Personal Development|Mindfulness Moment|Emotional Health|Stress Reliance

Hazardous Myth Increases Anxiety and Destroys Progress

The fix is more simple than you think

Life is an extremely busy and chaotic ordeal. I don’t remember the last time I heard someone say, “You know, not much is going on in my life right now. I need to add more to my plate.”

No, more often than not the comments are, “I don’t know how I’m going to get through my calendar this next week/month! Just when I think I’m going to get a break, something else drops into my lap.”

With everything we have to accomplish and the fact that there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day these days, it’s no wonder that we’re feeling more than a little stressed out and frustrated.

When we want to make a change, whether it’s to start something good or to stop something bad, a lot of times we just don’t have the mental and emotional bandwidth to map it out.…. much less overcome the inevitable obstacles and challenges that will come with the process of change.

Maybe you don’t quite relate to these scenarios. Perhaps you are someone who lives a very regimented lifestyle.

Someone who is quite disciplined with your time commitments and management, nevertheless you still find yourself stuck when it comes to implementing a change or accomplishing a goal. Often this is even more perplexing on the scale because it looks so doable from your organized point of view.

The problem, so very often, isn’t about time.

It’s about the hierarchy of beliefs and protocols running the show inside you. You have priorities that you aren’t necessarily conscious of having.

It’s time to have a conversation with yourself.

I know, we’ve probably all heard that talking to ourselves is a sign of being crazy. I believe this is the #1 myth to abandon if you are going to have peace and fulfillment in your life.

The truth is that we are always talking to ourselves.

It’s called thinking.

The real problem lies with not talking back.

I’m a Southerner and Southerners are big on teaching their children not to backtalk. Probably most of us at one time or another were taught that back talking an authority was disrespectful, after all, they are older, wiser and, have our best interests at heart, right? ( Yes, yes, I know, depending on your life’s experience that’s a whole ‘nother kettle o’ fish! Hang tight. I’ll probably get to dealing with our authority figures in another post.)

So… back to thinking. Our brain has been talking to us for longer than we can remember. We listen to it constantly.

Our listening is so automatic that we don’t necessarily think of it as listening. Our brain states things very definitively- and we tend to take what it says at face value, without questioning its assumptions.

We believe all too often that our brain is “older, wiser and has our best interests at heart”. It is the “authority” that we often obey spontaneously. We call these reactions.

When we go from one experience to another throughout any given day, we are often having more reactions instead of actions. What’s the difference between the two?

• Actions are when we act for ourselves. We choose a response that is healthy for us and usually isn’t toxic to anybody else either. It is that state of mind where we are thinking “win/win”. We are acting when we feel peace at our foundation, even when holding our boundaries firmly in the face of opposition. We can disagree respectfully.
• Reactions are when we feel acted upon by circumstance or another person. Reactions are about our survival and protection — whether it be literally for our lives or the protection of our closely held beliefs. We are engaged in our fight/flight/freeze response.
• Reactions are almost always accompanied by some type of emotional response. This emotion often helps us feel justified in our reaction. Reactions cause arguing, bullying, isolation, and all manner of strife and violence in the world.

When we are in a state of reaction, our anxiety, our stress, our overwhelm increases. Our ability to think clearly, make changes, and progress is compromised.

So, how do we train ourselves to be in a mental and emotional state that enables us to have more action and less reaction?

Yep, you guessed it, it’s time to learn to backtalk yourself.

Now, I’m not saying that you always work to pick a fight with yourself. I’m certainly not suggesting that you beat yourself up or disrespect yourself.

However, you must learn to respectfully disagree when you realize your brain is presenting ideas and perspectives that are not healthy, are tearing you down or, telling you that a positive change in your life is not possible due to time, ability, complexity, energy, etc.

This is where you question the brain’s authority and bring it into a more collaborative conversation.

What does a collaborative conversation with ourselves look like?

1. We actively listen to the thoughts presented- without filter or judgment.
2. We acknowledge the statements that we recognize we believe are true.
3. We ask questions to determine why we believe the statement is true and evaluate whether this statement is always true.

The more collaborative conversations you have with yourself, the better you will get at detecting and resolving the Internal Arguments that keep you stuck, stressed and, frustrated.

Along with not backtalking, we learned many things in childhood. Many of us were taught things that weren’t true, or at least weren’t true all the time. Children tend to learn concretely and want to know the rules. It’s how we learned to navigate the world.

But now we are grown.

If we are going to be happy, fulfilled, emotionally mature and, available adults, we’re going to have to unlearn some of the things we thought were true and relearn healthier patterns. It will make all the difference between reacting and response-ability.

It all starts with paying attention to what’s happening between our ears and having a two way, collaborative conversation. A great step on our way to achieving mindfulness.

So remember, it’s always a good idea to talk and talk back, to yourself!

Mindfulness Moment: Practice actively listening to your thoughts. Question what you hear. Notice how often certain negative statements repeat themselves and respectfully disagree with what your brain has presented as truth.

I hope you enjoyed this article. If you would like to explore a bit more, I have included articles here that go into more detail on a couple of the topics I just mentioned.

Learn more about your Internal Arguments here:

Learn more about your stress load and how to unpack it here:

Learn about the common lies that increase our stress load:

Would you like a DIY tool to help you facilitate your 2-way conversation?

Grab your copy of my Block Buster Blueprint and start decoding your mental maze more effectively. It’s a great way to find the beliefs and blocks standing in your way to mastering life, love, and purpose!

Peggy Nazer is a Certified Coach in Emotional Release, Energy Psychology, Stress Resilience/Resolve, and High Performance. She has been a life coach and teacher for 17 years, specializing in emotional health, stress resilience, and building healthy relationships to help people accomplish their personal transformation goals. She uses a combination of techniques including mindfulness, emotional release, energy psychology, stress resilience mastery, and success habits in both private and group session settings. She created Success Dynamics Academy to help clients identify and effectively manage their mental and emotional perspectives that create conflict and stop progress on their personal and professional goals. Find out more at: peggynazer.com