Category Archives: Overcoming Fear

What is Meditation and Why Should I do it?

Meditation is the practice of reaching a heightened level of awareness. It allows you to tune into your thoughts without being consumed by them. This makes it easier to focus on what truly matters and gives you space to quiet your mind.

You may think of meditation and believe it has a religious or spiritual meaning, but that’s not always true. Many people, including agnostics, find meditation to be beneficial and use it when they need serenity.

There are several different types of meditation but here are 3 of the most popular forms:

Guided Meditation
This is a form of meditation where a mentor or teacher encourages someone to visualize a certain outcome. For example, a basketball coach may have his players do a guided meditation where his players imagine winning the game.

Guided meditation can allow you to regain a sense of control in the face of setbacks. During an interview with Forbes, Michael Phelps shared that his goggles filled with water during the Olympic race. Other swimmers may have panicked.

But not Michael..He’d spent hours visualizing a successful outcome so he closed his eyes and started swimming. He completed the race, having won the gold medal and breaking the world record.

Mantra as Meditation
Some people find it helpful to spend their meditation sessions focusing on a mantra. The mantra can be any one that you choose. But it’s often helpful to create a mantra about an area of your life that you’re actively seeking to improve.

If you’re looking to lose weight, your mantra could be, “I choose to fill my body with nutritious foods.” If you’re looking to earn more money, your mantra could be, “I am worthy of wealth and spend my money wisely.”

During meditation, say the mantra to yourself out loud. If you find your mind drifting or you’re worrying about something, relax and keep repeating your mantra. It will get easier after a few sessions to stay on track.

Mindfulness as Meditation
Another form of meditation is mindfulness. It’s focused on staying in the moment without fear or judgement. Rather, you become an observer of your inner self.

As part of your mindfulness, you can sit or lie comfortably and listen to your thoughts. The key is not to react to what you’re thinking. For example, you think about cookies in the kitchen but then remember you’re supposed to be on a diet. You instantly feel guilt and shame.

In mindfulness, you could say, “I release this guilt and shame and open myself to joy and peace.” The more you practice mindfulness, the more you’ll become aware of how your thoughts are shaping your life.

There are many styles of meditation. Don’t feel bad if you try one method and don’t enjoy it. You may have to try a few different ones until you find the style that works best for you.

Ready to start meditating? Email me at patriciabrawley@earthlink.net with the word Meditation in the subject line to learn more about an upcoming course/class.

Break Your Goals Into Steps

Once you’ve set your mind on a goal and cleared away distractions, you’re ready to get started working. But first, you need to do some planning. When you plan in advance and use that plan, you’re more likely to succeed with your goals.

You can make a list of things to do to reach your goal. But it’s usually easier to start by evaluating what you need to make your goal a reality.

Here are a few things you may need to get going.

Tools or Supplies

What tools or supplies will you need in order to meet your goal? If you’re starting a blog, you’ll need a website and hosting. If you’re aiming to lose weight, you’ll need a food scale and measuring cups. If you’re starting a jewelry business, then you’ll need modeling clay to make charms and necklace thread.

You also need to consider supplies you may have forgotten about. If you’re starting a business, you may need child care. If you’re changing your diet, you may need new recipe books to help you prepare healthier meals.

Specialized Help

Sometimes, you can’t achieve your goals by yourself. That’s where specialized help comes in. Specialized help can take many forms. It might be hiring a personal trainer so you can get the toned body you want. It might be hiring a business coach to help you book enough clients to pay your bills.

Specialized help can sometimes be expensive. But if your goal is important to you, don’t be afraid to invest in it. Some coaches and trainers may be willing to work with you to develop a payment plan so be sure to ask if this is an option.

Support from Friends and Family

You can’t succeed in a bubble. In order to reach your goals, you’ll need the support of your family and friends. If your family and friends can’t be supportive, you should look for the support elsewhere.

Joining a support group or finding an online community can be helpful in these situations. Look for groups and communities that leave you feeling upbeat and are filled with people that want to achieve similar goals.

Return the Support

It’s easy to get so wrapped up in your new goal that you forget to invest in others. If you’re part of a group or community, make sure that you offer help to other members. Be willing to take time from your day to support someone else.

Now that you do know what you need in order to succeed, it’s time to go after your goal. It’s scary to take that first step, but you have to be willing to do it. Once you’ve taken that first step, you’ll experience a rush of confidence and increased motivation.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GOAL SETTING WORKBOOK

If you would like to work on breaking your negative thinking pattern, click here to take advantage of my free 30 minute phone consultation.

Decreasing the Landmines of Negativity

Why is it we remember, replay, and make up new stories about events in our lives when we felt terrible? Ask someone to tell you about a time they got their feelings hurt and they will readily come up with an event. Ask someone when the last time they felt free, successful, happy and they hesitate and qualify that moment with “Why? It was no big deal.” But, anger, shame, and feeling demeaned…now that was a big Deal. It’s like stepping on a land mine. You never forget it and could be permanently scarred by it.

There is nothing wrong with us. It’s not because we’re holding on to the past (well, maybe we are). It’s because we feel negative emotions more intensely than positive emotions. Evolution gives us the skills to look for danger and the sense to avoid them (we still have free will). Our ancestors learned which berries to eat and which ones would make them sick. One experience of eating the wrong berries gives us a lesson we don’t forget. However, some of our ancestors learned how to scare their children about eating all berries or else they would die or face shameful punishment.

If you eat poisonous berries once, you can recover. But if we step on a land mine of negative situations every day… abusive language for example, we are not easily able to recover from them. And, it sets up a negative thinking pattern that makes us think, “Every day is awful. Those people are scary.” and permeates the day every day. You need a break. You need a change.

If you would like to work on breaking your negative thinking pattern, click here to take advantage of my free 30 minute phone consultation.

Everything You Want is on the Other Side of Fear

I am going to share an article with you that is reprinted with permission from Harper Collins Publishers. New York. It’s an excerpt from The Feeling Good Handbook by Burns D. (1989).

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear!” so see if you can practice “Doing it afraid”.

Patterns of Cognitive Distortions:

These are 10 common cognitive distortions that can contribute to negative emotions.
They also fuel catastrophic thinking patterns that are particularly disabling. Read these
and see if you can identify ones that are familiar to you.

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking: You see things in black-or-white categories. If a situation
falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure. When a young woman on a diet ate a
spoonful of ice cream, she told herself, “I’ve blown my diet completely.” This thought
upset her so much that she gobbled down an entire quart of ice cream!

2. Over generalization: You see a single negative event, such as a romantic rejection or
a career reversal, as a never-ending pattern of defeat by using words such as “always” or
“never” when you think about it. A depressed salesman became terribly upset when he
noticed bird dung on the windshield of his car. He told himself, “Just my luck! Birds are
always crapping on my car!”

3. Mental Filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that
your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of
water. Example: You receive many positive comments about your presentation to a
group of associates at work, but one of them says something mildly critical. You obsess
about his reaction for days and ignore all the positive feedback.

4. Discounting the Positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t
count.” If you do a good job, you may tell yourself that it wasn’t good enough or that
anyone could have done as well. Discounting the positive takes the joy out of life and
makes you feel inadequate and unrewarded.

5. Jumping to Conclusions: You interpret things negatively when there are no facts to
support your conclusion.

Mind Reading: Without checking it out, you arbitrarily conclude that someone
is reacting negatively to you.

Fortune-telling: You predict that things will turn out badly. Before a test you
may tell yourself, “I’m really going to blow it. What if I flunk?” If you’re
depressed you may tell yourself, “I’ll never get better.”

6. Magnification: You exaggerate the importance of your problems and shortcomings, or
you minimize the importance of your desirable qualities. This is also called the “binocular
trick.”

7. Emotional Reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect
the way things really are: “I feel terrified about going on airplanes. It must be very
dangerous to fly.” Or “I feel guilty. I must be a rotten person.” Or “I feel angry. This proves
I’m being treated unfairly.” Or “I feel so inferior. This means I’m a second-rate person.” Or
“I feel hopeless. I must really be hopeless.

8. “Should statements”: You tell yourself that things should be the way you hoped or
expected them to be. After playing a difficult piece on the piano, a gifted pianist told
herself, “I shouldn’t have made so many mistakes.” This made her feel so disgusted that
she quit practicing for several days. “Musts,” “oughts” and “have tos” are similar
offenders.

“Should statements” that are directed against yourself lead to guilt and frustration. Should
statements that are directed against other people or the world in general lead to anger
and frustration: “He shouldn’t be so stubborn and argumentative.”

Many people try to motivate themselves with should and shouldn’ts, as if they were
delinquents who had to be punished before they could be expected to do anything. “I
shouldn’t eat that doughnut.” This usually doesn’t work because all these should and
musts make you feel rebellious and you get the urge to do just the opposite. Dr. Albert
Ellis has called this “musterbation.” I call it the “shouldy” approach to life.

9. Labeling: Labeling is an extreme form of all-or-nothing thinking. Instead of saying “I
made a mistake,” you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” You might also
label yourself “a fool” or “a failure” or “a jerk.” Labeling is quite irrational because you are
not the same as what you do. Human beings exist, but “fools,” “losers,” and “jerks” do not.
These labels are just useless abstractions that lead to anger, anxiety, frustration, and low
self-esteem.

You may also label others. When someone does something that rubs you the wrong way,
you may tell yourself: “He’s an S.O.B.” Then you feel that the problem is with that
person’s “character” or “essence” instead of with their thinking or behavior. You see them
as totally bad. This makes you feel hostile and hopeless about improving things and
leaves little room for constructive communication.

10. Personalization and blame: Personalization occurs when you hold yourself
personally responsible for an event that isn’t entirely under your control. When a woman
received a note that her child was having difficulties at school, she told herself, “This
shows what a bad mother I am,” instead of trying to pinpoint the cause of the problem so
that she could be helpful to her child. When another woman’s husband beat her, she told
herself, “If only I were better in bed, he wouldn’t beat me.” Personalization leads to guilt,
shame, and feelings of inadequacy.

Some people do the opposite. They blame other people or their circumstances for their
problems, and they overlook ways that they might be contributing to the problem: “The
reason my marriage is so lousy is because my spouse is totally unreasonable.” Blame
usually doesn’t work very well because other people will resent being scapegoated and
they will just toss the blame right back in your lap. It’s like the game of hot potato – no one
wants to get stuck with it.

Reframing Tips:

Explore what’s stressing you: View your situation with positive eyes.

Find what you can change: If you could, what parts of your situation would you
most like to change? With positive reframing, you may see possibilities you
weren’t aware of before.

Identify benefits: Find the benefits in the situation you face.

Discover the humor: Find the aspects of your situation that are so absurd that you
can’t help but laugh.

(The Resilience Alliance, 2011)

Choosing the Right People In Your Life is Like Coming Home

It’s hard to think of something that is not made better when enjoyed with others who love you. It’s like coming home. Or, if home is not so inviting, think of coming home to a place where it’s refreshing and you feel wonderful to be there.

Sharing your thoughts and ideas flows easily with these people, and you feel safe. You don’t have to think or worry about what you say because you know they love you for who you are, and they embrace whatever you share.

You may often think about each other at the same time and pick up the phone to call them and send a text only to hear that they were thinking of you too.

You are “in sync” with these people in your life. You may even feed off each other’s energy to attract even more synchronicity.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had that relationship with everyone we interact with?

Your favorite people can boost you up and other not-so-favorite people can put that little black cloud over your head leaving you feeling awful and depressed, right? You know who they are. Compare the two groups: one makes you feel more motivated to try new things and the other group dishes out doubt about what you can be and do. These people can be found in your social media groups, too.

You can choose. You can choose something new.

In the next couple of days, become aware and notice how people impact you. How do you feel after spending time with people and groups you are involved in? Scan your body to identify tension, feelings of heaviness, depression, lightness, relaxation or nothing at all. Do your thoughts change? Is there something you won’t say to some people because you know they will tell you it’s wrong? Like I said, you have a choice.

Being aware is part of the choice. If you can identify who stirs up a down feeling, note it but don’t buy into it. Choose friends and make new ones that lighten your mood. They make it fun to share ideas and dreams.

You’ll love being a part of a group or having friends that are positive. Another side of yourself will start showing up in life. And when you do this, you’ll be amazed by the positive ways synchronicity shows up in your life.

Here’s my invitation: practice awareness and check your responses to different people. You may want to choose new friends who support you. It’s allowed. You have permission!

Your muse with the purple glasses.

3 Reasons Why You Can’t Get Into Productivity Mode

Whether you are at work or at home, there’s always something productive you can be doing. But some days, you may find it difficult to get into your normal work rhythm even when you know you need to. You may feel distracted and struggle to focus on your tasks. You may experience headaches or dizziness. You might also be feeling fatigued.

Instead of giving up and watching Netflix for the next few hours, it can helpful to check in with your body. When you stop to check in with yourself, you may find that a simple fix is all that’s required for getting back into your normal productive mode.

Here are three things that can disrupt your natural work flow:

Your body is hungry. When you’re hungry, it’s hard to think things through and that makes decision making difficult. That’s why it’s important that you take time to nourish your body. You wouldn’t set out on a road trip with an empty gas tank so don’t expect your body to perform at its very best when you’re denying it much needed fuel.

You can easily remedy this situation by getting something to eat. But steer clear of sugary snacks. They may give you a temporary burst of energy but that energy will be gone within a couple of hours, leaving your body just as hungry as before. Instead, try to opt for healthier snacks that contain plenty of protein like a handful of nuts or a serving of lean chicken breast.

Your thoughts are scattered. You go to work on one project but get distracted by another one. Then you decide to check your email and catch up on your social media updates. Before you know it, you have twelve different activities open on your screen.

When this happens, you might be experiencing a lack of focus. You have so many ideas and tasks that you don’t know where to start working. In this case, it’s best to pause and make a list. Write down everything you need to accomplish today or this week. Then prioritize these projects by numbering them. Your most important task should be number one so after you’re finished with your list, start there.

Your body is exhausted.There are many things that can cause you to feel exhausted besides a lack of sleep. Emotional stress, illness, chronic pain, and other problems can deplete your energy. When you’re exhausted, it’s hard to work on your business.

The best way to tackle exhaustion is to practice self-care. Look at your life and ask yourself what you really need right now. You might need a day off. You might need a sitter to help watch your kids while you work.

You might need to let go of stressful clients or remove projects that aren’t a good fit for your talents. Don’t hesitate to give yourself what you need. If you take good care of yourself, you’ll find it easier to nurture your business.

It’s important that you take time to check in with your mind and body a few times each day. When you do this regularly, you’ll begin to notice your body’s rhythms and be able to plan your work around them.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE WORKBOOK THAT ACCOMPANIES THIS ARTICLE AND FIND OUT WHAT’S STANDING BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR PRODUCTIVITY.

Live Your Life Boldly! Spring Into Action.

British adventurist Sir Ranulph Fiennes has been called the world’s greatest living explorer. He’s navigated some of the world’s most challenging and inhospitable places on earth including trekking the Antarctic and both North and South Poles, unsupported and on foot.

When he was in his 60’s, Fiennes decided to overcome a severe fear of heights by climbing Mt. Everest. On his second attempt, hundreds of feet short of the summit, he suffered severe chest pains. It was night time, and he was dangling from a rope on a near vertical ice wall at 29,000 feet above the ground. Frozen and in pain, he turned around and somehow managed to descend. He lived to tell the tale, running a marathon a mere 16 weeks after his near fatal heart attack.

When it comes to facing your fears, how daring are you? Do you turn tail and head in the opposite direction? Do you waver and hope the feeling passes? Or, do you, like Fiennes, stand firm and always face your fears head on?

Picture what your life would look like if you consistently faced off against your fears, both big and small, with the fearlessness of someone like Sir Ranulph Fiennes. What would it feel like to boldly stare down and confront your fears,,never letting them interfere with what you want to accomplish? Imagine what you could achieve if you never again let fear get in your way.

“Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. They’re there to let you know that something is worth it.” C. Joy Bell C.

For example, fear can make us hesitate, procrastinate, experience creative blocks, and be averse to risk. All of this can lead to low accomplishment, which can cause stress. That stress can lead to cognitive impairment, an increased risk of heart disease, premature aging, relationship conflicts, depression, and more – and a cycle of fear is born. That cycle can leave us feeling like we’re just going through the motions of life without really living.

“My life has been filled with terrible misfortune most of which never happened.”
Michel de Montaigne

The remedy for our childhood fear of monsters lurking under the bed was to shine a light into the darkness. Once we did, it revealed the truth – there were no monsters. Once we shine the light of truth at what scares us, we often discover our fears to be unfounded.

Remember there is nothing to fear but fear itself and, if you’ve been living in fear, it’s time to spring into action in your life!

If you would like more specifics on how to overcome your fears, read my tips about that in my article below “How to Overcome Your Fears”.

The Taboo at the Holiday Table – Grief, Love, and the Holidays

Difficulty is all around us. For some, it’s concentrated to one area of life — like a challenging task or difficult relationship — and for others, it seems to pervade every area of life — like when we are depressed or have sickness in the family.

And sometimes even just starting any day can be a challenge.

Holidays present challenges. It may be the first year without a loved one. It may be that you are anticipating someone else’s or your own death. This is called anticipatory grief.

There are other challenges for millions of people at holiday times that are bound to secrecy and anger or shame. Warning! I’m going deep here for a minute. Imagine sitting at the dinner table with a family member who molested you as a child. Imagine being the person who is the black sheep of the family who cannot forget the humiliation from numerous mistreatments. Their feelings are valid, and there is nothing taboo about feeling.

Of course, despite this, holidays are tinged with happiness and a sense of magic. It is true that we can have a mixture of feelings. There’s no right way. You may find comfort in being with lots of family. You may want to skip the holiday this year and do something different or nothing at all.

You may wonder who you are without your loved one. Our identity seems blurred. But, just like the story in “It’s a Wonderful Life” you have a place in the world. You matter. You touch people. You don’t have to feel happy but we all know nothing stays the same.

Here are 4 tips for finding your way back to happiness:

1.) If you have a loved one who has passed on, create a loving memory list about your loved one (person or animal). I suggest doing this alone when you will not be disturbed but I can imagine a family doing this together too. Think of the person you have lost and pay attention to your feelings. When you are ready, begin writing memories of that person. Jot your words down quickly; sketches of memories. When you have a list, go back and add in as much detail as you can. For example, “we were sitting on the porch during a rain storm in June…”. At the end of the list, write “Thank you.”

2.) Remember you are not a machine or a robot. You are human and we can have powerful emotions, sometimes even overwhelming. Discovering a movie, song, story, poem or piece of art that exudes a sense of empathy that lets you know others have felt as you do makes us feel less alone. Play music and sing or hum along.

“One thing you can’t hide—is when you’re crippled inside.” —John Lennon

3.) If routine and tradition bring you comfort, don’t reinvent the wheel. If you want to “take a break” from tradition this year, do it. If you want to do something completely different this year, have fun. Use this quote as a mantra: “It always seems impossible until it is done.” ~Nelson Mandela

4.) Talk to someone who will let you vent and not tell you what to do or what they would do.

Free Yourself From Chronic Fear

Do you have a story or vision of yourself / your life that you’ve never lived out but you’ve always wanted to?

What holds you back? Could it be one of the four reasons listed below?

1. Is your fear relevant? Does it make sense? Maybe you can tone it down. Shakespeare said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

2. Leave yourself some room to come to your own conclusions about your life. Maybe you’ve been afraid to write that book, but now you realize that ‘s not what you really want to do but you’ve been afraid to admit it to yourself. We can change our minds.

3. Besides you, does anyone care about your fears? I can tell you, the answer is yes. I say that because people relate to the stories we tell. This is true even about scary stuff. Sharing your story/vision about your feelings on ____ (fill in the blank) in a story, poem, or conversation is a quick way to change the feeling because there will be someone who understands.

4. Is your soul shining through your fears? If you have a fear of doing something that you feel you need to do, want to do, and have a passion for and you want it really badly, but it’s stopped by fear of “what if”, that’s tragic.

There are two voices competing for your mind. One is the internal critic voice and the other is your champion voice. The critic is demanding and impedes your progress and weakens your resolve. If the internal critic is stronger, you will feel overwhelmed, fearful, and hopeless.

The good news: you can take away the critic’s power.

Here are some tips:

1. Keep other’s opinions of your dreams/work in the category of “not personal.” People have different tastes. So what?!

2. Remember, fear of success can bring up other fears, such fear of resentments from others. That’s not for you to plan your life around.

3. If you receive feedback see it as just that – feedback. It may be constructive, encouraging, or spark your internal critic.

4. Develop a process to deal with fears.

Do it in chunks. If you want to write, do it in 10-minute chunks. Start exercising? 10 minute chunk of time. Looking to move? Search real estate 10 minutes a day.

If your mind goes blank, just write or type XXX and keep going.

Write a note to yourself each evening about what you want to start with tomorrow. Your brain will create solutions during the night.

But I Don’t Want To! — How to Do What You Need To Do

You can read the title in two ways. It all comes down to having to do things for work, family, health, house, and on and on. Paying bills, sweeping the floor, cleaning the litter box…oh the list is endless. But, be honest, doesn’t it feel good to have paid the bills, walk on a clean floor and made kitty happy? Sure. So why do we turn into our whiny child self and even if we don’t say it, we act it out, “But, I don’t want to.”

Here are 3 Reasons that Come to Mind:

1.) You are bored and this doesn’t rise to the level of fun.

2.) You like sabotaging yourself even on things you enjoy.

3.) It has become a habit to procrastinate.

You can add yours to the list.

How would you know that boredom is the heart of this battle for your time? The signs are clear. You do stuff that is non-productive, self-indulgent, that thumbs your nose in the face of having to “obey” an inner voice (or a real boss). Let’s see, should I do laundry or play video games? Should I grocery shop or read the latest romance novel? Dust the furniture or text friends or look at Facebook?

Can you read between the lines and see rebellion at work? It’s a real tug-of-war going on and we didn’t even know we joined the game. One part of you wants to succeed and even enjoy doing tasks that bring a good feeling and the other part is having a tantrum of “don’t want to.” Why is that?

Nobody likes to be told what to do. We all know what to do and why we should do it.

You’re smart. But, when you find yourself playing games, and doing everything you can to avoid doing the task, you may want to understand why.

Chances are there is some pleasure in avoiding doing what you need to do. A little reward but it is short -lived. Then, there is the chance you’ve developed a habit. Habits don’t form unless we concentrate on them, repeat them, and generally don’t think about them. We just act on them.

Do you want to let go of the nagging voice and enjoy doing whatever you want to do without being controlled by inner voices, habits and unconscious behaviors? What are your dreams and what are your daily chores/tasks that need doing? Would you agree that both require concentration? Determination? Overcoming fear?

There are plenty of examples of people who were just going along, letting life happen to them, who woke up and developed their potential, essentially becoming a different type person. You can find that turning point in your life, too. It is a matter of choice. It’s not talent, money, being better or smarter than the next person. It’s the result of changing habits and concentrating on what you want in your life.

Habits are acquired. Habits can change. One person thinks “I’ll do it later when I feel like it and procrastinates doing anything,” Another person goes ahead and does the work (writes his/her book or cleans the house for example). They both have the same opportunities. One will complain and make excuses. The other moves onto the next project without all the inner drama.

Remember, I said that we don’t like to be told what to do? Teachers try, parents push, books illustrate and motivate us to try new things. But, nothing will work until you learn it for yourself. Life gives us opportunities to improve, reach deep, become more than we ever imagined — if we stay with it. Don’t quit!

People who have risen to highest victories didn’t have smooth sailing. In fact, you’ll read that most had challenges, setbacks, and were misunderstood and discouraged by family and friends. But, they stayed with their dreams. Don’t let, “But I don’t want to” hold you back. When you are living for your dreams, you won’t mind the daily chores. They will not claim the centerpiece of your attention.

As Wayne Dyer used to say, “You never regret what you do in life. You only regret what you don’t do.”

If you need help identifying why you can’t beat your “but, I don’t want to”, you may want to check out my free call on Losing Weight for Life. Though it’s about weight loss, the focus of the call is on getting to the root of bad habits to change them and create a better life http://themuseskiss.com/loseweightforlifecall/.

The Muses Kiss

Therapeutic Writing to Peacefully Navigate Life's Changes