What can you do when sad thoughts are weighing you down and making it difficult to take care of your responsibilities? Sorrow is a part of life, but there are ways to build your resilience. Denying or suppressing your emotions usually backfires. Your feelings are likely to build up and complicate your life even more. […]
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We are living in a time where it feels like it is the norm to experience one bad thing after another. The world is falling apart around us and there looks to be no end to our worry and despair. It is so difficult to remain positive and to muster up that feeling to look forward to the good things when life seems to be so out of control.
The constant worry, fear, distress, heartache, and despair is all just so overwhelming! Everyday life has become the plot of one of those “end of the world” disaster movies. It feels like we have no choice but to succumb to the sadness and the confusion, to stay down and let pessimism take over our lives.
I have always believed that even the deepest pit has a bottom, and when that bottom is reached, the only way from there on is up. It is a comforting thought at the worst of times, but right now, it feels like our losses are too great and that things have changed immeasurably. Even when we reach that bottom and look to rise up, the scars will be too great for us to be fully restored to what we were before.
Every major life experience changes us somehow. Even without this pandemic, life is challenging and so dynamic. If it were a time pre-pandemic, the prominent advice would be to embrace your sad feelings and to follow through on your healing process. At the end of the grieving and healing, to allow your grief or challenge be your story of resilience, growth, and courage. Honestly, right now, it doesn’t seem likely that this advice will help us to cope with the cumulative grief and worry that comes with living in this trying time.
We may feel changed but certainly not strong or resilient. There is this daily fear and constant worry for our family and friends, the apprehension for the future of our children and the sadness for the younger generation, who still have their lives to live and their dreams to fulfill.
It is unbearably tough to pull ourselves out of this pain, frustration, and fear. But right now, as difficult as it may seem, our only hope for moving on from here is to not lose hope. Hope will make the hardships of today less difficult to bear because we won’t give up on seeing a better tomorrow. It is a tall ask to keep hope and faith alive in the most devastating of times.
Hope is the most important thing that will see us through until we reach a light at the end of the tunnel. You are not alone in your dread and uncertainty. We all feel it. My sincerest of wishes is that we will be able to join each other in keeping hope alive for a brighter and promising future, no matter how deep our despair may be right now.
I am a woman, I am a dreamer, I am an inventor, I am a creator, I am a thinker, I am a worker, and I am an achiever. I am a woman built to love, nurture, support, and empower others, be they family, friends, colleagues, and even strangers—that is my heart’s capacity. A woman’s intuition knows no bounds because I can look deeper and beyond the surface.
My path in life is often jagged, uneven, and rocky, but I have risen to the challenge and taught myself to walk it with grace and resilience. I know how to be strong despite my weaknesses. My physical limitations may make me seem weak. I most often wear my emotions on my sleeve, and this may make me seem overly sensitive. Over the years, I have accumulated more responsibilities than I ever imagined that I could handle, so I may frequently look tired.
Regardless of these limitations, responsibilities, and perceived weaknesses, I am a woman who remains empowered, strong, resourceful, and compassionate. I will always work towards being whoever and whatever I choose to be.
I am accomplished at multitasking. The pressure that I face to be a well-educated woman, a career-driven person, a perfectly groomed lady, a good daughter, an obedient and subservient wife, a loving and patient mother, a compassionate friend, an interesting and fun-loving companion, and a nurturer (and the list goes on) is immense and constant. But I am a woman, so I understand that I cannot accomplish everything to perfection in every facet of my life. I simply endeavor to carry out my tasks to the best of my ability.
To be a woman is to be everything all at the same time. Being a woman is a tremendously complex job. But I am a woman who has proved that I have the spirit to reach beyond my limitations, to overcome my obstacles and to take care of my responsibilities. Through the years, as I have progressed from girlhood to womanhood, I have learned that I am perfect in my own imperfect way.
I am not a superhuman; I am just a human. My mind, body, and soul are not made of steel, nor am I always picture perfect. Ultimately, I know that I am flawed, but I choose to be perfect in my own imperfections. I am a woman who has stumbled, fallen, laid down, closed my eyes, sighed, rolled over, then gotten up and continued with my life because I had to and because I wanted to.
I am Woman, I am pain, I am hurt, I am anger, I am sadness, I am forgiveness, I am love, I am compassion, I am strength, I am bravery, I am determination, I am beauty, and I am enough.
Does your house seem smaller since the pandemic started? Many families feel more cramped with 2 adults working at home, especially if you need to share your workspace with your partner. This may be the first time you’ve seen their work habits up close or counted how many dirty coffee cups they leave behind in […]
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As a health-conscious person, I always worried about keeping my dad’s diabetes score under control, especially during this Covid-19 pandemic. It had become very challenging for me to keep my dad safe. You might be thinking, why I was so critical during this pandemic. I would love to answer it first before I let you know the steps I implemented to manage the diabetes of my dad during Covid-19.
Why I was so critical about Diabetes during Covid-19?
The covid-19 virus is still spreading, and we note cases every day. Since diabetes is somewhere linked to Covid-19, it had become so critical for me.
Additionally, Covid-19 has disrupted the normal lifestyle, and we are continuously sitting at home and working. We are prone to less physical activity, and it might lead to an increase in the sugar levels in the blood.
Overall, I have listed why managing diabetes was difficult for me during Covid-19 below.
All these reasons were influencing me to get freaked out during pandemic. Now let us understand why managing diabetes is an important activity for someone like me during the pandemic.
Why is there an urgent need to manage diabetes during Covid-19?
The pandemic has not been a great time to manage diabetes. Many surveys have noted that diabetic patients are more prone to suffer from Covid-19. The major reason is that our body loses immunity due to diabetes. Thus, our body is not comfortable fighting the Covid-19 virus.
As a result, it was a major task to find ground rules that keep my dad away from contracting the Covid-19 virus and managing diabetes simultaneously.
How to manage Diabetes during Covid-19?
First of all, if you want to manage diabetes during the pandemic, you need to be proactive.
Challenges I faced while working on the above measures with my dad.
If anyone had looked at me during the early days of the pandemic, each one of them might have judged me as a nutritionist/doctor as I was taking care of my dad with respect to his food and activities. Though it was for my benefit, there were a lot of challenges that I came across during the early stages of the pandemic. (Note: Later on, it became a habit!)
There were several other challenges in the list, but I remember only these many.
Though it was challenging, I loved it. You know, I kept reading several books, newspaper articles, and blogs to find the improved and best version of keeping the diabetic patients safe from Covid-19. One such blog was ‘Managing Diabetes during the Pandemic’, published on Our New Earth.
I am thankful to all those writers who helped me stay aware of the latest techniques to manage diabetes during Covid-19.
My name is Dharmil Shah. I am a freelance content writer from Mumbai (India). I love creating engaging and informative content for my readers. I am fond of reading books, playing cricket & table tennis, and watching series.
The post How to Become a Pro in Managing Diabetes during Covid-19? appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates
Close your eyes and imagine sitting in a small and narrow cell. It is completely dark and there are no windows from which even a speck of light could illuminate it. You have been trapped here for quite some time now and can feel the walls closing in day after day. Despondent, with no hope of finding the key to unlatch the door and set yourself free, you resign yourself to the idea that these are your circumstances and that this is where you belong. You have forgotten what it feels like to rise each morning to greet the sun, smell the scent of coffee brewing in the kitchen, or hear the pleasant sound of birds singing softly in the trees. This, dear reader, is your mind when immersed in negative thoughts, the perils and pitfalls of an unexamined set of core beliefs sabotage growth and limit success as well as erode potential for long-term happiness.
Because you are solely responsible for manifesting your goals, it is important to question your beliefs on a regular basis, as doing so allows space for you to clear the clutter that may subconsciously be holding you back from achieving what it is you desire. The beliefs that you must examine, more often than not, are the ones you hold about yourself. When you believe you are incapable or unworthy, you effectively set yourself up for failure, albeit unconsciously, due to stories you have created about who you are, what you can do and what it is you do or don’t deserve to have. Failure then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and self-criticism ensues. Self-sabotage is like a tantalizing cocktail, however toxic, and self-hatred, its loyal bystander, runs through your veins like poison. No longer are you free to see yourself, your life, or your highest potential clearly. You are intoxicated by destructive habits that bypass any chances of finding happiness.
Past experience has taught me that without changing my own belief patterns for the better, I was doomed to general unhappiness. I had to recognize within me a deeply ingrained thought pattern programmed during my earliest childhood years. I believed that, due to having ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), I was not enough. Because I had this core belief, I failed to take advantage of certain opportunities that would enhance the quality of my life. “Not enough” soon morphed into the belief that I was not smart or capable enough, and soon thereafter, my attitudes and behaviors revealed this limited perception I had. You cannot pour from an empty cup and you also can’t effectively handle life’s inevitable ups and downs and put forth positive sustained effort toward your goals if you’re running on faulty programming in your head.
Here are four ways you can change your beliefs to suit your purposes and achieve the happiness you deserve:
Triggers are things that remind you of something that hurt or upset you in the past. You may not be able to recall these events, but they continue to haunt you in one way or another. Your feelings toward the situations or people who trigger you can actually serve to help you identify any underlying thought patterns that accompany them.
Feelings can only be as comfortable as the quality of your thoughts, because thoughts exist before the corresponding set of emotions that follow them. Your feelings show you how positive or negative your thought patterns are. For example, if and when you feel sad or angry, you can take the time to really tune in to your thoughts and recognize which ones in particular may be sabotaging your happiness in that immediate moment. Then, you can ask yourself whether or not these thoughts are always or necessarily true.
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Similarly, positive thoughts produce emotions that propel you toward actions that are proactive and usually lead to a more rewarding outcome. For example, imagine you are a kid sitting alone in a lunchroom in a brand-new school and haven’t yet made any new friends. If you think you are likeable, you will feel good about yourself and therefore confident in your ability to meet new people and make a positive impression on them. You will then most likely feel more inclined to reach out and introduce yourself to other kids, sit down next to them, and talk to them with ease. When you recognize a negative belief underlying a thought, you can actively work on changing that belief to a healthier one that will help you achieve your goals. Instead of thinking to yourself, “Other people find me boring,” you can reprogram yourself to think, “The people who appreciate me for who I am truly value me and are the only people worthy of my time and attention.” This is called cognitive reframing.
You become who you think you are. The more you practice a skill, the easier it becomes to master. Learning something new builds new neural pathways in the brain. In a similar vein, when you repeatedly reinforce a thought pattern, it becomes like an old tape recording you play in your subconscious mind whenever something or someone triggers it. Daily positive affirmations help you rewire your mind and alter your neurochemicals. Thinking positively about yourself becomes more automatic with time and effort.
It is never too late to change your thinking and beliefs about yourself. Only when you question those beliefs can you set yourself free, experience more contentment, and bask in the glory and wonder of what your life has to offer you. When this happens, the sun will shine and the path ahead of you will be as clear as day. A new dawn will come. So, give yourself the time, dear reader, to recognize and change your thought patterns for the better. You are more than worth the effort it takes!
I, like so many other millennials, spent my entire childhood and young adult life achieving the things and following “The Path” to success without ever questioning what success meant.
You see, growing up in a middle-class suburban family, there were no questions. I would go to school and partake in clubs, where I would please my teachers and coaches so I could go to college, where I would then please my professors so I could intern in a fancy office and get a job in a high-paying, prominent company in a big city. This was ‘The Path’.
So whenever I’d wake up and feel unsettled or a bit off, there was always a new perfect thing to set my sights on in order to fix the feeling. It was my grades, my appearance, my job, my position—the list goes on. Something was always at fault for why I felt off, and therefore there was something I always just needed to work a bit harder at in order to fix that feeling. I full-heartedly believed that the feeling was a result of not following The Path close enough. I’d work harder and harder, achieving and achieving more, all the while distracting myself from the root of the problem.
Once I learned that this feeling that left me so unsettled wasn’t going to be subsided through achievement, I quite simply had an existential, quarter-life crisis. We throw this term around as a joke, referring to too many nights out drinking, hating our job, and not knowing what we want to do with our lives. We sit with our roommates and joke about how “We are FINE. It is FINE. It is all FINE,” as we sigh, laugh, then plop on the couch, acting as if the habitual mini-vent session that just occurred is going to fix all the feelings inside of us.
This normalization of pushing through “fine” and keeping your eye on The Path is exactly what ended me in a multi-year downward spiral where my entire being came into question. The harder I fought, the worse it got. And every time I got close to acceptance, there was another person or societal message telling me that this was all normal, nothing to be worried about, just keep following The Path.
This message was the most dangerous of all. What I learned through this is that no matter how many people experience the “fine” dilemma, we cannot keep normalizing it just to keep people confined to The Path.
Why? Because behind every “fine” there is a dark, fiery pit full of unfelt feelings and disregarded desires that we’ve buried so far below the surface we don’t even know they are there. We’ve been conditioned to be so narrow minded about The Path that our awareness for something as simple as our likes and dislikes has been hidden away. We’ve become the robotic, cookie-cutter, dulled-down versions of the people we were truly meant to be.
So every time we say we are “fine” and that our job is “tolerable” and “stable” and we should be “grateful” for the life we live, we are not wrong. Our lives are all those things. But our lives can also be more than those things if we can accept the scary truth that we don’t know who we are or what we want outside of what society has conditioned us into.
We can be grateful for what we have, knowing it could always be worse, and at the same time know that we are each valuable and worthy of living a life in alignment with who we really are no matter how far off The Path that is. And in order to step into that life, we need to learn to sit with ourselves, our feelings, and our thoughts. We need to learn to separate ourselves from the identity we’ve already created, and be honest with ourselves about what is going on.
But this kind of work is hard. It takes more honesty and perseverance than anything else because no one will understand it except for yourself. And the more judgements and opinions are passed from those around you, the harder it becomes to continue to pave your own path.
This is why the quarter-life crisis needs to be taken more seriously. We need people to now “normalize” trying to find themselves when their so-called Path has already been chosen. Because the more we normalize learning about ourselves, our dreams, and our desires a quarter-way into our life, the more we can release a generation who has been conditioned to believe that this is all there is, and start building a world full of passionate, loving souls.
I did a round up of all the Energy Vampires in my life years ago when I got serious about healing. I realized my neck was available to too many hungry little suckers.
I had grown up believing that I was only valuable if I was giving myself away. My worth hinged on making other people feel good—my feelings and needs were secondary.
This kind of conditioning is nothing new in our culture, especially for girls, and it’s something all of us in the helping industries have to keep a close eye on. The desire to be of service needs to come from the soul, not the wound/ego, and it can never be a surrogate for our own self-love.
When you lay a boundary down with an Energy Vampire, they tend to freak out and slime you. You’re suddenly “mean”, “cruel”, “selfish”, “unloving”, “withholding”. These are not truths about you. They are projections and tantrums from the person who is struggling to accept the transition from all-you-can-eat-buffet to a thoughtfully portioned meal plan.
As is true with all transformations, if we take the surface level of the experience as the whole truth, we will stop short and fail to cross the threshold into new terrain. We are challenged, when we dedicate ourselves to changing, to go deeper than the initial feelings. They are like ripples on the top of the lake. There is something more, something wiser further down.
The truth is, it may indeed feel mean when we first start working with boundaries in our relationships. Our work is to go beyond the discomfort of these feelings and to remember that they will have a particular hold on us if we weren’t raised thinking of ourselves as people who are allowed to ask for space or dictate the terms of our own lives.
There is a paradox here: Our feelings, while sacred signposts in our lives, don’t always tell us the whole truth.
My meditation teacher used to say, “Remember to remember!” This is a bit of a riddle, but it’s not an impossible one. We can remember, in the midst of big changes, that we are allowed to TRUST ourselves to know the difference between our own true feelings vs. the stuff someone else is projecting onto us. Just because they’re laying it down doesn’t mean we have to pick it up.
If you’re practicing boundary work for the first time, be gentle with yourself and know that you are precious. The odds of being born are around 1 in 400 trillion. You have the right to regard yourself as rare and sacred and to protect your energy intentionally.
There’s a secret black hole in my house that sucks all the good pens and separated halves of sock pairs. Maybe there’s one in yours, too?
When we die and cross the threshold into our next incarnation, I think we’ll be handed back a pail of these things. The same way my favorite store in the East Village used to insist that we check our bags while shopping and then turn in our ticket on the way out to retrieve them.
Given all of this, I’ve been keeping an eye on my favorite black pen very thoughtfully and have been mindful to put it back in my desk drawer at the end of a day when I’m finished working to make sure it will be there when I reach for it the next day.
Isn’t it interesting how we make certain things precious and then create scarcity around them?
Jennifer Senior wrote a whole book on this topic as it pertains to parenting called All Joy And No Fun. The idea is that with each generation, our children are becoming more precious, and as we perceive them as more and more precious, we are more protective over them and more likely to make ourselves completely miserable by trying to executive produce amazing days for them on a regular basis, keep their little bubbles intact, and make them happy.
Happiness, Senior argues, is an impossible metric.
This morning, a funny thing happened. I opened a different drawer in my office, the one I don’t open very often. The one that has all the boring stuff like paper for my printer and pads of post it notes. Lo and behold, to my astonishment, there was a whole package of my favorite pens waiting there. I’d forgotten that I’d bought them.
The metaphor was screaming into my face asking to be written. How many of us are walking around in our perceived scarcity when there are drawers of abundance within ourselves we haven’t even opened yet?
The issue, friends, is not that we don’t have what we need. The issue is that we don’t realize that we have what we need. We are living out of one drawer, holding onto one precious object at a time thinking, “This is it!”
In Buddhism, there is a parable about looking at the night sky through a straw. When we learn how to drop the straw, the scarce perspective, we can see the whole majestic show.
What we know is not all there is to know.
Embracing this is the first step toward living in real abundance and a joy that runs deeper than superficial, fleeting happiness. A joy that is reliable and available to each of us as we adjust our thinking accordingly in order to receive it.
Perhaps nothing is more humbling, nothing reminds you more of your humanity, than heartbreak.
For in many ways, heartbreak is death— death of the person you were when you were with them. Death of the future you could have had together. Death of the container the relationship was built in and all the beautiful, twisted connections it housed.
But there, in the darkest depths of your heart, in the tears that stain your cheeks, in the dullness of your present day, in your bathroom floor rock bottom, in the empty side of the bed, in the absence of a good morning text, in the void that they’ve left in their wake, you find you, and you are very much alive.
Heartbreak is not the breaking of your heart. It is evidence that it is firing on all cylinders. Your heart aches, heavy in your chest, numbing the rest of your body, yet it doesn’t break. It was built to endure.
No matter how many times your mind replays the last conversation, the first conversation, the first kiss, the last kiss; no matter how many times it reminds you of all the reasons you needed to leave and yet tries to convince you to keep fighting; no matter how much your mind tries to tell you to go back, your heart keeps beating because it knows the only way is forward.
Follow your heart forward. Take with you all the scars it’s endured, and paint them with gold. Your heart aches now, but someday it won’t. That day is not today, but it is on its way. Little by little, you go on. Never forgetting, never regretting, forever adorned with your heart of gold that serves as evidence that you’ve lived fully, you loved unconditionally, and you are stronger than ever before.
*trigger warning: sexual assault, PTSD*
No one really told me how often I will think of his face, even long after it happens.
His hands and the tightness of his fingers curling around my trembling thighs. My dry mouth and closing throat. How, years later, whenever someone touches me, a part of me believes it’s the Devil again, finding a dirty way to devour me.
No one really told me how hard it is to navigate intimacy when I have trauma sitting heavy on my chest like the Devil on my shoulder.
I believe there’s a difference between sex therapy and using sex as a means of therapy, but whatever it is, I’m still learning how to heal. I’m still learning how to come to terms with the fact that crying after sex isn’t the prettiest thing I’ve done, but that’s okay, and letting someone in is a means of coping, and that’s okay too.
No one really told me what it’s like to look in the mirror and see my body as a cathedral.
How badly I want to be good and holy and open. How badly I want to believe that maybe if I wait long enough and pray a little harder, someone will finally get punished for their sins. Maybe I won’t have to feel this anymore.
When someone news comes along and touches me where it happened, all I can think about is bodywork, a healing practice for recovery, for undigested trauma. There’s a connection between the mind and the body: our brain remembers moments we want to forget and forgets details we need to remember in order to heal.
Some days are harder than others. I find myself breaking down into full sobs–body shaking, face aching, tears streaming down my face. I can’t stop thinking about the agony of sex, being both a heavy burden and a means of coping.
I know that recovery is far from easy.
I know that each day is a moment of healing.
I know that one day, I won’t feel like this anymore.
Every day, I am learning to be kinder to my body, but pushing it out of my comfort zone. I am learning to forgive myself for how often I cry. I am letting myself feel what I feel. I am learning to feel comfortable in my body with someone else’s. I need to remind myself You’re okay. You’re safe. Trauma is a heavy burden. You’re healing.
You’re strong, even though you keep breaking down in tears. There’s nothing wrong with releasing the emotions that have been eating away at you. You have to retrain yourself to recognize that feeling isn’t a bad thing. It doesn’t make you weak. You don’t have to run from your emotions. It takes strength to confront them, to admit you aren’t actually okay and need to work towards healing.
You’re strong, even though it might feel like you’re falling behind, like you should be further ahead by now. It’s natural to feel like the people around you have their lives one-hundred percent together while you’re still trying to figure basic things out. However, you need to remember you’re only seeing bits and pieces of their world. You’re only witnessing the parts they’re willing to show you. Even your closest friends and family members might be hiding their worst moments from you. You’re not as alone as you’ve convinced yourself. You’re not the only one who feels this sting of pain.
You’re strong, even though there are days when you can’t bring yourself to climb out of bed, to shower, to brush your hair, to smile. Sometimes, the ‘simple’ activities most people take for granted can feel like mountains you aren’t sure whether you can conquer. Instead of beating yourself up about how much trouble you’re having with the small things, you should be proud of yourself for whatever you can manage. Maybe you can only handle a little today, but who knows what tomorrow could bring? Go easier on yourself. Stop treating yourself like a punching bag. You’re not stupid or lazy or weak. You’re going through a lot right now.
You’re strong, even though you’re going through a rough time right now, even though you’re unsure how to cope with the emotions swarming through your head. You might not have the answers right now, but you’re going to figure this out. You have time. You need to breathe. You need to focus. You need to remember everything is going to be okay. You need to trust yourself. You need to be gentle with yourself. You need to believe you have this handled. Maybe not today. But eventually.
You’re strong, even though you’re struggling. The world isn’t always fair. Life isn’t always going to be easy. You aren’t always going to be comfortable. There are bound to be bumps throughout your journey. It doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong. It simply means you’re human. But you are going to get through this. You are going to push through these rough times and make it to the good ones.
You’re strong, even though there are moments when you’re convinced you’re weak.
You’re loved, even though there are moments when you’re convinced you’re unlovable.
You’re going to accomplish great things, even though there are moments when you’re convinced you’re a failure or that your best days are behind you.
Remember, what your brain is telling your right now might be a lie. You can’t believe the worst thoughts you have about yourself, but you should start believing the best. 
When you dare to peel back your own layers and pursue the unblinking desires of your soul, something magical happens: A seal is broken on the doors that had been latched shut and new paths emerge, almost as if Moses himself is parting the sea for you. Likewise, when you disregard these burning passions, you may find yourself trapped in a labyrinth of never-ending ruts. It’s easy to get sidetracked by the voices of our elders, society, and anyone else who feels they have a worthy opinion, but sometimes a simple change in perspective can help us reassess what we were put on this planet to do and why.
I believe with every molecule in my body that we are all meant to live a life of unbridled contentment. I also believe that we can only do this if we filter out the useless chatter in our minds and really listen to what our hearts are telling us. By moving so fast in our everyday lives, we unwittingly block the channel used to communicate these messages. As a friend of mine recently taught me after one of her all-powerful healing sessions, the best way to unblock this channel is through meditation.
Meditation is not a new phenomenon, and many studies support its ability to manage stress, reduce negative emotions, boost immunity, become more present, and increase self-awareness. I had already been practicing the ritual every morning with guided recordings, but it wasn’t until my friend suggested practicing in silence that I found the sort of clarity I assumed was only possible after attending one of those week-long vipassana retreats. Instrumental music can be effective too, as long as there are no external voices interfering with the natural stream of thoughts. The point of this type of meditation is to remain unguarded without trying to force a particular result. After following all this, I was able to delve much deeper than I ever anticipated. I was able to minimize all distractions and focus on one gut instinct, one calling, one truth.
Since the start of the pandemic, people have been feeling lost. The great thing about feeling lost is being able to reset and then find yourself again. Perhaps meditation is the way we’ll unmask our true selves. Perhaps it will help us navigate life and find the courage to embark on a new journey, one that better aligns with who we are.
The moment we align with our purpose, the universe has no choice but to gift us confidence, opportunity, and flow.
Have you ever noticed the succession of door slams that occurred when you were chasing after something that you knew deep down was wrong for you? Then miraculously you might have changed course and the doors flung open like they were welcoming you as a long-awaited guest? These aren’t accidents. Pay attention to these signs.
If you’re on the right path, it can almost feel like someone coated you in butter and you’re gliding through life. Opportunities find you without you having to hunt for them. Decisions become easy and you twinkle from the afterglow that often comes from obeying the commands of our hearts. There will still be challenges, but they will be manageable. You won’t find yourself stuck in a crossfire of impossible hurdles like you would if you were headed on a road to nowhere.
We need to dismantle these beliefs that state that all we desire is beyond our reach. We’re never as far away as we think. We merely take detours.
All we really need to do is learn to trust that innate wisdom. We need to trust it when it shouts at our incapacity to recognize a wrong turn. We need to trust it when it pushes us to leave the cozy corners of familiarity and take that leap of faith. Otherwise, we risk plastering the doors of destiny shut and never knowing the real reason behind our existence.
1. You always have the ability to move if where you’re at doesn’t feel good.
2. Saying “no” is your personal right.
3. Happiness and freedom often don’t live in the same spot that comfort and familiarity do.
4. The grass is greener where you water it.
5. Love is supposed to make you expand, not make you feel small.
6. On the other side of growing pain is radiant opportunity and doors waiting to be opened.
7. You are allowed to change your mind as many times as you need to.
8. Sometimes you have to make the wrong choice to know what the right one is.
9. You are not obligated to stay on the same path forever.
10. The plan in your head oftentimes isn’t the one that actually plays out (and that’s okay).
11. Sometimes the end result looks the way you want it to, but the way you get there is different—be open.
12. You aren’t a failure just because something didn’t work out—sometimes that redirection IS it working out.
13. Just because you can’t see it yet doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen.
14. Thoughts become things, so envision everything you need and want like it’s just a matter of time until you see it right in front of you with your own eyes.
15. You’re always just one minute away from something happening that will influence or change your whole reality. All it takes is a minute.
16. If you do something for yourself or something that you enjoy at least once a day, your days will feel less hard.
17. Where you are right now will not be where you’re at in five years.
18. Forgive yourself so that you can forgive others and forgive others so that you can forgive yourself. All this does is set you free.
19. Boundaries are the thing that will keep you safe and make your world look how you want it to.
20. Sometimes you have to accept things the way they are in order for them to evolve to how you want them to be.
21. Rejection will always be your greatest form of redirection. Trust it.
22. Life still moves even when you refuse to. Dare to keep going.
What do you think when you hear the word ‘baggage’? Chances are that, if you aren’t waiting in the security check line at the airport, the term causes a feeling of discomfort. This could be for any number of reasons. Perhaps you have a close friend or family member with emotional baggage that impacts them negatively or has detrimental effects on those around them. Perhaps it’s because you are aware of your own emotional baggage, but you either haven’t addressed it yet or aren’t sure where to start.
This is largely because the term ‘emotional baggage’ is stigmatized. It is often used to describe the negative effects it has on us rather than what caused the ‘baggage’ - the root of the problem - in the first place. Oftentimes, addressing the root problem of the baggage itself is equally stigmatized because in acknowledging our ‘baggage’ we admit to ourselves that, to some extent, our cognition or cognitive function is in need of repair.
Acknowledging emotional baggage can be frightening, but refusing to do so can cause extremely negative effects on our cognition and cognitive functioning. The ‘baggage’ itself is a collection of problems that have collected and left to fester in our minds because we have not found or developed ways to cope with stressors. Whether caused by anxiety, grief, finances, relationships, or other factors, emotional baggage causes us to be mentally destructive rather than constructive.
Emotional Baggage on Decision-Making
The process of decision-making is often ruled by our feelings on the decision itself, rather than sheer intellect. This leads us to often make decisions based on emotion, or how we ‘feel’ about the potential outcome of the decisions we make. While ruling out emotion from this process can potentially provide a more ‘objective’ outcome, eschewing emotion or feelings from decision-making can quickly lead to either making a short-sighted decision or ‘analysis paralysis’. In fact, people with emotional baggage often don’t even realize when they make these ‘objective’ decisions, rather than allowing their emotions to help direct their decision-making process. This is because the emotions and feelings of those people are clouded by the lingering problems their baggage causes them.
When we allow ourselves to step back and listen to what our emotions tell us during the decision-making process, we not only listen to the part of our brain that tells us how important a decision and its outcome can be, but we also begin to acknowledge our emotions themselves. In doing so, we can begin to pick apart both what we are feeling emotionally, and why.
By refusing to acknowledge our emotions - particularly the ones that cause certain limitations in the subconscious mind and keep us away from our true potential’ - we keep ourselves trapped in a self-sabotaging cycle.
Emotional Baggage on Problem-Solving
Carrying around our emotional baggage frequently causes us to build up invisible barriers all around us. Because of the problems in our past that formed the baggage itself, we tell ourselves that those past problems form who we are: our habits, our behavior, and even our way of thinking and acting. In doing so, we subconsciously trick ourselves into thinking that we are the victim of our own story, rather than the hero. This, in turn, causes new problems that arise in our lives to seem much more daunting than they truly are, and because we have not yet learned how to properly deal with our own emotions or feelings, we feel unadept to address these new problems as well.
In her book “Worried Sick: Break Free From Chronic Worry to Achieve Mental & Physical Health”, author Karol Ward, LCSW, describes mental or emotional baggage as “the tendency to ruminate or think negatively about past or current issues that have not been resolved”. She goes on to say how those with emotional baggage often manifest the baggage physically in tight muscles, stomach pains, or headaches. According to Ward, this is because carrying around emotional baggage is in many ways similar to carrying a weighted bag full of our problems around with us in our daily lives.
This can present us with a “Catch-22” situation: our baggage itself is a collection of past problems we have encountered but have yet to properly address and work past, but the baggage itself also inhibits our ability to address and solve problems constructively.
Other Ways Emotional Baggage Can Affect Our Function
The above examples are only two examples of ways in which carrying our emotional baggage around with us can impede our cognition or cognitive function. Here are a handful of other ways emotional baggage can manifest and/or impede us:
Healing Using The “Emotion Code”
However your emotional baggage manifests or impacts your life, it is important to remember that your emotions and the feelings tied to them are valid. It is equally important to remind yourself that just because those emotions and feelings are a part of you, they do not necessarily define who you are. Acknowledging our baggage is the first step towards conscious self-improvement, but the process of addressing and healing through that baggage is different for everyone. By allowing yourself to identify emotions and feelings attached to your emotional baggage, you can begin transforming your self-deprecating beliefs into feelings of self-empowerment.
One such tool is a two-fold practice, referred to as “The Emotion Code and Body Code”, the latest innovation in bio-energetic healing developed by Dr. Bradley Nelson. Dr. Nelson’s books by the same highlight the finer workings of the unconscious mind and its relationship to the impact that emotionally-charged events in our lives have on our mind, body, habits, actions, cognition, and more. Dr. Nelson’s approach to bio-energetic healing has been adopted by hundreds of healing practitioners the world over, including Aisha Ahmed of Ontario, Canada.
Aisha Ahmed, Emotion Code Practitioner
Having adopted Dr. Nelson’s methods in 2017, Ahmed began utilizing Dr. Nelson’s “Emotion Code” to help others after suffering several losses in her personal life. The grief and pain of her own traumas and loss sparked Ahmed to begin her own self-healing journey, and after enduring debilitating back pain after having her first child, Ahmed began utilizing Dr. Nelson’s Emotion Code to release her emotional baggage and free herself from the pain and suffering so that she can fulfil her mission to help others .
“I believe my purpose is to help others step into freedom and fulfillment,” Ahmed says on her website, “so they can get out of their own way to serve from their highest self.” Since adopting various subconscious reprogramming healing tools, Ahmed has gone on to help dozens of others heal their lifelong emotional baggage by tapping into and connecting with their subconscious mind. Ahmed’s personal and professional success in utilizing the healing tools from Dr. Nelson’s “The Emotion Code and Body Code” has helped her so much, in fact, that she now offers one on one sessions to clients all over the world and also does free live healings through her Instagram account for her followers to experience.
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