No matter who you are, we all come up against emotional roadblocks every so often. It’s an inescapable truth of being human.
However, some roadblocks turn into seemingly endless delays where we feel trapped in our numbness, anger, or despair. When an emotion arises that derails us from our desired state of feeling free, joyful, and enthusiastic about life, the pain of that emotional setback can amplify the perfectly healthy “low” emotions we are experiencing.
You are not meant to be bursting with bliss every second of every day. Nothing is wrong with you for experiencing perfectly human emotion. However, learning how to handle those emotions and the lingering feelings that often trap you in those lower states ongoing is entirely within your power.
While you have to choose to shift your state, thankfully, there are a wide variety of tools and resources – both external and internal – that can help you navigate those heavy moments with greater ease. Of course, learning about yourself and finding what works for you as an individual is an ever-evolving journey, but I hope that these suggestions may shed some light in the dark, offering you a place to start.
1. Mindset Matters
Whether you’re aware of it or not, the beliefs you hold are the instruction manual for your life. They inform the world around you of what you expect to receive, what you will tolerate, what you desire, and how you treat others. As difficult as it can feel in moments of adversity or emotional turbulence, getting clear on the beliefs you need to hold to SOAR in life will organically lead you to manifest your most heartfelt dreams.
Our thoughts impact our feelings. Every thought you entertain and continually return to impacts how you feel about situations, others, and yourself. This does NOT mean giving your overly critical mind a reason to apply more pressure through a perfectionistic lens. Instead, this means taking a compassionate, honest, and brave look at how the majority of your thoughts make you feel about those situations, other people, and yourself.
Brooke Castillo’s ‘Model’ with her Life Coach School is an incredibly insightful resource for understanding this pattern. The Model includes C – Circumstance T – Thought F – Feeling A – Actions R – Results. When you identify a mindset trap by examining how certain thoughts make you feel, you can work on modifying that belief system to better serve you.
2. Transform Liabilities Into Assets
Ah, weaknesses… We all have them, yet we are instinctually wired to see them as faults in our design. I much prefer the term “growing edges”, as I see them as the sharp parts within myself where growth is possible. Without these edges, we would not be able to experience growth, creation, or the satisfaction that comes from overcoming adversity. Seeing these edges as your superpower is not a cliché but an immensely powerful and true perspective we can all adopt.
In my life, my OCD tendencies with crippling perfectionism absolutely felt like a weakness. Needing my environment to be ordered in an exact, precise way was downright exhausting when tied to thoughts and feelings that weighed me down. Reframing these tendencies to see how they could be leveraged for good in my life led me to realize how incredibly organized and highly efficient I can be. What used to feel like a negative became a quality I was proud of.
Transmuting one emotional state into another by making a change in the thoughts you hold is the deceivingly simple shift that catalyzes all others. When I worked to transmute a growing edge such as envy, a feeling spurred by thoughts like “others get good things, and I don’t” into GRATITUDE for everything I do have, the harsh edge of envy softened. Through my daily practice of genuine Gratitude, loving myself in the process of becoming, and especially in the moments that feel heavy or stressful, I’ve sustainably shifted that growing edge.
‘Good things come to me with ease’ is my daily mantra for 2022!
3. Create a Morning Success Ritual
There’s a reason why people tout the benefits and importance of a morning routine. When you set the tone for your day, creating an environment and ritual that empowers you to anchor into that state of Gratitude, joy, and excitement, you enable yourself to show up as the best version of YOU.
While the word “routine” may sound strict or robotic, it’s the consistent effort to consciously set your day up for success emotionally, mentally, and physically that’s important. For many of us, no two days look exactly the same, and as you settle into a routine that works for you, you will learn how to gently mold it so that it bends with you as life does.
Identifying a mantra or affirmation that you return to throughout your day to stay grounded, focused, and renewed is a powerful, albeit simple, tool. This mantra will help you to access the ‘unforced rhythms of grace’ where you discover how to genuinely go with the flow and travel lightly and freely.
Here is an example of my morning ritual:
– Prayer, Meditation, and contemplative spiritual practices like the Centering Prayer
– Journaling (Morning Pages ritual by Julia Cameron from her seminal book, The Artist’s Way)
– Movement (Gabrielle’s Roth’s 5 Rhythms app on my phone) as well as a ‘dance party’ to energize the day
– SoulCollage® creation or card selection and journaling about what came through
Resources Mentioned:
Sweat Your Prayers: The 5 Rhythms by Gabrielle Roth
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron