Why Positive Thoughts are Not the Answer

Why Positive Thoughts are Not the Answer

Have you ever felt like positive thinking is not working…especially when you felt dismissed by your partner.

Maybe you are in a relationship right now where you feel every time you want to have a positive exchange with the person, it takes a swift left turn off your path of positive communication. Your intention was so good…why is this happening and what is the good in it all?

There are two things you need to keep in the forefront of your mind and it has nothing to do with positive thinking.

1) Perseverance

2) Context (energetic alignment = your perception of the problem)

Example: You wake up with your best intentions about speaking to your husband about finances, bank accounts, spending, credit cards, or what have you…

You walk into the room with either some numbers on a page, statements, or perhaps even a spreadsheet that you feel so proud about creating (because that is what we do as women, especially if we get to use pretty coloured Papermate Ink joy gel pens, highlighters, or Sharpies.

He is watching TV. You begin the conversation and as soon as you pull out your pretty sheet, his body language says ‘NO’.

Right away you are triggered and feel the need to explain your purpose, and it continues to go downhill.

You leave the room trying to think positive thoughts of he said he would look at it later, but these thoughts do not change your feelings of constantly being brushed off. Also, you cannot escape knowing that your energy has just plummeted. Your little one may come along and ask what is wrong and you brush it off with yet another positive expression of ‘ Oh nothing, Mommy just stubbed her toe’.

Perseverance and Context.

Perseverance requires resiliency in staying in the knowing that you are worthy of being heard, felt, and loved. Your suggestions and views are worth noting – that your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs in these areas are substantive. You notice the hurt, but you do not stay in the hurt. You walk beside the hurt.

In order to walk beside the hurt you need to gather the context. Context is the beautiful energetic vortex of ‘no one touches this belief/vision/knowing of myself’ but you cannot just think it, you have to feel it. The thoughts combined with the feeling are what keep your vision in its purest form and in total alignment with the universe. This energetic context is what reigns in your personal power. At this point, it helps to remind yourself that 50% of life is real, and 50% is how I perceive it. CHOOSE to see it differently. Choose to see that you are the driver of your own life, and remind yourself of the power within.

Perseverance is necessary for you to practice this skill and feel the feeling every single day. If you bring yourself back, meaning staying in alignment with the energy daily, you will see that your happiness will be yours to hold and keep no matter what happens in your current relationship.

Does this make sense to you? Let me know your thoughts here.

Thinking Less and Feeling More

Thinking Less and Feeling More

Have you ever heard of the term ‘ what resists persists’?

If someone tells you that you cannot have something, that is all you want. If you are trying to think of a word, it will not enter your mind.

You cannot ‘will’ it away.

When one focuses too much on thought, and not enough on feelings, an imbalance of energy occurs. This is true for so many situations, but let’s focus on anxiety.

To live life from intellect only is something that men especially struggle with.

I had a call with a man today. He was a bit confused because he thought it was good to call his wife when he gets anxious so that she could listen and talk it through with him. I asked him why he felt the need to call her and speak about his anxiety with her. He said it was because he felt better after talking to her and he thought he was supposed to talk about his feelings. However, he also mentioned that she was beginning to resent this… and therefore called me.

There are a few problems with this.

  1. He is acting too much from feminine energy and
  2. This then causes her to ‘mother’ him which is masculine energy,
  3. He is relying on her to rid his anxiety.

My client has forgotten that he has a choice. He can choose what to focus his energy on and what he wants to feel in the moment. If his energy is anxious/low energy, it doesn’t help to distract from the feeling/energy and call his wife in order for her to ‘fix’ it. It is much better to not ‘resist’ the feeling. He needs to embody the feeling and perhaps breathe through the feeling. Pay attention to the feeling – do not ‘think’ it away. If the feeling is there, it is for a reason.

By processing the feeling, he will notice it move through him easier. Once processed, he will feel more empowered and able to focus his energy elsewhere. In other words, feel disappointment and sadness, and realize he has the option to feel and think different thoughts that will allow him to feel differently.

He is now empowered to take control of his life; to move energy through his body with focused attention to thought, processing feelings (feeling the energy move through him), which allows different thoughts to infiltrate and regain his focus and awareness towards what he wants the rest of his day to look like. This in turn balances each other’s masculine and feminine energy and subsequently, supports their relationship.

Having Difficult Conversations are Necessary in a Relationship

Having Difficult Conversations are Necessary in a Relationship

Many of us feel the need to play it safe. We don’t want to ‘rock the boat’. The problem with this is that your relationship stays stagnant.

I would say that 80% of couples come to me stating they have difficulty communicating to one another.

Stepping into safety by not talking about how you feel about something they did or say is the most common way of playing it safe. Most people think these discussions will end in about conflict and think ” it is not worth the argument’.

But that is my point, it doesn’t have to be an argument!

Some common examples might be not expressing your disinterest in cooking, how your partner dresses, or their hygienic practices, the fact that they can never place their cup in the dishwasher, etc. This doesn’t need to be a big, sit down discussions, but simply a mention. You can say something like ” hey, it is not a big deal, but it would be great if you could….” and if your partner answers ” well, it is a big deal”. Then you could reply – okay, just thought I would like you know how I feel… I still love you anyway. There is a VERY high chance that after hearing your response, they may gradually start behaving differently.

This is how to navigate a relationship properly: 1) Access what are the deal breakers and practice having difficult conversations in order to reestablish your self-worth, 2) For the smaller disappointments – the non-deal breakers, just let them know that the little things you do for them are done not because you feel you need to do it, but because you want to do it, because…you love them.

When you practice honouring yourself in a relationship in a very kind and gentle manner, you grow and your relationship grows.

Saying nothing about how you feel about certain aspects or behaviours about your partner is likely a sign that there is a ” I should” behind your behaviours or thoughts. Those two words – I SHOULD – are always of sign of feeling misaligned in the sense that you are doing from a place of societal or parental views of what you SHOULD BE rather than what you simply ARE.

Knowing that you have the right to feel and express your feelings is the most important aspect of your self growth as well as in your relationships.

If your partner is not willing to grow with you – then this will need to be looked at more closely.

This is one of the topics I will cover in my upcoming Masterclass: Finding Peace and Hope in Your Current and Past Relationships. For more info on my Masterclass click here.

Unstable Relationships

Unstable Relationships

When asked to describe your relationship, would you be inclined to say “When we are good, we are really, really, good. When we are bad, we are really, really bad.”?

When I hear this from my clients, I know their relationship needs serious repair.

I suspect you are thinking a lot about your relationship rather than ‘being’ in your relationship. Rather than acting lovingly towards your partner, you are waiting to see evidence before showing your love for your partner. Love without evidence is what makes a partnership. Faith, trust, and belief in your partner will bring you everlasting love.

To engineer change, it needs to begin with your behaviour and mindset. Not your partner’s behaviour. Begin by becoming aware of the thoughts entering your mind throughout the day. Are they thoughts of gratitude, love and joy? Or perhaps they are anger, frustration, bitterness, etc. If you stay in the gratitude and emit your joy, happiness will come right back to you. You are now in control of your relationship.

My client constantly complained about her marriage until I pointed out some key aspects as to why she might not be happy.

By making changes in her daily routines, such as establishing a daily practice of mindfulness, self-talk, visualizations, and gratitude, both her relationship with herself and her partner improved. I guided her through these incremental changes. I taught her to become uncomfortable, and by holding that discomfort, she gave herself room to grow. The changes she made were small, but the results in her relationship were both meaningful and measurable. Her partner took notice and could not help to reciprocate her joy.

Controlling your mindset is an exercise we do in pillar 2 of my program. It is a 3-month program where we identify the thought patterns that are detrimental to your relationship and replace old patterns with thoughts that spark connectivity and life into your relationship. We do this by creating micro-goals towards the ultimate goal of relationship satisfaction.

Hope this entry helps you in someway and if it did, please let me know.

 

It is okay to follow a trend, but don’t forget your own unique self

It is okay to follow a trend, but don’t forget your own unique self

When you press rewind on your tape recording of life, do you notice how you may have branched off and explored another faculty of yourself only to later realize it was possibly not the best decision?

There is nothing wrong with this and, in fact, I think it is great. Too many of my clients get down on themselves for possibly taking a turn in life that didn’t provide them with the ROI that they had hoped for. My suggestion is to acknowledge it and move on. As we grow older in age, we have the advantage of seeing our trends and patterns of behaviour and realize a repeated behaviour has provided us with one of two things: abundance or lack. Rarely is it neutral.

By the way, may I take this opportunity to say…I am so sick of the word ‘pivot’. Is this not the most annoying COVID-19 word? How many times have you read or heard someone say, “We had to pivot” or, “You need to pivot”? Okay, I feel better now. 😊

So, think about this a bit more, are you a trend follower or a creator of your life? Are you one to do your own thing, or are you highly influenced by social media and society? Many of us have wasted a lot of time and money doing something we thought we would like just because a friend was doing it, or we simply believed it would make us happier or more successful, only to later discover we dislike it.

Can you share with me a time or an idea you followed that you later discovered was NOT true to who you are? Please tell me about it. I think we need to laugh at ourselves more often when we discover these things and more importantly tell someone or discuss it more openly. If you have discovered something deeper about yourself, chances are someone else has as well.

Society is constantly telling us what we should and shouldn’t be doing or what not to do. Goodness knows this is so true in the diet world. Billboards and headlines abound with the superfood you simply must have on your plate every day, or the best morning routine, or how to get the best night sleep.

Honestly, it is exhausting. The irony of it all is, although this great information, we are becoming even more sick, fat, and exhausted because of information overload in a world where most are already overwhelmed in just doing life.

“Most of us stop before we start, and we do this because of fear.”

via @luellajonk

Tweet this

I am here to tell you there is nothing more important in life than mindset. It is so much more important than the green smoothie, exercise, or your meditation practice. Yes, I just said it. You do not need to meditate 20 minutes a day to be Zen, happy and successful.

Did you notice I just went full circle? I am back at the reason why I began to write this post today. I see so many of us (including me) feel pressured to DO MORE, and often feel guilty we are not doing more, when really, we need to do less. By doing less I don’t mean watch more TV, scroll through social media, or smoke a joint. I mean just slow down a little, sit with your thoughts, talk more to your friends or partner, and figure out what you really want out of life. I think we are too busy trying to do too much rather than thinking, “What do I want out of this life?”

The second part of this exercise is to share what you want with others, especially the people closest to you, because if they truly support you, they will not only act as an accountability partner, but also provide you with the energy and enthusiasm to believe in yourself (this can also be a coach, therapist, prayer group, etc.). You see…the belief in yourself is usually the thing that is holding you back. Most of us stop before we start, and we do this because of fear. However, once you learn the belief you hold of yourself is only in your own little world (in other words, it is not a belief that others’ have of you), that fear melts away.

If you are curious whether this belief is the truth or whether it is something only in your head, then take some action. Get out a pen and paper and start writing out the question, “Is this true of myself? Is this actually true?” You will soon see it is NOT true, as there is no valid reason for it to be true.

I am excited to see what realizations you unveil about yourself. As a side benefit, those who believe in you will see you become lighter, stronger, and happier because you will be discovering your authentic self and consequently, stop sleep walking through life. Life is so short! Do your best to be more a part of this wonderful world.

Looking forward to your comments and questions on this topic.

P.S. Remember to send questions to Is This Normal? tab of my website. It is great to get people engaged and grow a community of individuals that want more out of life. Therefore, be curious! There is no such thing as a bad question.

‘til the next post, xoxo

Alternative therapy
Natural supplements