6 Things I Started Changing The Last Month That Completely Changed My Mindset

There are a couple of things I realized in the last month (In the last year actually) that I started doing that has had a big impact on how I am feeling. You might learn something from it, so here we go:

✔︎ 1. Reducing Negativity

You attract what you put out. They say ‘your eyes are a window to your soul’ … but
Your Facebook wall is a window into your character. So made the conscious decision to reduce the negativity on my wall and not longer engage anymore in the negative discussion.
I ask myself these questions before posting or replying

● 1. Is it worth my time?
● 2. What frame of mind is this coming from?
● 3. What is the lesson I am trying to teach here?
● 4. Is this helping others/my audience?
● 5. What impression am I making?

I also often delve deeper to see instinctive reactions and patterns as fulfilling a deeper need, so to learn from it, I ask myself

■ 1. Am I giving away my power to something outside of myself?
■ 2. What assumptions, judgments, and expectations do I have?
■ 3. Is this mindset/belief serving me?
■ 4. Is there a better strategy to meet the underlying need?
This is a work in progress since I am not always succeeding ye
t, but I’ve been delving more and more in my childhood and reactionary patterns.

✔︎ 2. Doing Shadow Work

The value of shadow work is often neglected, both in self-help, as in spirituality. You will act out unresolved childhood wounds, strategies, and patterns in your adult life, communication, self-talk, and relationships .. whether you like to or not.

The last months have been one of the most liberating, shameful and eye-opening at the same time. You think you’ve seen the light until you crawl back into the crevices of your mind and see the ghosts from the past still haunting your head.

☛ Everything you do and say serves a NEED, we just only developed a specific strategy in childhood to fulfill this need. It might not be the best or most optimal one, but it’s the one we adopted.

It takes courage to parent your inner child again and teach it different strategies to look at the world.

Assumptions, judgments, and expectations are a way you construct the world as a child to make your world predictable. Even predictable pain and hurt is better than the feeling of powerlessness and having no control.

So you start being anxious and worrying about things before they even happen as a way to ‘prepare’ yourself, not realize you are perpetuating your reality that way.
So to learn how to become aware and choose a more empowered response instead of a default reaction … is a work in progress.

✔︎ 3. Self-Development As A Social Activity

You can only know so much BY YOURSELF. To truly know about yourself, you need feedback from others. You need intimacy with others for them to hold up an uncomfortable mirror in front of you and reveal aspects that are hidden to yourself.

💡 You are used to you. It’s hard to surprise yourself or step away ‘from yourself.’ Only intimacy with others can create a safe space where negative patterns are called out and discussed in a loving way.

Many people, I know I did feel rejected by the world, had to be a rebel and have this ‘I’ll handle it myself attitude’ … you can only reach so much by yourself. There are people to share your story with, who go through the same, who can help you … if you open up again.

✔︎ 4. Going First

Whatever you want the world or people to give you, give it to others first. You will get back what you put out. Don’t wait for the world or people to give you what you lack … be an example … but putting it out there first.

It’s trying to be the person you wish others would be. People often treat you as you treat them.

☞ And people often treat you as you treat yourself.So if you have certain things you expect from others, be sure to also portray them yourself. It’s the essence of INTEGRITY.

✔︎ 5. Giving People The Benefit Of The Doubt

By default, I cling to a lot of assumptions, expectations, and judgments which are a default reaction from the past. My world started changing when I put myself into the shoes of other people and don’t draw final conclusions immediately.

You can never know what exactly happens until you ask, are curious and are open to feedback.

🔥 It’s a matter of developing trust and realizing trust and relationships are developed over time, with ups and downs … which is normal .. because are human. You can create a self-fulfilling prophecy by projecting your negative judgments, assumptions, and exceptions into the world and then find plenty of validation to support it.

✔︎ 6. More Constructive Communication

Communication is almost everything. Communication with yourself, with others and with the world. It’s our way in which we tell a story and create our character(s). We often using thinking as a monologue. When I started doing voice dialogues with myself I started having a discussion with .. MYSELF. And asking deeper why’s.

🎁 You will be surprised how many ideas and people live in your head and just want to be expressed and listened to … and when you start understanding them, you can figure out their underlying needs, wants and strategies they use .. and start to integrate and parent them.
I started picking up Non-Violent Communication again.

Check out the book with the basics ’Non-Violent Communication’ by Marshall Rosenberg. It’ll teach you how to communicate more empathically and effectively based on feelings and needs.

🔥 As someone who is reconnecting with himself and others, it’s a great tool to start having a constructive discourse with yourself again and start relating with others and trusting them again.

➡️ Now I am curious. Which one of these 6 resonates the most with you? And is there something you started doing the last month or year that started changing your life dramatically? ⬇️

Let me know by dropping a comment below!