Mindset

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

HOW TO GET STARTED, FACE YOUR FEARS AND MAKE THINGS HAPPEN

5 ways to get over the resistance and fears

Often we know exactly what we could do in order to get there, but something just keeps us stuck.

Often we don't even know what it is or WHY we are preventing us from moving forward and receiving what’s on the other side of it, so we just stay stuck.

And it can be so frustrating that you eventually start believing you can’t have or do what you really really desire.

The more we struggle against our inner voice and calling, more frustrated and stuck we feel...

Usually, we are the ones who are standing in the way of our own happiness and success.

And usually, it’s fear that is hiding behind of those aims, desires, strategies and plans that never happen because you are not able to take action.

There are all kinds of fears:

  • fear of happiness

  • fear of success

  • fear of failure

  • fear of unknown

  • fear of what other people think if you start doing what you really want

  • fear of commitment

  • fear of not being good enough

  • fear of receiving... what we actually want: success, happiness, abundance, money

  • fear of what’s happening on the other side of the fear, the unknown

What’s yours?

If you take action based on fear and think it’s not going to work out, it probably won’t!

There are 3 beliefs that are the root of these fears:

  1. I can’t have what I want, it’s not available for me

  2. I’m not good enough, loved, worthy or deserving to want, have, or do what I want

  3. It feels unsafe as it’s new; unfamiliar

Most of these beliefs are buried in the unconscious and that’s why the brain wants to keep us “safe and protected” no matter what it’s so brilliant it figures out the way how to hold us back: procrastination, emotional eating, anxiety, avoidance, you feel you are never ready or have enough knowledge but continuously need more proof, certificates, self-work… I know, I know!

To change this we need to become aware of the reason behind the reason and learn the techniques how to face our fears, resistance and other related emotions and empower our brain to trust and believe better thoughts and feel good about our aims and goals.

These are so powerful beliefs and keep so many people unhappily stuck exactly where they are.

No matter they want to live and build the life and career of their dreams, in their own terms, they can’t help but let their fears prevent them to live to the fullest. Eventually, they just want to give up and satisfy less and stick with their limiting beliefs. I don't want that to happen to you!

watch the video below and learn how to do it.

grab your notebook:

1) Look within: WHAT IS IT THAT YOU WANT MOST RIGHT NOW?

Write down all max. five things that have been bugging you on your "should do/be/have" list. Write down the things that you have resisted most.

It can be about creating clients, finding a new job, asking for more money, starting blog, a website, writing an article, creating a course, developing yourself somehow, taking the first action step... 

2) prioritize

Make a list and pick one. Don't start contemplating too much in between the options, you can do them all but you need to start one thing at the time. Make it easy, do one thing at time. What would help you move forward fastest?

3) FEEL IT: face the fear, the resistance

What are the thoughts and feelings related to this desire or goal? Write them down. Accept how you feel and approve it’s there: just witness it there.

Your brain and your body are sending you a message of what you need to become aware of.

Is this thought helpful: is it real and is it true?

How does this thought or fear help you or prevent you?

Can you change this thought to an empowering one and support yourself that way?

Has someone else someway done what you want to do? That gives your brain an indication it is possible. Yes?

4) TAKE ACTION

What is the first step to getting ahead with it? Baby steps, write your actions steps down. Schedule it in your calendar. Decide you are going to do it and it’s going to work for you no matter what. How would you feel when you have done it? Write it down.

Taking action from the place of trusting and believing it’s going to work for you will bring you the results you want.

Taking action by feeling your feelings behind the fear and resistance is the only way to get over yourself.

From that place you will create a personal breakthrough, as you feel more empowered and you have your energy aligned with success.

When you learn to do manage your thoughts and feelings so you CAN follow through, you will see how changes start happening. This is really about creating a momentum.

Your courage will grow and - and no matter the fears will never totally leave us (they are keeping us safe in the end)  - we can learn how to use them as guidance and release those unconscious inner blocks that really are the only thing keeping us stuck and struggling.

Is this helpful? Let me know below!

Much Love, Jenni

How to beat procrastination and get things done with ease

How to beat procrastination and get things done with ease

Do you often hear yourself saying: I have to…, I should…, I must… or I need to... And then you just don't do it - do you struggle with procrastination?