In last week’s Blog, we tackled Stillness, the ability to become the audience to life. Stillness is the first step to deal with extreme stress and uncertainty. Check it out to gain access to the previous exercises i’ve offered and be truly ready to embarque in your gratefulness journey:
Today, we dive into the next big step to deal with Crisis and Stress: Gratefulness.
Fill your life with abundance, develop Gratefulness:
Gratefulness is being able to deeply appreciate what life offers you.
Lack attracts Lack. Your subconscious mind is hardwired to bring you what you focus on. In today’s world, it is normal to always look out for ther next best thing. We are bombarded with informations and “useless” stuff.
Focusing on what’s missing in life simply amplifies the lack. You write this story in your subconscious mind and allow yourself to feel miserable.
What if instead, everyday, you turned this story around ( because, yes, it is only the story you decide to tell yourself). Look at what you have, you look at what the universe has given you in your lifetime, focus on specific beautiful moments. Retreive the blissful moments.
You will become unaffected by whatever happens around you when you can become your own source of love, joy and happiness. Getting rid of external resources to fill these voids we sometimes feel is possible with gratefulness and self awareness.
For this week’s blog, I give you 4 exercises you can practice today to make Gratefulness a habit in your life to get rid of uncertainty.
But first,
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Identifying your thought patterns
This first step is necessary to identify how you create the “voids” in your life. How do you usually spiral down this emotionally painful rabit hole? To catch yourself doing so, you need to first gather data on your thought patterns. Here’s how you can do it:
Identify your physical reactions. Your emotions are telling you something. Your feelings are at the core of your thoughts and they sometimes manifest physically. For example, listening to negative news makes you heart beat faster, you feel an adrenaline rush, it’s almost pleasant sometimes because it feels exciting, but the subject is negative. Realising this makes you more aware, next time this same reaction happen, you then know exactly what your body is trying to tell you!
Listen to your first thoughts. You are probably used to simply letting them go…Your thoughts can be controlled. They are not facts, they are not you, that’s why you need to quickly re-structure and control them before they fire at full speed. If you let them go, you lose control of reality, you lose your objectivity which is the key to remain calm and and emotionally healthy.
Write your thoughts down. Journal and track your throughts. Describe and deconstruct the triggers, how you felt, the thoughts that spawn in your head and how far they have gotten in their “mutations”. Treat these data points like an experimentation on yourself!
Write down how you could’ve reacted differently. This will give you the strongest powers: to be able to create and contol your thoughts as soon as one appears. You can feel it, look at it, and decide whether or not to act upon these passing thoughts. This practice truly allows you to control what comes in and out of your life. You decide whether you allow negative thoughts into your routine. If you don’t believe it, it can’t hurt you!
5 Steps to reach a Calm, Fullfilled and Loving state:
You can’t focus on the beautiful things in life being in a state of anger or stress. Take 5 min to do this exercise to quickly bring you back to a positive mental and physical state:
Close your eyes, slowly breath and be aware of your body.
Think of the people you love in your life
Reflect on the changes you’ve made over the last year.
Visualise your goals and dreams.
Open your eyes, breath and stretch.
Compassion
Compassion is having a sense of shared suffering with the desire to reduce it for another. Practicing compassion helps you and others strive for happiness. It makes us come together as a group, something we ultimately crave in such difficult distancing times.
Here is a very detailed and valuable article by Leo Babauta which gives 7 valuable exercises to practice Compassion towards others. I could have not phrased it better, the exercises are quite valuable!
He deep dives into being able to place yourself into someone else’s shoes, gratitude, suffering, and lifting suffering for yourself and others. Truly, worth the read!
Journalling
The key to bringing gratitude in your life is daily practice.
Journaling has been a life changing habit for me. It has allowed me to become my own coach. I’ve been actively practicing Gratefulness through journaling ever since I was a child without even knowing I was doing so.
Growing up, I’ve always been writing and journaling. I have found a way to maximise my time journaling by using templates. I ask myself very specific questions everyday to quickly get into a state of gratefulness and objectively evaluate where I am emotionally.
This should’nt take more then 20 min. Anyone can find at least 20 min a day for self-reflection.
This can be done using your own questions and templates, there are plenty out there, but if you wish to know more about my structure, you can download my Free Journaling Templates here.
It’s a simple tool that bring great long-term rewards. I hope you make great use of it, regardless which format you use.
Download our Free Journalling Templates Now:
Affirmations
Starting your day with positive simple affirmations helps you recenter your conscious and subconsious mind in one certain direction. Above all, they give you strong self-empowering thoughts that will guide you through the day to generate positive change in your life.
I know it might seem strange at first, but going into it with a relaxed state of mind and simply accepting these statements into your life can generate massive change in the quality of your thoughts and life.
You can come up with your own list of positive affirmations specific to your current needs such as:
I am love
I am purpose
I can
I am powerful
I am certain
I am my own source of validation
I feed my spirit
I am in charge of how I feel and today I am choosing happiness
I make the right decisions
I will not compare myself to strangers on the Internet
I do my best in everything that I undergo
Meet your everyday challenge with a positive daily positive affirmations. For example, if I wish to reduce my negative self talk, I would say: I am valued, I control my thoughts and I am a force for good. If I wish to focus on a specific task, I would say: I am focused, I am productive and I will finish this project to the best of my abilities.
Another way I find very useful, is to simply get into a mediative state and listen to positive affirmations. Reducing the friction and simply allowing these thoughts into your mind:
If you wish to listen to it on the go, I also recommend you listen to this Meditation and Affirmation Album on Spotify:
You can make everyday great…
If you have one thing to remember from this blog, it’s that you control your thoughts. You decide what you let in your mind and you have the power to take action towards your goals today, regardless of external factors.
It isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible. You got this! You are a force for good 😉
If you believe you could benefit from an additional push in these hard times, I offer my Mental Performance Coaching services at a discount to be able to help and support as many people in the community as possible. Corona Virus Crisis is exhausting so many people Physically and Emotionally. Because of this, I have decided to provide my Personal 1-on-1 Coaching sessions for an all time low price to help people who could highly benefit from Mental Training Support. For all tiers from $25 onwards on my Patreon, you will Unlock a 30min Personalized 1-on-1 Coaching Session every month for as long as the Lock Down is in action. This means you automatically save a $100 and gain additional perks such as a Special Kilometer Dedication in one of my run every month, content requests, access to Patreon-only content and so much more! All the money I make on Patreon is used towards my African Run Project. By working with me, you are helping to provide Safe Water to Remote communities in Africa. Visit my Patreon now for more information: https://www.patreon.com/veroniquerun
We have to stay connected even in times when things feel so out of place. Reach out to me here for any additional information you need or questions and I will make sure to reply as fast as I can! If you believe this could help someone you know, send them this post so they can also gain value from the support I offer. https://www.patreon.com/veroniquerun
Have a great week, take care of yourself and your loved ones!
-Vero
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