You have not lost your mind.

Strategies to bring yourself back into the present moment.

 

There have been many times in my life when it felt like I was losing my mind. Moments in time when the world feels overwhelming and I feel at a loss. Have you ever experienced this, a time or times where you feel like you are losing your mind? Times that the world feels like it is falling apart. Times where you just do not know who you are anymore and when you just feel lost and confused.

When moments of crisis hit and you find yourselves in a place of uncertainty you may even forget you have the tools in your very own emotional toolbox to fall back on. It is in those times, when you feel like you are losing your mind, that you go to your “go to’s”, in other words, you react. The reaction, most likely, comes from fear. Fear, many times, comes from uncertainty. This may be linked to the stories you have developed and believe about yourself based on your previous lived experiences. The fear may also come from a deep worry about how this event, which has caused you to lose your mind, is going to impact you in the future.

Essentially, you get pulled out of the present moment and into a reaction, which is a learned behavior from the past.

The present moment is the moment you are living now. This moment may be so painful, scary, raw, new or unknown to you that you do not want to stay there, in that moment. You forget to breathe; you start to tell yourself all sorts of stories and develop many doom and gloom scenarios of what “will” happen next based on what you have just experienced.

I want to take a moment and slow down here to deconstruct what is going on when you leave the present moment. In reality, what has just happened? Let’s look at these types of life crisis with a bit of neuroscience. The first thing that happens is you go into fight or flight mode. Your amygdala becomes activated, your adrenaline dramatically increases, cortisol is released and your brain tells you that if you do not fight for your life right now you will die. If you were truly in a life-threatening situation, this is exactly the response you want as it will give you the best chance of survival.

However, in “normal” everyday ups and downs these moments are not life threatening. In my experience, both personally and professionally, the big reaction occurs because the subconscious mind does not know the difference between the present and the past. If the feeling and/or emotion triggered is very similar or the same to something old, you react with the old learned coping skills. You react to the feeling you are experiencing in the present moment, in an old way, and the fight or flight response is activated. Once it is activated the neurochemicals kick in to do their job to save you. However, this big reaction is usually out of proportion to the situation at hand. When you finally do calm down, many times you feel badly about how you behaved or reacted and this just gives you more reason to feel lost.

Here are some steps you can take in these non-life-threatening situations to pull you back into the present moment and out of reactivity.

  • Slow down.
  • Take a purposeful pause.
  • Take 3-5 abdominal breaths.
  • Talk yourself back into the present moment by orienting yourself to your surroundings. For example, you can say things like I am in my bedroom, the walls are gray, the carpet is blue, I am wearing a red sweater, it is sunny out, it is 12:01 in the afternoon.
  • You can get physical distance from the trigger or upsetting stimuli.
  • Place your hand on your heart and feel your heartbeat.
  • Go outside.
  • Take a walk.
  • Sit or lay down.
  • Cry if you need to.
  • Do not respond right away.

Doing some or all of these steps will give your nervous system a chance to calm down, recalibrate and get back into balance.

You have all you need inside of you to take good care of you.

There may be moments that are not pleasant or fun in life. This is the way life is. Every crisis you live through has the opportunity to bring growth if you allow for it. If you get stuck in the muck, if you let your anxiety and fear run the show it is like putting up roadblocks to your own growth potential. Those unpleasant moments may in fact be terrible times but usually they are not life threatening, they are not forever moments and in the end you will be ok.

When you take the time to steady yourself, it is as if you are rescuing yourself from going over the edge of a cliff into the abyss of the unknown. Coming back to the present moment and being in present moment awareness allows you to rescue yourself. When you do this, you are throwing yourself a lifeline and pulling yourself back from the edge of a cliff. This is empowering. You empower yourself every time you take steps to come back to the present and out of reactivity. This is how growth and healing happen.

I invite you to have compassion for yourself. Forgive yourself. In the end love yourself, you are worth it and no one can ever love you more than your own ability to love yourself.

Janet is available for in person and remote sessions. Janet is also available to come speak at your events. If you want to talk to her send an email to hypnosisforhope@gmail.com for a free 30 minute consultation.

The ability to heal and grow is in each one of us.

What does it mean to love yourself?

Loving oneself is a daily practice of self care.

Love is something that is ongoing.

It is something to be celebrated daily for yourself.

Love who you are, make time for you.

Do not wait for another to tell you or show you they love you in order for you to feel it or be it. This will not fully work, the effect will be temporary. It will be temporary because you first need to love you. When love comes from the outside without having a home on the inside it cannot fully be felt, it “wears” off. However, when you – love you, then love from another can stick because you already believe, know and feel the love. Essentially, it has a place to call home within your very own heart. A place within you that feels safe with being loved!

As you begin to acknowledge that you need to love yourself, you are actually stepping out of our own shadow. This means you begin to see that the story you have been telling yourself about why you are not lovable, why you are not really worthy of love and making excuses for others for not loving you begins to fall away.  When you open your heart to yourself, then you open up your ability to love yourself. And when you open up to loving yourself, it is at that time that you are making room for another to love you.

We can not take in from another which we already do not possess within.

We have difficulty taking this in because we can not recognize it. Sometimes, we can not even believe that another would feel this way towards us or about us. It is like learning to read a new language, you may see letters on the page but without understanding the words the letters are forming, you can not take it in or understand it. You have no internal context for interpreting the word in front of you.

It is the same for love. If you do not know love for yourself, you can not, or will have a pretty hard time, recognizing it coming to you from another.

Today is the day to start loving yourself.

How do you do that?

Well, it starts with you. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Place your hand over your heart and say, “I love you,” silently in your mind.

2. Stand in front of a mirror, look into your own eyes and say, “I love you,” to yourself while placing your hand on your heart.

3. Write it down. Write, Dear(fill in your name), I love you. Write down 3 positive attributes. Write these attributes down 3 times on the same page and then read it aloud.

4. Do a is self care activity. Pick something that brings you joy. Some examples may be listening to music, reading a book, cooking a favorite meal, calling a friend, exercising or meditating. The options are limitless. You are only limited by your imagination.

5. Stay present and remind yourself that at this moment in time you are ok just as you are.

6. Choose you! You get to choose to let go of all you have held onto that has hurt you.

7. Imagine sending love from your own heart to any part of you from the past or present that is in pain and open up to the love you have for yourself.

Love does not happen in a small container. Love is abundant. Love really is everywhere when you open yourself up to see it, take it in and own it as a part of you.

Pause here with me now. Place your hand on your heart with me, take a breath in and say, “I love you.” Hold it there, feel the warmth, and when you are ready, exhale.

If you want to learn more about this, my book, Show Up For Yourself, explores this and helps you find a way toward healing.

If you have questions DM me in Instagram or send me a message through my website.

 

 

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CHAPTER 1: Conscious Relationship With Self

 

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