Change your emotional habits and get over stressful times like a honey badger

This week has been one of those weeks.

Our internet cable literally broke down, the dryer must be fixed, and we have a roof construction going on in the house. The cleaning lady rescheduled. My little one started with a part-time nanny and I'm dealing with separation anxiety, probably more than the baby.

All the scheduling and rescheduling take time and so much energy!

People are coming in and out of the house all the time.

Men are climbing ladders outside my windows, looking in when I'm breastfeeding the baby in the living room or working in my office.

There is no privacy for the person who needs a lot of if and alone time to digest the world around me.

All this could drive me nuts. But, I'm not allowing it to happen.

I have seen this so, so many times and it’s time to take a different, healthier and happier route.

If I would let my emotions take the lead and start stressing, I give my power away and it all goes worse and it will take longer to get over it.

Eventually, I would burst the pressure to someone else, like we often do if we are not able to connect and feel our feelings, and that’s not right either.

Instead of losing my nerve and wasting my energy I observe and choose to respond and react to stressful emotions and chaos calmly with high self-awareness.

Our emotional reactions are learned habits.

We learn all the habits by repetition and by watching others. The way to change our habits is to turn inward and start making a difference. It’s very delicate but the impact in our life is huge: it’s the way to change your life and create new, better paths.

So I breathe, and consciously release the emotions of overwhelm and focus on getting through the week positively, taking care of things one by one and staying present in the moment.

I remind myself to stay centered and grounded like a honey badger. Honey badgers don’t care but focus on essentials, on what they want.

(If you haven't seen the narrated viral video about the crazy nastyass honey badgers, it's super funny. It tells something about my sense of humor. )

Also, laughing reduces the cortisol hormones in the body and calms down the sympathetic nervous system. Watch something funny or shake your ass when life gets too serious or you find it hard to calm down to meditate on it. Like kids in general, our inner child loves when we let loose and get playful.

It would be impossible for me to go through this week without other people’s help.

I appreciate the abundant amount of help. I appreciate help is available. All these people help our family enormously with their knowledge.

For a long time, it was really hard for me to ask for help from others.

I've always had this mentality of a super strong, over-functioning, independent Finnish woman who doesn't need anyone's help.

My old self was a kind of woman who can build her own house by herself if needed.

This is what one construction guy said to me years ago when he renovated my apartment in Helsinki after I showed him how the kitchen needed to be built. I wondered why I paid him as I could have done it myself.

I still remember how I felt inside that time.

After ending a 7-year relationship I felt completely lost, and my brain was scattered due to insomnia and the anxiety I suffered. I had no idea what I should do next in my life, so I tried to over-control everything I could and operated completely from my masculine side. I didn’t allowing myself to stop as I was so afraid of what I would need to face.

I was almost collapsing then but I pushed through. I managed to keep it together until I collapsed a year later.

It was then when I realized that I can't, and don't need to, try to survive on my own and do everything by myself.

I realized there are people who were actually able and willing to help me.

Little by little I started asking for more help in different areas of life.

Today it’s much easier for me as I’ve learned to ask for help and I know when I need to invest in myself and when my own resources are not enough. The most important thing is that I’ve learned to receive help.

As I’ve changed my behavior, I have noticed there’s abundance amount of helpful and kind people around me. All we need to do is to be open, reach out and ask for help.

Help is always showing up in a form or another. Sometimes it shows up as a person, in the form of group or company, a program, a book or online resource, or just a message that is pointing to the new direction.

Sometimes it asks courage to get over my fears to receive it and give myself an opportunity for growth and expansion. May it be personal health and wellbeing, family issue or my work and business.

Our level of self-worth measures the ability of receiving.

I believe we can learn to do pretty much anything successfully if we just put our energy and efforts in. I could still do all kind of things by myself but nowadays, if it’s not my cup of tea, I don’t want to.

I don’t need to know everything or do everything by myself, anymore.

It’s much easier to have set boundaries and focus on what we are best at and absolutely love to do. Let other people do use their expertise.

The most difficult part to getting over stressful emotions and moments is to learn to step out of your own resistant ego-mind and give yourself a permission to feel happy and good about yourself.

That can only happen when you are present and mindful about your thoughts, your feelings and the chatter of your ego-mind.

You have the power to change your reality and rise your energy by changing your emotional habits:

• Watch and observe your emotional reactions and responses.

• Get out from your own way and emotions.

• Make changes consciously.

• Choose to behave differently.

• Repeat and learn.

Don’t worry if you don’t get it right immediately but be determined. Life will give you as many rounds of practice as needed, until you have changed the old pattern.

Help is available when life feels complicated and it's hard to see clearly what to do and where to go next.

Or your internet cable needs fixing.

What is the area of life that you could use some help with?

Much love,

Jenni

Do you want to change your morning habits? Here's how to do it.

There are tons of self-help books that tell us how to create a successful and super-productive day.

We should wake-up very early, get up like a space rocket, stop snoozing, follow the 5-second rule, do yoga, exercise, get into action right away, meditate, journal, eat healthy, have a large breakfast, plan and visualize our days, listen to something inspirational, set the mindset, use affirmations…

Most of us don’t have the time to do that every day. Most people don’t even try, as all this feels so overwhelming. 

But, it does matter a great deal, what do you do right after you wake-up.

How to change your habits and create a morning routine?

Start with your shoulds.

Before you try change your morning routines: question your "shoulds":

"I should get up earlier, I should do more yoga, I shouldn't read my emails first thing in the morning, or go to social media…"

Remove the word should from your vocabulary.

It’s not really leading to any action but only causing unnecessary self-blame and judgment, especially if you don't even intend to do anything about it. Those shoulds are just habits of thinking.

Maybe it’s not your thing to do yoga or the ther shoulds in the mornings, maybe it's not fitting with your lifestyle right now? And that is completely fine.

If that’s the case, please give yourself a break and let go -- put it on your back burner list or forget it. Or, maybe the evening is working better for you?

If you don't have the motivation and knowledge why you want to make the effort to create a new habit, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever start. It's waste of energy to carry that idea with you.

Ask yourself why you don't do what you want to do?

What's coming up?

We are so used to our thinking patterns, habits, and behavior that we don't see them until we stop to see them. 

You can change your habits when you are aware of what needs to be changed. 

Start trying what feels good for you - bring new routines and habits into your mornings one by one. 

Here's my golden advice how to have successful mornings and days.

It’s not a secret, but something most people don’t get and don't even do, it takes 5 minutes: 

You win your morning by planning it the night before.  

What time you wake-up and what do you do right after. 

Also, you can start your days again anytime. 

Sometimes I start my days four times per day. I then do a little cleansing meditation, align my feelings and thoughts for the next activities. This saves nerves (literally) and keep the energy steady and flowing every day.

To hep you get started I have created an amazing guide to learn about the daily routines and success habits that help you get things done and feel good about yourself every day.

DOWNLOAD The 7 Essential Daily Habits and Routines to Leading Your Life Towards
Your Desires and Visions here >>

With love and gratitude,
Jenni

P.S. I would love to hear from you! If you have any questions, you can just send me an email. 

6 steps to break a worry habit

A while ago I noticed an unhealthy pattern had sneaked in my life. It was a reminisce of my years in the corporate world, but I hadn't felt it for years, and the old familiar feelings rang my health and wellness alarms.

I don't play with health or happiness anymore, so I looked into my habits (of thinking and behaving) to understand what was causing it and to know how to make changes:

I had a productive phase going on and I was producing a lot of new content. Long to-do list made me minimize the meditation and writing time in the mornings. I worked late and then stayed up late spending "my time" in Instagram and reading work-related books and articles late in the bed.

It was hard to get up in the mornings as I was awake at some point during the nights. I felt tired in the middle of the day. To keep myself going, I had started drinking coffee on the afternoon. I felt tired and wired at the same time.   

I was overdriving myself so that at the end of the week my brain was foggy and my body was over-heated, meaning I felt the blood pressure and cortisol levels were high.

I told myself it's temporary (and at the same time I was afraid it was not) and then I stopped: I don't want to do it this way, no matter what it is - I have a choice.

When I saw all these things and it was clear: I was suffering adrenaline fatigue. I lacked downtime and boundaries. 

In yoga, there is a rule that after an inversion pose it's good to rest the same amount of the time that you have been upside down. 

The same rule works in life: during the busier times, it's important to recharge the batteries - physically and mentally - all the time.

Creativity and productivity - both - require space and time. It's tough to create new ideas and be focused when your mind is full. 

What I did to fix it: 

The moment when I realized what was going on, I wanted to take responsibility for it.

I did the clarity exercise below and reduced all the unnecessary worries - there were not that much left after it - I felt at ease. 

Also, I booked time for acupuncture, scheduled a sweaty yoga class, took a herbal path and did nothing but relaxing for a couple of days - I planned time to relax. I observed my mind carefully and skipped everything that was too overwhelming and making my brain buzzing. I changed the bedtime routines: no more mobile time or work-related reading. Instyle magazine makes me snooze in five minutes. 

In the long run, adrenaline fatigue can create diseases as the body responses to mind’s constant overwhelm negative chatter and requirements.
 

Get to know your stress-factors and know your habits:

• What habits of yours do you like, why?

• What habits do you want to change? 

We need to keep track of our habits and know how they affect us - it can be very unconscious. If we don’t know what is creating the stress, we can’t react and respond it.

6 steps to releasing the stressful chaos and worries:

Take a pen and paper or open your notebook, and start answering the following questions:

1. How do I feel now - in the body and mind?  

2. What issues are stressing you and causing this feeling? Write them all down no matter it's 99 issues and worries. 

3. What are the worries that you can't do anything about? The future is not in your hands, the now is.

4. What can you do to your list? Prioritize them. 

5. Plan how and when you get those things done (please don’t overplan and exhaust yourself as you can do only three foremost things per day).

6. Ask yourself why have you chosen to do it? Remind yourself about your what you accomplish when you get there and finish the sentence:
    
   “I am doing this because…” and decide to be excited about it. You need to decide it if you don't feel it.

There you go - now you have a clear plan and you know it's doable and you can affect.

This gives you the motivation, as we all have to eat our shit sandwich as Elizabeth Gilbert calls it: no matter we follow our passions, we still need to do the work, and often it's challenging. 

When you choose to struggle for the things that matter to you and are important, it's not that bad at all as you know it is meaningful to you.   

The worrying thoughts won’t take away tomorrow’s problems, but they will take away today’s joy. 

If you liked this post, please share it, tweet it, pin it, like it!

With love,
Jenni