24/12/2020
This image really speaks to to me so I thought I would share it.
Things feel like they’re changing seemingly overnight. Cases are down, cases are up. Schools are closed, schools are open. 🤦🏻♀️
Work from home? What is the best thing to do for me? My family? Is it too late to run away to a tropical island until the world normalizes? Will the world ever be normal again?
When we are in this place of upside-downness and complete inconsistency, HOW on earth are we supposed to make decisions and take action from a place of anything BUT worry and anxiety??!! 🤷🏻♀️
Finding a sense of calm and turning off the anxiety voice that is screaming inside our heads may sound impossible, but I can assure you that it is NOT. It DOES take effort and some level of commitment and practice, but we CAN teach our brains to quiet down, to stop the overthinking (and nagging and worry and panic and what-ifs and so-on and so-on).
Think of the brain as a muscle. When people want to tone up, they weight-train multiple times a week. Less than that and they won’t see results. 🧠 💪🏻
The more we work on exercising the brain, teaching it over and over to be calm and relaxed, quiet the overthinking, which will slow the heart rate and deepen the breathe, etc, the more calm we feel.
The more we do this, the more we create new neuro-pathways in the brain that eventually become our go-to thoughts and feelings. It’s creating new good habits for our minds.
The more we can live in a state of parasympathetic nervous system (“rest and digest”), the more calm we will be. Imagine being able to go with the flow, taking things as they come, NOT ruminating over anxiety producing thoughts, and having a sense of knowing that you’re OK. ☺️
Does that mean that you’ll never feel anxiety again? No. But that does mean that YOU will be more in control of your thinking and when something triggering comes your way, it won’t derail you because YOU’RE in control.
Some things that can help train the brain are acupuncture (which strengthens the parasympathetic nervous system, or the “rest and digest” system), meditation (guided or otherwise), reflexology, massage, tai qi and chi gong. And oh yeah, a LOT of compassionate self-talk.
I wish you all the strength to learn how to take control of your minds so you can live in a world of (mostly) calmness and clarity. You deserve to live your best life. ⭐️