break free from that cycle of despair. Sometimes we hang on to situations and relationships that have already run their course, and in doing so, we create new issues for ourselves. We create mental issues for ourselves. The soul knows when something isn’t good for us and will give us sign after sign to move on. When we ignore the signs and stay stuck, situations will come up that force us to change. Change is always easier when we are open to the ebb and flow of the Universe. When we hang on because of ego or stubbornness or giving our power away, we set ourselves up for unhappiness. The Universe will only let us go so far down the wrong path before we eventually get a kick in the butt to make the change that we refused to make for ourselves because we were stuck in our ways. Trust me when I tell you it is easier when we do it for ourselves, rather than the Universe stepping in and forcing the changes upon us. The more we ignore the lesson, the harder the lesson becomes.
Communication is one of the most important things to learn to facilitate change. We can easily get lost in our mind and have thoughts that aren’t true. Open honest communication with yourself and others is the key. Speak up for yourself and learn to listen. When you can master these two parts of the equation, life becomes much easier. People are not mind readers so don’t expect them to be and to just know what you are thinking or feeling. Get out of your own head and communicate your wants, desires, fears, concerns as well as gratitude. A lot of us on this journey trained ourselves to avoid confrontation and shut down and detach and not speak up. We created a version of reality in our mind that is based on the past. We are the ones setting ourselves up to not have the life we want because we are coming from a place of walls and defense mechanisms. We don’t speak our truth, and we don’t communicate. When we are lost in our unhealthy mind, we become part of the problem.
When parts of your life are no longer serving you and you are ready to move on and make positive changes for yourself, you must honor that part of yourself. As soon as you are ready to start making changes, start having conversations with the people in your life no matter how hard and painful they may be. Journal about it first to find clarity. Healing is happening and your life is changing, and parts of your life may be ending to make room for the new. This is an important part of growth and healing. Endings do not have to be ugly and dramatic. Detach in love and give space for everyone to accept blame and take responsibility for their part in the ending and then move on. Be honest with yourself and everyone you are in contact with. You do not want endings to be about new issues created because you have already mentally and emotionally checked out. You want to have conversations and make changes that will allow yourself room for healthy change. The conversations are important because you want to give everyone room to take responsibility for their part and then be able to move on too. Don’t deny other people their truth or their own lessons – they are on their own journey so give them a chance to find their own happiness too. Be honest with yourself and be honest with the people you are with. Honesty is where your mind finds peace. Anything else creates a loop of confusion and unhappiness for everyone involved.
Most of us on this healing journey eventually find ourselves on a spiritual journey. We learn the importance of never making decisions or taking actions from low level places. No matter what the situation, you can never level down - you must always level up. Be a role model for those around you. When you heal, your loved ones heal. Try to set the tone for what you want your life to look like. My son loves the phrase fake it til you make it. Create a safe place to work on yourself and heal without any negativity in the way. Giving space allows everyone to work through a hard time. Healing requires letting go of that which no longer serves us, so sometimes parting ways becomes necessary. Remember that endings are never easy even when it’s the right thing for everyone involved. We are always asked to make decisions and take actions from a healthy place. Learn to decipher what your mind is telling you. Listen for the good versus the darker side of things. We are asking for everything good that life has to offer, so remember to always come from a place of integrity because that’s who you are now.
I went to a Zen Meditation the other evening and it was run by a Buddhist monk. We meditated for half an hour and then he talked to us for the rest of the class. He spoke about the mind. I have read so many books on the power of the mind over the past decade, so a lot of what he was saying I have already heard and is what I had already started writing about in my blog for this week. My first thought was strange coincidence or message from the Universe that I am on track and to keep going. I always say there are no coincidences because everything is a message and part of a bigger plan, so I really paid attention to what he was saying. The most powerful thing I took away from what he said was that we must learn to acknowledge but not engage. He said if you are angry then be angry, but don’t engage and then feel the need to bring everyone around you into your anger. When you are coming from a place of extreme, uncontrolled emotions then you are spreading chaos within yourself and out to the world. The lesson is to not engage, but to just acknowledge everything you are thinking and feeling and then let it go. He said when you can find that kind of control and peace within yourself then you are helping to spread peace. We are all connected so that is something I truly believe. Everything starts and ends with you and only you.
Learning to control your thoughts and your mind is where you will find peace and happiness.
In love and light,
Fran
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