How to Expand Daylight in Your Mind
How to Expand Daylight in Your Mind
This week we will explore 3 “serpents” (thought forms that slither into your inner dialogue and trash your interior world) that create stress and anxiety on a daily bases and how to replace them by SHIFTING your attention to a positive state of being:
- Fear: This serpent feeds on 3 main thoughts: I’m not OK, I can’t handle the situation or I might die (in my case with advanced cancer it was the fear of a physical death, in most cases it is the fear around dying to your EGO…I won’t measure up, I’m not good enough, capable enough etc).
- Self-doubt: Lack of confidence in the reliability of one’s own motives, personality, thoughts, ideas, feedback, position, capabilities, looks, input. You name it, self-doubt is subjective to ones own inner critic.
- Worry: to give way to anxiety or unease; allow one’s mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles. Anxietyisa feeling of nervousness or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Anxiety walks through the archway of worry and will crash your party when you have attached a certain outcome to your worth, value and capability. It will show up uninvited when you give more authority to your circumstance than to your ability to handle it successfully.
By moving your clock forward one hour, you instantly spring into longer days, more light and less darkness.
What if you do a little spring cleaning of your minds to make room for more light, positive thinking?
First intentionally shine the light of your awareness around thoughts that are fueled by fear, self-doubt and worry. These type of thoughts throw a dark cloak of limitation around what you believe is possible.
You can’t shift into a positive think space until you first identity when the unwanted thought shows up.
Meta-cognition is thinking about thinking. This week observe when, where and with whom the negative thoughts pop up. Look for patterns.
Next, explore your desired state of thinking.
Your behavior flows from your thought life. “For as a man thinks in his heart, so he is.” Proverbs 23:7″
What if this next week you shifted from fear, self-doubt and worry into trust, curiosity and reassurance?
Action Call:
Shift your attention from fear to TRUST.
Shift your attention from self-doubt to CURIOSITY.
Shift your attention from worry to REASSURANCE.
Clarity of focus leads to accuracy of response.
In SHIFT Leadership Training we focus on where you are when it comes to a “lights off” thought and behavior (problem focused) and then SHIFT your attention to the desired “lights on” (solution focused) thought and behavior.
In Sherpa Process Driven Executive Coaching we use a powerful tool called Weakness Mountain where you first Acknowledge the behavior you want to change => Observe the behavior showing up in your life => Change the behavior by flipping in a positive behavior over the undesirable behavior => Evaluate the effectiveness of the new change behavior along with the ramifications.
Reflect on your past experience when you have experienced trust, curiosity and reassurance:
- Trust: when have you experienced a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something? Think back over the last two weeks and pull up a clip from your life when you experienced trust. Remember what you looked like, felt like and sounded like. Next reflect on a specific behavior that resulted because of your trust and write that behavior down.
- Curiosity: when have you experienced a strong desire to know or learn something? What do you look like, feel like and sound like when you have a learners mindset? (curious, fascinated approach to situations as you seek to gain valuable information for positive growth and release the rest).
- Reassurance: when was the last time you took mental and behavioral action to remove your doubts or fears that lead to worry and anxiety? For example, a co-worker’s body language reflects a frustrated and dis-interested attitude, you make the assumption that it has to do with something you did or said. As a result of that assumption, you create a drama in your mind that results in worry and anxiety that you did something wrong…all based on “mind-reading” . What if your choice of response supported reassured thought process by implementing a behavior that offers you the clarity you seek: “Hey, I noticed earlier from your body language that you seemed a bit put off, was it something I said or did? Think of a time you made a generous assumption that resulted in reassured thinking vs. worry and anxiety from an assumption based on mind-reading and story telling.
Support Resources for Professional & Personal Excellence:
1. Sherpa Process Driven Executive Coaching
2. Faith Based Living: Edge God In: How to Tame the Tongue
3. 5 Minutes to Stress Relief: How to Release Fear, Worry and Doubt Instantly
Enjoy your gift of life,
Do you want more enthusiasm?
The etymology of the word enthusiasm: En Theos: In God
Lent is a perfect time to release the shiny objects and non-essentials and intentionally make room to deepen your relationship with God.
