thrive and awaken
Do any of these sounds familiar?
“I’m not good enough”
“What’s wrong with me”
“I’m inadequate”
“I can’t”
In Survival Mode we are focused on negative judgments of ourselves. They can be quite intense and frequent resulting in depression, anxiety, and even panic.
When such thoughts get activated our fight/flight/freeze reaction kicks in. For example, we’ll procrastinate on an assignment until the last moment. Or we will stammer and lose our train of thought when talking.
Avoidance comes from the flight reaction and we end up missing out on all sorts of amazing opportunities. Because of feeling unattractive, people will avoid going to a an event and certainly wouldn’t talk to someone new even if they did go.
The anxiety and avoidance from negative thinking is used as evidence someone is inadequate. This inadequacy results in more anxiety and avoidance turning this into a vicious cycle like a dog chasing its’ tail around and around.
Thriving Mode is based on Complete Acceptance of who we are, while also recognizing we will continue to learn new skills. This is what we do for young children. We completely accept the toddler for not knowing math or how to ride a skateboard. We accept where that child is in their level of development.
Complete Acceptance of ourselves is realizing we are also developing. We can’t know something before we know it. Our development is enhanced when we see the power of innocence.
What’s wrong with me is seen as not helpful and replaced with…
Then we can give words of encouragement to ourselves, just as we would for the child learning to ride that skateboard. “Way to go, nice try”. “You can do it”.
You can learn to Thrive! One day at a time! Yes!
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