THE MIND IS A MUSCLE

I started this year on a high, focused, motivated, hungry. One thing I have always struggled with is balance. I'm an all or nothing person. I don't half ass anything and in doing so, I unknowingly sacrifice other things. My sanity for one. I sort of worked myself a little too hard this year and set myself on a very slow decline. So slow that I didn't even realise until I was stuck in a two week stink of exhaustion and a shitty attitude, inevitably leading to feelings of helplessness, inflamed skin and a chest infection.

Now before I get too into this I want to be completely honest about something that I would love for you all to understand. In the past, every time I have tried to force myself out of a rut and do a 180 on my mentality at lightening speed, it has backfired every time. I suck at too many rules and restrictions, so when I try to rebuild Rome in a day, it's too much for me and I crash again (note aforementioned sucking at concept of 'balance') It is SUPER important to realise the significance of the process of standing up again from the fall. Yes, process. Through my own downright consistency in being wayyyy to hard on myself, I realised that crashing has it's own process too, that we all need to go through in order to feel strong enough to get back up again. I know right- wtf am I on about? WELL. If you feel like ass and you want to spend your entire weekend on the couch eating shitty food and not answering your phone, do it. If you don't want to go to the gym all week, no worries, don't go. If you want to take a few days off work to get some space, go for it. The worst thing you can do- is criticise yourself for wanting to do these things, it will only make you feel worse. Because one thing they all have in common is R-E-S-T. You feel this way for a reason, the minute you start beating yourself up about being burned out or feeling like shit, is the minute you stop giving yourself well deserved credit for hard work. SO CUT IT OUT, love yourself enough to know that you aren't 20 humans in 1 and every now and then you need to push your watch forward to 'fuck-this-shit o'clock'.

Back to it- a long time ago, I gave up allowing things I had no control over to have control over me. I realised that every morning I wake up, I have a choice over how my day goes. I can wake up in the morning and allow all of my woes to overwhelm me, or I can wake up in the morning and enjoy the shit out of my day.

Once I noticed the state my mind was in following this two week stink, I reached out to my friend Lib who has what I like to call a 'rubber skull'. Seriously- anything that seems to comes this girls way and I mean ANYTHING, just seems to bounce right off her (I physically demonstrate how I visualise this to her by making pew! pew! noises as shitty things bounce off her head). I sent her a message that just simply said 'girl, can you please send me the mindset stuff you do in the morning?' 'Sure thing!' The very next day I started.

Every morning since, I go for a walk, spend five minutes doing breathing exercises, five minutes saying gratitudes, and five minutes of intentions for the day/ week/ month. I say these intentions in the present tense and with gratitude, so I'm also able to get my manifesting hat on (read my 'Abracadabra' post from a while back). I get home, have a protein shake, and meditate for at least ten minutes. Then I go to the gym. Starting my day like this, I saw changes in my head space immediately. Within three days I felt invincible. I realised that for me to stay in a good headspace, I need to actively think positive. I need to actively work on a Positive Mental Attitude. Think about it like this- you don't go to the gym once and expect that you'll be fit for the rest of your life right? You don't eat all the cake and expect to wake up with a six pack, so don't expect to wake up with a Positive Mental Attitude if you're going to feed your mind garbage thoughts.

Negative thoughts are a conditioned response. From a young age we're taught to be 'modest', and more critical than compassionate both to ourselves and others. As we grow, so do those negative tendencies. The good news is, it is just as easy to condition positive thoughts into your brain. We need to exercise our minds the same way we exercise in the gym. This may sound a bit silly to you at first- but there is a reason you're reading this post, and I'm giving you the answer right now. Now before you go on with all of the 'I don't have time to go for a walk and meditate that much', in the words of one of my favourite spiritual babes Gabby Bernstein; 'If you don't make time to meditate, you are actively choosing to feel like shit'. And she's right. Serious, yesterday I was feeling so mentally congested I think meditated a total of four times in the one day, and trained twice. Today I feel right as rain. So don't plan your pity party if you're not willing to put in a little work on the PMA.

Pointers from a fellow crazy to you:

How you start you day, is in direct correlation with how you end your day. So start it smart.
Try to practice rebutting your negative thoughts with the opposite. It may be a struggle at first but this is some mental conditioning that will do you some serious good. Stick to it and after a while it will become as habitual as the negative crap you keep thinking.
MEDITATE. This isn't just for spiritual hippies who have nothing better to do with their time. In fact it is quite difficult to quiet the mind and practice makes perfect. Here is my favourite meditation app which I use every single day. It is a guided meditation app that also has it's own social network. So you can link with people, bookmark your fave meditations or one you want to try. Mine at the moment are 'Embodied Wakefulness' and 'Morning Meditation with music'.
It's important to not only train the negative thoughts we have about ourselves, but the negative thoughts we have about others too. Pay attention to the things you say and think of others, in most cases they are a reflection of what you feel for yourself. When you think negative of someone else, try to analyse how the statement relates to you and why you feel that way. Then, treat the source. I made it a personal mission of my own to be less judgemental of others a while ago. I questioned why I felt a certain way about certain people, and realised I needed to forgive myself about a thing or two. Since, I have been less concerned with the dramas of other people, and more concerned in being a good person myself.
Get yourself a really nice little notebook and pen (always helps when it's nice because you want to take better care of it). Every night write in it, three things you are grateful for, three things you learned, and three things you want to do tomorrow. I don't care if you're grateful for peanut butter, or if you want to cut your toenails tomorrow. Small notes like this help us to celebrate little victories. If you want a little more elaboration on self documentation, check my 'Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself' post.

Don't feel like you need to rebuild Rome in a day if you take a hit, because you will fail. Let yourself feel the fall, take some time, and then make small adjustments. Challenge yourself to do it for 10 days. Then try 21, then a month. Work hard at your mindset until it feels like you're hardly working at all.

'The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.' - Eckhart Tolle.