Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in our own thoughts and problems that it becomes a pattern. It becomes a habit to think only of ourselves. It becomes habitual to only think of all the problems, difficulties, and challenges of our personal lives. It can be overwhelming.
This habit has the potential to overtake us entirely. It causes stress, illness, anxiety, depression, extreme hopelessness, and can lead to thoughts of suicide, simply to escape the growing, unbearable pain.
This habit has the potential to completely destroy us, our relationships, the ones we love, and eventually our entire lives, through addictions we choose to distract us from the reality we believe is causing all the pain. How can we stop this pattern? What can we begin to do that will help us get out of our own heads? What are some daily, consistent habits that we can adopt that will empower us to begin to heal and to get stronger, get wiser, and get better?
We must get good in the head, or we’re dead. But how? Where do we start?
Gratitude:
Gratitude is the key to starting this transformative process. Starting each day thinking of all we have to be grateful for kick-starts a process which will literally be able to be likened unto the alchemist, who desires to magically transform matter into gold. Because of neuroplasticity, our habitual, repeated thought patterns will literally alter the shape and structure of our brains. The neurons that fire together wire together, and starting each day with thoughts of gratitude and thinking about all of the many, particular and exact things we have to be grateful for will literally transform matter and our lives into something even MORE precious than gold.
It is our responsibility to be the emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical alchemists of our own lives. It is nobody else’s job to do for us that which we can do for ourselves.
Gratitude is the key to unlocking miracles in our lives.
Empathy:
Once we are in the habit of daily, consistent gratitude, the next important step is getting into the head of another. The more we do to empower others to heal themselves, the more quickly we heal. Seeking out situations each day to connect with and add value to the lives of others is life-altering. Being able to step into the shoes of another, imagine what it would be like to live their life, go through their challenges, and feel what they are feeling, and then show unconditional acceptance, love, kindness, and empathy towards them, regardless of what they look like or what their individual pain may have caused them to do, causes within us an incredible transformation.
“Plant a tree who’s shade you never plan to sit under.” – Jay Shetty
Intent:
All things are made up of energy. We all know that what we put out into the world comes back to us. If we put out the energy of gratitude, we have more to be grateful for. If we put out the energy of kindness, we recognize a heightened level of kindness being returned unto us. The same is true with anger, malice, spite, hatred, and jealousy. We get what we give.
An incredibly empowering practice I learned from Brendon Burchard about INTENTION, and quickly implemented into each of my days, is to set a timer to go off each hour. Every time it goes off, recommit to, and refocus on, just the next hour, where ever you may be. It only takes two minutes. I challenge you to try this practice for just three days. I can assure you, from personal experience, that it will work wonders for you. If, after three days, you agree with me, I challenge you to make this practice a part of your new and ever-evolving lifestyle. This is how:
1-Breath in deeply for four seconds, fully expanding your lungs, then hold it for four seconds. Breath out for four seconds, fully emptying your lungs, then hold it for four seconds. Do this Three times.
2-As you are completing the deep-breathing exercises, stretch your neck, shoulders, legs, arms, or any other body part that is feeling tight. This quickly gets newly oxygenated blood to your entire body, empowering you to be more productive than if you hadn’t completed this simple, two-minute practice.
3-Close your eyes for a moment and re-ground, re-center, and re-focus. Set three intentions for how you want to show up and live the next hour of your life on purpose. These intentions will be repeated each hour, each day, for at least a week, before they are changed or upgraded. Here are a few examples of intentions I have set:
- For the next hour I will work with the highest level of integrity I can, producing only quality work.
- For the next hour I will practice having only positive communications with my co-workers, remembering to compliment, encourage, and inspire others regularly and honestly, rather than choosing to criticize or condemn.
- For the next hour I will vibrate on a higher frequency and operate on a higher energy level.
- For the next hour I will remember to NOT complain about anything.
- For the next hour I will be a positive impact to the people around me. I will choose to only influence others in a positive manner.
- For the next hour I will remain in total control of my thoughts and emotions, staying grounded, centered, stable, and strong.
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Service:
I have never met a person I couldn’t learn SOMETHING from. Doing things for others and practicing random acts of kindness is also key to getting out of our own heads. When our focus turns to thoughts and acts of service towards others, and how to better connect and learn with and from others, we no longer have time to focus on ourselves. For this reason, I am particularly grateful for my three sons. At my most difficult times in my life, I was blessed to have them to think about, teach, learn from, and help. I was blessed to have them to care for, and because of them I was sort of forced, in a way, to get out of my own head in order to serve them. This saved me. In my darkest times, when I truly wanted to end it all, so the suffering would stop, the belief that they needed me kept me going. The more we do for others, the less concerned about ourselves we become. For many of us, this is a great opportunity and blessing.
Have you ever heard of, “Helper’s High?” It is the name for the positive emotional state some people experience after providing help to others. Studies have shown that helping others can produce feelings of happiness and can activate reward centers of the brain just like food or drugs. Helping others literally alters our physical, mental, chemical, and hormonal states.
Today I will practice getting out of my own head by practicing gratitude, empathy, positive intent, and by serving others. I know that by doing these things, I will be living my life intentionally, in a way that will heal myself and others. I will be empowering myself through action.
The book SOLVE FOR HAPPY, by Mo Gawdat, offers an EXCELLENT assortment of possible perspectives shifts that may result in happiness for you, RIGHT NOW. I challenge you to purchase this book NOW, and read or listen to it ASAP.
goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. The goodinthehead Podcast can be found on YouTube. Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders. Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about. It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.
Remember: Mindset matters. Character counts. That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives. WE CREATE our personal realities.