The truth about looking within is, it’s not easy; it’s challenging, hard and uncomfortable. When we begin, to have the desire to want to know the deeper meaning to life, our purpose and why the hell we are here? We begin on the path of self-awareness. To answer these questions, we have to look within. We have to observe and reflect what we have going on within and who we are.
In the early stages, we will come to see that we have wounds, hurt and pain we have yet to acknowledge; those aspects that live within us that affect our day to day lives. In this stage, we are not sure why we hold certain things that have happened to us so closely when they’ve caused us pain. Questioning our self is a step to self-awareness and having to unpack the reasons why we engage with certain behaviours, habits or patterns is stepping towards that direction.
Although there’s a polarity to this process, it’s when we question our self to the point we doubt our self. Whether it’s our worth, the experiences we had, our emotions and overall knowledge. Those moments when we doubt our self is from a self-limiting belief. Where we might hold a belief that we are not smart enough, worthy enough and just not enough.
Those beliefs we hold have been embed within us, meaning that they are unconscious. Just like how we walk, talk or eat, those habits are something we do not need to think about, rather they just happen with no effort put into it. That’s similar to how our belief systems work within us. There are times we follow a pattern, belief and narrative about our self without being consciously aware of it at all.
This is something we realise when we look within, as we question our self we will have things revealed and come to the surface on the blueprint we have created about our self. This isn’t to say that it’s a bad thing it doesn’t re-surface, we just have to follow our own process.
The belief system we have built-in with our blueprint has become a habit for us, that thinking pattern or that narrative we tell our self has been an automatic response. Breaking out of habits that are no longer useful or assisting us, is not always the habits we do in the worldly plane, sometimes they occur within our mind.
Below I have listed strategies and tools of how to break out of a thinking pattern, belief, or narratives and the inner critic within us. Also how and why our brain focuses on the negative rather than the joyful events.
These strategies and tools are something nobody can do for us, its something we have to do for our self. The thing with inner work is nobody in the world can do the work for us as we are the biggest excerpt of our self.
How Our Brain Are Wired:
Our brain priorities survival over happiness or joy and that is why it’s important to choose gratitude and optimism, over the negative things occurring within our life. Our brain does this because it’s a way to keep us safe. It’s build to remember and focus on all the negative things because it then creates a pattern, where if we were faced with those similar experiences that we have categories as negative or bad, it will keep us from going forwards to those experiences.
Example: If we go through a bad breakup and get our heartbroken, we’ll categories that falling in love or getting into a committed relationship is dangerous because of what happened last time. Which then gets us to avoid that type of deeper intimacy/commitment.
Our brain creates neural pathways that strengthen over time depending on how frequency we use that pathway. Example, with thinking patterns, when we are frequency stressed over the little things, that neural pathway will be stronger compared to a pathway that is about letting go. Over time the less we use that pathway that requires us to let go, the function of it declines/gets weaker.
Example: Our biceps, if we were to just do leg workout and neglect our arms, then obviously the leg muscles will be bigger than our arms. - That’s similar to the neural pathways we’ve created. The more we use them the stronger they are.
So if we are constantly in the state of negative thinking patterns, obviously that part of our brain will be overstimulated and more connected to our nervous styles. Which get us to be more prone to anxiety, stress, depression and lower states of frequency.
One profound thing about our brain is that it can reconnect and create new neural pathways during adulthood, which called neuroplasticity. This term pretty much means that when we create new experiences that have higher vibrational frequencies attached to them such as optimism, joy, happiness, contentment etc. we create new neural pathways. Although we have to continuously create and participate in experiences that give us those high vibrations so that, the neural pathway will get strong and (example) the one with the negative thinking pattern will decline. This is a way of rewiring our brain away from anxiety, depression and lack of self-love.
Insight: It’s important to know that our thinking patterns are done out of habit. We have to be more aware of them so we can interrupt and question them. As we question them we are creating a new experience, which gets us to break out of these patterns. By replacing them with compassionate, self-accepting mantras we are re-wiring our brain to operate from that place.
Breaking Out Of Negative Thinking Patterns:
Unpacking A Thinking Pattern:
Pick a thinking pattern that is not helping your ascension/expansion of consciousness/self-worth. This can be a belief or narrative you follow and re-plays in your head.
(Example; black and white thinking - “She looks so good in that dress. I’m so ugly and can’t ever look that way.” Or “They pick it up so easily and I can’t, I’m such a failure.")Unpack and dismantle your focused thinking pattern by questioning it:
- What evidence do I have for this thought to be true?
- What evidence do I have that it isn’t?
- Is this accurate?
- Is it mirroring my reality?
- Has there been a time where I’ve had this thought and it didn’t come true?
- Is that belief realistic or an illusion?
- What would I tell someone who is having these thoughts?
- What emotions am I feeling when these types of thoughts come up? Am I sad, angry, or anxious or the other spectrum, happy, content, or joyful?
Strategy/Tool:
JOURNALLING-
Begin journal if you haven’t already. Use the questions in the section above to go deeper within you. – One thing I love about journaling is, I can see it clearly and in the 3D, rather than just in my mind; where it can get tangled up. And also journaling is like a way of record keeping. In 6-month time, you can look back at your journal and see for the self the improvement you have achieved internally.
GRATITUDE-
Practice daily gratitude, towards the things that are working and the things we genuinely grateful for. This can be as simple as having all our body parts working and not needing assistance to move around, having a roof over our heads or having a variety of options of food.
Begin embedding gratitude to your day to day life.
When you wake up and before going to bed list 5 things you are grateful for.
When you’re feeling low mood, shift your energy towards the gratitude by listing things; in your head, out loud or journaling.
MANTRA/AFFIRMATION-
Mantra and affirmations can be used when interrupting our thinking pattern at the moment if we don’t have the time to unpack it right there and then.
ACTIVITY:
Creating Your Own Mantra; create a mantra that you can use for the specific thinking pattern/belief/narrative that you’re breaking out of. OR look one up.
F.E.C.K (Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion and Kindness) -
This acronym is also a great way to interrupt our thinking pattern and create a new internal dialogue within us. It doesn’t have to be in this sequence, the main key is to give these to our self. Having to be compassionate and kind to our self is not as easy as it sounds for many, although its those baby steps we have to take towards that direction.
Having to be kind for the day we are not feeling our self or having a low level of mood, or being compassionate for the times we don’t have energy or materials to give out to those around us. It’s having to understand that we are human and we make mistakes and we’re not perfect.
The key is giving our self a huge F.E.C.K - Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion and Kindness.
We should also learn to let go and remove the expectation to have attached to our self to be a certain way to receive acceptance, love or recognition. Those expectations create pressure that necessarily do not need to be there and it also causing more harm to our health.
This concept also goes with letting go of expectations we have attached to people. We have to let go of ALL the things we can not control and that includes people. There is no moment in time we ever had control over people, it’s a form of an illusion. To control people we have to manipulate them and that will always cause more harm and suffering that any good; not just towards the person being manipulated but the manipulator.
A huge part of any inner work is learning what and when you do not have control over something and then be able to let go and shift your focus onto something you can control. – This again is a habit that takes time to learn and embedded within our way of thinking.
More Insight: Thinking patterns are habits that we have gotten used to overtime. They can be unconscious most of the time and we aren’t even aware of them because they are so embedded within us.
It’s important to grasp that any habit takes time to break out of. It takes work, effort, patience and time. Those three-aspects work, effort and patience are something we can control, and although with time we never did. We don’t receive a stamp date of when a habit will be no longer present. There is just a time that comes where we react differently to a situation, that we would have acted out from that particular thinking pattern although, with the work, effort and patience we have cultivated, it comes effortlessly to react differently.
This requires us to create new experiences not just externally but internally too. As our thinking patterns are within us.
Be patience with our self and don’t compare our process and life in general with others.
Comparison is a bitch and will create an illusion that will block us from seeing the greatness that lives within you. Trust YOUR OWN process as learning to love your self is not an overnight thing. It’s a process that we are constantly on and will never end; because loving our self meaning we are continuously learning and expanding our self-awareness.
Before we can see our worth and love within us, we have to remove those limiting and lack beliefs, patterns and narratives that are blocking us from seeing the true beauty, power and worthiness that we have within us. That we have always been enough and worthy no matter what versions of our self didn’t believe so.
Be Kinder, Less Critical
NEUROPLASTICITY by: Merichel S.
(Blue = Depression || Purple = Anxiety || Orange/Yellow = Joy/Optimistic)