Do You Want To Calm Overthinking and Overwhelm?

Overuse of terms like 'gratitude' and 'mindfulness' can block the profoundly personal practice of feeling deep appreciation of all that you already are.  Doing rather than judging is the important distinction here....look past cliche and try!

Good thinking needs daily nourishment from an enriching and sustaining pot.  Just like eating, we choose what goes in to feed and grow our thought.  Nourish thoughts with positives, feed inspiring options to your best you, the once a day then on your way, impacting all you do.  

Talking with an old friend words popped out that I never thought I’d say, “Every time I meditate I have a better day”.  Meditation works!  It clears the decks and calms the choppiest of seas, and from a place of stillness you choose well, with reason and clarity. 

Excuses are the words we use to hide truth from ourselves, but simply stop them now and you will free yourself.  That our lives are ours is sometimes hard when there are parts that we don’t like, but forgive yourself, be honest, accept and do not hide.  Accept the truth that what you want will take some pushing to, drop excuses, they don’t feel good, and you’re not fooling you.

Choosing positivity does not mean blocking out all pain. It is not negative to feel! Denial is the clogging mud, and truth helps us to heal.

In distant tomorrows, what is it you’d truly want to read about your past? Think about that now, then set about the task of being as you truly want, here, today, in now.  Write the life you dream of with sweat upon your brow, as it will take effort and it will require carving words in stone…"This is who I am, and where my story’s born!"  The ink may have dried on your introduction, opening chapters and on some pages you’d like to mend, but your story is still spooling, you do not know the end.

Expectation is disappointment and anger waiting to happen.  We can control what we do but not all the results of our doing, and that’s good, because all the greatness in you is in the now of what you’re pursuing.  Put all your focus into what you can control and you care less about what to expect; your goals, your plans, your aspirations become bigger but loose and fresh.

Dissolve conflict by switching from a need to be understood to a need to understand.  Think now of someone that you’re banging up against, locking horns or standing firm…then dissolve this gridlock by changing tact from talk to listening.  Then watch as the space you’ve given them to breathe and open up, releases tension in both of you, and you made this giant step.

Hindsight is the window to what really floats your boat, so go through last year’s calendar to learn what lit you up the most. And see what depressed you, pulled the rug from underneath, then plan more of the positives and know what stuff to leave. 

Almost all of the written advice on keeping going, not giving up and persevering, relates to getting through the hard times.  But what of when you’re happy?  Do we keep on going then? Or do we down the tools that brought us there?  Too often we give up the good practices that brought us such good times, but that's when we must keep them up, so that we do not lose that shine.

If you feel stuck in your ways, it's because old habits have dug their heals in and want to stay.  It’s called homeostasis, which in essence means we physiologically don’t like change.  Equilibrium, the middle ground, is in our DNA.  But when you really want change, here’s a way to do it...make it fun!  Drop the struggle.  Pleasure is how change is programmed to go from 'dream' to 'done'.

'Giving feels good' sums up finding connection by helping others, and in a world where we are bombarded with doom it’s good to remember that you are a force for good, a tiny flame amongst the gloom.  Share that glow and the flame will burn to fire soon.  So if you can help to lift someone up to see them brighter, do it, because just by lifting them you’ll feel a whole lot lighter. 

Plant the seed of happiness by changing just your daily habits, the little things you do.  You don’t have to notice the change but the change for sure will come, with one small habit formed today, just do it, there, it’s done.  This is how you blossom, by making good choices a daily habit.  Choose well, choose who you want to be. Then just do today and you'll have it.

You can use envy positively as a guide to what you truly desire.  Jealously is best avoided and certainly not dwelt upon but a flash of envy can be used as guide to what you truly want of yourself and then you can act on this.  It's most likely that you do not envy those who are not who you'd like to be, so look closely at what you envy and ask, "Is that what I want of me?"

Triggered trip switches of what you do when scared can often harm you more than what you feared. When you wake up and notice this you can change how you react, cope by doing something postive and you will grow with that.

The resistance to change is often the problem and not the change itself. If we change how we see things first, we find that all will be well. But what if we saw these changes as potential to insert and apply new found ways, to lean into the shift, embrace a new chapter and blossom in these autumnal days?

You have the profoundly human freedom of personal responsibility, response ability, your ability to respond. It’s not what life throws at us but how we then react that carves our lives in our character and the life we build from that.

Providence helps those who help themselves and the more you practice the luckier you get. The upward spiral, the thoughts become things , the gold coloured spectacles of preference for the positive, the confirmation bias of tuning into the beauty and wonder of this life, well lived.  Make the changes you want to be! 

Lift the lid on what is holding us back from doing, being and becoming all that we can evolve to be and we find.. FEAR!  Fear of failing, fear of leaving, fear of what people think, fear of poverty, fear of loneliness, fear of not being all that we want to be, not being enough.  Push past fear, one fear at a time and you become more free. Your one life is today and you’re already free, it’s just how free do you want to be?

Let your goals be big ones but get your satisfaction from one day well done.  If your eyes are too far ahead on the prize, today’s passion remains unstirred. But when you see the goal as the sum of your best today, repeated, your engine is fired up.  Break down your actions into manageable chunks of 'I will do this today', but also break down satisfaction, one day well done is the sweetest of pay. 

Our ideas need acted on, not thought out beyond a doubt.  It’s acting on a vital spark that brings your greatness out.  Failing isn’t failing, it’s the tool of victory, the try, try and try again of bringing thoughts into reality.  Get ideas out into reality, in all their wondrous, faulty form.  Set to failing and failing again, and let this be your norm.

Too often we blame distractions for keeping us from what we are avoiding. Scape goats appear to block our path to take the blame for our avoidance, noise, children, parents, phone calls and anywhere else we can find annoyance. 'Where we are' is not about the room that we work in, it’s where we are inside ourselves that all the work begins. If you want something done, do not wait for when it’s right. Grab the heart of A to B, and do that with all your might.

Do you want to change your life?  Change your morning.  Transform the little things you do each day, your daily best is habit forming.  If you change your morning choices your cards fall into place. You are what you decide to be, your morning habits change your days, and your days become your years.  So do you want to change your life? Change one tiny little habit in tomorrow’s morning light.