Do you sometimes wonder how to prevent having regrets when you get to the end of your life? I was listening to a guided meditation recently, which was really just some thought provoking questions to ponder. One of them was, “What would your older and wiser self tell your current self to do right now?”
Do you feel like you’ve just been going through the motions? Almost like you just don’t really have a direction in life. For a lot of us, it goes like this: Wake up tired, rush around, take care of things, get exhausted, overwhelmed and stressed, become irritable, go to bed and sleep restlessly. And, a lot of times, we are staying busy, because, well, what else is there to do? If we didn’t stay busy, what would we do?
If you’ve been feeling extra grouchy, more stressed than usual, more tired or unproductive - hmmm - I wonder if you might be carrying too much on your shoulders. (Hint - probably yes.) One of the reasons that we get overwhelmed and lack energy is because we don’t ask for help. Not asking for help can also cause a lot of yucky thoughts and feelings.
When was the last time that you thought, “I love my life”? Do you look at people who seem to love their lives and think, “damn, I wish that was me”? Well well well….I have some news for you. You TOO can be one of those people! You CAN love your life. I know, a few years ago, I would have said, “sure, whatever.”
Are you tired of the struggle to stop comparing yourself to others? Here we are at the start of a new year and oftentimes we are making resolutions or setting new goals for ourselves. But we can get stuck in some of those same patterns that have played out in our lives...including comparing our progress with others’.
What do you do when you slip up or “fall off the horse”? Life is moving along and you’re thinking that things are going really well; you’re feeling calm and in control; getting stuff done; and all of a sudden - they’re not going so well - at all. You notice that you’ve totally slipped up or fell back into old habits. What do you do? Well, I hope you forgive yourself! But, I know many of us don’t. Our automatic reaction is to blame and criticize ourselves.
Do you regularly tell yourself that you SHOULD be doing something differently, doing more of something, or doing better? I wonder, is that a form of judging yourself? Like, are you actually just comparing yourself to others when you say “I should”?
When we’re struggling with any kind of depression (major depression, mild chronic depression, seasonal depression, or some other form), all we want is to find something – anything – to help us feel better. I used to wonder, are there really things that you can easily do on your own to beat depression? Well there ARE things you can STOP that will help significantly!
I know you feel it, just like I do! When I’m not doing “all the things” or crossing tons of shit off my never ending list, I feel riddled with guilt and sometimes, even shame. That’s when I ask myself, what can I do to ease the guilt I feel? Guilt is a normal human emotion, but it keeps us focused on the past.
Pain isn’t a competition but there is pain that white people will never experience or be able to understand. So, while I would never minimize anyone’s feelings or the pain that an individual feels, I need to admit that I am privileged to be a white woman and as a white woman, I will never experience the same kind of pain as that of a black person.