What’s more important than parenting? Me….
You would not know it looking at my ungroomed noggin, but my head is the area that I work the hardest on..
Ok, so not my head per se, rather my mental state. I have had a testing few weeks so I have decided to get my thoughts down in text, because the longer I go without writing, the harder it seems to start again. I am not even sure where this post is going to go, I am just writing the words that come, so here goes…
I have spent the past 7+ years working on my mindset, as over time I have come to believe that mastering my own psychology is not only going to make me happier, but also make me more likely to fulfil my dreams. Yep, forgetting my problems whilst I smash a few beers at the pub would make me more of a ‘man’, but I am not really one for conformity..
My interest in personal development started when I first engaged a counsellor 8 years ago, since then I have dedicated 10-30 hours a week to working on it. So instead of binge watching the latest Netflix series or playing games, I work on myself. Over the years I have learned the value of surrounding myself with people who inspire me, who make me question myself, people who make me want to do more with my own life. Be they in real life, through books or Video, these people have a profound effect on my quality of life and happiness.
Just like anybody else, I have bad days, I have people in my life who seek to bring me down, I live with self doubt, limiting beliefs and am incredibly hard on myself. However, I have discovered that instead of drowning my sorrows or feeling sorry for myself, spending time processing my thoughts and my own psychology allows me to better understand why something is affecting me and gives me a better chance of working through it. This is especially important doing what I do, because my life is somewhat dictated by my role as a parent. I don’t have that escape, I don’t have someone to vent to at the end of the day, I often don’t see close friends for months or years at a time, hell I don’t even have the co-worker who I can have a whinge to over some lunch or a coffee. I spend a lot of time, just me and my thoughts, so making sure those thoughts are serving me is of utmost importance.
The things that have changed my life the most are some of the simplest things to do. Simple things like showing gratitude; Every morning in our “cuddle shop” Jaiden and I both say one thing we are thankful for on that day. It could be anything, big or small. Each and every day we do this so start our day with a positive attitude. Today I was grateful for $4 a bag avocados and Jaiden was grateful that it was a sunny day. Next, we do some simple visualisations, whereby we imagine the future, how we want it to look. We imagine our success in the areas we are working towards, Jaiden imagines things like watching a Samurai sword being made in Japan or drifting for the first time, I visualise things like the release of my book, my first book signing and so on. Doing this means we are not only starting our day positively, more importantly I am not reaching for social media only to compare my life to everybody else’s lives. The insane thing is that imagining these things actually tricks your brain, so it releases the same “feel good” chemicals that would be released if you were actually doing them!
I also meditate daily, which also has had a huge impact on my life, even though it took me years to actually learn how to ‘shut off’ and achieve a meditative state. I often feel better after 20minutes of meditation than I do after a night of sleep. I also watch a lot of incredibly inspiring people, there is SO many amazing people in the world who want nothing more than to help other people succeed; learning from them has been invaluable in learning how to pull myself out of any kind of slump I may encounter. All of these things I would have thought was total horseshit, just a few short years ago, yet it has totally changed my life.
Over the past 2 weeks I’ve had a lot of things I wanted to share with you all. However, I was in a place where spending the time on myself was more important to me than writing. I absolutely love being able to inspire people and share our lives, but the one thing I love more than doing that, is waking up and being happy with my life, with who I am, and the journey that I am on.
The thing is, life is not that hard. We just make it hard.
Sure, we all have things in our past or present that cause us trauma, pain or heartache. But just how much we allow that stuff to affect us on a daily basis is entirely up to us! We can either wallow in self pity, or decide we are going to live our lives in a way that brings us happiness, joy and fulfillment.
We all have the ability to succeed in the areas that are most important to us and find true happiness, I think we all just need to devote a little more time to ourselves and spend less time comparing our lives to others or trying to please others.
Your mental health should always be your number 1 priority.
