Category: Body

Posted on by

Confronting fear and limiting beliefs

Imagine this..

Go on this brief thought journey with me. You just were let go from your job. Subsequently, you try to understand how and why this has happened to you. With limited information, you start to fill in the gaps with the following ideas: “I was not a great employee, so of course they let me go.” “I could have worked harder.” “I did not deserve to have this position.” “I wont ever find another role like that.” “I am not good enough to find another position”. *end thought journey*

this is part of my truth

Those exact thoughts went through my mind a few months ago. Without fully grasping the facts surrounding the shift in my role and employment, I created my own. Importantly, the thoughts were not based on feedback from a supervisor or co-worker. They were entirely my own and they were harmful to my esteem and damaging to my self-worth. As I write this, I have moved though these feelings and am upset that I allowed those thoughts to be primary. In short, I have more unlearning to do.

Fear in the body

The next time you catch yourself immersed in a limiting beliefs thought loop, see if you can tap in to your body and identify where in your body you are feeling the emotion. Is it a tightness in your chest? an awareness of your heartbeat? a dry mouth? a sudden headache? do you want to curl up into child’s pose? It may be some of those sensations or something entirely different, but tuning in and confronting the feeling is an important step. In addition, it also encourages greater physical body awareness.

As you explore the sensation, think about ways that you can honor the feeling and also return to a state of equilibrium. Find a comfortable seated position, take deep breaths, place your hands over your heart and your stomach, close your eyes and allow yourself to be in the moment. That sequence of events helps me get back to a grounded space. Feel free to give it a try!

If you can identify with this thought pattern, you may, like me, default in certain situations to limiting beliefs. You may be continually getting in your own way with negative self-talk. Thankfully, there are ways to work through this; ways to allow your love for yourself to overshadow the fear. On my youtube channel, I discuss a different example of my own limiting beliefs and part of the process for moving through the feelings. Below, is a challenge or exercise for you to do to help clear those thoughts. To use nature imagery, a way to clear the shadows or clouds of fear that are obstructing the affirming light in your life.

Clearing limiting thoughts exercise

  1. Identify a desired outcome that brings up fear, doubt, or limiting beliefs
    • Fill in the blank: I want to clear limiting beliefs and doubts around ——-.
  2. Identify two or more limiting beliefs
  3. Thank the limiting beliefs for what they teach you or how they protect you
  4. Forgive yourself for carrying the thought
  5. Give yourself permission to honor the thoughts and move past them

Want to learn more about limiting beliefs? Dr. Tomi Bryan has a great worksheet on her site that follows these steps and also goes more in-depth about what limiting beliefs are.

I’m glad my words were able to reach you. all my love

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Energy Awareness: what’s going on with your “cup”?

two friends embracing and smiling

On this journey of reconnecting with myself and my gifts, I’ve become keenly aware of ways that I share my energy; specifically, the times that I am pouring from my cup into others. Who I do it for? What times of the month I am more inclined to give of myself freely? How I share myself?

Filling my cup

I am proud of myself for this increased energy awareness and encourage you to pay attention too. I have learned that creating art, writing, dancing, reading, singing, self-play, meditation, moving and practicing/teaching yoga help me refuel. While this is a nice list of things that I enjoy, they are almost exclusively solo activities.

Don’t get me wrong, solo activities are crucial. It is important to be able to enjoy your time with yourself. I’ve become skilled in the art of masturdating. As an semi-extroverted introvert, I know that I need me time to be my best. But there is more to the story.

Pouring from an empty cup is draining. So is not allowing yourself to be poured into by others.

If you’re anything like me (regularly doing for and helping others) when do you allow yourself to be catered to, listened to or taken care of ? Who do you let in to care for you ? How does it feel to be poured into? Who do you hold space with – not just hold space for?

Story time

I recently connected with some good friends for brunch at their home. I hadn’t seen them in a long time due to the pandemic but after months of virtual games and lots of FaceTime catch ups, we were finally enjoying a meal together.

I brought drinks and fruits to contribute to the brunch. However, each time I tried to help with the preparation of the meal they told me they are taking care of it and by extension me.

Who do you hold space with – not just hold space for?

Share the give and take

This is a simple example but having friends who are intentional about caring for me and listening to me remind me that there can be balance in relationships; a shared give and take.

Relationships like this friendship remind me that I deserve to be loved, cared for and taken care of the way that I care for others. That my cup deserves to be poured into. Do you know what’s going on with your cup?

Posted on by

Keep moving

Keep moving forward.

After learning and slaying some choreography, our dance instructor asked the class what makes us happy. To my relief, she had someone on the other side of the circle answer first. I unexpectedly had a blank mind when I first heard the question and mild panic set in. Slowly ideas popped up and my thought process was as follows: there are so many things that I feel happy doing. Why can’t I think of an answer to this question? What am I happiest doing right now? What keeps me up at night and gets me up early in the morning? Once I posed these questions to myself, while listening to the other dancers, I knew my answer. Movement is what makes me happy. Movement in every possible way but my favorite types of movement are emotional, physical, mental and social.

Sometimes movement is hard

The statement “movement makes me happy” is simplistic and does not paint the full picture of my experience. The end result of engagement with various movements is generally happiness, but working through the motions and in some cases just getting started is the hard part. The past few weeks are a perfect example of the difficult feelings that go into movement for me. I’ve been feeling stuck in more ways than one and have been stagnant emotionally, mentally and physically. Because I know what it feels like to move and release emotionally, mentally and physically, I crave it. This makes feeling like I can’t move unbearable.

As I go through my day, I feel and see everything moving and growing around me but I am not moving. Rather, I feel like I am going through the motions and life has a hold over me. It is a strange sensation for me since I usually absorb energy from my environment and find it encouraging.

Movement through time

This post was written over the course of three weeks because each time I returned to writing, I felt stuck. I talked about how I was feeling with friends and my counselor but nothing would budge.

Mentally, my mind was filled with so many thoughts that I was not able to sort or move through. Each thought was taking up a large amount of mental space and seemed to big to handle. This led to me feeling anxious and stressed every day which bled into other aspects of my life. Emotionally, I was out of tune and could only identify feeling overwhelmed and tired. Physically, I was not practicing my night routines and getting poor quality sleep. I would wake up late and skip over potential morning yoga. I was not being mindful about planning meals, I ate emotionally, and I ate a lot of foods that added to me feeling awful. Socially, I bailed on plans with friends, spent time with family and friends sparingly and retreated into myself.

While feeling stuck and low is not a new experience for me, it does not make the experience any easier. I desperately wanted to feel better and to flow emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually again.

Getting re-aquatinted with movement

Mental

After allowing myself to sit in my feelings, I slowly found small ways to create movement during my day. I reintroduced meditation during my commute. Each time I tried doing a guided meditation, I would lose my focus and couldn’t still my mind. I took another approach and listened to music and chants instead. For those 8 to 40 minutes, my mind let go and would flow with the music. Each session was short lived, but it was enough for me to get a taste of joy through mental movement.

Emotional

A conversation with my sister was the catalyst for emotional movement. I explained how I felt overwhelmed and tired and she reminded me to practice gratitude in those moments. By taking time to focus on and give attention to the fact that have a family that loves me, an adorable dog that lights up my life, a job that I enjoy that challenges me, and friends and a therapist who help me grow, my volatile emotions and thoughts began to calm. I took practicing gratitude a step further and was intentionally mindful about my basic needs being met, feeling the earth beneath my feet, and listening to the sounds around me. Gratitude and mindfulness grounded me and created a path for me to attune to my emotions.  

Physical

With poor sleep hygiene in full effect, I felt lethargic and was running on fumes. Reintroducing physical movement started by taking the stairs rather than the escalator during my commute to get my blood flowing. At work, I increased my number of walks to the water cooler during the day and through the park during my lunch break. The increased blood flow didn’t always result in happiness, but it felt good. Next, I started to plan my meals again and only eat foods that I actually wanted when I felt hungry. Lastly, I found new ways and times to move physically. I tried yoga and night and starting my commute with a walk instead of driving.

Social

Having a better sense of how and what I felt made it easier to engage with family and friends. When opportunities presented themselves, I said yes and actually showed up. I eventually started to initiate plans to see and do activities with friends and showed up as my authentic self. I didn’t sugar coat or hide the difficult feelings that I felt and shared how I was working through them, when appropriate. I spent time with my goddaughter and other small kids who just have a way of making everything better.

Movement continues

As I come to the close of this post, I want to be transparent. They way I wrote about movement and the stagnation is very organized and forward moving. It is not an entirely accurate representation of my lived experience but I did my best. Moving through mental space is hard work, moving emotional and physical can be exhausting, and social movement can be draining. It is not always straightforward or following an upward trend. In all truth, it is messy.

Something that I say to friends all the time and occasionally forget is that “growth is not linear or directional. As long as you are not in the same space emotionally, socially, physically or mentally as yesterday, that is a win.” Be gentle with yourself. Allow yourself to move in any direction, not just forward.

Call to action

If you’ve been experiencing stagnation in your life and want to start moving again, take a look at this week’s challenge “movement and stagnation“