Do you have those mornings where you wake up and instantly feel all those thoughts and worries where the mind chatter kicks in about what’s going to come?
You start thinking about what your to do list is demanding from you and you enter the headspace of: ‘Oh my goodness, how am I going to get through this day? How am I going to tick all those boxes that I have to tick.?’
Before you know it, you have activated a cycle and a mechanism within you that over produces a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is a very pivotal hormone when it comes to stress because when we over produce this hormone it is associated with all sorts of physical issues, such as:
- Weight Gain
- Blood sugar imbalances
- Decreased bone density
- Lowered immunity
- Exhaustion
- Heart attacks / Strokes
When we continue the cycle of constantly feeling like we’re not catching up, we’re rushing through the day, everything is becoming more like a reaction to what’s been happening to us and we’re not feeling like being in the flow of the experiences that are coming to us on a daily basis.
Constantly having the fight or flight mechanism activated within us is why it feels so exhausting because when we add fight or flight, our nervous system keeps telling us we’re not safe, that we can’t relax, until something is done or, everything is done.
This is our resource using mode, and not a resource replenishing mode. The resource replenishing mode is the so-called parasympathetic activation which is our rest and digest system which we very much need in order to replenish all sorts of physical, mental and emotional resources in order to feel vital and energised and reset.
All of that needs to be replenished and rested on a regular basis for us to not feel overwhelmed and exhausted and drained, or burnt out. This can be a pretty challenging task to do over the course of our week or over the course of a day because we have so many things around us, we have so many things that we want to and need to do.
So how can we change this thought pattern?
We need to enter the parasympathetic mode which is rest, digest, and receive. When we want to receive healing relaxation, or replenishment, the first step is to tap back into balance and acknowledge what’s going on around us because acknowledgement always comes with a certain degree of acceptance.
For example, sitting there in a mindful state, just a short little moment in between and saying to yourself: ‘Wow, I’m actually really, really overwhelmed right now and that’s okay.’
It’s about honesty.
It’s about acknowledging.
Feeling at ease, at peace, grounded and centered is the first step and it doesn’t take a lot of your being to do. You don’t have to meditate on that for hours and hours, it just really takes one moment in time. Breathing in – breathing out – this is how I feel. And that’s okay. I give myself permission to feel like that. I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to feed any more energy into it, I just need to acknowledge it is happening.
Start being YOU, start being more honest to YOURSELF, and actually really honouring that this is your experience as opposed to denying what’s happening.
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