Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy — the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

Brene Brown
From the book:
“The Gifts of Imperfection” Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are – Your Guide To A Wholehearted Life

“One of the most important ways to develop self worth is to respect yourself. This means not putting yourself down and learning to assert yourself when you feel that your boundaries have been crossed or ignored.”  -Author Unknown

On the heels of the last post, Talk Back, this quote caught my eye as it touches on some of my  favorite topics: self worth, self talk and boundaries.

I hear time and time again, “I am not worthy… (of this or that)” or the excuse of… “Must be my worthiness issue.” This quote sums up the importance of not only setting boundaries but speaking up for ourselves when someone has crossed that fine line of one of our boundaries.

What is more common is to beat up on ourselves when someone does or says something not nice or WHAT WE PERCEIVE to be not nice.  It may have nothing to do with us; but, our inner critic has a field day with negative self talk.

When we speak up for ourselves either to that inner critic OR to someone that crossed one of our boundaries,  it is an act of self love and respect which only creates self worth.

Much to my mother’s surprise I am going to spend a few moments encouraging you to TALK BACK!

Disempowerment, depression, anxiety, simple stress, big stress, loss of focus, anger, over eating, drinking or spending, suffering of any kind, the list goes on and on….All of this starts with a thought.

It’s time to monitor our thoughts! Each experience we have whether it be negative or positive begins with a simple thought. The question is, do we choose to  buy into it or not. The key word being CHOOSE.

We CAN disagree with what we are hearing in our minds.We are not helpless to our thoughts.  Our thoughts randomly and continuously come throughout the day. It’s time we ask ourselves, “Do they make me feel good?” OR “Do they make me feel bad?” It’s time we pay attention to what’s free flowing out of our minds. When the first, very small negative thought occurs, pay attention and notice that another one follows a bit larger than the first, then the next a bit larger etc. It’s very rare that we get hit with a whallop of  negative thoughts at once. BUT, the small one’s can build into giant one’s in about a minute. This is due to the Law of Attraction that states “like attracts like.” Therefore, one thought attracts another thought just like it, and with a lot of emotion behind it, that next thought is bigger and stronger than the first. This is why we sometimes feel like we were hit with an avalanche of negative thoughts. It’s a powerful law. This is also why awareness is SO important and stopping the FIRST negative thought as it comes into our awareness.

SO WHAT CAN WE DO?

TALK BACK to ourselves. When we hear that first negative statement, decide if you want to accept it or not. Here’s a hint….if it makes you feel bad, don’t accept it!

For example, if we hear ourselves saying something like, “I’ll never find a new job in this economy, I’m stuck!” We can respond, to that statement inside our heads and boldly state to ourselves, “Not true!” In that moment, the negative feed that’s coming down the pipeline has stopped!

HAVE A STATEMENT READY

When we hear, “I’m not good enough,” “Not pretty enough,” Won’t pick me because…””Never lose weight…etc. ” Pick a statement, they come all day long! What we can do is have a statement ready to combat the negative statement. So when we hear anything at all that’s negative, we can say “CANCEL,”  “I LOVE MYSELF,”  “I AM WORTHY,” “I AM POWERFUL”or “NOT TRUE!” etc. pick an empowering statement that can be said immediately after the negative statement and use it.  Sometimes the positive statement has to be said over and over. Just keep saying it!

THE CHALLENGE

Try for the rest of the day today not to say anything negative about yourself or anyone. I am not asking to be positive, just stop every time a negative thought comes to mind. This is excellent practice and ultimately if practiced often, life changing.

Our THOUGHTS are SO POWERFUL, they create our realities. We MUST pay attention and begin to talk back to ourselves when we have negative statements or thoughts. Once a negative statement begins, it’s a slippery slope and the others come fast. If we stop them quickly, after hearing the first one, it is without a doubt that our lives, our realities will begin to show up differently, better, more joyful, it is law.

This is an amazing video from the TED conference on vulnerability. Stepping into vulnerability can change a person from the inside out. It will also improve all relationships. This video gives fabulous reasons why vulnerability is something we all need to consider and step into.

What we focus on determines our state. When something happens in our day, we get to choose how we see it-through the eyes (or filter) of the love end of the spectrum or from the fear end of the spectrum. If we choose to see something from the fear side of the spectrum, we may experience anger, fear, frustration or perhaps resentment. It’s all a choice. Have you ever been with someone and watched a movie with them and you cry and they don’t or vice versa? Have you ever been with a group of friends and someone in that group told you about something that happened to them and that friend was raging mad and upset about it. But as you listened, you could not understand why she was so upset; in fact half the group could not see it. This is due to our filters of how we see and experience the world. If our filters are set in more of the fear spectrum, we will have experiences in our lives that get us upset or angry easily. We tend to experience more of the victim mentality if our filters are set down in fear.

Likewise, if we have filters that are more on the love side of the spectrum, we don’t get bothered by much and have happy, balanced days most days. It takes a lot to get us down. It’s like that saying goes, “Is your glass half empty or half full?” Half empty people live more on the fear side of the spectrum and half full live on the love side.

So how do we change? It’s a choice. When something in our experience happens, we in that moment get to choose how we react, most of us just react. The next time something happens, slow down and ask, “Is there any other way I can see this?” “Was my husband really just being mean to me or could he be upset about something else?” “I know my friend really loves me so her reaction doesn’t make sense to me, I’ll give her time.” or how about this one, “That guy just cut me off and almost hit my car…is it possible he isn’t thinking properly? Could something terrible have just happened in his life this morning?” I remember when my father passed away, I cut people off (unintentionally) and probably should not have been driving. There are ALWAYS many, many ways to see and interpret an experience. We base our reactions on our past and what our parents did or what we learned from friends or even media. We get to choose differently.

Empower yourself with your thoughts and ask yourself the next time something happens, “how can I see this from another person’s point of view, in fact let me see if there are multiple points of view and let me choose the one that feels best to me and makes me feel best about myself.”  Choose the thought that feels best and we begin to live from the love end of the spectrum and happiness will prevail and become our dominant emotional state.

The more we consciously choose coming from love the faster our neuro-pathways in our brain change and eventually coming from the love spectrum becomes our natural subconscious (automatic) preference.

I remember growing up saying a blessing before we ate our meals. I never quite understood why we did this until a few years ago when I learned the relationship between food and energy.

This is a beautiful excerpt from the book Nourishing Traditions that reminds us the importance of being present in performing every daily task, even preparing our meals.

“If woman could see the sparks of light going forth from her fingertips when she is cooking and the substance of light that goes into the food she handles, she would be amazed to see how much of herself she charges into the meals that she prepares for her family and friends.

It is one of the most important and least understood activities of life-that the radiation and feeling that go into the preparation of food affect everyone who partakes of it, and this activity should be unhurried, peaceful and happy.  It would be better that an individual did not eat at all than to eat food that has been prepared under a feeling of anger, resentment, depression or an outward pressure, because the substance of the lifestream performing the service flows into that food and is eaten and actually becomes part of the energy of the receiver.  That is why the advanced spiritual teachers of the East never eat food prepared by anyone other than their own chelas.  Conversely, if the one preparing the food is the only one in the household who is spiritually advanced and an active charge of happiness, purity and peace pours forth into the food from him, this pours forth into the other members and blesses them.  I might say that there are more ways than one of allowing the Spirit of God to enter the flesh of man.”  (Maha Chohan Electrons)