It’s mid-January. How are you feeling?
If I am honest with myself, I began January feeling depleted.
My sleep was poor, my focus was fleeting, and I felt worry cloaking me like a heavy blanket.
I caught myself before falling into my old tendency of pushing and pressuring my way toward more productivity.
Instead, I chose to get curious about why I felt worried.
Behind every feeling is a thought, yet often that thought isn’t obvious.
It’s worth getting to know your recurring, “top” worries and thoughts. When you know how your mind prefers to self-judge, it becomes easier to catch it and change course.
My thoughts sounded like this: “I’m already behind. I’m never going to hit my goals. I can’t afford to take a break. Everyone else has it SO together. I should have this mastered by now.”
A real pile of poo.
Was it really any surprise that I felt like poo?
The thought “I can’t afford to take a break” is a familiar one for me, and it always packs a punch.
And here’s what I now know: The moment when we think we don’t have time to care for ourselves, is very moment we NEED to care for ourselves the most.
Despite the urge to hit the gas and go faster, I rested.
That was a big win, but the decision to rest didn’t come without a lot of inner protest.
For many of us, slowing down and taking care of ourselves still requires a great deal of courage.
We were not taught to love ourselves in this way.
We learned early on that the world gets to determine our worth, and the worthiness scale is calibrated in productivity and appearance.
If this is true, can we ever measure up?
I don’t think I want to try.
There is a different way to measure worthiness, and it starts and ends with love from within.
We are already worthy.
And the measure of how deeply we embody our self-worth is through our words.
This includes how we speak to ourselves.
I offer you Agreement #1, from Don Miguel Ruiz’s book The Four Agreements:
Be impeccable with your word.
Our words are powerful. The way we talk to ourselves is powerful. It is a force.
When we tell ourselves we aren’t enough, or that we are behind, or that there is no time for self-nourishment, then we are using our thoughts against ourselves.
We are hooked into false beliefs that erode our sense of self.
Get to Know Your Words
Our thoughts are repetitious. We think the same things over and over! But when we don’t pay close attention to the mental pile we’ve amassed, then we get stuck.
A Thought Download is a tool to help see what our brains are thinking. (I learned it from coach Brooke Castillo.)
To do a Thought Download, just sit with a pen and paper and jot down every single thing that scrolls through your mind. Write everything from “what will I make for dinner?” to “I don’t know how to write.”
Write until your mind feels empty. Then highlight the thoughts that pack a punch. (You’ll know then when you read them!) I do this every day.
And then I go to work to clean up the Whopper thoughts.
This is how we begin to rewire our brains for impeccable thinking.
It is an act of love …even when our brains try to convince us that it’s a total waste of time.
Because when we love ourselves, and truly embody our worthiness, our thinking becomes impeccable.
The mental heap becomes a small mound.
We feel better.
We are at peace.
Loving thoughts create loving actions.
Instead of believing we’re behind and we need to hustle, we take the break.
And we know we are exactly where we need to be.
Our brains are wired for judgmental thinking. That’s why it’s so important to be on to it. We need to clean that pile up!
Impeccable thinking comes from thinking on purpose.
What are your default critical thoughts? What would it help to think instead?
Hit Reply and let me know!