Category: health realization

Is jealousy a powerful driver in my life or is it simply a negative emotion?

Photo by ArtHouse Studio on Pexels.com

I was definitely a jealous child wanting the “normal” that all the other kids had in their lives. Then I turned into a jealous adolescent who wanted to keep the friends I worked so hard to get. It was all a fear-based lie. So, it never lasted. I subscribe to Maslow’s Hierarchy, where one cannot attain a higher level without first establishing a foundation.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

I never had the solid footing to build on as a kid so anything I did socially growing up was a lie. I lied to myself most of all. But like I wrote in a previous post, Karma kicked my butt. For me, I think my physiological needs were met when I was married, not by my ex-husband (Oh, God, NO!), but by starting my family i.e., having my kids. They grounded me. They gave me the need to exist and have a voice. I slept better, ate well (eating disorder went away), exercised more, and read voraciously, predominantly about spirituality. My mind calmed. I saw the marriage for the travesty that it was and strived to get out of it.

Then came safety which I achieved for the kids with the help of many a therapist or the clinic social workers they recommended. One extremely helpful one encouraged me on a path back to college. There is where the honest social relationships came into play. I learned how to be a friend while I was still learning how to be a parent, but I had excellent role models in the social work field. I’d found people in my life who shared my passions and my beliefs.

I still had a chip on my shoulder due to dysfunctional childhood. That disappeared only after a college professor and psychologist told me to write about the pain. I did. And POOF—it was gone! Although, she thought I still buttressed myself with a pseudonym. It took me another decade to extinguish that misrepresentation.

Switching jobs to architectural drafting temporarily for financial reasons gave me the self-esteem I needed. I connected with people and joined groups and took part in conversations to the best my mental health would allow at the time.

That brings me to now, and self-actualization. I’m finally in a spot where gone is the false facade, and in its place honest, safe, successful relationships. Even my mental health is improving. I know it will never go away or be cured; but it’s well-controlled medicinally which clarifies my thoughts and actions. By that I mean the schizophrenia; the OCD is still a security blanket; and the social anxiety still kicks my butt.

So, when I got asked the question: Is jealousy a powerful driver in my life or is it simply a negative emotion? My response is both. Fortunately, it drove me to be a better person. Moreover, I’m able to see it for what it is now, an ugly, negative emotion that needs to be tamped down. It was a lengthy, drawn-out process that had to happen in order to get me to where I am today.

Examine doubts and ease them.

Photo by Polina Zimmerman on Pexels.comupset woman looking in mirror

Doubt is a natural response like fear and joy. We shouldn’t try to beat it as if it were our enemy. Like fear, doubt can sometimes save our life. Some self-doubt is reasonable: I doubt I can jump from this building to the next or I doubt my legs would handle jumping from this roof. These doubts have in common their scientific fact or what we’ve learned about the strength and durability of human leg bones.

Where we get into trouble with self-doubt is when it’s based on assumptions or on limiting beliefs that have no basis in fact. Those assumptions and beliefs have us to avoid new challenges that confront us with the possibility of failure. But they also prevent us from learning the truth of who we are and what we’re capable of. We can’t believe in ourselves and hold onto these assumptions that others have passed down about the world and our place in it.

So, we need to start facing those doubts with some pointed questions like is this really true, do I believe it only because someone else has said this, is there any fact-based reason to believe it, or what could I do to put this belief to the test?

Mental illness can play havoc with our doubts. Sometimes we can confront them on our own if we have the insight available. Other times it’s helpful to go over these questions to poke at assumptions or limiting beliefs.

We must take baby steps.

babe steps

Instead of telling ourselves, “This could never happen for me,” we must ask ourselves, “What can I do to bring this closer to me?”

It doesn’t have to be a huge step. We don’t have to make it happen all at once. But we need to do something — at least one small thing — every day to get closer to the life we want. We need to do one small thing to get closer to being the person we want to be.

To do this, we need to get clear on the end goal.

So, let’s make a list of why we want something, get committed to the end goal, and then get transparent on what small steps are needed to take each day to get closer to it.

  • What do I want?
  • Why do I want it?
  • Why do those reasons matter to me?
  • What is the end goal? How do I want to see myself a year (or more) from now?
  • What can I do today to get closer to that?

Every day that we make a small step is a success! We’re proving to ourselves that we can do it when we want the end result badly enough to commit to it.

And in so doing, we build up our self-confidence. Other people’s limiting opinions on what we’re capable of no longer have any power over us. And neither do the limiting thoughts we used to have.

baby steps

Believing in ourselves doesn’t mean saying, “I’m 100% finished with my self-growth, and I don’t need to change anything or learn anything more.”

When we know the truth about ourselves, we know that we’re born to keep growing, keep learning, and keep contributing.

When we believe in ourselves, we know we’re worth the investments we need to make in our personal growth.

We know we’re smart enough, strong enough, and capable enough to do what is needed to do to become the person we want to be.

It doesn’t mean we’re not enough as we are. Being enough doesn’t mean we have permission to stop growing; it means we have what it takes to keep growing.

Because we do. We need to believe in that, first of all. Then build on it.

And may our courage and unshakable belief in ourselves influence everything else we do today.

Giving Ourselves Permission Fail at Something

failure

Self-doubt is essentially about the fear of failure, and when we practice self-confidence and move forward anyway, we build on that confidence — just as we build courage the more we step up in the presence of fear.

The most successful people have failed more times than most people even try. The danger is mostly to the ego, but that can recover.

Giving ourselves permission to fail in an endeavor could lead to something great; if we don’t make it the first time, we get to learn from what we did wrong. Then we can try again at that same challenge or pivot and apply what we’ve learned to another similar task or something altogether different.

When we fail — and if we’re actually trying and taking risks, we probably will — but can’t focus on the failure itself but on what led to it and what we can learn from the experience.

Those who become the people they want to be, choose to focus on what they can learn from their failures instead of getting stuck in a failure is inevitable mentality.

What this mentality says is “maybe other people could succeed at this, but not me…whatever I do, I’m bound to fail.” But again this isn’t based on fact but on a fear-based assumption.

The fact is that if we survived this failure, we can learn from it and do better next time – at the same challenge or a different one.

And we owe it to ourselves to keep moving in a growth-oriented direction.

You-make-mistakes.-Mistakes-dont__quotes-by-Maxwell-Maltz-43

We are not our mistakes. What determines our outcome and the person we become is how we handle those mistakes.

We need to stop listening to people who doubt us.

Self-Doubt-Lena-Yang

It’s hard enough dealing with the voices of self-doubt inside our heads; we don’t need to be around people who reinforce those thoughts.

Just because someone else hasn’t dealt with their own self-doubt doesn’t mean they get to drag us down with them.

If they’re stuck in a defeatist mentality, we need to try to avoid conversations that will lead to negative rants about their potential or ours.

In some cases, we’ll need to simply avoid these people as much as we can, just as we do the drama vampires. Every conversation turns into a negative monologue or tears us down. We can’t give them the opportunity.

Instead, we need to hang out with people who build us up, who are unabashedly self-confident, and who set an example of growth that inspires us to keep moving forward. Spending more time with people who believe in themselves is contagious. We need to give ourselves a vote of confidence.  We can’t wait for someone else to pick up the pieces and tell us that we’re enough, and “we can do this.” We have a responsibility to ourselves, as well as to others.

We need to take responsibility and tell ourselves that we’ve learned and mastered things before, and there’s no reason we can’t continue learning and mastering new things.

Think of what we’ve already accomplished, and keep telling ourselves, “There’s positive energy on the other side of fear (and I choose positive energy).”

We can do more and become more than we can probably imagine right now; we’re not limited to “the way things have always been” or to “what we’ve always known.”

We need to remind ourselves, we were made to live fully and intentionally until the moment we die. We owe that to ourselves — and to the people, we care about.  This I learned in The Art of Healing at the Center for Spirituality & Healing at the University of MN.

Remaining Calm

Buddha

Remaining calm is a constant endeavor of mine. I think it’s because of my mental health diagnosis for the most part in that I’ve experienced how easy it is to have a psychotic episode. For that reason, I’ve learned my triggers and the quickest way to chaos for me is nervous energy.

So, I took classes at the UMN’s Center for Spirituality and Healing in just about every course offering they had. Whether it was Optimal Healing Environments to Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction to Spirituality and Resilience or The Art of Healing. The common theme throughout was living in the moment and experiential journeys focused on calm centeredness.

So my workdays are filled with yoga stretches, artistic diversions, meditations, thumbing through positive quotes on Instagram, and bringing it all back to the moment. I can’t fix yesterdays, can’t control tomorrows, and so I focus on today, specifically this moment. And everything about it is geared toward serenity. I need it to stay sane. I need it to remain positive. I need it to move forward. Breathe.

Convincing Myself That a Truly Headache Inducing Client isn’t Worth It

headache

We often push our limits even though we realize it may not be for the better. I think some clients are reacting to the dysfunction that is in all our lives during this time of the pandemic and rushing workloads to accomplish all we/they can before a possible worse scenario hits in the latter part of this year.

I’ve had clients that demand nearly all of my attention on a project of theirs that is so small in comparison to other massive works that aren’t so insistent on occupying all my focus regardless of the detail necessary in making it a success. Those larger clients don’t hover over me. I realize that everyone’s project is important to them but maniacal moments don’t help either of us. Condescension won’t get them anywhere either.

Whether the client is paying us a lot of money or is giving us a tremendous workload or if someone is paying too little with unrealistic demands we are going to end up burned out and possibly even missing other deadlines or getting frustrated down the road. Simply put, these clients are not worth it. If you’ve ever heard of the Pareto principle which states that 80% of our business will come from 20% of our clients. We just need to focus on developing that core 20% who always give us a good experience; thereby maintaining positive mental health.

Why phone calls can be incredibly difficult for people with social anxiety.

a phone call

Phone calls are unpredictable. When you answer the phone, you have no idea what the other person is wanting to discuss. There is no time to prepare as if someone asked you to come to their office for a chat or to call at a specific time. This is anxiety-provoking.

It changes the expected plan. I like to know what I am doing and when. If I have planned to spend the next half an hour doing a specific task, to have that suddenly interrupted can be overwhelming, because now I have to replan my time.

It takes time to transition my focus from one thing to another. Phone calls are instant. You have less than 10 seconds to answer. In that time, I have to force myself to transition my thoughts and energy to what my brain is now forced to focus on. This takes a lot of energy.

Phone calls interrupt what I am doing. If I am deeply engrossed in the task, especially if it is related to my particular interest, when I answer the phone, it may be impossible for me to focus on what it is they are saying. As a result, my replies may not be as coherent or valid.

It can take us longer to process certain things on the phone. I can’t see your body language. It is even harder than usual for me to interpret what you mean, especially when you refuse to say precisely what you mean and instead confound your speech with metaphors and sarcasm.

Many of us rely on lip-reading. Lip-reading helps to process what is being said quicker. I don’t know why, but my processing ability seems to be at a slower speed than many neurotypicals. Lip reading is hugely beneficial with this, and obviously, this isn’t present on the phone.

a phone call

It is even harder than average to gauge social cues. Knowing when it is my turn to speak in conversation is even harder on the phone. I have to be super careful not to interrupt by accident, speak for the acceptable length of time, and ensure my words are appropriate and articulate.

On phone calls, there is no time to prepare responses. Often I need longer to process what you’ve said and formulated a response. Face to face, this is easier for the other person to understand. On the phone, I may feel rushed, so say things I don’t mean, or not explain adequately.

As a result of not being able to think things through, I may feel pressured into saying ‘yes’ to everything asked of me, due to a desire to please. Afterward, I may realize this is not something I can cope with and then panic because I have already agreed to it.

Phone calls can be more intense. Many find silence less comfortable on the phone. There are no typical environmental distractions that may provide a few moments of relief. If there are distractions, the other person can’t see/hear them, so we have to focus even harder.

And worst of all, for those with deeper mental issues like schizophrenia, there may be a cacophony of voices present on the phone call. Imagine listening to ten radio stations simultaneously. Would you be able to make out one distinct voice and respond appropriately?

These are just a few of the reasons why many people with social anxiety struggle with phone calls. Some things that can be helpful are asking when is a good time to call, preparing the other person as to what the topic is, and planning time in advance.

Additionally, offer other means of communication that the person may find more comfortable, such as emails. Some may find video calls easier. Or even simple adjustments like discussing on the phone but having time afterward to think and then emailing decisions later on.