Feeling Frustrated With Yourself?

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Nerves feeling a little frazzled these days?

Maybe things were good for the first few weeks of staying home, but now, NOW, thoughts are amped up.  Comments are snippy snappy.   Irritation is pressing against your skin.

No one wants to be crabby.

I used to get busy when I was feeling short tempered.  I’d start scrubbing cabinets and making lists, like those things were going to save me.  Meanwhile my mind was working things over pretty hard.  I wanted to make it go away without telling anyone.

Isn’t it true that we try to hold back?  We do.  We really try, but eventually…

Someone notices.  Damn it.

Out comes the classic question, “What’s wrong?”.

Your head turns away and your face flushes red while your thoughts say, “Um, you actually.  You’re what’s wrong.  Could you just GO AWAY!”.

Quickly you reply, “No no, I’m fine.  Nothing’s the matter”.

Of course it often doesn’t end there, well not unless the good witch Glinda has blessed you with her wand.

This is the kind of slippery slope that easily turns into either a vicious argument or total shut down.  Oh crap.  Not again.

Your emotional pattern comes in like a wave and washes over everything.  Then slowly returns to the invisible sea from which it came.

After an emotional flooding, you may feel bad about yourself and disconnected from those you care about.  It can be a huge source of frustration and shame.  Maybe you think you shouldn’t have behaved the way you did and worry about how the other person perceives you.

Will they think I’m a nut job?  Will they leave?  What the hell is wrong with me?  Okay these are my thoughts.  Maybe yours are different.

It took me a long time to stop myself and realize that self judgments are not the answer.  It makes matters exponentially worse.  They never helped me and I am pretty sure they won’t help you either.

If you’re irritated, you’re irritated for a reason.  Being mad at yourself for having the emotion is throwing another shovel of dirt on the coffin.

Emotions are messengers.  They hold critical information.  Ignoring them, resisting them, turning away from them will keep you stuck in old patterns.

Turning toward your emotions and honoring them might be one of the hardest things you learn to do, like making best friends with your biggest enemy, but it is also super empowering.

Learning to own the muck and hear the messages builds confidence and increases self acceptance.  It is the first step to obtaining the emotional control we all seek.

Jump in by simply letting it be okay to feel what you feel.  Give yourself permission to be crabby or anxious or whatever.  It doesn’t mean you act on it.  You’re just letting yourself be human.

Start there.  Play with opening to these parts of yourself you have cast out as demons. Notice what changes.

Until next time-

Lori

The First Step to Boost Self Acceptance

You walk into the bathroom to finish getting ready for work and you can hear the whisper in your head, “Oh my, that tummy.  Ugh, muffin top.  Capital M, capital U, capital F, capital F…I’m getting so lumpy, geez.” and back you head into your closet to find something different to wear, something flowy perhaps, loose for sure.

This same voice reappears as you get out the blow dryer, “My hair is like straw”, and again, as you begin to put on mascara, “Maybe I should try falsies.  My lashes are so sparse”.  There it is, each step of the way, a critical commentator evaluating your appearance.

Have you ever tried to change your self-talk?  It’s not that easy.

You realize on some level the self criticism is NOT HELPFUL, but at the same time, how can you make this bully play nice?  HOW?  It happens so automatically!

I say, the first step is to decide.  Decide to stop participating in the same-old same-old narrative you tell yourself because it comes at a huge cost, like Jeff Bezos’ income huge!

If you’ve always lived with it, and you have, it is easy to minimize the negative effects that your belittling self judgments can have.

Do you want the automatic voice in your head to determine how you feel about yourself?   To sabotage your self confidence?  To make you want to hide?  Probably not.

Simply begin by deciding to notice without judgment the things being said by this slanderer.  Commit to noticing what is said and how it affects you.

Boom, step one.

This awareness will help you.  It will put the angel part of you in charge of the messages. This higher part of you, your awareness, will be what revamps your self talk.  You will make this change by being more conscious.

So decide my friends.  Commit to yourself.  When you clarify what you want in this way, determination begins to pool within you.  Your mind naturally prepares itself.  The fuel tanks fill up.

Write it down even.  Pull out a clean sheet of paper and write nothing but your intention to put that saboteur in chains.  Write it down because the people who do research on this stuff tell us that we are 65% more likely to achieve something when we write it down.

There are next steps for kicking the critical commentator to the curb, for sure, but for now just decide.  It’s time.  It is time for you to go even further, deepen your process and take your self approval to a new peak.

Where ever you are in the journey to full self acceptance, decide to set a higher standard.  Commit to the idea you would not even say one negative comment about yourself, not even one.

 

It’s so possible.