10 July 2012

5 WAYS TO BECOME TRULY HAPPY WITH WHO YOU ARE


There is something extremely refreshing about taking a holiday. By stepping back and letting go, you create space. And from that space, new perspectives are born. As hard as it was for me to take a break (in fear of everything falling apart), I am so pleased that I gave myself permission to enjoy a few beautiful weeks in Venice and Paris with my family. I have come back with fresh eyes. It feels nice.

While I was away, I kept myself inspired and aligned by listening to my playlist of 'inspirational audios' as I call them. They are a mixture of talks by people who I love and admire, and hearing their words always helps to reconnect me to my truth. One of the teachers I often listen to is Ekhart Tolle. 

On one gorgeous afternoon in Paris I was sitting on the couch of our apartment as the sun was setting, looking out on to our gorgeous view of the eiffel tower, and listening to a talk by Ekhart. In this particular audio, a member of the audience asked about how to deal with feelings of not being good enough, and primarily the thought that 'there is something wrong with me'. As I listened to this audience member share their struggle with unsupportive self talk, a lack of self love, and limiting beliefs, I realised just how common this thought pattern is. With every client I work with in my coaching sessions, I hear these same limiting thought patterns arise. 

As this man continued with his story about these thought patterns that he continued to face, Ekhart Tolle simply listened and then chuckled lovingly. And then he replied 

"...that feeling that something is wrong with you, is not a personal problem of yours. Is is a universal, human condition. You may be surprised to know that there are millions... billions of people on the planet who have that same thought pattern. It is part of the human ego..."

And what is why I decided to write this post. Because there are millions, if not billions of people on the planet who are living with this way of thinking. If you can relate, it is my hope that you will benefit from these tips.

5 WAYS TO BECOME TRULY HAPPY WITH WHO YOU ARE


1. CHOOSE LOVE

If you really want to be happy with yourself, you have to make a choice. You can either choose to continue to cling to all of your old, crappy, disempowering stories which keep you safe. Or, you can choose to find the courage to let them go, and finally start to think thoughts that will empower and support you. You must choose to think loving thoughts over anything else.

Until you have made the conscious decision to choose love over your old fear-driven stories, you will always find yourself slipping back to your old patterns. You must decide that enough is enough.

One beautiful technique that I have been using recently, is one I learnt from the beautiful Gabrielle Bernstein. This technique involves laughing at the "tiny mad ideas" of your ego. When your mind starts playing those old stories that usually bring up feelings of fear or worry, simply laugh at them. Laughing at these thoughts takes away their power and helps you see them as what they really are - ridiculous disillusions!! 

The truth is that you are infinitely capable, abundantly gifted and you have unlimited potential. When you see yourself that way, you cannot help but laugh at these silly little fearful thoughts that attempt to tear you down.


2. MAKE YOURSELF PROUD
Do you ever beat up on yourself for not achieving things that you set out to do? Or for not having enough self-discipline? Or for not being good enough? Or for not doing enough? etc.. The list goes on.

It is time to start intentionally setting yourself up for success so that you can create reasons to be proud of yourself. If you set a massive goal to go on a huge detox, lose 5kg's and exercise every morning at 5am you are giving your inner critic plenty of opportunities to beat on yourself if you fail. 

But if you set small goals that have a high probability of achievement, then you create beautiful opportunities for you be successful. As you experience more and more success, and learn to celebrate these successes you cannot help but start to feel proud of yourself. 

Start to intentionally create experiences which will allow you to feel proud of yourself. This practice enables you to become the type of person you truly want to be, and eliminates any change your inner critic may have to try and tear you down.


3. ACKNOWLEDGE YOURSELF

This flows on from the above point. You cannot be proud of yourself unless you are willing to acknowledge how freaking amazing you are. You are un-belieeeevably amazing. Don't ever forget it.

Look for any opportunity you can to acknowledge your awesomeness. In everything you do, notice the aspects of it that you did really well. Even if you only did one thing well, just focus on that. Turn your attention away from all the things that you feel were not good enough. Stop looking in the mirror and only noticing your flaws! Stop replaying memories of times where you failed! 

You have a choice about what you are going to focus on, and it is time to start focusing on all the things that beautiful, bright, gorgeous and spectacular about you

Being happy with you are is not about becoming perfect. It is not about getting rid of all the 'bad' things about you. It is about loving and accepting all part of you and then choosing to find the beauty in all of it.


4. SPEAK KINDLY TO YOURSELF

If there is one message that I want you to get from this post, it is that you must never underestimate the power of your words. Your words create. Your words define you. Your words tell the Universe who you are. 

How do you speak to yourself? If you were on the verge of trying something new, attempting a new project, stepping out of your comfort zone, what do you say? Do you say "I can" or "I can't"?

If you tell yourself something long enough, pretty soon you will believe it. So, if there is something you want to believe about yourself but at the moment it does not feel true to you, then I encourage you to just say it anyway. By speaking new words about yourself, you will be reprogramming your unconscious mind and sending new messages to all of the cells in your body about who you are

Fake it until you make it. If you don't believe in yourself then start saying "I believe in myself" over and over. If you do not love yourself, start each day by looking in the mirror and say "I love and accept myself just as I am" If you have been saying "I can't do it" for years and years, it is time to started replacing that with "I can".


5. REMEMBER, YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS


Do not let yourself become so attached to your thoughts. Many of us cling to our thoughts and allow them to define us. You are not your thoughts. Any thought that you think which is not driven by love, is not who you really are. Do not buy in to the illusions. Do not believe the lies you are telling yourself.

Choose what thoughts you think, based on the person you want to become. You cannot become the most confident and beautiful version of yourself if you continue to think negative thoughts about yourself. You can let go of an old thought in an instant and choose a new one just as quickly.

By changing the way that you think about yourself you will change the world that you create around yourself. Make the decision to think differently. To cleanse the human mind of our unloving thought patterns we must each start by taking responsibility to change our own individual thoughts.  We can change the world, one thought at a time.

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+Have you ever struggled with thoughts of not being good enough, or lack of self-love, or the feeling that there is something wrong with you?
+What strategies have you used to overcome them? How do you reconnect with your truth?

26 comments:

  1. You write such BEAUTIFUL posts Connie :) Whenever I start thinking I'm not good enough I remind myself that those who are really successful have the same thoughts and it disappears. When I start to beat myself up about not achieving enough I think of the mantra 'everything is exactly as it needs to be in this moment' :) It's a great idea to set small goals to feel more accomplished, thank you! xx

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    1. Thank you Emma!!! You are exactly right - successful people do have these thoughts, but they simply respond to them in a different way. We can choose whether or not we will listen to them and believe them.

      And I absolutely love your mantra. I can imagine that must bring so much peace. I am definitely going to use that! thank YOU xxx

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  2. Beautiful post darling!

    The sad thing is everyone thinks they are alone with having these thoughts. And your right EVERYONE battles with self love. I see so many clients who speak so harshly to themselves. Time to turn it all around I say. xxxxxxx

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    1. Thank you darling Melissa. You are so right. Everyone thinks it is just them who feels this way, but they are definitely not alone. I love that you too are on the mission to help women change the way that they speak to themselves and cultivate more self love!! You rock xxx

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  3. Beautiful post!

    I use to speak terribly to myself but now I'm constantly reminding myself of all the good in doing so, I leave very little room for the bad. Laughing at the disillusions sounds like much more fun though. I'll give that a gox

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    1. Hello gorgeous tink! I love that you mention 'leaving very little room for the bad' -- that is spot on!! We simply need to flood our minds with so many loving thoughts that the negative ones will have to be discarded because they can no longer fit! Thank you for your lovely comment xx

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  4. Such a great and inspiring post :)

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    1. Thanks Lani! I am so happy it inspired you xx

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  5. Thank you Connie!! So beautiful!

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  6. Thankyou so much, that post was just heaven sent and full of glorious loving energy!!! I will be passing it on for sure =)

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    1. Thank you Allyce!! It is so nice that that you felt the loving energy from the post xx

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  7. Great article. But why does the main photo have to be an attractive model wearing fur? nothing really to do with the article

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    1. Glad you liked the post anon! I simply thought the image was fun, happy and uplifting! Thanks for stopping by xx

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  8. Beautiful post Connie!
    This post has come to me just as I needed it.
    Your words are beautiful. thank you x

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    1. Thank you rawserenity. Isn't it amazing when we somehow manage to receive the exact message we need to hear. So glad you enjoyed it xx

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  9. Thank you so much! Exactly what I needed!

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    1. My pleasure rainbowfish! So happy you found it helpful! xx

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  10. Love this post - and I love the first pic it made me smile!

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  11. love the picture, love your post and love your blog...thanks Connie

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  12. Connie, I really love reading your posts and how you express complex ideas in such a straight-forward, actionable way.

    I love Eckhart Tolle's work, and have listened to the audiobook of A New Earth so many times. At first I found his accent odd and robotic, but now I love it and find his voice very soothing! He is probably my favourite writer of spiritual works. His writing gives me so many 'Aha' moments, and I loved reading your interpretation.

    Xo!

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  13. I've just *met* your blog and I loved reading this post... I think it's important for negativity to be seen for what it is - negativity. It might be a truth, it might not be true at all, but negative thoughts are rarely productive so I just tell myself to choose differently. Schools should spend more time teaching children to think about thinking... it's the most transferable skill there is!

    x Catherine @ The Spring (in Sydney)
    http://www.thespringblog.com/

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  14. Hey....awesome is the word come to my mind wen i read ur blog post. I was so much in need to get somthing positive nd inspiring.

    Thnks..:)

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  15. Hey, I really enjoyed your blog, specially this post, I get the feeling of 'something is wrong with me', a lot...and when I mention it to someone they just laugh or don't understand...thanks so much for the techniques I can use to solve this insecurity of mine, I know it'll take effort and time, but I really hope it will help me! thank you so much again! I'm a new follower!

    xx, Tatiana
    internationalsoul.blogspot.com

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  16. Hi connie,
    I just love your post. There are such simple steps that we need to be reminded often. We can be so hard on ourselves sometimes.
    I wrote something similar in my blog before seeing this (though it is not as refined as yours :-)
    yoko

    http://shokuikuaustralia.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/what-makes-me-powerful.html

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