How does your normal day go? Do you get into the groove and move along and get everything done – stress free? What do you think about as you are moving through your day? Is it something new and exciting that you might want to do at some point in the future? Or are you worrying about something you might do in the future? Are you happy with your life as it is today? Or do you push off being happy for a future day? Where are you in your life? Where do you want to be? Now think about all of these questions and put them into the context of living through a pandemic. Where are you now?
The pandemic brings unending grim news every day. In the United States it has been a crisis for over a year, and we are still battling Covid demons every day. The national psyche is critically negative. Can you function normally (if there is a normal now) in spite of all of this. Can you find some happiness in your daily life? There are all kinds of self-help material to be found. Meditation, mindfulness, body work and other energy modalities are very available. My problem is – there is so much available that I am tuning out things that might help me. I am one of the many who has the inside scoop on ways that we can find some peace, contentment and perhaps even some happiness these days. In coaching I find that my client acknowledges my expertise but has a hard time believing that she is capable of benefitting from what she is learning from me. Her conscious brain keeps interrupting her train of thought and reinforces that she isn’t capable of meditating or practicing mindfulness. Her brain is saying – ‘No Way – you can do that’. Her conscious brain completely sabotages her efforts. After all her hard work she still doesn’t believe that she can be happy again.
I understand this self-sabotage. I have done it all my life. Working with a therapist, I figured it out that I was worthy to succeed. Now the pandemic is pushing us farther and farther away from feeling like we are worthy to succeed or for some – to survive. We have to understand that our conscious brain is trying to protect us and makes us fear anything new. I have a quote on my desk that says, “You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith’. I meditate on that for a few minutes, and I change the way I am thinking. I started accomplishing a lot when I started believing in myself. When I work with my clients now, I work on them believing in themselves too.
The pandemic has put a whole new level of fear within us. There is no normal to guide us. All of the questions we had will now come down to this: Do I believe in myself?
Comments