I was watching a movie on Amazon Prime last night called Brittany Runs a Marathon. Odd title I know but late at night I'm not too picky over movie choices. It was actually a good movie that addressed many of the social and emotional aspects of being overweight and trying to lose weight. So in this movie, Brittany's friend said the phrase "little goals".. and that really stuck in my mind.
So many times when we look to make a change to our bodies or our diet or our lifestyle, we >>> stand there looking at this big mountain and become overwhelmed and discouraged. This instantly makes us drop the idea all together. Take your eyes off of the mountain. If you go into anything focused on the enormity of the undertaking, you immediately drain any passion or enthusiasm that you may have had to get started. You need that passion and enthusiasm. That is your fuel! Instead, know what the big goal looks like but then zoom back out to the very next step in front of you. If you can do that, you are winning the greatest part of the mental game. If the mind is allowed to become overwhelmed, then forget about it. Your plans are doomed. Your mind won't support them. However, if you can keep your mind from focusing on anything except one doable step... bingo!!! Of course, this is more difficult than you may think. Our minds love to wander off into the future and overwhelm and frustrate themselves quite often. You will have to be a vigilant caretaker of your mind during the "get my new habits started" phase. Little Goal #1- Start 3 New Habits. Habit 1- Keep your minds focus zoomed in and don't allow it to even look at the mountain. Stop and think what your first step should be and start. Do it. Don't wait until all of the circumstances are perfect and well planned. Do it. Do it after you finish reading this. Do it sloppy. Do it messy. Make mistakes. Look like an idiot. Embarrass yourself..but do it. Maybe it's touching your toes 10 times, or trying. Maybe it's standing with your arms out and twisting in place for 60 seconds. Maybe its finding that big water jug and filling it up and putting it beside you on the couch. Just do something. Habit 2- Read something every day for 7 days about healthy food and exercise. Look at other peoples before and after pictures. Research exercises that look fun. Watch YouTube Videos about peoples weight loss journeys. This is your fuel. You need fuel to power up enough to create change. Don't skip setting up this habit. If you are reading this you already are on some device with internet access. Start googling. Habit 3- Do one thing different this week consistently. Take one thing that you learned during habit 2's research and inspiration step and do it everyday for 7 days. If you allowed your mind to look at the mountain and talk you into skipping a day.. it's ok.. refocus. Realize your mind took it's focus off of the single step, looked at the mountain, whined "toooooo harrrrrrd", you listened to it and did nothing. You forgot to redirect your mind to today's step. Now decide it's never too late to pick that foot up and take that step. There is no expiration date on next steps. You never use up all the next step opportunities. Take it. Then take it again.. and again.. and again.
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Is it a Mental Discomfort?
Is your mind tired? Have you been thinking and or sitting in front of a computer all day? Sometimes we can be really into what we are doing and ignore our minds when they are becoming tired or exhausted. Since our minds don’t typically speak up and say, "Hey dude.. I could really use a break right now", instead, you find yourself grabbing the chip bag to help you push through those mental tasks. Next time, recognize if you’ve been at it for a while mentally, and you are really wanting those Miss Vickies Jalapeño Kettle Chips, it’s time to give your mind a rest. Walk away from the computer screen. Go do something mindless and enjoyable for awhile. Is it an Emotional Discomfort? Time to check in on how you are feeling internally. Are you bothered? Upset? Angry? Worried? Sometimes if we aren’t conscious and aware of our emotional state it can trigger our need for comfort.. to just feel better. If yes, put the ice cream back and go have a talk with yourself instead. Maybe keep your journal in the freezer where you used to keep the ice cream. Do what I call a Mind Dump and just allow your mind to say anything and everything that it is thinking..just listen and write. I’ve got a whole course written to help you release and comfort yourself emotionally without using food. It’s called the Learn to Tidy and Relax Your Mind. You can check out the first 3 days free with no expectations or obligations to do more. An unsettled mind is an afraid mind. An unsettled mind is a direct threat to your peace. If you fall into the problem finding category of mind habits, you know that when your mind is up in the air on a topic, it will begin to spin, obsess, search, etc.. until it gets the answer it needs. If it is depending on an "answer" in order to settle, it could take awhile and it is possible that there is no answer to be found. During that while, you will feel unrest, unsettled, confused, upset, restless and frustrated. The topic in question will soon consume all of your thoughts causing your mind to become lost inside the confusion. So what do we do when our mind receives information that worries or upsets it and sets off the domino affect of this mental habit? It's time to step in. You will need to step into the strong role of the caretaker and give your mind an intervention. You know the deep pit of despair it will take you into if you ignore it and allow it to set off on it's search for information. Why does It do this? It Is afraid and trying to stay safe. It thinks if it can somehow figure out the future or uncover information that it does not yet know, then it will have everything that it needs to control and avert disaster.. emotional disaster that is. However, in this quest to avoid emotional disaster, it begins to create the very thing it is attempting to avoid. Ask yourself, Is my mind doing this for emotional reasons? Is it using its detective, problem solving gifts in the emotional world. Is it trying to meet it's on need for safety? If yes, help get it out of there. How? Stay with the facts. Set your mind back on the path within the logical world. Keep the Future Room and the People Room and the emotional world off limits to this mind. Help it redirect it's focus on things it knows to be true.. things that are certain or stable. I personally have this type of mind. I often think I should have pursued a career as a detective or worked for the CIA or something. My mind has a super suspicious nose for emotional danger and because I didn't know how to care for it, has held me in much emotional suffering. Trying to fix the unfixable and solve the unsolvable will drive this mind insane. It helps me to visualize two paths. One path goes into a deep ocean. Here there are emotions, instability and unsolvable, uncontrollable constantly changing people and situations. This is incredibly overwhelming to the problem solving mind if it thinks it's supposed to fix, change, and avoid what is in the ocean. Nothing can be solved or stay solved here in the emotional ocean. Your mind will constantly stay unsettled and busy trying to fix unfixable things and control uncontrollable forces here. The other path stays on stable dry land, where there is clarity and certainty. Here there are fixable things. Once fixed, they stay fixed. Once solved, they stay solved. This is the physical tangible world...not the emotional world. Yes your mind will always pursue making it's creations even more efficient and constantly improve on them.. but this is healthy. Your mind will thrive in this type of environment. This environment is concrete and non emotional. This is where your mind can change and control things and use it's strength for good. This is the only path for a problem solving mind. It must stick with the facts and keep it's energy in the physical world. This kind of mind can become very lost, very sick, and very unstable if allowed to go in the ocean for the purpose of fixing it. I'm not saying that if you have this type of mind, you should never have or show emotions. Emotions are normal and healthy. What I am saying is that your mind shouldn't try to avoid emotions, change, or pain by using its problem solving gifts as a form of control. No matter how smart our mind is, it can never stop, change, or control a force like the ocean, Emotions are coming. Don't run. Don't be afraid. It's just the ocean. It's normal for the tide to come in and sweep us up in it. Just lay on your back and let it float you to your next chapter, with whatever and whoever that may be. Then direct the energy of your problem solving mind on things you can create and control.
I sat down this morning to write a new blog post on being raised by a parent suffering from alcoholism and the affects that can have on your mind as a child, and realized my heart was just not in it. What does that mean? My energy was not supporting the idea.. at all. Not that it was a bad idea, I just had no motivation to write about it.. my heart or spirit was not in it.. there was no inspiration or in-spirit-action behind it. It is important to listen to your mind and your heart during these times. Many times we push our minds to do things out of fear, desperation, or time pressures. I know that with the kind of mind that I have, that this isn't healthy. So I stopped trying to force it, and decided to listen to it..and apparently it would rather write about the importance of listening. I would also like to write about the heart and how it works with the healthy, functional mind to create and bring what is needed into the world in just the right way and the right timing. It's possible that someone reading this, really needed it today. It's possible that someone's heart is trying to tell someones mind something, and the person doesn't know how to allow that to happen. Letting the Heart Lead. Here is my belief or understanding. Your heart or spirit is a pure divine essence connected to the Great Heart of Great Spirit..or God..whatever label you have for that big, all knowing, creative energy of the universe. It is the very core of your being. You came here with it and you are still connected to it.. You can't be separated from it, nor can it be touched or damaged. The mind, acts as the eyes and ears of the heart.. the story teller of the experience.. A dysfunctional mind that is full of misunderstandings, one that has told many negative stories full of lies, can't be used by the heart. Not only can it not be used, that kind of mind overpowers the heart. It is too loud, to emotional, to unstable. The heart (who you truly are) just has to sit back and wait for an opening. If the mind is dysfunctional an opening only happens once the mind exhausts itself. Its why the best ideas or the answers usually come once you "give up". This is also called surrender. You can surrender from exhaustion or by choice. I suggest learning to surrender by choice will save you lots of time, struggle, and suffering. Think of the mind and the heart as dancing partners. Did you know that when we put our hands in prayer pose in front of our hearts and bow our heads towards our hands, we are signifying that our minds are surrendering to our hearts? We are surrendering the lies, the stories of who our minds think we are or think we should be. We are asking for truth to emerge from deep inside and come out and interact with the world- despite the fears and rules of our mind. A healthy mind can allow this. An unhealthy mind can't wake up and separate from being immersed in the stories. The heart holds the line that connects it to the answers. It can receive the instructions, directions, and next steps. Then the heart can take the hand of the healthy, relaxed, surrendered mind and create beauty, peace, and contentment. What direction does your heart want to take your mind today? Will your mind relax and allow it? Take a few minutes now and try to listen. If your mind is too loud, it's time to learn to take care of it and help it relax and trust the heart. You can start with the Learn to Tidy and Relax Your Mind Course. a meditation of surrender for you
Two Things Need to Happen to Tidy Your Mind.
ONE. Release Deep Pain. Although your mind may tell you that this is an impossible task and you will just be broken or messed up forever because of a past experience, it is not true. Deep pain is usually only 20% of the reason your mind is creating emotional suffering. See, it's never as big and bad as your mind makes it out to be. HOW: You can start with the Learn to Tidy and Relax Your Mind Course and also work with me One on One to work through deep pain. TWO. Break Bad Mental Habits. Our mind develops some destructive mental habits in efforts to get it's needs met as a child. You are also genetically predisposed to think a certain way and make certain assumptions that can result in bad habits. Bad Mental Habits make up the other 80% of the cause for your mind creating emotional suffering. This is actually good news as helping your mind step away from these habits usually only takes awareness of them and consistent redirection. HOW: The NeverMind Blog is designed to help you find your habits and help you step away from them.. to retrain your mind to think and behave in a different way. It will also help you to understand the minds of those you are in relationship with.. and how they think very differently to you...and this is normal. Just as there are different body shapes, the minds that go with those shapes all have a unique way of thinking and perceiving the world around them. Here are the 3 Mind Habit Categories.
we need to talkSensors & Crusaders:
Well apparently I'm not going to make many friends with this post. This Health Type tends to be the winners in the eyes of society. They are smart. They are naturally good at just about everything they try. They are beautiful. All of these qualities are highly recognized, praised, and sought after in our society. In school they are they jocks and the cheerleaders, the homecoming queens and kings. In the movies they are the stars the leading characters. This result is this type of mind growing up expecting to be treated as special, important, the star of the show, the best..acknowledged, praised, admired. All of this special treatment, shapes a mind that becomes very needy of external validation and constant reassurance. As a child, they may find this is easy to come by and it comes in abundance.. Their minds big needs for external validation are constantly met. Everyone tells them just how good and smart and beautiful they are all of the time.. Then as they grow into adulthood, unless they become a movie star or celebrity, this amount of recognition of beauty and achievement is harder and harder to come by and even then...it's never enough. This mind falls in the Never Satisfied Category of Mind Habits. To get their minds many needs met, they will overachieve, constantly change things about their looks or appearance. Do whatever it takes to get noticed. No amount of money, status, or recognition is ever enough for this mind. It will always need more and never stay satisfied for long. This is an incredibly tiring and exhausting type of mind habit to have and can leave people who appear to have it all feeling desperate and miserable. They work hard at perfection so they can achieve the recognition. What's the Fix? Awareness that your mind has created a hole that can't possibly be filled is a great start. You are setting yourself up for failure and that is something your mind does not handle well. Realizing that those around you in your life aren't responsible for constantly trying to fill this hole for you and make you feel a certain way. They have lives and minds of their own to care for. Your mind and it's needs are not the center of the universe. Other people exist and we all matter. Redirect your focus from receiving to giving. If you look outside of yourself. See a need. Meet a need. Stop comparing your life and experience to what you see in movies. It's not reality. Stop expecting perfection. It doesn't exist. Use your mind for it's intended purpose. You are hard workers. You are unstoppable. You are smart. You have the ability to go the distance. Go create something amazing for the world. Get your mind off of itself and it's mission for validation and reassurance through looks and accomplishments.. and put your mind on a mission of creating a better more efficient world. I have no doubt you will succeed. ACTIVATORS/CONNECTORS: Have you ever asked yourself..
"How did I get myself into this mess?!!!.. I am so overwhelmed with the work I have created for myself." You are suffering from a VOGI- Victim Of Grand Idea We love to dream big. We have lots of ideas.. and not just any ideas.. BIG ideas. In our imagination we can see how amazing and how awesome seeing this idea come into reality will be. We love how it makes us feel to imagine this. What we don't have is the ability to realize that to actually pull off one of these grand ideas would take a team of 20 people with various skill sets working around the clock. But don't try to tell us that!! Oh no!! We will kill ourselves trying to prove to you and everyone else that we CAN do whatever we think and say we can..all by ourselves. We have to remind ourselves to stop and count the cost. We need a reality check to look at the amount of time and energy this will require. Stopping and thinking is not our strong point either. We are so swept away by the excitement of the idea that one minute a huge idea pops in our head and by morning we have a website started, a Facebook group created, we've announced our grand plans to all social media platforms, we've secured a business name, etc.. etc.. etc... It looks amazing in our minds, but very soon the reality of the situation sets in and we feel imprisoned by the work our dreams have created. Don't suffer any more VOGI'S. Enjoy the dream. Keep dreaming and using your imagination. Dream big things. Enjoy feeling those things are real and true by seeing it in that massive imagination of yours. Then in your real life.. keep it simple. Stick to things you find fun and easy. Yes, we all know you can do anything you set your mind to. We know you are tenacious. You don't have to prove it to anyone. Pick the parts of your work that you enjoy and either ditch the rest of it or find someone else to do the parts you either don't enjoy or that don't come naturally to you and the way your mind works. If you don't know your HEALTH TYPE- Take this 3 minute test to find out:) Get to know yourself. Guardians and Diplomats:
I did a post the other day for the Activators and Connectors suffering from VOGI'S- Victims of their own Grand Ideas. Today I realized that Guardians and Diplomats have VOGE's..Victims of Grand Expectations.. You guys have a super strong value system. Things matter to you that don't matter to the other health types.. such as remembering birthdays, writing handwritten thank you notes, making others feel special... going the extra mile. You will put so much time and energy into making things special for others because it matters to you. You value excellence. Then after you put in all of this time and energy, if it's not noticed or appreciated or reciprocated in the way you EXPECT.. you suffer and become angry and resentful. Your great expectations also make it hard for you to trust others to do the same quality job that you would do. This means, you end up taking on more because of this belief and maybe a little need to control so it's done "right" but becoming bitter and resentful that "you have to do everything." Here is an audio I hear from many Diplomats especially."I always have to be the responsible one. It's always all on me. I have to do everything. I get no help or support...and no one even appreciates it. I do everything for everyone all of the time and they don't even notice everything I do for them." Is this true or are you bringing everything all yourself because of your GRAND EXPECTATIONS? Are you experiencing a VOGE? BELIEF- I HAVE TO DO THIS (EVEN THOUGH NO ONE ACTUALLY ASKED ME TO OR IS EXPECTING ME TO EXCEPT for MYSELF AND MY HIGH EXPECTATIONS ON THIS EXPERIENCE) REACTION- BITTER , RESENTFUL, AND HATING ALL THE UNAPPRECIATIVE SELFISH PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE (USUALLY YOUR FAMILY, THE ONES YOU LOVE MOST) If this sounds familiar it's time to end the VOGE's... realize you are setting yourself up for this anger and bitterness. Realize things that matter so much to you, just don't matter to everyone else. Of course, they will let you do it if you are offering, but if you are looking to get your need of appreciation met from them.. you are looking for it in the wrong place. Either resist the urge to go the extra mile for everyone.. or drop the GRAND EXPECTATIONS on their reactions being some over the top outpouring of appreciation.. it's not happening....you are living in a dream world..... then learn how to fulfill your own emotional needs for appreciation. Learn how to tell yourself how amazing you are.. how special you are..know for yourself what an incredible human being you are.. because you are!💛
"I wish I didn't care what others thought of me."
"I wish I could stop doubting myself." "I wish I could stop people pleasing." "I wish I could just be myself around anyone and everyone." "I wish I could be free to be my authentic self." "I wish I could just relax around others." You don't feel safe enough to experience the above mentioned yet. Why? You have made everyone else's thoughts and opinions of you higher than or more important than.. more valuable than your own opinion of you. You see others as the adult or the authority. This is pointing to a the Caretaker part of your mind, not quite stepping into adulthood yet. You may also have a fear of mistakes...meaning you don't feel safe to make your own mistakes yet. You've yet to allow mistakes to become an acceptable part of life. You also don't trust you yet. What does that mean? If you look at your mind in 2 parts.. one being the inner child part, the other being the parent or caretaker part.. the inner child doesn't trust the caretaker and the caretaker doesn't trust the inner child. The inner child is loud, direct, honest and can also have adopted many bad habits to get its needs met. Your inner child is more than ready to be it's true self around everyone. The caretaker is supposed to be the confident adult, but may not have grown into that yet. This is the people pleasing part of your mind. The part that is afraid of rejection, judgement, criticism, and making mistakes. The one looking to others for the answers when it should be confident in it's own thoughts and opinions. This behavior of the caretaker angers the inner child part and it will act out. The caretaker is embarrassed by the behaviors of the inner child part and tries to suppress it. You can see there is a war here instead of a union. This is a dysfunctional relationship between YOU and YOU. What's the Fix? 1) Help your Caretaker grow up and embrace adulthood. Some of you are avoiding being responsible for yourself...because being responsible means owning mistakes.. and you are still afraid of mistakes. It's easier to just hide behind insecurity or other people. 2) Help the Caretaker part overcome it's fears of rejection, judgement, criticism, and mistakes. This will require looking into your past experiences..or "basement" work. 3) Create a sense of calm and security within yourself by strengthening your YOU and YOU relationship. Need step by step instructions on how to accomplish these 3 important milestones in your growth? Pre Register for the upcoming course Grow Me Up- Helping your Mind Step into Maturity. listen to the audio version here or |
mind coachHey, it's me!!..Angie Johnsey. You may have seen me with Valerie Bertinelli on the Today Show being called the "mind coach". I love helping people like you find relief from all of the "crazy making" that our minds can get in to..Did you hear about the Tidy Mind Map? Yep, I'm kind of the personal organizer for your mind. I'm glad you are here.. I have so much to share with you. Pull up a chair, let me help you unwind your mind, and let's hang out. Archives
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