Spending the New Year with a Specific Person
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Self-Care
Holiday Blues: How to Deal with it?
The world has changed immensely since 2020. Some of us left jobs, started new jobs, separated from loved ones, and our financial situations changed completely. If you are going through a tough time this year because you cannot spend the holidays with your loved ones, then this blog is for you.
Your feelings
Understand that your feelings matter and it is very normal to experience this level of sadness during and/or before the holidays. It’s important to take note of how you are feeling in the moment and to make it okay that you feel this way. The fact that you feel this way just means that you hold so much love for the people in your life that you want to spend this holiday with them. So understand that your feelings aren’t necessarily wrong or negative. It just needs to be managed to keep you grounded and stabilised.
The right support
The second, and most important thing to do is to seek the right support. Take note of the support system you have available and choose around 3 to help you through this difficult time. A support system could be your friends, family members, a coach, a therapist, and a helpline. Choose a support system that is non-judgemental, open to listening, and compassionate. If you can, spend time with them. Simultaneously, make sure you are being non-judgemental and gentle with yourself during this difficult time. Remember that nothing lasts forever, and this painful moment is valid, but also temporary.
Self-compassion
Another important thing to do is to sit with your feelings and emotions. Allow these to come up to the surface, and feel them all. They are here to show you what you truly believe and what you haven’t been looking at. So this is a golden moment to reconnect with yourself, practice self-compassion, and release limiting beliefs. Sit with the pain, listen to what it has to say and then release it in meditation. It is very important to have your own grounding practice in these moments. Grounding practices include meditation (guided or non-guided), emotional freedom tapping (EFT), mindfulness practices, and breathwork. Choose the one that helps you release some of the hurt, and include this daily to your routine.
In the meantime, form new traditions. Be open to forming new traditions, and not just sticking to old ones. Create a new tradition for yourself for the holidays. It can be something as simple as making cinnamon rolls and writing down things you are grateful for this year, lessons you learned, and things you love about yourself. If you want to, combine some of the old traditions with the new ones so that you can still do what feels familiar to you. Just remember that the holiday season doesn’t have to be limited to a specific celebration. You can form your own.
What new traditions are you forming this year?
Dealing with Unsupportive People
Nothing is harder than being in an environment of unsupportive people, especially when it comes to family and friends. Having the wrong support system is as hurtful as having no support system. While difficult situations like these seem out of our control, you do have a level of control in regard to how you deal with these people. This applies to mental health support, relationship support, careers, and more.
Toxic people
There is a fine line between toxic people and unsupportive people. Toxic people continue to find ways to diminish your abilities, undermine you, talk you down, disrespect you, or attempt to emotionally manipulate you. Being around a toxic person is a draining experience that puts you under a lot of pressure and makes you feel like you’re walking on eggshells. Hurt people hurt people. Beware of who you receive the advice from by determining their intentions and the type of relationship you have with this person.
Unsupportive friends and family
Unsupportive friends and family members usually have good intentions. Their advice comes from their own personal experiences and beliefs. Instead of getting defensive, make sure you ask the right questions to understand their intentions. Asking questions like “Is this something you experienced before?” “Are you saying this based on a past experience?” This will give you a clearer image of whether this person is projecting their own insecurities and doubts, or if they’re just genuinely worried about you. You can educate this person and show them a different perspective on the situation, but it is important to know that it is NOT your responsibility to make sure that everyone accepts you and supports you.
Listen to your heart
Take these moments as golden opportunities to ask yourself if your heart really desires this thing, or if you are chasing after a particular feeling you’re hoping the experience will give you. Make room and space for yourself to simply sit down, and listen to what your heart has to say. Your deepest desires are God-given. Go after what you truly want, and the people who love you will accept you for who you are no matter what or they will work their way to get onboard. Be unapologetically you.
“Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it. You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won’t accept.”
Set boundaries
Boundaries are crucial. It starts with setting boundaries within yourself. It is time to take note of the kind of treatment that you won’t accept and to start sharing your goals solely with those who support you. People-pleasing will keep you in the same cycle for the rest of your life. If this doesn’t sound like a pleasant experience, you have the power to change it now. End the conversations that are seemingly unsupportive, and start walking away from people who don’t serve you right. You have the right to protect your mental space, and to embrace who you truly are. Boldly show the world who you truly are and go after your dreams.
Stop Chasing, Start Attracting
There is a current social media trend of using this powerful affirmation “I don’t chase, I attract. What belongs to me, will simply find me.” The power of this trend is to encourage people to step into their own power and give them a boost of confidence. It comes from a place of pure confidence, and belief that things maneuver their way to us.
Chasing
Confidence and chasing are two completely opposite energies. Chasing comes from a place of fear. Fear of losing someone or something, trying so hard, struggling, and feelings of insecurities coming to the surface. We act on our feelings which are a result of our thoughts (affirmations). Therefore, all the inner dialogue that we currently have is based on our inner state. Chasing is a low vibrational energy that indicates suffering and heightened anxiety. At some point, these thoughts and feelings become habitual that it feels hard to break. Dr. Joe Dispenza explained that repetitive patterns of thinking which generate feelings lead to the body and the mind becoming one.
“Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.”
— Marcus Aurelius
Confidence
Start asking yourself “what am I currently chasing and why?” and take note of the things, people, and places that you’re chasing. From there you create awareness on where your anxiety lies, and where it comes from. Chasing is repelling. Confidence is attractive. Take the chasing energy and switch it to confidence energy. Decide to stop chasing.
- Work on releasing the anxiety, and practice soothing yourself, this will remove the urge to chase, and you will be much happier.
- Build your confidence in yourself, and start believing in your capability to have anything in this life.
- Start believing that the Universe/God will deliver what belongs to you.
Live every day with that knowing, that things find you. That there is nothing to chase. You can relax and trust in that. Allow yourselves to take inspired actions solely, rather than try so hard to make things happen.
Are You Guilty of Spiritual Bypassing?
Spiritual Bypassing describes the act of denying and suppressing negative emotions. In 1984, this term was created by John Welwood to express his experiences in a Buddhist community.
He defined it as “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.”
The reason spiritual bypassing is being promoted in spiritual communities is due to the fear of sitting with heavy feelings that can cause a great level of discomfort. The intention behind spiritual bypassing is to push aside the emotions that way us down and to practice feeling good all day instead. Most people who join spiritual communities and begin their journey come from a lot of unresolved trauma, anger and pain. Therefore, spirituality is often viewed solely as a healing modality to experience inner peace. In many spiritual teachings, spiritual bypassing can be very subtle. The intention behind it is great, however being guilty of spiritual bypassing can result to emotional outburst, poor self-awareness and difficulties of self-acceptance.
Here are different ways we all participate in spiritual bypassing (also known as ‘toxic positivity’ in societial terms):
- Viewing anger, pain and sadness as destructive emotions
- Labels that belittle negative emotions, such as “Negative Nancy” or “Debbie Downer”
- High vibration teachings that look down on low vibrational feelings. The truth is that our feelings ebb and flow, and we all have a wave of emotions each day. It’s about not making low vibration your dwelling place.
- Condemning mental illnesses and fears
- Common terms used to glorify spiritual bypassing such as:
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- “Good vibes only!”
- “Everything happens for a reason”
- “Just be positive”
What To Do Instead:
- Accept all parts of you – the good, the bad & the ugly. At the end of the day, we can’t know how happiness feels if we don’t know how sadness feels. You are NOT your thoughts or your feelings. They are simply one aspect of who you are.
- Avoid labelling emotions – Describing emotions as positive and negative is what causes us to turn away from certain ones, like worry.
- Develop Healthier Coping Mechanisms – Pushing our feelings away is a form of self-defense mechanism as we’re too scared to look fear in the eye. Look fear in the eye and develop a practice that helps you deal with the emotion, sit with it and allow it to pass out of your body.
- Practice self-compassion – The more you have self-compassion, the more compassionate you become with others. The less judgements you hold about yourself and your feelings, the less you do with others.
As spiritual beings, we are having a human experience. Part of the human experience is shedding all these layers we have. We are complex, multifaceted beings, and the only way to practice self-awareness is to take a good look at every aspect of ourselves and be okay with. The only way to heal & shift is through awareness.
Have you been guilty of spiritual bypassing?
What is Letting Go?
In simple terms, the law of attraction is simply a concept of “Ask, believe, receive.” Part of this receiving process is the ability to let go and let your manifestation flow to you. Letting go is one of the most confusing ideas. It seems like a paradox to both believe and let it go. While there are a lot of different teachings out there that may seem to contradict, in the end, it is all leading to the same path just different journeys, and routes. As Ram Dass says “We’re all walking each other home.”
Any desire is given to us by the God within us.
Our desires come from our higher self because we are meant to experience them. That’s the truth. We are drawn to certain things, experiences, places, and people because we are meant to have them. And when our heart truly desires something, it simply cannot drop it for good unless you stop desiring it. It is a common misconception that letting go means moving on from the desire. Letting go means to STOP wanting and needing it because if you had what you want, you wouldn’t have that burning desire. It would just be natural to have it and you’d be basking in gratitude for it.
Imagine placing an order on eBay. You know your products are arriving whether or not you can track your order. You invested in these products, placed your details and now you’re receiving them. It doesn’t matter if you ordered a pair of shoes or twelve, you will still receive your order(s). You don’t wonder if it will work out or if the pair of shoes will be damaged or if eBay decides not to give you what you want. You just rest and surrender to the knowing that it is yours and it is coming. This is letting go in a nutshell. Giving up is canceling that eBay order. That’s the difference between letting go and giving up.
The big question is how do you let it go?
Let’s say you’re manifesting your dream house. You really want to get a specific house in a specific city. You set the intention for it, visualised it, and constructed affirmations. Now, your job is to identify the resistance without making it your identity. You are not the resistance, you are experiencing resistance. Ask yourself what is within you that is making you need it and worrying about it. Maybe it is a time crunch situation and you’re unhappy with your current living conditions and that’s why you can’t wait to leave.
Make Peace
So from there, you decide to make peace with the current situation and strengthen your imagination. Make peace with the fact that this is temporary and nothing lasts forever, and somehow where you are is leading you to your desire. Keep reassuring yourself till you feel a little lighter. Now create new beliefs about your concept of self as a manifestor and your desire. Decide that you are now the person who gets exactly what they want when they want, and that life is so easy for you. Now step into the version of you who is that person and who moved to their new home. That way, you completely align yourself with the chosen reality. Meditate on that feeling! Keep doing this every day till you drop the resistance and the attachment to the outcome. Simultaneously, keep yourself busy with other productive activities that keep your focus off the “when” and the “how.” It is already done.
How are you practicing letting go?
Setting Boundaries
What are boundaries?
We hear the term ‘setting boundaries’ a lot, and while people understand the meaning of a boundary, not everyone knows how to set boundaries. It is a crucial aspect of your life that protects your mental space, your physical space, your time, and your energy. As we know by now, personal development starts with you. You have to be the one setting those boundaries! You are the one who gets to decide which boundaries to set and why, you are the one who decides to what extent these boundaries should be set.
We set boundaries based on our level of self-worth. If you have low self-worth, you probably allow people that disrespect you to continue to do that or to stay in your life. Of course, they are responsible for their own actions, and it is inexcusable. People who have themselves on a pedestal and have a sense of self-assurance, only allow people in their lives that match their standards. This is the starting point, raising your self-worth and maintaining standards. Accept the love and respect you deserve and desire, and never settle for less. As you build your self-worth, you begin to see with clearer eyes how you were letting toxic people in your life that drain you. Boundaries are set by communicating them. Choose to be assertive and express your boundaries if anyone crosses them, however, if someone continues to cross your boundaries, you might want to consider crossing them out of your life.
Why do we need them?
The purpose of boundaries is to look after yourself and your health, create better relationships with the ones you love, encourage effective communication, enhance your self-esteem and give yourself and others room for growth. Though this can only happen by setting HEALTHY boundaries.
Healthy Boundaries
Healthy boundaries involve the actions and behaviors you choose to accept from others and the way you show up for others, which is a form of self-care. The truth is that this happens when we set healthy boundaries with ourselves first – the content we consume, the way we treat ourselves, the way we speak to ourselves, the activities we take part in, speaking your mind, being assertive, being vulnerable, standing your ground, and how we take care of our own wellbeing.
Unhealthy Boundaries
Unhealthy boundaries happen when you choose to be powerless and letting others run the show. This is when you struggle to say no, when you become a people-pleaser when you let others make life decisions for you, giving too much without receiving the same level of love and respect in return, oversharing personal information with someone you barely know, going against your ethical values and morals for others. There is a fine line between compromising and sacrificing. You should never sacrifice parts of who you are or your identity or anything that is important to you. Compromising is finding common grounds to ensure that both parties are fulfilled.
Choose self-respect. Choose love. Choose kindness. Anything that doesn’t align should be out of the door this instant. Practice communicating your boundaries and eventually, it will become easier.
How do you communicate your boundaries?
Self-Forgiveness
Forgiving yourself can be one of the hardest things for human beings to do. In fact, some people don’t realize that they have put this pressure on themselves.
Everyone is on a different journey, and through each journey, there are bumps along the road. The ability to let go of hurt, pain and resentment seems almost impossible for people when they’re experiencing these emotions. We try so hard to live up to the expectation of having to be perfect, so we put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we fail or make a mistake.
Let’s get to the root of what forgiveness really means and how we achieve that.
In a nutshell, forgiveness is forgetting and moving on from the situation. The idea that you can forgive but not forget is false. If we continue to remember how someone hurt us, we will continue to bring it up whenever they wrong us or irritate us in any way. Once the hurt is dissolved, the memory starts to dissolve, too. If you don’t forget the mistake that you made, you will continue to self-loathe or be quick to criticize yourself on the smallest things. To do this, you have to take responsibility for your actions AND accept that this happened and it’s done. It is all in the past.
The more you dwell on something in the past that you cannot change, the more you make it your present and your future. If you wronged someone, own up to it and apologize. This is for you to grow, whether or not you are getting them back. Your job is to not make every human being love you.
Your job is to become more self-aware and use that awareness to better yourself.
Now, whenever the feelings of guilt or resentment come up, sit with it. Resisting your feelings makes them persist. So take a seat, and let the feeling pass. By doing this, you will give yourself permission to digest what happened, accept it and let it go. This is your time to feel to heal and to also reflect as to how and why you feel a certain way. Ask yourself “Do I want to continue to feel this way?” and “what is a better way to look at the situation?”
Here are some ways to look at the situation:
Every mistake is a learning experience
Perfection means stagnation. Growth stops. Imperfection means more growth.
This is NOT serving me. So what would serve me?
Bringing myself down does not lift me or others up
This is also a perfect time to practice self-compassion and self-love. You are so focused on how you hate a number of things about yourself and the things you failed at.
Ask yourself
What am I good at?
What have I succeeded at?
If you can’t find the answers to these questions, now is your time to shine. Now is your time to set clear goals while also practicing self-compassion. Be more gentle with yourself. If you continue to punish yourself, you will continue to be stuck in this very moment. It is time for a change. It is your choice to make that decision now. You can do better, so start doing better.
Here are three ways to practice self-compassion:
- Be Your Own BFF – Write down how you would respond to a friend who feels down or guilty, and give that friend advice. Use what you wrote to read it to yourself daily. By treating yourself the way you treat a friend, you form a healthier relationship with yourself which is the most important relationship in the world.
- Change Your Inner Critic – Monitor your self-talk to recognise when you’re being self-critical. From there you can dissolve the criticism by giving yourself permission to switch these thoughts to self-compassionate ones.
- Journal & Mindfulness – Write down the inner critic voice you hear to understand the root of this self-talk. Use this as an opportunity to practice mindfulness to let go of the feelings of shame and guilt that come up from journaling. Journaling is a great way to track your progress and to stay on top of your journey.
How are you going to practice self-forgiveness today?
Manifest Your Ideal Body
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Wanna Reach Resolutions? Train Your Mind
The end of the year 2020 has given us a lot to reflect on. It gave us a lot to look back at from everything that happened in one of the most historic years. Based on these experiences and self-reflection, we have been able to plan our new year resolutions to equip ourselves better. On the other hand, a lot of us slack as soon as the excitement for the new year wears off. How can we stick to our goals and reach resolutions?
It takes more than just wishful thinking to achieve your goals and dreams. It is recommended to turn these wishes into S.M.A.R.T Goals, which is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reliable, and Timely. This is a method to make your dreams a reality by putting it all on paper to make it as real to you as possible. By having a concise plan in a specific time-frame, you train your mind to work towards that goal to get that sense of achievement. Furthermore, you determine the necessary action you need to take to get things in motion. Things don’t always fall onto our lap, we work our way up to our dreams through knowledge and action. Unfortunately, there are factors that get in the way of your plan, and one of the biggest factors is FEAR. Fear is the real enemy that keeps you stuck until you can look into its eyes, and be able to tell it “NO!”
“Our brain is not designed to create happiness, as much as we wish it were so. Our brain evolved to promote survival. It saves the happy chemicals (dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin) for opportunities to meet a survival need, and only releases them in short spurts which are quickly metabolized. This motivates us to keep taking steps that stimulate our happy chemicals.” – Loretta Breuning
Overcoming fear and negative thoughts takes a lot of mental discipline and challenging yourself. The reason why fear gets in the way and paralyses us from taking action is that our brain goes into flight or fight mode in unfamiliar situations, so it shuts down. The first step to overcoming fear is noticing the thoughts when they come up, following that, you can switch them to more productive thoughts that are in alignment with your goals. Most importantly, in order to train your mind for regular positive thinking, you have to practice that regularly. For instance, instead of dwelling on fears, doubts, pain, and insecurities at night, use this time wisely to reflect on the three positive things that happened that day and dwell on these feelings. Immerse yourself in these vibes, by surrounding yourself with optimistic people and consuming more positive content. You can always take part in volunteering roles that serve the community or even take part in short-term projects.
There are many ways to change your habitual thinking from long-term success in different aspects of your life. Our mental health and physical health go hand-in-hand, so it is crucial to nourish both. Our subconscious can be reprogrammed through mirror work, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), and daily positive affirmations. Affirmations are statements that are thought and/or spoken out loud which are always absorbed by your subconscious mind. Just like we feed our bodies food that keeps us healthy and alive, affirmations work the same for our minds. We feed our minds statements that enhance our self-esteem and confidence in our goals.
What are your resolutions this year? How do you plan to achieve them?