If you have anxiety, sometimes it can feel like your mind just takes off — much like a wild horse. This may leave you feeling like you are trying to get through the latest bumpy ride of panic, stress, or exhaustion in your life. Believing your mind is not in your own control often leads to self-medicating (eating, drinking, sleeping), acting-out (crying, yelling, procrastination), negative thinking, depressing ruminations, and being so “in your head” that you can’t enjoy the moment or be present. The thing is, anxiety makes you forget just how POWERFUL you are. You need to learn how to sit up, take the reigns, and start steering that horse in the direction YOU want to go. Because after all, YOU are the master of your mind… and your own life!
Here are the top three steps you can take when you realize your mind has wandered off track and is busy focusing on what will NOT serve you:
STEP 1: NOTICE YOU ARE OFF COURSE The key here is to realize that you are focusing on situations and feelings that make you feel bad, and that aren’t leading to positive change or solutions. Take several deep belly breaths to reduce your adrenaline, then make a choice. Ask yourself “Do I want to feel bad or good?” “Do I want to help this situation?” If you answered yes, you are ready for Step 2. If you aren’t sure yet, don’t judge yourself. Be okay with not feeling okay. Remember, it’s all a choice.
STEP 2: RECOGNIZE YOUR POWER The anxious mind is powerful, no doubt. It’s often been reinforced by years of habits and neurological wiring that enables it to just hit “play” on the same old record, causing your feelings, thoughts, and body to all do the fear jig on cue. But realizing that your mind works for YOU means that you can mentally hit the “stop” button on that tired old record. Your anxiety is a part of you, but is not all that you are. If you can notice it, you can take charge of it. See it for what it is: a fear-based response to life that is acting out the same part it has many, many times before.
But YOU are the master, YOU are in charge, and YOU get to decide what to think about — and what not to think about. If you want to think about your 5 favorite kinds of flowers, your funniest high school memory, or the most beautiful tree on your block, you can! If you want to think about the worst mistakes you made at work this week, why you will never get married, or the recent ways your friends let you down, you can think about that too.
What you focus on is all about choice. But I know how tenacious the anxious mind is and how it will veer, over and over, down the tempting negative path. Sometimes it will notice you’ve become lax about keeping your positive focus and you’ll gallop off into the sunset with horrible thoughts about your life. After all, it’s a creature of habit. But you have the reigns and you need to be vigilant. Sit up, pull them in closer to you, and steer yourself (over and over and over) back to the thoughts that feel better. That horse will get the message over time, that life is okay enough, good enough, and safe enough for you to actually enjoy the blessings you put your focus on.
STEP 3: START WITH YOUR BODY If you want to take more control of your mind, it’s best to start with focusing on your body. Why? When you have negative or stressed thoughts, you deploy a stress response in you body that dumps adrenaline in your blood stream. This prepares you to fight or flight. But is that adrenaline is not used up, it will simply cause you to feel frenetic, irritated, frustrated, and exhausted.
To guide your mind back to a more relaxing state, take 5-20 deep belly breaths, or diaphragmatic breaths. This will suck the adrenaline our of your system and therefore help your body and mind to regain a sense of calm.
Also, It’s so much more simple and effective to steer the mind when you have slept enough, eat regularly and keep your blood sugars balanced (low blood sugars make you moody and feel a whole lot like adrenaline), don’t drink 5 cups of coffee (or at least drink mostly decaf and tons of water), take a walk everyday (or at least 4 days a week), and do basic meditation or sit still and belly breathe. The body will work with you if you set it up for success. Some people take GABA to supplement the brain’s natural tranquilizer that is very low in people with anxiety, or Calmes Forte, a homeopathic medicine for anxiety, to help the body help the mind. Learn to belly breathe (learn how with this teaching video), and use the energy healing method “Tapping” (try one of my Tapping videos) to reduce fear in any moment. Practices like these help the mind work for you. Here’s an EFT Sequence to use to open the heart and allow in miracles.
Your mind can be re-trained, but it needs support from the physical, energetic, and spiritual parts of you, too. If, after trying to control or guide your mind to think more positively, you have given up because it just doesn’t seem to work, don’t lose hope. It can and will change if you truly realize that YOU are in charge. Sit up and take those reigns time and time again, knowing you are reconditioning the beast that has been taking you for a ride.
Beth Miller, LCSW-R, CEC, CAHC is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Life Coach, energy healer, meditation teacher, and spiritual counselor in private practice in Bayport, Long Island, New York, USA. She is the owner of the group practice POSITIVE ENERGY Holistic Counseling & Institute where she and her fabulous team of therapists use the breakthrough model Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™ to create transformational change in their clients. Beth is the creator of the trademarked Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™: Modern therapy that combines the very best of traditional psychotherapy with life coaching, energy healing, science, and spirituality. Now, Licensed Therapists, Healers, and Coaches can learn how to experience huge transformation in themselves, their clients, and their careers by becoming Certified in Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™. For free holistic and psychotherapy tools, visit the POSITIVE ENERGY Holistic Counseling & Institute YouTube channel, or contact us directly via phone at 631-533-0708 or email at info@positivecounselingli.com.
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