| WELLNESS COACHING |  | | SELF-TALK, ENERGY, AND RESULTS! | | Bruce Elkin | | |
| | "I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing." ~Agatha Christie
Lovely spell of sunny, almost summer weather here in Victoria, BC these days.
Welcomed by those who live by the coast, and who struggled through a long, wet, and chilly winter. Not so welcome by those fighting wild fires in the forested interior of the province.
One of those "generic skills" I was talking about last week is the capacity to notice -- and change — your own "self-talk." Self-talk is that almost continuous stream of chatter that goes on in the back of our mind all day. It can have a major effect on your mood, especially if it is full of negative judgments about you, your behavior, others and their behaviour, and the world around you.
I, for example, say to myself, "lovely weather." But, if I lived at the edge of a dried-out forest, and the sunny, hot weather was increasing the risk of wildfires, I might not think it so "lovely."
One of the main stumbling blocks I see in clients who are trying to create what matters to them is negative self-talk, combined with the habit of ruminating on those negatives — bringing them up over and over and chewing on them until they've thoroughly bummed themselves out, and drained themselves of energy for action.
Much of our day-to-day and hour-to-hour mood shifts are due to self-talk, to judgments we make without being aware of them. So, to manage your moods and better create what matters, a key step is becoming aware of what you're thinking and saying to yourself.
Learn to be aware of your negative thoughts and challenge them. Dispute sweeping generalizations such as, "I can't do this." Look for evidence to the contrary, examples of things you have done. Add "yet" to such statements. "I can't do this yet," is a very different than "I can't do it." Adding "yet" to the sentence turns it into a description of your reality, and leads to creative tension and action.
If you want to create something and say, "I can't do it," or "I can't afford it," or some other such absolute statement, it negates the energy of your desire. It stops you in your tracks, and can make you feel helpless, or even hopeless.
But if you want to create something, and say, "I can't do it, yet," or "I can't afford it yet," creative tension forms between the desire and the reality. You think, "How then should I proceed?" and suddenly, you're into action. You're doing. You're learning. The thing you want to create doesn't look so big, and your reality doesn't seem so overwhelming. This is a great way to get unstuck, on track and moving toward your goals.
So, watch your self-talk. Watch for judgments, absolute statements, and false negatives (such as "I have no money," when you actually have money, but have not allocated it to creating what you want.) By changing your self-talk, you can change your mood, generate energy, and get yourself into action. And, through action, you can often learn to create what you want without what you previously thought was absolutely necessary. That's the beauty of creating!
So, when you feel miserable or down or frightened or stalled, check your self-talk. Make a couple of adjustments, and perhaps you, too, will realize that "just to be alive is a grand thing."
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FEEDBACK FROM READERS
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Som pieces prompt more feedback from readers than others. Last week's piece on "Persistence: The Power of Pressing On" generated a good deal of feedback. Here are a couple of the more engaging pieces:
Hi Bruce,
Are you psychic or just writing about topics that touch many people lots of the time!? Either way it's a gift!
The day after your newsletter came out, I was dismissed from my job, ie two days ago. The old phrase "not a good fit" was trotted out and with very little evidence or examples. So not only am I now a job seeker but I have to be prepared to live with the mystery of not knowing where a complaint originated. I'm going to ask tomorrow if they're willing to give me some better information, but not holding my breath. If nothing comes of that, it will be time to embrace the idea that lots of things involve ambiguity and don't get completely resolved. And then move on.
So as an employment counsellor I have the advantage of at least being aware of the range of emotions that are bound to come and go (oh yeah, I've already experienced three or four doozies!) and of the things I can do to make the transition as successful as possible.
In good Creating What Matters manner I've set my goal, including the elements I want in my next job, taken stock of current reality (financial state, state my resume is in, who I know that could be either employers or have leads, who's in my general support system, state of my physical/emotional health), and have already started taking the baby steps: contacted three people who may know of opportunities, applied for EI, updated and customized my resume for two potential openings I've heard of from the three people, started a to-do list and a contact list, reminded myself what I need to continue to do healthwise, reminded myself that emotions start with thoughts, so to be aware of my thoughts. I want to look back in 6 months (or less) and say, "Wow, I'm so glad to have the job I now have."
Gad, I sound like I've got it together, eh. So thanks for your latest article! Yours in pressing on,
Rocky
Hi Bruce,
For some reason this evening I thought I would watch the entire YouTube video on Susan Boyle when she debuted on Britain's Got Talent well over a month ago.
I continued to watch and listen to all the other You Tube clips about her life and her success, and was surprised that she had an incredible recording, Cry Me a River, from 1999 for a charity event. She never lost faith in her dream to become a professional singer in spite of many setbacks. After an hour of being captivated by her talent and story I read your writing about persistence, and it made me think how her story illustrated how persistence, combined with passion, can help one achieve results beyond their wildest imagination. It truly is a heartwarming story how someone so unlikely to achieve stardom has moved so many people around the world.
Thanks for writing about "persistence." It is an important skill.
Cheers!
G. M.
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[Like others, I hope Susan Boyle recovers from the stress of "pressing on" in front of the media spotlight, and is resilient enough to bounce back from her latest setback.]
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Individual Resilience: Stress Management "Made Easy"
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Here's a very short (1:19 min) but catchy video on quick, easy things you can do to make yourself more resilient. I'm gonna take more 20 minute breaks! Check it out. It'll make you feel good just watching it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbxYeYYxbgU
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>This Weeks Quotes:
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"If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience."
~Robert Fulghum
"If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it."
~Mary Engelbreit
"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."
~M. Kathleen Casey
"Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known."
~Garrison Keillor
"When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful."
~Barbara Bloom
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How's your self-talk? Can you recognize it, challenge it, and adjust it to support your passions and purposes? If so, keep it up! If not, want some help? My Emotional Mastery ebook can help a lot! | | | Full Article... | | |
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