The election can cause a lot of anxiety, stress and worry about the future. Over expecting can put a hardship on your emotions as well as physical well-being.
In fact, you can develop "election blues" which can make you believe that you don’t count and turn your mood into anger, frustration or disgust.
The experience overall can feel traumatic in many ways.
4 tips on how to mitigate the negative effects of the election.
1. Disconnect from Media
Disconnect from the onslaught of media and all the opinions. Yes, we all have to be informed but being over informed can put a strain on us. Too much information and particularly emotionally charged information can cause stress and worry. Out of balance of our emotional system can cause anxiety, anger, disappointment, frustration and discontent.
2. Get Up Off the Chair and Do Something
Just don’t sit around watching TV or computer thinking you will gain new insight or thing will change any minute. Do something, take action is the enemy of anxiety. So overcoming anxiety, stress, and worry is best done by channeling your energy and focus on being productive.
3. Take Time and Take Care of Yourself
When people get anxious, stressed and worried they tend to constrict their muscles in their body for protection and their breathing becomes shallow reducing the oxygen to their brains. Practice meditation, intuitive breathing methods to calm and reduce anxiety in your mind and body. Exercise is a wonderful way to reduce stress. Go out and take a walk.
4. Put Your Fears on Paper
Write down your fears on paper. By putting them down on paper you recognize superficially what they are and the process takes away their power. 99% of all fears never come true as you believe they would. Remember tomorrow will be different and all conditions may change making the fears invalid.
Take Away
Understand that life events will change every day. Even though things feel so bad today it will change in time. Take care of yourself. You as well as the country is very resilient and we will get through this.
Have faith that things will change and what was disappointing today may not be tomorrow.
Coach Bill
Sometimes it seems as though your thoughts have all the power. It feels as though your thoughts rule your behaviors, emotions, and reactions. Your thoughts seem to direct your life more than you do.
If only you had the power and ability to change your thoughts with just shifting the way you think.
So do your thoughts have that much power? Or are they influenced and governed by a deeper part of the mind?
There has been a huge misconception going on for decades which says if you think positive thoughts you can overcome negative thinking and move into positiveness. For years people have been focusing on and practicing faithfully positive affirmations in order to change negative thought patterns and shift a positive state of mind from just by saying them. Well, affirmations have not worked at all. Universally people are getting really tired of it. People have become very tired of this philosophy that just positive thinking can project them into happiness, fulfillment, and success.
To think that you can just think positive thoughts and your mind will alter those negative thought patterns and help you navigate through life's barriers is very misleading. Thoughts do not have that power unless you give it to them.
Realistically, significantly less than 10% of your ability to succeed, lose weight, overcome bad situations, make positive changes, stop negative thoughts, recover from addictions, form deeper relationships, achieve love, or find fulfillment, has to do with how you think.
Power of Core Beliefs
Actually, more than 90% has to do directly with your core beliefs you formed as you grew up and are now stored in your subconscious mind. You are unaware of that fact. Believe it or not, you have been accumulating, accepting and storing beliefs into your subconscious mind over your lifetime. Really it is these stored core beliefs which directly influence and govern how you form your thoughts and how you think.
In order to make a substantial change to how you think you have to understand how your mind works.
Over 90 percent of all your thoughts are formed and govern by your core beliefs. These beliefs, unknown to you, embedded themselves in your subconscious mind.
A majority of your thoughts today are directed by your core beliefs from your past. The content of your thoughts and degree of happiness, fulfillment, and success equal to now you believe about yourself.
Thought is the Direct Result of Your Mind Algorithms
Let’s look at how your get the thoughts generate.
Your beliefs actually are formed from what is termed mind code. Your mind code is what really determines who you are, how you behave, your emotions are expressed, how you sense and how you reacts. Very importantly mind code is where your identity originates.
Mind code is data your brain gathers every day of your life from situations you go through. Think of mind code as a mind algorithm. An algorithm is a step by step instructions of how your mind will operate. The mind code data is then converted into your belief system or what is termed personal philosophy.
A mind algorithm is very similar to a computer algorithm. In a computer, it is the algorithms that tell the computer and program how to function. If the computer algorithms get changed like through a virus then the computer reacts differently or doesn’t work at all. The same is true with mind algorithms. If the mind accepts negative data from experiences, it then produces negative beliefs and in turn, generates negative thoughts.
An example of the above is if you experience a hurtful situation that causes you to form a negative core belief that you are let’s say “not good enough”, you will think you are not good enough and not know why you are negative toward yourself.
Then your core beliefs feed content to your inner voice. It is the content of your inner voice that greatly influences and governs the formation, flavor, and direction of your thoughts.
So the powers your think your thoughts have doesn’t start at the thinking level. That is why positive affirmations do not work. The power is in your mind code and core beliefs which are completely unknown to your consciousness until they are triggered and surface into your inner voice.
It is your mind code that ultimately decides how you will act, feel, interact and think about yourself, others and how you will react in life situations.
If you really want to change how your thoughts you need to change your core beliefs. Creating new core beliefs will change your old mind algorithms.
Below is six tips on how to shift your negative core beliefs to positive core beliefs.
6 Tips Accessing Your Powers of Thought by Changing
Your Core Beliefs
Let's get started regaining your power.
1. Believing that you have the power to create positive habits. The truth is, it’s just as easy to create positive habits as it is to create negative ones. It’s just a matter of how you spend your time. You can spend your time believing things you are not or create new beliefs that bring you closer to what you want to believe in. Or you can submit to old beliefs that do not serve you that have proven unsuccessful.
Thinking negatively can become an addiction. People complain, “It’s too hard to keep my energy up thinking in what is good for me!” Really it’s not hard – it’s just that people get into the habit of thinking negatively. Over time it is easier to think negative than positive.
If this sounds like you, break the habit. Realize that you are where you are because of the way you believed and thought in the past. Yet your future depends on how you believe and think today. You can choose to stay in negative thinking, or you create a totally new set of beliefs that will produce totally different thinking. You can choose to watch another sitcom, or you can choose to read another chapter in a great book.
Honestly, you can choose to act on opportunity, or you can choose to focus on barriers and triumph over them. There’s nothing hard or complicated about it, other than the way you’re thinking based on old negative core beliefs and thinking that no longer serve you or the direction in your life.
2. Ruminating on everything, over and over again. Lack of confidence and discipline, mixed with over expecting rapid success and negative beliefs, fuels a habit of negative thoughts. Many studies suggest that ruminating is a mental handicap: rather than risk failure. Studies state that preferring to respond to and indulge in beliefs formed long ago create barriers to success and make it next to impossible get rid of negative beliefs and thoughts. Continuing to focus repeatedly forms a vicious cycle of distortion.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to break this cycle – stop saying “I can’t,” start saying “I can,” and then put the “can” into action. Stop fearing something will probably won’t happen in your life.
Thinking isn’t enough; you must apply! Building a strong belief system is which will determine the content of your thinking. Just thinking about success will not change your life; you must DO! If you can’t change all beliefs at once change a few at a time. Changing a few beliefs will add up. A positive belief system built over time, in small increments, tends to create a change in your thinking that lasts for a long time.
3. Comparing yourself to others, and then harboring bitterness or resentment. Negative thinking people believe someone else’s good fortune takes away from their own. They believe they are not good enough to deserve fulfillment or success. This leads to bitterness and resentment. Don’t let bitterness, hurt or jealousy get the best of you. Bitterness is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own – there’s nothing attractive or beneficial about believing this way. So stop comparing your journey with everyone else’s.
Your life is your life. Living isn’t a competition. Just believe you are the best you can be. If you want to measure your improvement, compare yourself to who you were yesterday. Become more mindful.
4. Self-doubt fuels negativity and withdrawal. A mind is an awesome tool if used right, but it can be a negativity conduit that fills your thoughts with doubt if you allow it. Any uncomfortable thinking should be denounced and rejected. Don’t accept negative beliefs or thoughts. Don’t allow your mind get the best of you.
Believe in yourself through tough times. Believe in your capacity to flourish. Believe making new connections are worth the effort. Believe strongly that you make mistakes on your way to greatness. Believe you can be thoughtless and intelligent, selfish and gracious, stressed and excited all at the same time. Believe there are many roads to what’s right. Most of all believe in your intuition, especially when you have to choose between two good paths. Believe the answers are within you and do not originate from outside you. Believe life will surprise you over and over again. Believe your experiences along the way are part of your journey.
Those who don’t have resilient and positive beliefs think they will be full of self-doubt and won’t find their inner strength.
5. Don’t put yourself down. There are enough people out there to put you down due to their own negative beliefs. Begin with forming compassion toward yourself. Compassion simply is a keen emotional understanding of the situations you have experienced and how you have gotten you to where you have gotten to.
Believe that you can overcome anything with the right action and your thinking will fall in line.
6. Recognize your beliefs. To affect change you have to recognize your core beliefs in order to correct them. Your core beliefs are the windows of your mind code. Meaning if you make the effort to recognize the bad beliefs you carry and change them then your life will change for the better.
So write down a list of all your core beliefs and self-messages you have about yourself. Study the list and determine whether each one is true or false, real or delusional, yours or someone else’s. Finally, determine what kind of emotion each belief produces when you become aware of them. For every belief that is false, delusional, accepted from someone else and produces a negative emotion, then write a new positive belief to counteract it. Mindfully accept each new belief into your belief system and attach a strong positive emotion to each. Read your new list daily. Especially first thing in the morning and the just before you fall asleep when your mind is most pliable to accept new beliefs. Then watch your thoughts change.
Takeaway
You can't think yourself to greatness but with a solid positive core belief system, you can accomplish anything you want.
Follow tip #6 above and create a new skill set. This new skill set will produce a change in your thinking and manifest into a positive change in your behaviors and emotions. The end positively completing tip #6 will result in a new you!
Coach Bill
Visit my website and click here for a free eBook.
Everyone wants to have positive thinking no doubt. Thoughts are very important. Thoughts carry a lot of conscious power and influence over what happens in waking life.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the way you think comes out of thin air but they really don’t.
What is not widely known is core beliefs generate and influence formation of thoughts. So if beliefs are negative, thinking is negative and emotions are negative and behavior is unproductive or inappropriate. Meaning life will be wrapped in a negative veil.
Here is what your thinking determines.
1. Thinking determines, directs, and influences your degree of awareness, perceptions, expectations, worries.
2. Thinking determines your emotions. How you feel. Whether your thinking is good or bad, happy or sad.
3. Thinking determines how well you focus. Whether you focus
on the past, the moment or into the future.
4. Thinking determines how you view yourself. Your self-worth, confidence, and identity.
5. Thinking determines how you view your value and your
worth in degree to someone or something else.
6. Thinking determines how you perceive others and the
world around you.
7. Thoughts determine the type of relationships you have
with yourself and someone else.
Origin of Thinking
Since you are not totally aware of where your thinking comes from, let us seek to understand of where thinking originates. Know it or not, thinking is actually generated from subconscious embedded core beliefs. Core beliefs form and are stored deep from within your subconscious mind.
Each core belief is formed from situational experiences you have growing up. So in order to change your thinking from negative to positive, you have to become aware of what truly are your beliefs and how strongly you believe in them. If your subconscious core beliefs are not positive then neither is your thought process, as well as, your emotions and behaviors will be inappropriate.
5 tips changing to positive thinking
So what is the secret toward changing your thinking to positive? If you change your core beliefs to positive beliefs then you will change the content and focus of your thoughts.
Here 5 tips to accomplish changing negative thinking into positiveness, productive and beneficial thinking.
1. Recognition
First of all, you cannot fix what you’re aware. So recognition is your first and most important step to changing your thinking.
On a piece of paper, write down all your beliefs you have about yourself, others and the world; good and bad, insignificant or significant, large or small. Also, note the emotion that is associated with each core belief you list.
2. Identity
In this step determine each belief in your list whether each belief is actually your truth or not? Identify whether each belief you recognized on your list is real or a lie, positive or negative, and productive or destructive.
Then draw a straight line through the beliefs that are not true, not real, negative and destructive or not your own (meaning you were taught that belief and got it from someone else). Those marked core beliefs are the ones that are barriers to positiveness and counterproductive to the way you want to think.
3. Create anew
The third step is creating a new list of beliefs about yourself that you want to believe and are willing to commit to them as your truth. So, next to each negative belief you have lined out, create a positive belief and write it down next to old negative core belief you want to replace.
To make sure each belief embeds itself, also assign a positive emotion to each new positive core belief. If you do not create new beliefs with an associated emotion and verbally practice them consistently to replace the old ones, your mind will not accept and your mind continues to generate the same old useless, unproductive or destructive thinking.
4. Practice, practice and practice so more
The last step is to shift your mind to focus and accept the new positive core beliefs over old negative core beliefs.
How do you do this? You accomplish this by practicing acceptance through repeating your new positive core beliefs list out loud to yourself 5 times daily, every day for 30 days and feel the associated emotion when you verbalize each new belief.
It is most important to say your new positive core beliefs list daily. Repeat them the first time when you wake up in the morning and then the last time before you close your eyes to go to sleep. Plus say them throughout your day whenever you can. To make your new positive core beliefs more powerful, say your new beliefs with the feeling assigned to each belief in step 3 and do it with a strong emotional tone in your voice.
Saying the list every day for 30 days and you follow through with practicing the new positive core beliefs daily the new beliefs will embed themselves into your subconscious mind and the new ones will replace the old ones. Also, the beliefs will become your mind’s truths and your thinking will automatically respond positively.
5. Be observant
Become mindful of your thinking by monitoring your thoughts after the 30 days of continuous practice. Acknowledge when your new positive beliefs start to manifest themselves into positive thinking.
How will you know that? You will be told by other people in your life that you seem different, you're thinking differently or you will become mindful of the difference in your thinking.
Takeaway
Once you recognize the origin of your negative thinking, meaning recognizing your core beliefs that are destructive, false, negative, not real, not your own or unproductive and that your old thinking was generated from those old negative beliefs then the power to change your thinking is yours.
Don’t be a slave to old negative thinking based on your old negative core beliefs anymore. When you change the content of your core beliefs you then hold the ability to influence and determine the flavor and content of your thinking going forward.
Empower positive thinking by invoking and manifesting your new core beliefs that you have created, accepted, believe in and have committed to.
Coach Bill
Visit my website and click here to download a free eBook.
Recovery from trauma and addictions is hard enough but if your mindset is not correct or positive then what is your direction. If your mind is left to its own direction, your mind tends to wander through all kind of painful and suffering thoughts. These thoughts are based on negative core beliefs that were formed during abusive, traumatic or addicting situations.
Connected thoughts and associated emotions to those negative core beliefs that surface include anger, self-harm, cravings, desires, fears, depression, pain, revenge, self-pity, suffering and sometimes suicide. The mind left to itself does not always views or processes negative events accurately so your thoughts become distorted which results in you forming false emotions, therefore, you’re not perceiving what is going on in your body, mind or spirit correctly. Your perceptions and expectations seem to turn upside down. Safe becomes unsafe, real becomes unreal, causing you more pain and suffering.
When your mind wanders freely your thoughts are directed toward the regrets, shame or guilt of the past or fearing the possibilities of the future that probably will never occur. Know that your past happened and is not happening. Your future is just a fantasy until it happens. You can’t fix the past and 99% of future predictions never works out the way you project, think or worry it will. As a survivor and addict, the one moment you actually can experience and effect changes in is the one you seem to avoid, now.
Meaning of Mindful and Intuitive
Probably you have not been introduced or have limited exposure to the concept of mindful or intuitive.
Mindful means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, body, mind and spirit without being judgmental.
Intuitive is a different way of interpreting, of a sensing who you are, how you think, how your body feels, understanding your feeling, why you react the way you do and where you with yourself without evidence or proof. Being intuitive is using gut sense to be compassionate and connecting with yourself, your body and mind.
Tips for Mindful & Intuitive Recovery
Mindful and intuitive recovery is being consciously aware of your mind, body, beliefs, emotions, spirit, and thoughts as well as your intuitiveness.
Mindful and intuitive recovery is knowing how you respond to PTSD symptoms without any self-judgement. A question is "how do I make what happen to me and things I have to learn productive for me in my life?" In recovery being mindful involves always paying attention to your mindset, intentions to recover and “on purpose”.
Mindful and intuitive recovery means having a conscious direction of your awareness. Sometimes talk about being “mindful” or “aware” as if these words are interchangeable terms, but they are not. Think of it this way. You may be aware that you feel angry or afraid, but that wouldn’t mean you are being mindful of your anger or why you are fearful. In order to be mindful you have to be purposefully attentive, aware and focused fully on yourself and your body as well as ready, able and willing (RAW) to change, not just vaguely or habitually aware.
Take Away
Traditional recovery methods and separation of PTSD and addiction treatment have not worked. Both survivors and addicts end up with Post-traumatic Stress symptoms either traumatic experience or developing an addiction. Maybe alternative methods for recovery should be explored.
So successful mindful and intuitive recovery maybe a different method which might reduce the rates of relapse in both.
Mindful and intuitive recovery is noticing what is going on inside you and around you right now at the moment. Being mindful does not mean you can no longer reflect on your past or future, but when you do you do so be ever mindful of your mindset.
Mindful and Intuitive recovery and healing from trauma or addictions is an action not a state of mind.
Coach Bill
More information on this subject at my website and click here for free eBook download.
Survivors of abuse and trauma gravitate toward forming addictions for many reasons due to the intensity of their Post-traumatic Stress symptoms post abuse or trauma experiences.
The following are 7 tips on what to look for if your are a survivor who is experiencing intense PTSD symptoms and are attempting to fight them, numb them out or suppress them.
1. Hiding abuse or trauma symptoms because possessing
these symptoms is viewed in mental health field as
weakness of character
Reacting to abusive or traumatic post experiences was seen as a weakness of personal character, particularly in men. The non-traumatized population understood that addictions were a disease, so survivors pick up on it and realized it was more acceptable to have an addiction and be label for an addiction rather than Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) so they would not in their mind be seen as weak or damaged.
2. To numb out emotional, cognitive, physical and
memory symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Survivors discovered getting habitually involved in certain behaviors, emotions, substances and thoughts initially reduced the vast array of PTSD symptoms. Each behavior, emotion, substance and thought attacks a different symptom. This is a reason that
many survivors have many different addictions. Once the effects of a PTSD symptoms are diminished, the individual is already into a severe or toxic stage of addiction.
3. To fight negative thoughts that seem to originate
out of thin air
First of all, “every addiction starts with a thought or set of thoughts.” Survivors find out that thoughts are his or her most powerful enemies as well as allies. So the survivors create and enlist addictions to substance or inanimate objects to eliminate the constant excruciating, upsetting and damaging noise of negative looping thoughts (thought addiction) which seems to surface out of thin air. This unwanted negative looping thoughts seem to surface out of a dark place in the subconscious and come racing into the conscious. This occurs due to a trigger. This trigger then causes a flashback or a memory related to a past traumatic experience.
4. To increase denial of reality through “gas lighting” self
The definition of gas lighting is to undermine yourself or
another's perception of reality. To create a false inner reality to veil any knowledge or memory of a past event or situation and what happened. The one main thing a survivor does not want to realize is that he or she was abused or traumatized and he or she was changed forever forming a core belief of “I will never be the same again.”
5. To produce a false sense of security
Many survivors live in a constant fear of everything around
them. Having addictions gives survivors a false sense of
being safe, something to focus on and alleviates emotional
uptake.
6. To mask PTSD symptoms with addictions
If both the addiction and PTSD are not treated together, a resurgence of PTSD symptoms will send a survivor into an addiction relapse. Conversely if he or she relapses due to a craving on an addiction relapse to mask over the surfacing PTSD symptoms.
7. To reduce re-experiencing of recollections of past traumatic events
Traumatic memories or flashbacks is one of the main and
worse symptoms of PTSD. Survivors who are re-experiencing traumatic memories or flashbacks will attempt to control,
fight or suppress these through addictive patterns, behavior, thoughts or substances. A survivor will turn to taking illegal
or legal substances (alcohol or drugs or prescribed pain or
mental health medication) to block out flashbacks (visual, emotional, and auditory as well as body memories) or
participate in unhealthy behaviors (eating or depriving of
food, pornography, self-harm, self-sabotage, sex, and/or
excessive exercise) to mask over suffering PTSD symptoms
as well as engagement in repetitive harmful thoughts and/or destructive relationships to block out hurt and pain of re-experiencing
what happened to them.
Take Away
Not only does a survivor use an addiction to stop one of the seven reasons mentioned above but would enter into more than one addiction at a time to accomplish his or her goal to suppress suffering PTSD symptoms and hide the symptoms from the world.
A survivor may even be juggling 7 different addictive relationships at the same time to resolve all 7 reasons above.
If you are a survivor who has addictions it is important to face and heal both your PTSD symptoms and addictions at the same time otherwise one will counter act the other causing a relapse in one or both.
Coach Bill
More information at website and click here to download free eBook
Are you searching your past for answers about why your life is not fulfilling? Maybe you are still holding onto old pain.
As everyone knows who has followed me knows I am a big supporter of making closure with past emotional wounds and regrets rather than attempting and failing to make than resolution.
Closure to resolution is like “doing your best” as compared to “trying to achieve perfection”.
If you are not able to make closure with your past emotional hurts or painful events then those deep hurts stay with you. If you have not let go of them or have not gotten over them, they will revisit you constantly even without your consent. These emotional hurts leave a negative emotional charge or painful scar in the form of a regret on your core and the result is you spend too much time reflecting on your past.
These emotional regrets of your past don’t allow you live in the moment. Your life passes by, there is no going back and can never be recovered.
Also, these emotional wounds that have not been dealt sometimes from childhood will cause you an inability to function later as adults. They will deplete your energy and spirituality as well as not permit yourself to move forward, have a successful relationship with yourselves or with other people in your life.
In order to move forward in your life and grow, you need to make closure with your past emotional wounds.
3 Tips on Making Closure and Dumping Your Regrets
1. Recognize
Take time to recognize and evaluated by writing a list of
all your emotional wounds and the regrets connected to them.
2. Denounce
Openly denounce these emotional wounds and regrets
by verbalizing that these past hurts don’t define you
as a person and that you are no longer giving them
mental space or energy.
3. Engage
Honestly, connect and interact with the moment.
Follow through on you promise in tip 2 then turn
your back on those past wounds and walk away
down a new path and never look back.
Think about this quote -
“The inability to make closure with one world stops you from moving forward and opening another one.”
Coach Bill
Click here for free eBook download.
The Trigger Experience
Every time you go through the following experiences of rapid heartbeat, like your heart is going to beat out of your chest, sweating in every part of your body, cold hands and feet but hot body core, unusual smells for no reason, tightening of your throat, dry mouth and unable to say anything, physically frozen (unable to move) and unable to do anything, feeling dissociated, constricted visual field, quick onset of fear or terror for no apparent reason, emotional numbness, confusion, loss of the ability to focus, loss of the ability to concentrate, consciousness in and out, intense anxiety as though something is going to happen, hypervigilant, hyper responsive, hyper emotional and hypersensitive as well as a rapid onset of irritability it may not be what you thinking is happening to you.The experience is not a panic attack. Rather a clue of forthcoming flashback or better known as a subconscious trigger response.
If you are honest with yourself and review all the aforementioned reactions, you will see that you are really experiencing a subconscious trigger response of a flashback rather than going through a panic attack. As a client said after reporting experiencing all those symptoms as mentioned, stated "my past is still alive and part of me. Everything triggers me after all these years."
Unfortunately the diagnosis of a "panic attack" seems to have become a knee jerk catch-all diagnosis made by many professionals who are unaccustomed to the impact of Post-traumatic Stress symptoms and how PTSD mirrors many other diagnoses.
Definition of Trigger
A trigger is anything that arouses your senses and sets off mental, emotional, or behavioral cues and activates memories of a past hurtful, painful abusive or traumatic situation. Triggers a particular to situations you have experienced.
Triggers are connections between your conscious mind and the specific memories you have stored that have not been processed. Triggers revert you back to the emotions, behaviors, thoughts, physical sensations and reactions causing you to experience the memory the triggers are connected to and make you feel as though the experience is happening all over again.
Types of Triggers
Triggers set off a recollection of a memory or flashback which transports you back to the event of her/his original trauma. Triggers are very personal; different things trigger different people.
A trigger can be a:
Date
Emotional
Environmental
Mental
Physical
Relationship
Muscle constriction
Negative self-talk
Seeing something on TV
Situational
Smell
Specific locations
Stress
Taste
Touch
Visual
Verbal
Methods for Coping with Triggers
Now, the best way of coping with triggers is to avoid them altogether. However, this is almost impossible to do. Why? Well, you cannot really avoid your thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations. Much of these are out of our control. In regard to external triggers, we can take some steps to manage our environment (for example, not going to certain places that we know will trigger us), but we cannot control everything that happens to us. For example, you might inadvertently come into contact with a news story or conversation that reminds you of your traumatic event.
Because we often cannot avoid triggers, it is important to learn ways of coping with triggers. Effective, healthy coping strategies for lessening the impact of triggers include:
Mindfulness
Relaxation
Self-soothing
Identify and monitor triggers by making a list
Increase positive emotions through positive activities
Journaling
Intuitive techniques
Expressive writing
Muscle relaxation techniques
Social support
Intuitive breathing
Quick Tips Solutions
Sometimes triggers are outside of your control and impossible to avoid. When that happens, though, there are some things that you can do to lessen the anxiety, disappointing, over-expecting, and negative thoughts and reactions that follow.
7 Tips to Calm Emotional Triggers
Some tips which may work for you are to reduce the effect of a trigger:
Being mindful:
Making yourself aware of where you are, in the present moment, and knowing that in that moment you are alright and can work to alleviate the anxiety and fear that has been triggered.
You’re so busy focusing on daily situations that you forget to enjoy what is happening right now as they come. You sometimes become trapped in the confines of the day-to-day activities that you forget to be grateful for the beauty of life and the little things.
Being more mindful helps remind you that all good things come with time. It helped me escape the pressures of my job and embrace my writing without allowing it to consume my life, and it helped remind me to enjoy life again by tapping into the power and enjoyment of the present moment.
Using your recovery support system:
Talking to someone who understands your PTSD and is supportive in your recovery, is a way to let go of the effects of being triggered.
Be authentic and honest with yourself:
Be open with yourself and tell yourself the truth. Identifying the feeling you are having and what is causing them in the moment. Remind yourself you are safe now and not back in the situation as your traumatic event. Becoming aware of your fear and anxiety. Be mindful to know what is real in the moment and what is not so you will react appropriately. Positive self-talk or journaling when you’re triggered by unknown feelings, thoughts or situations can be extremely helpful dealing with triggered memories or flashbacks.
Remind yourself you’re not your triggers:
Whenever a trigger surfaces in your mind, simply identify it as a “trigger” and move on. You’re not your past or negative events you experienced. You’re separate from your triggers and they’re separate from you, so you do not have to respond or react to them.
Go for a nature walk:
Go for a walk and blend into the environment around you. Listen to the sounds, notice the colors of the trees, and bushes as well as the smell of the essence of nature. Nature will reduce the influence and impact of the triggers naturally.
Take a warm bath.
Baths can help you reduce your focus and put you into the moment by allowing you to sense the warmth and sensation of the water. It will take your mind off of the trigger that has surface, and a bath can help disconnect from your past, allow your worries fade away into the heat of the water.
Using intuitive methods:
Intuitive methods of connecting with your gut use your senses to get yourself back in the present moment through intuitive breathing and intuitive thinking. Use your sense to hold a special object, listen to music you like, smell or taste something with a strong scent or taste, take notice of your environment, count your blessings or hug another to bring yourself back into the moment.
Take Away
Being mindful and intuitive doesn’t have to consume all your time. You can easily use any of these techniques above throughout the day to decrease the impact of your triggers. These tips can also reduce your anxiety and calm your mind. Connect with the moment and the connection will free you from your recollections of the past.
Coach Bill
Visit my website and click here to download free eBook.
The majority of mental health professionals and theorists in their writings separate and differentiate between addiction and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder clients. All professionals on both sides express how addicts and survivors should be treated separately.
Addiction clients are considered to have a disease and PTSD clients are theorized as having a psychological anomaly of the mind in their writings, research and practice.
Surprisingly these two groups are more similar in their symptoms and needs than not
Commonalities
It is very commonly known that 98% of all addicts have a history of abuse, combat, trauma or painful and hurt experiences in their lives. In the group of individuals who are labeled PTSD 98% of them involve themselves in 1 or more addictions. On one hand it is widely known that a triggering or flare up of PTSD symptoms will cause an individual with both conditions to relapse on their addictions. On the other hand a relapse of their addictions will cause a triggering or flare up of PTSD symptoms. Yet these groups are not treated for both symptoms at the same time which may account for high rates of treatment failure and high rates of relapse.
Both viewpoints omit the similarities in both which they have in common which may lead to improved integrated programs, better mindful recovery methods and enhanced success rates as well as lower relapse rates.
Similarities
Maybe there are alternative ways to view post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction recovery together by looking at the similarities of both.
1. Symptoms of the process of addiction and PTSD formation are comparable:
- Loss of connection with self, partners, family, and community
- Strong feeling of fear, unsafe and insecurities
- Lowered self-worth, esteem, and confidence
- Negative beliefs of not being good enough, lacking, weak, diseased, damaged
- Formation of inappropriate and unhealthy connections
- Denial, anxiety, stress, panic and worry
- Constant flow of negative thoughts and self-talk
- Strong desire to be loyal to what is destructive and toxic
2. Habitual involvement in toxic relationships whether with a person, a group or inanimate object (thought, emotion,
behavior or substance) are accompanied by an
unwillingness to stop no matter what the cost.
3. Addictions and PTSD are considered long-term conditions.
4. Triggers in survivors are equal to cravings in addicts.
5. Living and holding secrets. Survivors hold and live the secret
of what happened and who did it. Addicts keep secrets of
their use and how much they use and the frequency.
6. Widely known and proved that exposure to primary or
secondary abusive, traumatic and combat situations can
cause Post-traumatic stress and its symptoms. What is not
known is the creation and process of the formation of
addiction is an abusive, traumatic and toxic experience,
and causes Post-traumatic stress and related symptoms
in the user.
7. Exposure to primary or secondary abusive, traumatic and
combat situations alters how a person’s brain and body
functions and reacts. The same is true about addictions.
Addictions also alters how a person’s brain and body
functions and reacts.
2 Tips
The present traditional mode of treating both is not working. Something has to change.
1. Unite the treatment of both addicts and survivors in the same environment.
2. Unify both professional fields would allow the development innovative and customized programs targeted at decreasing the relapse rate and increasing the success rate.
To learn more visit my website and download my free eBook.
Coach Bill
Troubled with negative thoughts? Well then, ask yourself the following questions.
Is your thinking negative? Are your thoughts causing trouble in your life?
Do you find it so easy to focus on negative thoughts in your head rather than fulfilling and positive thoughts?
Do you find the more your negative thoughts play, the more they affect you emotionally and mentally?
Here is an example. Say you feel like an idiot because of a dumb mistake you made at work. That triggers you to think you are "not good enough for anything". Even though you keep telling yourself you're an idiot or not good enough for anything zero changes.
Why doesn't it? Over time your subconscious mind makes you believe the lies of your negative thoughts and become your truths because there are embed negative core beliefs that make you think that way. Thinking is a by-product of a thought, not the origin.
Thought Addiction
If you answered yes to all three, then you a vulnerable to getting caught up in a constant looping of thoughts aka thought addiction. A thought addiction is thinking a thought or set of thoughts over and over again with the feeling of no influence or control in stopping them. A thought addiction can be subtle, mentally inconspicuous or power and can negatively influence how you relate or view yourself. In the end, this constant thought looping can have a debilitating outcome. Looping negative thoughts can have seriously your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual implications as well as deplete personal energy and yourself your worse enemy.
An example of this is when you get a song stuck in your head. When you get a song stuck or looping in your head it doesn't matter what you do it continues to repeat and consumes your thinking.
Understand the more you recall or focus on negative thought or thoughts the more powerful they become Repetitiveness causes negative thoughts to stick with you.
How do you know when you have such a habitual thought anomaly? Here are 9 indicators that will aid you in discovering if you’re a habitual negative thinker.
1. When a thought or set of thoughts consume all your mental time and energy
2. When you are so consumed and focused on one thought or set of thoughts that you stop experiencing your life and others
3. When you find yourself breaking a promise to yourself to not think a certain negative thought or set of thoughts
4. You spend more time in head about your past than in
the moment
5. When eating, and sleeping patterns are severely
disrupted due to constant thinking
6. You experience increased anxiety and worry
7. You are in fear of not having control of your thinking
8. When a thought is more important than anything else in life
9. When thoughts are ruining your relationship with you
and others but no matter what you can’t stop focusing on those thoughts
How to Affect a Positive Change
Being able to stop ruminating on negative looping thoughts or a thought addiction is not about eliminating or replacing those thoughts. It’s about discovering the root that generates those types of unproductive thinking.
Now more good news. There’s a way edit your negative thinking by changing its roots. Changing the root of your thinking will result in strengthening neural networks which will be devoted to positive thinking and a happier mindset as well as producing improved mental health and more life fulfillment.
Here are 5 do yourself tips you can put into practice right now to stop your negative thinking.
1. Write your negative thoughts down
This first and more power step to improvement is recognition. In writing down your negative thoughts, you'll have to 1 identify, 2 become aware and 3 acknowledge them. Along with articulating your negative thoughts note the beliefs those thoughts are generated from and what triggered each of you negative thoughts after each. Writing down all your negative thoughts, beliefs they are based on, their triggers and precisely why you think them will be a liberating mind clearing experience.
2. Denounce each negative thought as truth
Denouncing the truth of each thought nullifies the lies within. Then develop a sense each negative thought.
Back to you are not good enough thing. Instead of ruminating over it constantly to yourself "I'm not good enough," drop into your gut or intuition and search your own sense of "Am I not good enough?" If honest you will discover your true sense, you won’t sense any support evidence. See negative thinking is not based on reality but rather on negative beliefs form growing up from lies express to you from others. Going through your intuition helps to avoid the lies of the past or the false emotions produced from your negative thinking.
3. Practice strengthens your resolve
If you feel tip one and two just aren't working? Practice, practice and practice some more. Recognize them by writing them down. Confront and reduce their power by denouncing them. Do it again and again until you get positive results. Lies seem powerful but with practice, the light will shine through. If you have ever trained for a sport, you also have to train your mind to think in a new and more creative way to perform better.
4. Don’t take it personally
Once you take something personally you lose all clear perspective. Distance yourself from your negative thinking, by imaging you are talking to someone else. Say you're a close friend of yours who faces the same day-to-day barriers, challenges and negative thoughts. Ask yourself what does that person truly need, it is validation. Validation counters negativity and uncovers the lies. Realize what advice you would give a close friend and give that same guidance to yourself and consider it.
5. Don’t give up
Giving up or giving in actually intensifies the power of your negative thoughts. Re-direct your energy by doing something physical. Switch gears to a different task or venture. For example, clean your kitchen floor grout with a tooth brush. Focusing on cleaning the dirt out of your kitchen floor grout changes your mental focus and energy.
Your mind can’t fully think about more than one thing at a time. Maybe you should get up and move to a different room, take a walk. Encourage yourself to think about something else entirely. Your mind can’t focus on a negative thought once it's wrapped up in a new task.
5. Belief differently
Think new thoughts. In order to accomplish that create new beliefs which you can commit to now. Practice them and practice them again until they become a part of your automatic thinking.
Takeaway
Don’t be a slave to your negative thoughts. Eliminate your thought addiction by changing the root of, the origin of your mode of thinking at the belief level. You change your core beliefs and you change how you think.
Take back your power of thought.
Coach Bill
More information at website and click here for a free eBook download
Breathing is the most important and necessary thing you do every day. Controlled breathing and bringing in more oxygen, can also be very healthy for your body and mind as well as emotional well-being. Intuitive breathing can produce health many benefits and increase your level of mindfulness.
Benefits of Intuitive Breathing
Breathing can be productive. If done in an intuitive and mindful manner you can increase calmness, increase focus, increase mental clarity, and increase connectedness with your inner self as well as decrease anxiety and stress. Intuitive breathing is a form of mini-meditation.
Breathing and Anxiety
Anxiety can be very harmful to your response to situations, emotional overreactions, and relationships as well as your overall mental and physical health. Anxiety can cause a negative emotional response and/or physical pain.
Breathing and Stress
Altering your breathing pattern slightly can reduce your stress levels and assist you in becoming more mindful. Increased stress can make it near impossible to control your emotions reactions toward yourself and others. The more stressed you have the more irrational and reactive you may become.
Stress is also strongly linked to diseases. Chronic stress can give these conditions the green light to flood your body. Stress has been linked to cancer, lung disease, fatal accidents, suicide, and cirrhosis of the liver.
Also be mindful that stress can cause you physical problems. Stress can cause you to gain weight and keep on weight, cause sleep problems (too much or sleeplessness), and cause you to feel older as well as look older. Too much stress to reduce your feeling of fulfillment, ruin relationships ans cause negative thinking towards yourself and others.
Question
Who wouldn’t want to be calmer, more connected, and more in the moment as well as feeling less anxious, more focused, calmer and less stressed? If this is something you would want then what follows is 2 methods that could improve your mental, emotional and physical health as well as your mindfulness.
2 tips on how to become healthier with Two Methods of Intuitive Breathing
Below are two breathing methods that will improve your health, your life and well-being if practiced. Understand the more you practice either or both methods the greater the benefits you will receive.
Go through and experience both methods. Find out which method is most benefit you and which method would you help to reach your intention of better.
#1 Tip - Intuitive Breathing Method 1
This first Intuitive Breathing method will assist you in reducing anxiety, help to achieve an increased degree of calmness, and improve your connectedness with yourself.
In order to reduce your anxiety, become calmer and more connected follow these steps.
1. Inhale while counting to 4
2. Hold your breath for a count of 2
3. Exhale at a count of 4 completely
Repeat at least 4 times to get the full effect.
You can use this method in any situation. You don't need to close your eyes. You can perform this method while you are walking, standing, working, exercising, driving, at play or during any daily routine.
#2 Tip - Intuitive Breathing Method 2
This second Intuitive Breathing method is a little different to assist you in decreasing your stress level and increase your ability to be mindful.
1. Inhale while counting to 8
2. Hold your breath for a count of 4
3. Exhale completely while counting to 8
Repeat at least 4 times to get the full effect.
16 Benefits of Intuitive Breathing
Emotional stability improves
Calms your mind
Clarity of thought materializes
Creativity enhances
Confidence rises
Connection with the moment improves
Decreases anxiety
Decreases response to pain
Enhances focus
Happiness increases
Lowers blood pressure
Increases your intuitiveness
Increases your oxygen level
Inner peace happens
Reduces sensitivity
Mindfulness increases
Mini-mediation experience
Using Intuitive Breathing in Real Situations
Example One:
A client of mine learned and began to practice intuitive breathing for her anxiety. So recently she had to go for dental work. Through her whole life dental visits and work always brought up a lot of anxiety for her. This time when she went to her dentist, she used intuitive breathing before she arrived and during her dental work. "Intuitive breathing has been helping me so much with my anxiety that I thought I would use it for my dentist visit. Again it was very productive for me. I didn't experience my usual high level of anxiety before, during, or after my procedure. It works awesome for me in all my real life situations."
Example Two:
I recently had to go in for a surgical procedure myself. I had been practicing intuitive breathing since I developed it back in 2016. I had lower my heart rate and blood pressure with it and got much success. Use also use it for mini-meditation sessions daily. Well, when I went for my recent surgical procedure I practiced before my pre-workup and when my blood pressure was taken it was 116/over 69. I was calm and did not feel any anxiety even though I had never been put under before. When I woke up, I was still calm and felt no anxiety for what I had been through.
Intuitive breathing can benefit you in your life in any situation once you learn, practice it and gain mastery. It can also help you to keep you mindful.
Takeaway
Intuitive Breathing can be performed by sitting comfortably with your eyes open or shut. You can also get same results when you are doing any daily activity. Both ways can help you to become healthier and increase your intuitive connection with yourself as well as live healthier.
These methods have also been shown to be useful for calming your body, decreasing your response to pain and increasing your threshold to pain as well as a mini-meditation for your body, mind and spirit.
Practicing intuitive breathing methods will not only give you beneficial inner tools, but these intuitive breathing methods are also a great starting point for inner growth and inner peace.
Coach Bill
Visit my website and click here to download free eBook.
