Showing Self Care was the solution to my issues

I had a very tough summer this year. The weather was very hot and humid, and I hate both humidity and hot weather :). I am currently establishing my coaching business; I tried to work from home but I couldn't as it was the summer vacation and with the kids at home I could never focus on anything. I had shared an office with other people and before actually starting with my clients they apologized and asked to cancel the contract because they had to leave the apartment to the owner.  I found another place but it had to be furnished and that meant more time and additional expenses. My best friend was on a trip all summer long and I felt so lonely. I didn't go out with my friends or do anything to enjoy myself during almost three long months. I was working with my coach on my relationships. I was stuck and turning in circles. I couldn't find any way out for my issues. I was desperate and unhappy.

I was really astonished about how stuck I was in my relationships and why I couldn't find a way out. There was nothing new; they were the same issues I experienced every now and then. Why was my response this time so rough? Why couldn't I cope with the situation as sometimes I was able to do? Why couldn't I be accepting? Acceptance was all I needed I think. For almost three months I was struggling with many issues but I never realized that my main issue was with myself. Yes, it was all about me. I didn't take care of myself. There was something very important missing in my life; that was SELF CARE. I felt lonely and missing my best friend, I avoided going out because of the hot weather and the bad traffic, I spent all my time just doing housework and all I need to do for my new business, I was committed to my younger son workouts, but I didn't notice that I was not taking care of myself. For long weeks I didn't do anything to enjoy myself except working out two or three times a week.

I realized from my work with my coach that lack of self care was the main cause of my unhappiness, but I always thought that it was anything else. I was extremely nervous, aggressive and angry most of the time. I believed that the weather, my sons' behavior, traffic, my husband, the maid’s absence and many other reasons were the cause of feeling upset and angry. The only enjoyable thing I did during these three months is spending time with my sons, every now and then, listening to their jokes and laughing with them. It is true that I love spending time with my sons but I love and need to spend time with my friends and with myself. I needed to show more self care. I was always repeating to my friends that to be able to take care of others we need to learn to take care of ourselves first. It seems that I forgot my own advice :).

Self care doesn't need to be time and money consuming as we may think; it can be just spending quality time with a dear friend, listening to music, relaxing in nature or in our favorite place, watching a good movie or reading an inspiring book. It can be playing and laughing with our children. Self care means honoring ourselves and showing love for ourselves by having our needs met. It is showing respect to our own needs as we show respect to others needs. What is really important is to make it regular and a lifestyle; not just doing it when we have nothing else to do. 

It is so important to add our self care appointment to our calendar as we do with our other important appointments. We need to give our self care appointments a high priority as we give to our business appointments. The self care appointments we commit to today will help us to get the energy for our business appointments we have to commit to tomorrow. Have your own self care program. Build your own enjoyable activity list and go for one activity daily and as much as the activity is new and adventurous it will bring you more excitement, satisfaction and energy. Your life will not be the same anymore.

I would like that you share with me the activities you do to show self care and how often you do them weekly.

10 tips to help you replace negative thoughts with more positive ones

"The World is what we think it is. If we can change our thoughts, we can change the world." ~H.M. Tomlinson

So to change your world, to make your life happier and to make the world a better place to live in you need to change your own thoughts. You may think it is hard to control your thoughts, I don't say it is easy but it is not impossible. It is doable through practice, all you need is to keep practicing, to be persistent and patient and surely you will do it.

In my previous post (Our thoughts shape our life) I shared with you how my negative thoughts made me feel in a certain situation and how the positive ones totally changed my feelings in another situation while the difference in time between the two situations did not exceed 30 minutes. On this post I share with you some tips to help you replace your negative thoughts by more positive ones.

1. Prayers and asking support and strength from Allah brings peace, and the feeling of being protected and supported. 
2. Question the cost of your negative thoughts and attitude. Ask yourself what are the negative thoughts and attitude are costing you and how it is influencing your life? Physically, emotionally, and spiritually and compare it to the benefit you get when you have more positive thoughts and attitude.
3. Repeat positive affirmations  daily  every morning  (affirmation is a written or oral statement that confirms something is true ). It is so helpful to bring more positive energy into your day. In tough situations when you feel un-confident or fearful start repeating affirmations about how confident  and   strong  you are. One of the affirmations I like to use is "Whatever happens I will handle it" it brings me a lot of confidence in my ability to handle any situation so I feel more peaceful and secure.
4. Keep a journal of the situations where you kept a positive attitude, how did you feel? What thoughts did you have? How did it influence you and what outcomes did you get? to remind yourself of  that experience and what to learn from it to apply this learning in the future.
5. Surround yourself with positive friends and people, they will help you keep a positive attitude.
6. Stick inspiring quotes everywhere at home, at the office, in your car; or you may collect inspiring quotes in a small copy book and refer back to them daily and whenever you feel thinking negatively.
7. Journal about your negative thoughts and feelings and write down several arguments to counter it. 
8. Keep a gratitude journal and write  daily  5 things you are grateful for to remind yourself of all the blessings you have and to help you shift your focus from what is missing in your life to what you already have.
9. Detach yourself from the surrounding environment and don't allow negativity of others impact you. Remind yourself  that if others are anxious or nervous or fearful this has nothing to do with you, it's their feelings and their thoughts not yours and you don't have to feel or think the same. You have the power over your feelings and your thoughts.
10. Live in the moment, forget about the past and don't worry for the future. You have a moment to live and you have the choice to make it a happy or a painful one, which choice you will make?

What other tips did you use to shift from a negative attitude to a positive one? Please share them with us.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Our Thoughts Shape our Life

 I had a very strange feeling today when I was running on the treadmill; I felt so excited, enthusiastic and full of energy, while 30 min earlier I felt uncomfortable, frustrated and lacking energy. My feelings at the gym were totally different from my feelings at home, and I wondered why? The difference in time between these feelings didn't exceed 30 min which is the time of the drive from my home to the club. I wondered how just going from one place to another could change my feelings from one extreme to the other. 

At home I felt weighed down and insignificant and I asked myself why I had this feeling. I realized that the house means housework, cooking, laundry and all the stuff that I don't like, and I believe it's useless to waste my time doing it every day. Recently I realized that my house is not the place where I love to stay to find peace and quiet any more. On the contrary, it's the place where I have to run from one room to the other cleaning and arranging; then rush to the kitchen for the dishes and the cooking and finally doing the laundry. I used to have a maid daily when I had a full-time job but after quitting my job I reduced it to two or three times a week. Since then I had the feeling that I am replacing her at home and this thought, I think, is the reason behind the feeling that I am weighed down. In addition, I tried to work from home but no one could accept the idea. They interrupt me all the time and want me to take care of them and finish my work as well. Everyone thinks that the short time they are interrupting me to ask for something is not that long. I am not a fan of multitasking, I like to do only one thing at a time until I finish it then move to the next one and of course these interruptions were extremely distracting to me. I tried to set boundaries but it didn't work.While at home, I was unable to achieve anything. With these two negative thoughts in mind; that I am replacing the maid and I will not achieve any progress in my business while working from home, I felt weighed down whenever I was home. 

Let me return to the feelings I had on the treadmill, excited, enthusiastic and energetic, why did I have these feelings? It's the sense of achievement that I feel when I am at the gym as my fitness level improves day after day. So the thought that came to my mind is I am achieving success in the area of fitness and not many are able to do that. I like my role of achiever at the gym; it brings me more self-confidence and a feeling of success. Concerning my business, I decided to have a place to work from, so I rented a room in an office and turned it into my own office. There I could have some peace and quiet; so finally I could work without interruptions. Now I feel more relaxed with the thought that I am moving forward in different areas of my life and achieving progress and that is exactly what I needed. 

I started to examine my feelings and my thoughts more closely. With the negative thoughts "I am replacing the maid" and "I am not achieving any progress" I felt unhappy, insignificant and frustrated but with the thought that I am achieving progress and success I felt excited, enthusiastic and energetic. What I wanted to highlight is that having negative thoughts and beliefs in mind can totally ruin our lives. We can change the negative thoughts by more positive ones to have more positive feelings. I will share with you some tips about how to replace negative thoughts and feelings with more positive ones in my next post. 

Please share with me what you think about that. Do you think that we can change our feelings about a certain situation by changing our thoughts? Did you go through similar experience? If yes what did you learn?

I had a limiting belief

One of the topics that I found so interesting in coaching studies was limiting beliefs. I was astonished of the fact that we may fail to do something because of our belief not because of our capabilities. We all think we are not able to do something because we are not talented enough but actually it may be just a belief we hold about ourselves. By holding a limiting belief we close all the doors in front of ourselves. We deprive ourselves from the available opportunities that may bring us happiness and success. 

For long years, writing was a big challenge for me. At school I hated creative writing. I was studying Arabic, English and French and I wasn't good at writing in any of these three languages. I lived for long years with the belief that I am not good at writing. I believed that I am talented in mathematics and numbers so I joined Engineering faculty and although I loved languages and literature I avoided all faculties of arts because of my belief. I thought I won't be successful in such studies because it needs a certain level of writing capabilities. Even writing reports and emails at work was challenging to me. It took me some time to get used to writing reports. I wasn't able to write any letters to friends and family members who were living abroad, I found it uninteresting and I preferred to talk on the phone. I always thought that people who were talented in writing were blessed; they can express and communicate their feelings and their thoughts to the world. I admired novelists, poets, journalists and writers. I liked writing but I believed I can't do it. I never thought I would blog and publish my posts one day.  

One day I found that keeping a blog is a requirement for my coaching graduation. I had to start a blog and to journal regularly about my learning. My first blog post was really funny, just few lines to tell that I am starting my blog; actually it was an ice breaking post. I needed to write anything to start and to publish it. Then I decided to write about different experiences in my life, I found that writing about my thoughts and my feelings in different situations was helpful, it was easier for me to write about my experiences. It took me more than twenty years to discover that I am not that bad at writing. I have two blogs now one in Arabic and this one in English and in addition I joined an international blog where I will post with writers from different countries all over the world. What is really amazing is that some of my readers expressed that they liked my writing style and they think that I am talented. I know that I am not a novelist but at least I can write and communicate my thoughts to people as I always wished. Now I dream of writing a book :):). Yes, why not? If you don't have a limiting belief the sky will be the limit for your dreams.

"You can change your beliefs so they empower your dreams and desires. Create a strong belief in yourself and what you want."  -Marcia Wieder

So changing your beliefs is not impossible; with every success you realize your belief in yourself and your self confidence will rise. 

If you have a dream but your beliefs are holding you back, ask yourself these 2 questions:

- How will my life look like without this belief?

- What is the worst that could happen if I fail?  

If nobody will die or will be severely hurt just believe in yourself, go on for your dream and give it a try. If you fail once, find another way and give it a try again, keep trying and don't give up. Remember that successful people face failure as anybody else; so accept failure because it is your only way to learn how to succeed. Don't let your limiting belief deprive you from fully enjoying your life and realizing your dreams.

What does self-love mean to you?

When we love someone we forget everything and anything; our main focus becomes the person we love. We become so caring and so tender. We think only of how to please them, how to make them happy, comfortable and satisfied. We may forget our own needs but we will never forget their needs. It's easy for us to love our parents, our spouses, our kids, our friends, our neighbors or whomever we may know but we think it's very difficult to love ourselves.

Self-love is one of the things that many of us may find extremely challenging. I remember when I heard the term self-love for the first time, it sounded weird to me. The word self-love is related to selfishness, it's someone who loves themselves and don't think about others. We are not taught how to love ourselves. So strange! When we don't love someone we neglect, under value, disrespect, and are not willing to forgive them. So if you don't love yourself you will neglect, under value, disrespect and not be willing to forgive yourself. This is typically what is happening to many of us. We are so harsh to ourselves, although we can forgive others for their mistakes, we don't forgive ourselves for our mistakes. Although we can be kind to others we can't be kind to ourselves. We can be patient with others but we can't be patient with ourselves. We do our best to make others happy while we don't even know what makes us happy. We extremely care about others needs while we don't care about our own needs. It's unfair. 

The above was a part of the post I was trying to write a few days ago about self-love but I couldn't go further. Although I found the topic so interesting, I didn't find anything else to say but yesterday I went through a negative experience that made me feel frustrated, down and started to blame myself. I felt so stressed out, but after giving it some thought, I asked myself why I was so harsh to myself, I have done nothing wrong, it is normal that sometimes things don't go the way I wanted. Would I blame myself this way if I had enough self-love, self-acceptance and self-trust?  I think not. When we have enough self-love and self-acceptance, we are kinder and tenderer to ourselves. We acknowledge, appreciate, and value whatever we do even when the results are not as we expected. We believe we did our best; we acknowledge our effort and even reward ourselves. Since I believed that I have done my best, I decided to acknowledge myself for the work I have done so far, reward myself and take a day off. I intend to relax and meet some friends and enjoy my day with them. I invite you to do the same if you have worked hard for the past few days; just reward and acknowledge yourself for what you have done so far. 

"Love yourself, for if you don't, how can you expect anybody else to love you?"

Absolutely true! I think it is logical. If we don't know how to love ourselves how can others love us or how will we be able to love others? If we don't know how to be happy, how will others be able to make us happy or how will we be able to make others happy? It's not that hard to love and value yourself but if you don't know how to do it; just become yourself your best friend and think how you would treat your best friend. You will immediately know how to treat yourself and how to love yourself.

Could we fear happiness?

This is one of my old posts of my blog My Happiness Journey. I hope you like it.

      

 I thought I learned everything about how to make myself happy, I learned it's my choice, I learned that repeating positive affirmations to gain self confidence, self love and self respect  can really help to lead to positivity and happiness. I learned  that happiness is my own responsibility.  I learned that likes attract likes, so if I am happy I will attract happy people into my life.  In spite of that I didn't take any action toward my happiness.

    Do I feel more comfortable this way? Am I more familiar with negative thoughts and unhappiness? Am I more familiar with complaining and I am not sure what else to do or say if I don't find something to complain about?  Am I afraid to look different from others?  I don't like to look different and hence to be noticed.

How will I communicate with them?  Am I afraid of their sarcasm and mockery? They may think I became mad. 

Why do we feel more comfortable or familiar with the negative approach we all tend to adopt in our life? We are all complaining, no matter what we have and what level of wealth are we living in, we just complain. Complaints are a common factor in all our conversations everywhere. 

    Am I afraid of looking better, more beautiful, shinning, energetic and enthusiastic?  Am I afraid of my response when I look better? Will I accept my current life as it is or will I rebel  against  it? Digging deep inside myself is really scaring me, I can't predict what will be the results and what will be the effect of this process  on my current life? Do I fear looking for my own happiness? 

I think that sometimes we may fear or wrongly believe that the happiness of  our beloved ones may be harmed while we are looking for our own happiness.

100% Commitment is Heaven

A few weeks ago, a peer coach put a post on a Facebook group page and I liked it so much. The post said, “100% commitment is heaven. 99% commitment is sheer hell. When you are 100% committed, you don't think about whether you want to or whether you should; you just do. With 99% commitment, there is always a voice in your head questioning whether you should or shouldn't do something. Commit 100% and just do it!” The post made me recall many experiences and situations I went through in my life. It made me recall how I acted before learning the real meaning of commitment and how my life totally changed when I learned the difference between commitment and trying.

When I was younger, I thought that commitment was related to respecting and following the rules and laws only. I thought we had to commit only to things that we couldn’t make any choices about, what was imposed on us. But when I was allowed to choose, the option of trying governed my life. I was 100% committed in my studies at school and college because I had no other choice. I had to do it and in the best way, no excuses were acceptable, no trials or failures were allowed. When I had the choice, I adopted the trying option as it seemed safer. I preferred to keep the door half closed so I could give up whenever I wanted. I don’t know why I lived this way for many years. Most probably because I grew up in an environment with a lot of restrictions and prohibitions that made the word commitment look ugly for me or may be because I didn’t know how living by the trying option in mind all the time is an energy drainer and time waster. Maybe I thought it made life easier especially when we face challenges.

The first time I realized how the option of trying has influenced my life was in the module commitment versus trying, one of the modules I studied in coaching. It’s a very powerful tool to use to help the coach explain to their client that how trying means they are allowing doubt to creep in and hence they are allowing themselves to make excuses and normally failure will be the end result. But with total commitment it is sure that they will reach their goals and realize success. Yes, now I can see clearly how by using “I will try” I was allowing myself to not move forward and make excuses. I realized that the goals that I could achieve are the ones that I am committed to 100%, the ones that I didn’t ever use “I will try” with. I didn’t even remember this word all along the path toward my goal.

“If you make the unconditional commitment to reach your most important goals, if the strength of your decision is sufficient, you will find the way and the power to achieve your goals” ~ Robert Conklin~

Absolutely, this is exactly what happened with me. I remember one of my coaches saying to me: “Just choose which way you want to go and close the door behind you and never look back. Just look and move forward toward your goal” and that’s exactly what I did and I totally forgot about all what I left behind me and I am sure that’s why I could reach my goal of being a certified coach. Once I took the decision to quit my job and switch to the coaching career everything looked different. I even forgot how scary it was to think about the consequences of this decision. What will my life be like if I couldn’t get certified? What will I do if I fail to do it? What if...? What if...? But what really helped me is to totally commit to my success and that’s exactly what happened. Although I have big challenges to face in my new career, in my country, I feel more grateful every day that I made the decision and took this path. It’s my passion and I will commit to it for the rest of my life.

My first advice to you is to totally erase the word “I will try” from your vocabulary, and my second advice if you have a goal and you really want to reach it is to commit to it 100%, which means see the path as a one way road, no looking back, just go forward. You may move at different paces at different times, it’s acceptable and normal. You may ask for support or help that’s acceptable as well, but never ever give up. As long as you are committed and take actions you will surely reach your destination.