Mind chatter prevents you seeing the qualities you possess
What would help you deal confidently with your challenges in a strong and vital way?
I asked this recently to a group of people in Sharjah, UAE. One man quipped that money is always a confidence booster. Another said that money brings its own tension. Eventually they all agreed that if their thoughts would not lose them in a maze of worries, they’d all be confidently living different lives.
A maze of worries is a great description of mind chatter. The thoughts that encourage you to feel bad about yourself and the opportunities in your life. You’re left feeling generally confused, flitting from one possibility to another, unable to find an elegant resolution.
Mind chatter falsely convinces you that the solution (and often the problem) lies outside you – perhaps with your spouse, boss, government or even some mysterious “situation”.
Although it’s brave and necessary to look outside yourself for help sometimes, it’s vital to strengthen your own abilities so that looking outside becomes a choice and a safety net rather than your only escape route.
You Already Have What You Need
Your mind chatter assumes events are outside your control. It might look like someone else holds all the power but don’t forget that you already have many of the abilities you need to confront your mind-chatter, you’ve just got used to not using them. And because no-one knows everything, the abilities you don’t have can be learned.
You can kill your mind chatter and start grounding yourself TODAY by rediscovering what it is trying to keep hidden.
Self-Appreciation
The act of recognising what you have.
Many of your qualities are so intrinsic that they’ve become like wallpaper – they add colour and depth to your personality but you no longer notice them. When other people comment on them, you dismiss the comment.
Conscious self-appreciation helps you understand the depths of your personality. As you recognise and appreciate these qualities, they begin to shine and radiate their glow throughout your being.
And while it’s easy to see the good in all your positive qualities, have you considered that even the negative qualities are serving a purpose somehow?
For example, social shyness can be a way you have found to protect yourself from rejection. The positive intention could be that friendship is important to you. Once you recognise this positive intention, it becomes easier to see the negative behaviour, the shyness, as an out-dated coping mechanism.
Once you see it as a “mechanism”, it’s no longer part of your identity. YOU are not shy. You’ve simply taken to behaving in a certain way under particular circumstances. This has now entered the realm of problems that can be dealt with – either on your own or with a trusted friend or coach.
Self-Esteem
Living every day with confidence and take decisions based on the integrity of your values.
Your spirit revels in self-esteem the way a puppy revels in affection – it’s not necessary for it’s growth and development, but it certainly infuses vitality and purpose into the experience of living.
Your current abilities are built on qualities you already have. These qualities are not fixed to any single activity. They can be transferred. For example, if you identify that your expertise in brushing your teeth is that you do it thoroughly to get every speck clean, do you see how this quality also gives you the skills of attention-to-detail, hygiene-awareness, focus and many more?
Do you see how these attributes already exist inside you, ready to be applied to another area of your life?
Recognising and appreciating your intrinsic qualities leads to self-esteem that has solid evidence behind it.
The easiest way to do this without turning into some “navel-gazing, self-help junkie” (as one fabulous client put it), is to pick any random activity and recognise your qualities responsible for making you do that activity in the way that you wanted to do it.
Activities really can be anything – from brushing your teeth to the way that you dealt with a confrontation. Think about how that quality is important to you and how it shows up in so many positive ways throughout your life.
Start doing this with reference to things you can already do, and then when a problem comes along, it’s easier to remind yourself that you can deal with it.
You have a massive vault of qualities inside you that you can draw on to help you!
What qualities do you have that you tend to overlook but greatly appreciate?
Hi Reeta,
We are always searching and moving forward so fast that sometimes we forget to stop and celebrate the small things we have, or look back and appreciate what we have achieved.The pace of life now does not lend itself to this. You are right that we all have qualities that we no longer recognise in ourselves (although we can often recognise and admire the very same qualities in someone else!).
The striving for more and constant improvement sometimes tramples over some of the very things we already have that could lift self-esteem if we only stopped for a second to say “Hi”. We all have birthdays. I suggest we should have ‘celebration’ days, where everyone gathers around to point out all the good qualities we have. We already have these, but the format needs to be changed. We currently only have one per lifetime and it is called a funeral!
Keith recently posted..72 Things I Don’t Want To Regret On My Deathbed
Love the idea of a celebration day! Reminds me of an Archie comic where it’s Reggie’s (the arrogant rich kid) birthday and he sends his mother a card congratulating her for having given birth to him
The funeral comparision is very powerful… it’s jolted me into thinking about the people I take for granted! Thanks very much for that timely prod.
Reeta Luthra recently posted..Kill Your Mind Chatter Today
What an interesting post, Reeta, and so thought provoking, too.
And I certainly agree that the negative things we do are not part of our identity.
“It isn’t me that is shy. I have learned to act in a shy way because of circumstances.”
When I was growing up, my mother gave me to think that she no longer loved me if I didn’t behave in the way she thought I should.
Much better if she had made me think that she did love me – and she always would do – but she didn’t like how I was behaving at the time.
I can separate out those different ways of thinking now, but it took a lot of work for me to be able to do that.
And, as you suggest, once we recognise this difference within ourselves, it is something that we can work on, by ourselves, or with a coach or trusted friend.
And little by little we can move along the path to having a better self esteem.
Dave E Wilkes recently posted..Boost Your Self Esteem With The Quick Start Challenge – Review
Hi Dave
Growing up is a mine field with all the mixed messages from home and school that stay in your head long after. Glad you made it through the noise!
Had a look through your website – you’re doing some great work with helping people feel better about themselves.
Thank you for visiting and taking the time to comment.
Reeta Luthra recently posted..Kill Your Mind Chatter Today