5 Ways to Shift Your Energy
Creating a productive perspective that moves you forward instead of keeping you stuck may seems like a simple and shift. In reality it is a simple shift, but it requires us to recognize our own limited thinking and victimhood that is so easy to fall into.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good pity party like anyone else, but over the years I have also realized, living the pity party is a recipe for upset, distress, and self imposed distraction.
You and I both know that if we want to achieve our visions and goals, what we do matters. How we think matters, and how we act matters- especially in the direction of achieving our goals.
It is my belief that most people fail in achieving their goals because they haven’t checked their thinking and taken control enough to change the script of their thinking.
What you think creates your energy.
Your energy affects your focus.
Your focus dictates your results.
Where energy goes, attention flows.
Creating a productive perspective that moves you forward instead of keeping you stuck may seems like a simple and shift. In reality it is a simple shift, but it requires us to recognize our own limited thinking and victimhood that is so easy to fall into.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good pity party like anyone else, but over the years I have also realized, living the pity party is a recipe for upset, distress, and self imposed distraction.
You and I both know that if we want to achieve our visions and goals, what we do matters. How we think matters, and how we act matters- especially in the direction of achieving our goals.
It is my belief that most people fail in achieving their goals because they haven’t checked their thinking and taken control enough to change the script of their thinking.
What you think creates your energy.
Your energy affects your focus.
Your focus dictates your results.
Where energy goes, attention flows.
The attention you give things in your life is an active choice even when it feels like an inactive choice.
We all are having the same handful of thoughts each and every day. The cyclical and repetitive nature of our thoughts become habit… which means thoughts are habits. Your energetic state is a habit.
The good news is, habits can be changed.
So if you, like many people have felt like you have been stuck this year or find yourself floundering know that you don’t have to stay in that negative thought and energy cycle. You get to choose to change it at any time.
Here are 5 Ways to Shift Your Energy Instantly:
1) Gratitute
When you focus on what you are grateful for, you can’t help but feel more expansive, fulfilled, creative and joyful.
2) Capture your thoughts and shift them
Fear and faith cannot exist in the same space. When you recognize a limiting and fear based thought, you are given a choice, keep thinking the thought- spinning on it, or change the script.
Because a lot of our thinking is rather thoughtless- when you notice yourself going down a harmful and unprductive thought pattern, I like to ask, “Is this really true?” and if it is really true, what would it mean if it weren’t?
We all have our life experiences, and the junk that other people have put onto us, but just because someone once told us something is true about us, doesn’t mean it is.
The beauty about being human, you get decide what your truth is. You get to decide what is true for you. That means giving ourselves the freedom and space to ask where the thoughts came from, just because you have a thought doesn’t make it true.
3) Affirmations
“The things that are spoken aloud in the dark will eventually come to light.”- Unknown
Your thoughts and beliefs that you speak about or think have a way of making themselves known.
If you want something to be true speak it into existence.
Often times though we allow things that we don't want to be true to be spoken into existence as well.
Thoughts and words have power, proceed with caution.
Affirmations are simple in concept, but can be challenging in creating a practice around, because they are “I am” statements that you want to be true or that are true that you speak over yourself.
For example, after having my son at 16, a lot of people tried to tell me that I would never amount to anything and that I would end up a statistic, a woman on welfare, struggling the remainder of my life. I refused to accept that this was true. Even still a lot of that negativity and stigma I had to work through, so I created affirmations that I knew deep inside were true about me and I wrote them on post it note and posted them everywhere.
Every time I would see them, I read them aloud. They said things like, “ I am a brave, courageous and fearless woman I do the things others aren’t willing to do, so that I can I have the life I desire.”
Words matter. Thoughts matter. Make sure they are good.
4) Journalling
Journalling is freeing. I like to approach like this… first I write down my troubles, my thoughts, my irritations and then I like to actually solve my own problems with in the pages.
I have found that when I really spinning out about something that is bothering me, making it bigger than it really is, writing it all down makes the monster in my mind a pebble on the beach.
It’s easy to make the little things the big things, and at the end of the day everything is a little thing- even the hard things that break your heart.
When you journal, not only are you keeping a record of your life, but you are giving yourself a safe, nonjudgemental space to just be you- raw, wild, and beautiful.
5) Change your state and Don’t be Afraid to Look Like a Fool
This morning when I went on my morning walk with Roo, it was cold, windy, and overcast. It would have been easy to turn around or walk as fast as I could and just get it done. Instead I decided I needed to celebrate for the sake of celebration.
I had recently made a new bouncy playlist, that I knew would elevate my spirit, so I turned it on.
One thing led to another, and next thing you know I was dancing around the park pretending I was making a music video. Lord, it made me feel alive!
Sometimes we just have to give ourselves permission to not take ourselves so freaking seriously and have fun, even when there is no one watching and if people are watching, let them enjoy the crazy show!
6) Get in your body
Silly as it may seem to some, getting in your body and moving your body is one of the best practices you can establish. Whether it’s the endorphins and oxygen to your brain that comes with exercise, or the ability to focus on moving and breathing that help to change your state. I don’t really care.
Getting in your body, and out of your head is one of the quickest and cheapest vacations you will ever have the pleasure to take.
Getting in your body can be lifting weights, going for a way, dancing it out, doing yoga- it really doesn’t matter what you do to move, just that you give yourself permission and freedom to move, and be, and flow with life.
Exercise doesn’t have to be a punishment. It doesn’t have to serve as a way to sculpt the perfect body. It truly can be practice that’s purpose is a simple as feeling better- not just physically but mentally!
What are your favorite ways to shift your energy?
The Fighter You Were Born To Be
The law of unintended consequences raises its ugly head, when we allow ourselves to get comfortable, and stop fighting.
Women like us, we weren’t born to stop fighting.
Women like us, we were born to tackle the hard stuff, we thrive in the fire.
Growing up I was a sweet, but salty child. I had my own mind and I wasn’t afraid to face my fears.
Like you, I’ve always been one to lean into the hard.
I was never particularly popular, part of me always want to be- but the other part the strongest part of me knew I wasn’t born to be like everyone else.
I was born to be me.
Fierce.
Fiery.
A complete contradiction to the box my parents, teachers and class mates continuously tried to put me.
When I was 16, I got pregnant with my son Ryan. I wasn’t going to do things the way my parents wanted me to, or the way my friends or counsellors suggested. I wasn’t going to give my child up for adoption, or have an abortion, or sent away to live with a distant relative. I knew what I was going to do, and nobody could tell me differently.
I decided I was going to marry my sons father, and at 16 we ventured to Georgia to get hitched (at the time it was the only state where you could be 16 and pregnant and get married without parental consent.) So we did.
The marriage was doomed to fail before it even began- but even back then I was forging my own path, experiencing life, and making a mess along the way.
Over the decades I have become comfortable with the messiness of life as a fighter.
Like me, you know you didn’t come into this world to just get by. You didn’t come into this world to just follow the path laid out for you. You came into this world to dream, to wander, to live, to explore, to make mistakes and fall flat on your freakin face.
This year has been a year of a lot of fear, uncertainty, change, and in many ways some have forgotten who they are while locked in their homes or separated from humanity by a face mask.
The separation has led many down the road to deep depression, others to a place of deep questions, and still many have said screw your mandates and hit the streets in protest and riots- fighting for what they believe in.
Personally, I stopped fighting for the most part- which isn’t me. I’ve become a keen observer- watching the madness and mayhem of it all, wondering where my fight had gone. Sitting back and just letting life happen to me.
Truth be told, I had become comfortable, which is not a feeling I have ever pursued or have even desired. Recently I started to ask myself why my life seems to stuck in place. For me this year has felt a lot like wandering in the desert, searching for a solid direction- not an airy fairy possible interest in a path- but a firm path to follow, a direction, not spinning in circles.
Last week I realized just how dangerous this sense of comfort has become to my own vision for my life and the values I hold, when I was faced with a personal situation- where I found myself completely powerless in a circumstance, which if I would not have allowed myself to get comfortable, would never have been an issue.
When fighters give up the fight and they allow themselves to get comfortable- they give up their power.
I realized through this situation how far I had let go of my life, not just the outcomes of my life. In the name of comfort, I had mistakenly and unwittingly given up the things I value, almost as a way to make someone else comfortable. I’d 100% given my power away.
The law of unintended consequences raises its ugly head, when we allow ourselves to get comfortable, and stop fighting.
Women like us, we weren’t born to stop fighting.
Women like us, we were born to tackle the hard stuff, we thrive in the fire.
Sure sometimes a break is needed, but only so we can get back in the ring and fight for our lives, our beliefs, our families, our relationships, our wealth, our happiness, and our freaking right to exist in the world.
Women like us were born to leave this world knowing that we were freaking here, we made a difference, and we mattered and made sure that the people blessed to be in contact with us mattered.
Here’s to a fierce week my friends.