Be kind to your mind

Because of particular circumstances a few years ago, I ended up with decent periods of time where it was just me and my thoughts.

It’s only in hindsight that I realise my mind back then wasn’t a particularly nice place to be!

While this experience wasn’t exactly fun, I could not be more grateful for it.

It wasn’t an essential experience for change but it made me less able to use the rest of life as a buffer or distraction for my mind.

It forced me to learn to be kind to my mind.

And the more kind to my mind I’ve become, the more my life has transformed to one that actually feels good and easy a lot more of the time.

You absolutely deserve and can learn to live with a kind mind too.

So firstly, here are 2 curious questions for you:

1. Have you spent any long periods of time where it’s just you and your thoughts?

No activity or distractions involved?

Perhaps you weren’t working for a decent stint.

Perhaps you were living alone.

You might’ve been recovering from an operation or illness.

Or travelling solo for a long period.

2. How was or is your experience when it’s just you and your thoughts?

Enjoyable, relaxing, inspiring?

Uncomfortable, unsettling, mood dampening?

Maybe you haven’t had a lengthy experience of being alone with your thoughts, or maybe you have and it’s left a lot to be desired.

Either way, here’s a bit more of my story to help set a scene for this theme!

I’d made some decisions (good ones for me) which led to quite a different lifestyle.

Previously, I’d been working the 9 - 5 for many years, had always been social and lived with others.

A fair amount of time had passed with this ‘new lifestyle’ and it was going well.

I was still living with others and being social and I was studying floristry which only required a small amount of on campus hours each week.

I’ve always enjoyed time to myself like a lot of people, but this was quite A LOT of time by myself.

I was still oblivious to the negativity of my thoughts and how they impacted my life.

This is taking into account I don’t think I would have ever been considered an overly negative person…let’s say middle of the road.

But, I eventually got to a period of realising something had to change.

I was spiralling in anxiety.

Worrying about my ‘bad memory’.

It was mainly through learnings from books that I bit by bit started to take control.

The first key was to build more of an awareness of my thoughts about my ‘bad memory’ and start changing these thoughts.

It was only from this process, that started to discover other thoughts that were unhelpful.

Now, prepare yourself - and trust me it comes out good in the end.

Do you want some fun examples?!

(Note the sarcasm)

- ‘You did a bad job with that’

- ‘You’re so awkward and embarrassing.’

- ‘You don’t know anything’

- ‘You don’t have anything interesting to say - nobody would want to spend any long period of time with just you on your own’

- ‘You’re terrible at telling stories’

Wow.

That was even shocking for me.

I have never written those down like that.

The point I’m trying to get to is that I hadn’t even been conscious of these thoughts.

When they’re unconscious thoughts, they then play out as feelings and in turn our behaviours and the actions we take (or don’t take).

When we start to have an awareness though that’s when we can start to take control.

We can notice a thought.

We can let it go if we choose.

We can choose a different thought.

That is then how we can change our feelings, our behaviours, our actions.

OUR LIFE.

So, here are some fun (ner) examples of kind thoughts!

- ‘That didn’t work out quite as I hoped, but that’s ok, I can learn from it and move on’

- ‘That felt a bit awkward and uncomfortable but that’s ok, it happens to everyone’

- ‘There’s a lot I do know about, noone can ever know everything’

- ‘I can just be me, the ones that want to spend time with me will’

- ‘I could learn to be a really good story teller if I wanted’.

What are your thoughts on this?

How do you relate to the above or not?

Whether you do or don’t relate, if there’s one thing I suggest you continue to keep in mind, it’s to be kind to your mind.

Click the ‘book a chat’ button to chat more about this, I can listen and help you with the process.