Be your own best friend and not your own worst enemy.

The mind can flicker between moods like the reels of an old black and white film reel.
One moment your mind is filled with beautiful butterflies that spread joy throughout your body, giving you no choice but to smile from ear to ear, creating an outstandingly optimistic perception on life. Then, like a ferocious storm that strikes within minutes, the butterflies are frightened off by a poisonous cloud that seeps through the cracks where the positivity failed to fill. Negativity and worry latch onto your mind, particularly when you are at your most sensitive. The poison multiplying, darkening every piece of happiness you had built.
The poison for me, comes in numerous forms. Although I am very much a “glass half full” kind of person, I am still also very much human meaning that feelings I shield my mind from, can come flooding through regardless of the triggers being something slightly simple or overwhelmingly huge! I have listed some of the things that can often make you feel like you are your own worst enemy: defeating your own sense of self through anxiety or worry about the following poisons. Try to re-direct your brain from being your own worst enemy, to your own best friend. You and your brain – BFFS for life.

PERSISTENT PRESSURES WE PUT ON OURSELVES:

Dictionaries will define pressure as an exertion or high force placed upon something or someone. Imagine carrying a suitcase full of bricks. Imagine holding twenty hard-back books for five hours straight. Or imagine carrying two gallons of water across the Sahara Desert. Now imagine this same exertion but inside the mind. The pressure there is physically non-existent, but is as equally as heavy as if it were. There are no books resting inside the mind, or real suitcases full of bricks packed inside the brain. BUT there are bricks, books and gallons of water there, just in the form of a nagging pressure that we most often than not, create by ourselves. We place our mind under silly pressures that latch on.
What are we gaining from overloading our brain with timers, unnecessary goals and to-do lists? Hold onto the present and navigate through daily life one step at a time. Focus on the now, paying a good amount of attention to the things we wish to do. We WILL tick them off our life lists but we need to exist NOW. Don’t miss the passing moments by pressuring yourself to complete EVERYTHING within a certain time-frame. What will be will be. Whatever you want, you can achieve.

COMPARING TO OTHERS:

Whilst others can inspire you and motivate you to excel in ways in which you never knew capable, comparing yourself to others is a rather toxic trait to possess.
If you were a fully fledged criminal looking to change and comparing yourself to a moral member of society, then this form of comparison wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. But to compare ourselves to others within our circle of friends and loved ones or to people we have never even met from social media, is a recipe for disaster when it comes to the poison of negative feelings! Allowing your mind to make idle comparisons is normal and a part of human nature, but to become fixed on comparing your life to another is a guaranteed entry route for unwanted feelings. Opening your mind to negative comparison is a one way train to your brain for the cloud of poisonous negativity!
They have this, I don’t.
They do this, I don’t.
They visit here. I don’t.
They own this. I don’t.
What we see online or within our loved ones’ lives is simply their life. It doesn’t change ours, it doesn’t make ours any less valuable. We are on our own individual paths. If we were all on the same path, there wouldn’t be room to move! Feeling jealous of a random person on social media as they bathe in the tropic waters of Hawaii does warrant feelings of green envy, but we are in our rights to go to Hawaii too. Or we may feel the fear of missing out – FOMO- when we see pictures of somebody we know backpacking across Australia. Or we may wish we had the life of our distant relative who uploads the odd snap of her renovated kitchen. Remember, people only upload the things they WANT you to see. Behind the social media buttons, those people we compare ourselves to, may struggle with the things that we take ownership of. They may compare themselves to elements of our lives. Remember to appreciate the things you HAVE instead of comparing yourself to others and actively seeking for the things you don’t have and don’t need. Take gratitude for the things you often take for granted. Look around you and find the things you can do that others may not be able to , or the things we have that others may not have.

OVERTHINKING IS A MIND WAR

We overthink every little aspect of life and amplify every little worry into a catastrophic explosion in our mind causing us to break down or explode in tears. What starts as a whisper  of smoke, so small it seems almost insignificant to our mind, soon grows wildly and ferociously into a viscious fire of thoughts in our mind.
Sometimes, that hint of smoke can be something that you are over-worrying about happening, that most likely won’t even happen. Or it can be a flicker of doubt in your mind that somebody you love or care about is distancing themselves from you, when in fact they are as close to you as they have always been: the people who would extinguish the flames of worry if only you would open up to them.  
Or the overthinking could stem from the belief that we have upset, annoyed or angered somebody, when in fact their reaction or behaviour that day was purely from their own stresses and worries. Also, vverthinking what others think of you and letting the aggravating trait of “people pleasing” reach another level in your mind.
Talk to people! Allow them to pour water over the hint of smoke to prevent the fire that eventually burns your brain, causing you to explode. Don’t feed the smoke. Regardless of how small the problem or thought seems, TALK! By releasing your worries, you are letting somebody else rationalise it for you and in their words of advice, you will realise that more often than not, your worries are stemming from overthinking. Even if the worry is a huge, existing concern , talking about it will always be the best thing to do. Don’t think you are burdening your loved ones with your “silliness”. It is never silly. Don’t underestimate the advice and the power of the words from the ones you love. They are the medicine to the mind.

Ease off the accelerator.
Banish the pressures, comparisons and overthinking.
Learn to lock them away when needed.
Love yourself.
Appreciate what you have and who you have.
Enjoy life whilst you’re here.
After all, isn’t that why we’re here?

Thanks for reading!

rachelizabethblogs.com
🙂
xx