Tag: Inspiration

Is It About You?

Photo by Jan Vernarec

How much of what’s going on around you actually has something to do with you? The trees blossoming, the delivery running late, the friend or colleague who welcomes in events in their lives and plays them on repeat in the privacy and comfort of their mind’s luxury gourmet cinema. If not much has anything to do with you, could it be that shifting your attention away from the present moment, from what’s immediately in front of you, is pretty much like binge-watching life events?

Television & Netflix were invented thousands of years ago within our minds. At first we gazed at the fire. Then we activated our autopilot on some life activities. And then, we’ve grown so comfortable allowing our mind & body to dictate our needs and wants, that the reality became too much to handle. It’s when we started to think that the sun won’t shine as bright, the grass won’t grow as fast and our friends won’t laugh as hard at our jokes unless we are ‘perfect’. Unless we protect our ego’s false sense of perfection. The reality no longer has endless possibilities, only grim possibilities. Can we change it? – yes! – but for that we need presence.

Life on earth isn’t about you, but your existence is your multidimensional presence that has attached to it your own personal expansion. Stop hiding, take control and experience life. Not with fear, but with trust. Not with anger, but with patience. With the hope that the life reflected in you will soon be as still and clear as a lake at dawn.

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The Effects of Personal Growth on Others

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez

Cultures in which status differences are seen as the doom of relationships embrace a fixed way of thinking. The belief that two people from different backgrounds, with different education and wealth cannot mix might sound archaic, but it’s still present. It might not be as obviously exposed, but remarks such as – what if he or she gets jealous, what if you have to give up your career or all your hard work? What if you need to stop growing? These are all questions that show a fixed mindset projected on others.

Self-growth is a personal experience. Those around us can decide to join us, put us down or observe us from a distance. It might be challenging pushing forward and connecting with other people that we resonate with at a different level, but it is often necessary. We shouldn’t shy away from putting our own self-growth first and other people’s feelings about how we live our life second.

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Monkey Mind Essentials: Mind Your Language!

Photo by Andre Mouton

What do you see when you are looking at your reflection in the mirror? Do you see someone who will power through, step over self-enforced limitations or someone who is scared and worried? All people, regardless of their ability to push themselves forward, had points in their life of feeling insecure and defeated. What matters is what we make out of that situation.

That tingle in your hands and dryness of throat signals that something exceptional is about to happen. Something we have never experienced before. Unless there is a real threat to life, realistically our brain and body is playing up the fear of the unknown. There are different strategies to manage anxiety and the anticipation of uncertainty and I am a huge believer of positive self-talk. This on itself can be uncomfortable, but power does come from within.

Love and kindness affirmations practiced in our head or said out loud in the shower or in front of a mirror help flip the narrative of negative self-talk. Positive self-talk does not replace taking action. Positive self-talk is a device that increases our confidence and with that, our chances of moving forward.

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What You’re Telling Yourself Will Always Hit Home

Photo by Brett Jordan

Are you looking around you for a strong support? Inspiration. Motivation. Discipline. A plan? Regardless of who you’re meeting and what you are told, you are the one filtering the information. When we choose to think that someone gives us positive feedback because they’re being nice, we neutralize a powerful source that can fuel our self-confidence and help us sky-rocket through doubts, all the way into action.

There is zero value in putting ourselves down, and yet it happens. Our primitive mind wishes to keep us safe when it perceives danger that is not real – public speaking, starting a conversation, asking someone out etc. Tuning into the messages of growth over the messages that are belittling is a personal choice. As someone once said, growth begins at the edge of our comfort zone. We have the power to surpass our limits and that begins with what we think and how we convey it.

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Start Mondays with a Smile

Photo by Hybrid

Every day is another chance to make a move and decide to put in a bit of extra effort towards what you want to achieve. And yet, we associate Mondays or workdays with lower mood after an intense weekend.

Blue Monday earned its recognition for being the day when the rates of suicide are skyrocketing. That is the third Monday in January which was a week ago. There is a combination between the limited liberty that Mondays remind us of and the abrupt transition from a quiet two days into what feels like a busy week, rather than a busy day.

Mental sanity on Mondays

Mental health is often times within our control. On Mondays we can remind ourselves about the things we have to look forward towards the week. Despite its bad fame, Monday is our ally. It reminds us of a cycle that has familiarity, but just like anything else, it’s a cycle we can break.

If it is work flexibility or overall freedom that we want, there are options. Those options might be different for each one of us and it takes self-development to see what’s best for you. But don’t limit yourself to what institutions and employers told you that you can and can’t do. Use the template of your life as an anchor habit and build around it. Build excitement, passion, knowledge. These attributes will transfer over in challenging situations, as part of a challenging day or week ahead.

Wanting to skip the work week and dive straight into the weekend will rob you from time to grow and learn. Every second you have the power to shift your reality. Take a look at your life as a whole and get to work.

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Envisioning What’s Challenging as Easy

Photo by Pablo Lancaster Jones

People do it all the time. They compare themselves to others in ways that don’t benefit them: based on the results. We all want faster cars, more money, expensive items of all sorts that make us feel wealthy. What we don’t necessarily want is to go through the processes that will get us there.

Processes are what enables growth. I am aware of daily practices that will allow me to grow: meditation, exercise, waking up early, but until recently I struggled to see them as easy/doable processes. Until today, when I managed to wake up on time to work on side projects. What changed? Two things.

  1. Other people wake up early consistently because they need to. I identified my want as an absolute need to get on top of my work.
  2. Start the day with something that I enjoy doing. In my case and in the present moment this for me means reading fiction.

Did I achieve everything I think I could have in the given amount of time? Not yet. But what comes first is building discipline.

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