1. Watch and notice your thoughts
How are you responding to your own thoughts? Are you directing them to the negative or positive side? What is the quality of them? Are your thought process generally negative?
We chose our thoughts - becoming aware of them will help to strengthen our ability to take control of them and steer them to the positive side.
If you notice that a lot of anxiety is coming from your thoughts, it probably means that they are doing their own thing, and thoughts tend to pull towards the negative if we don't watch them.
2. Learn the difference between just thoughts and intuition
Since a lot of uncontrolled thinking is leading to feelings of fear - which keep us from being and doing what we truly actually wanted to do - it is important to practise strengthening the ability to differentiate between understanding a guided message to us through our intuition, or a thought that we have filtered through our own uniquely created paradigm, now automatically connected to uncomfortable emotions spiralling wildly through our wildest imagination. Most of our fears do not even come true and are simply our brain doing its very clever work of memorising all that has once affected us. Any similarities to past events the brain might pick up on, that have previously hurt or scared us, will automatically be registered and very quickly realised into further feelings of fear as a way of protecting us against further pain but they are only thoughts, so treat them as such !
3. Realise that pain is your friend
As explained above, the body (the physical side of us) tries to run away from pain. However, pain is a very vital part of living and a very vital part of loving yourself. If, for example, we let our fears overcome us and control us, we would not face certain situations that would be important for our growth, personal growth or business growth, whichever challenge it might be. On the other side of pain or discomfort is the reward. It is the same as going to work out in the gym or whatever sports you do, the satisfaction comes after working out hard and going against tiredness or feelings of weakness and doing it anyway. When you have an exam or when you have to perform, fear always hits just before. But how good will you feel if you didn't go on stage, didn't perform, didn't push a bit harder to see results cause of fear? Even the pain of separation or doing the right thing feels uncomfortable but there is the knowing that it will be good for us if we go through it. Don't be scared of pain. Its inevitable, suffering is a choice.
4. Go outside your comfort zones
What is your comfort zone? For me, clearly staying in my comfort zone means I can be lazy and that I can procrastinate very easily. I tend to comfort eat, I used to be shy and still am sometimes. So going outside my comfort zone would mean being more proactive at speaking with people, not fearing contact with people. Sometimes it's just a matter of 'speaking up'. Not giving in to comfort food too much, pushing myself to exercise even when I'm tired etc. We all have our comfort zones. So when it comes to self-love, many times it means not only doing what you want to do right now or what you feel most comfortable doing right now, but pushing yourself to think beyond instant gratification. Ask yourself, how will this help me in the long run?
5. Reactive vs proactive
When it comes to day to day living, how many times do you 'react' to situations? We don't realise how many of our actions are on autopilot. Simply reacting and not slowing down to think about the repercussions this may have can mean we are not showing self-love. Every reactive behaviour gets stored and will come back to us in some form or shape. Sometimes we benefit from simply taking our time to respond to an email that might enrage us, a telephone call that made us sad or a comment that frustrated us. If we let ourselves calm down before reacting and come from a calm place, usually that place is a place of love. It's always important to act from a place of love, as we never know what the other person might be going through right now and the more proactive actions we do, the more will come back to us.
6. See the lesson in everything and practise letting go
Whatever the situation, there is a truly powerful and loving message being delivered to you. It might seem that the package looks quite harsh, but if we look between the lines, we had something to learn and without this happening, we probably wouldn't have seen it. Life will always enrich us with lessons that we can take from 'challenges'. If it is a loss of something or someone or a big unexpected change that really makes you tremble, you can choose to see the good in it. Everything in life comes to us for a purpose. So what could it be that you might have had to learn? One can only get to this by being truly and honestly open to oneself. Admitting to oneself that one has things to learn will open up the ability to see what the message is. This is important to move on from this kind of challenge, for it not to become recurring and also for us to grow and not feel affected as much as we once used to when faced with something similar again. By seeing the good, we will only become stronger. Deflecting will make us weaker.
7. Tune into your body
What is your body communicating with you? Each and every single moment our body communicates with us. Our soul and our body are perfectly entwined with each other. One doesn't go without the other. Have you got a cold, maybe your body is telling you to slow down, do you feel tired all the time, is your heart racing in certain moments? Observe yourself and listen. What can you feel? And when? We can learn so much simply by observing. It is not a coincidence that one might tend to have sore throats more than others or even that a certain illness appears in your life. Some people have to adopt stronger habits than others to go against what 'runs in the family' but its the soul telling us through our body that we need to change our habits. Illness is not a punishment it is our body communicating with us to adapt to what our soul truly needs. (I'm not a doctor and I don't tell you what you might or might not suffer from, but its worth having a look at this, at reading your souls' language through your own body). We can always improve on things, we can always make changes. We are not victims. We are our own master! Whatever we feed the body, from food to drinks to medication, to cigarettes etc. has an effect on our body, physically and spiritually - it can damage or it can heal! We will know for ourselves what truly is the right thing for us if we just tune in and listen to ourselves and watch our body communicating to us, from us.
8. Do more things that truly excite you
Since the feeling of excitement makes us happy, sends endorphins through our body and creates a healthy bit of positive energy flowing through us, it is actually a 'no-brainer' to do more things that excite us! We want to attract more positive things, we need to do more positive things. What excites you is unique to you and no one can tell you what this is! Embrace it and have fun! It will spark creative energy that will get your inspiration flowing. This space is where ideas can come flowing in and everything seems possible! It's about priorities. Once you understand that doing things you truly love and which make your heart shine bright will give you more quality in your life, be it at work, in your business and with your relationships, you will prioritise them more. Try it out and see for yourself! What have you not done in a long while but that was really fun? Which hobby you have stopped doing or what can add more sparkle into your week?
9. Share your time with people around you
It's easy to get caught up in our own stuff and have our heads wrapped up in our phones or computers, not really seeing what's around us or who is around us when walking down the street. Life can get so busy sometimes and so fast too, that we forget (not intentionally) to snap out of it and actually open our eyes and be present for people around us. Even calling a friend out of the blue, even if you don't feel like it right now, lending a helping hand to people you don't know out on the street, or even just throwing a smile at someone can make a true difference! When we do things that go out of our way to truly embrace those moments, with the energy 'because we want to' , not because we have to, we can transform a situation that might at first have been something we didn't feel like doing, into something that generates energy for ourselves and for the world.
10. Communicate fearlessly and kindly
Be assertive - communication is probably the most important quality ever, for the relationship we have to ourselves and the relationships we have with others. First we communicate to ourselves, we can tell ourselves lies because it makes us 'feel' better, but in the long run, it damages us. If we communicate to ourselves truthfully, even if it is difficult, we can also let go more easily of the things which are holding us back. Then, when we communicate those changes out into the world, the universe receives that authenticity and reflects it back to us.