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Embrace Your Struggle

Do you have a desire for Success or happiness in your life? But, right now you find yourself struggling through your life with tons of obstacles.

You may even feel stuck and find yourself procrastinating. You feel like an island with no support, abandoned, it’s you against the world. Or maybe you feel like you are moving backwards instead of forward, there’s not momentum. It’s like you are wallowing in the mud. Have you ever felt like that? I know I have. As a matter of fact, that is how I’m feeling right now as I’m writing this.

I’ve been working on launching my podcast for the last eight months. I’ve ran into technical problems, then my website got into a war between two hosting companies when I went to move it from the old hosting company to the new one.  I couldn’t get my logo right or my cover art. The list goes on and on.

Then the mental and emotional struggles started. The old ‘not good enough’ button was pushed. My self-talk was really defeating. I said stuff like “Who’s going to listen to the podcast?” “You’re not any good.” “No one will like it.” “It’s not very good.”  “I don’t know what I’m doing, who am I kidding.”  “I don’t know what I’m talking about.” To top it I started having panic attacks in the morning when I woke up and no one knew what I was going through because I went into hiding.

I had to get control of my mind and emotions. I gave myself a good talking to. I’ve been through this before and came out the other end. I’m a fighter. I made it through cancer twice, custody suit with no income. I’ll be dam if I’ll let this podcast get the best of me. I asked myself an important question, “What did I do to get threw it before?” I made a decision, enough is enough. Then what did I do? I got my mind and emotions under control. Okay I can do that again. I went into my program I teach my clients and started using the tools I used before to pull myself out of depression, cancer, custody suit, court.

I started embracing my struggles, so that I could move through them and come out the other side stronger. I looked at my struggles as the steps to getting to the other side of my dream. It was like a test from the universe asking, “How bad do you want this?” Are you willing to go through your doubts and fears to accomplish your dreams? I ask you, “What do you want and are you willing to go through the struggle to reach your desire?” It’s really a choice. How you want to live? For me I realized the key is to embrace your problems as you grow. Give it a try and let me know how it goes. If you need help I’m here for you. Just send me an email jolen@jolenphilbrook.com

How To Redirect Your Mind And Your Thinking

What do you spend most of your time thinking about? Are your thoughts benefiting you and your body?  Or are they hurting you by rehashing the past, worrying about something you have no control over?  Perhaps your thoughts are in the future dreaming of what your life could be like?

Did you know that you think 60, 000 thoughts a day and most of those thoughts are negative. Your brain thinks negative and it’s your job to retrain and redirect your thoughts, but we don’t always know what we are thinking about, because we are running on auto pilot.   

One way to know what you are thinking is to pay attention to your feelings. Just notice if you feel happy or sad, relaxed or stressed. This is a hint to what you are thinking. Feelings follow thought. This pattern of the brain is left over from a time long forgotten. The reptilian brain was our first brain. It is the oldest of all the brains components. It controls the body’s vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, body temperature and balance. Its job is to keep us safe. The second brain is known as the emotional brain. The limbic brain emerged in the first mammals. This part of the brain is the seat of our value and judgments that we make. It records memories of our behaviors that produced our experiences.

Now you know about the brain and that feelings follow thought. Here is a key to changing your feelings. If you don’t like what you are feeling, then change your thoughts and your feelings will change. Now I bet you are thinking sure that sounds easier said than done. How do you go about shifting your emotions? One way to do this to think of a happy event. Remember when you went to a great concert or saw a funny movie that made you laugh. Do you have a special pet that you love? If you have a child do they do silly things that make you smile?

The memory I use to make myself feel better is about my son. He was two years old and it was Christmas morning. I gave him a gift to open. At first he was not sure what to do with it, but once I showed him how to open the gift he went wild. Every time anyone received a gift he was right there helping them open their gift. He was so cute and the room was full of love and laughter.

The reason why this works is because your mind can only think of one thing at a time. In the beginning it will take awareness, but after you do the exercise a few times it becomes easier to shift your emotions to a happier state.   

Just for today practice tapping into how you feel. To remember you might pick a time such as the top of the hour to check in or post a sticky note saying, “Feeling?” Let me know how it goes. Leave a reply below.  

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