Many years ago, I undertook studies with Faith Popcorn – who famously wrote Cocooning – this was decades back – where Faith discussed people living and working from home – cocooning themselves from the rest of society, having meals brought in, buying without walking into a physical store and much more.
Today, this is very much the “new way of living” for millions of people worldwide. For many, living in isolation – in limited space has created opportunities to expand their mind, to discover things about themselves, to be introspective. However, for many others living in isolation has created anxiety, stress, suicidal thoughts, doubt, depression, apathy, neglect of oneself and more.
We are all individuals as unique as our iris, as unique as a snowflake or raindrop – the one thing that we do have that other life-form on earth do not is the freedom of thought! We can choose to look at this situation as and opportunity to re-invent ourselves through studies, retrospective assessments and create our own new blueprint in the future. No one every said that life is easy, however, like so many I took life for granted, never imagining that here in Australia our lives would be dictated to by an unseen force – a virus. What I have noticed is the great divide, and more importantly the sense of FEAR, Fear of the unknown future for ourselves and our families from something we cannot see.
Fear creates stress in your body this emotion kept unchecked can have major ramifications on your health. Simply, look at the rate of depression and suicide that is happening in western society – than think about FEAR that is tangible, palpable, and real – for example those trying to flee Kabul –
There are many gurus out there as well as Politicians and well-intentioned individuals creating fear – rather than creating a sense of security, calm and safety. Media messages that create fear rather than a sense of security are adding to the torment that many people are feeling.
So what to do, I am genuinely not trying to tell you how or what to do, but to simply remember that you are the master of your mind, and only you can change the way your feel and the way you respond to messages you are receiving and ultimately the messages you are giving your unconscious mind.
If you expect something bad to happen, generally it does, if you expect something good to happy the same principle applies.
Re-framing allows you to take control and to release yourself from limiting thoughts – so what is re-framing – re-framing is taking control of your throughs and re-processing them in a positive way or in another words putting a positive spin on a thought by ending the thought in a positive way.
For example – ‘Thought’
“There are so many stupid people out there – causing us to be prisoners” – can be re-framed “There are so many people doing the right thing out there -We are lucky to live in a free country” changing your focus changes your heart rate and mental anxiety.
Another example –
“I can’t go outside freely and walk anywhere or visit my gym” can be re-framed to “how lucky am I that I can switch on my TV, computer of phone and look at ways to exercise at home with precise instructions, its like having a one on one instructor”
Another example –
“I can’t visit my loved ones and it is stressing me out” – I can’s visit my loved one, how lucky am I to be able to facetime, zoom, or skype them.
Living in the moment, means being aware of the words that you say to yourself – because the most important words you can every hear are those you say to yourself – you have the power to take control of how you think and ultimately how you feel. Try noticing every though you have over the next 48 hours, by focusing on the now and your thoughts you can set yourself free .
I ask my clients to actually write down the number of times a limiting thought comes into their mind – they are generally astonished at how many limiting thoughts they have every single day, not imagine that 90% of the thoughts you think today, you thought yesterday, and the day before and the day before – the total number of thoughts that you are firing and wiring into your sub-conscious mind that does not benefit you is mind boggling.
Why not give it a go for a few days and see how you feel.
If you would like to know more, please feel free to drop me an email.