My mindset changed from negative to peace. A couple of years ago, I was living with a great panic and anxiety. Today, my mind got to a very peaceful state, and it took me a lot of effort to reach this mindset. Approximately 6 years ago, I tried a lot of different methods to reach here.
I was extremely sensitive to other people’s opinions, performances, and extreme perfectionism. This was harming my life and had lots of issues with communication, arrangement, and getting things done. My mindset was preventing me to achieve because I was so much focused on other’s judgement. The sense of self was very low. Then I had to devote some years to therapy and self-development. There I learned a lot about how to calm your mindset. Here I will share them with you.
1. Therapy
Therapy is a great investment that you could do for yourself and shift your mindset toward positivity. A skilled therapist helps you to evaluate things from an objective point of view. It can be a hard journey to face your own traumas, but the end result is extremely rewarding. You will feel like you are just born.
Therapy has many benefits, and the most important one is coping style. Through therapy, you will get to know yourself and learn to explain your emotions in a very healthy way.
Adjusting coping style: Coping style is how you react to stress, challenges and difficult emotions. The way you react or manage emotions plays an essential role in how you approach to things. Sometimes ineffective coping style would lead to catastrophic consequences.
Scientists influenced coping styles in a multiple way, and they have a direct relationship with mindset. Algorani and Grupta (2021), derived four major coping strategies as a result of their research. According to this, there are four different types of coping.
- Problem-focused coping: Attempt to control work stressors
- Emotion-focused coping: Regulate once’s emotional stress by altering response
- Avoidant-coping: Involves withdrawing from stressful situation
- Meaning-focused learning: Employs coping strategies to make sense of meaning and situation, resilience is an important component
- Maladaptive-coping: There could be different ways to cope with situation as maladaptive coping. Over-analyzing and over-thinking can play a significant role in ruminative thoughts. Other maladaptive coping style are self-harm, burning, emotions that alleviate stress and mental health issues.
Therapy helps you to understand what kind of coping styles you have and shifts on how to adapt it toward something positive. This is a lifesaver, in future you would not get triggered by it and your mindset would be great.
Resolve anger management: Sometimes we can have impulsive actions, and it has roots with our childhood. If our caregivers spoke to us in that manner, our brains might be tuned to anger management. Therapists help to resolve anger management with imaginary tasks and past role-plays.
Identifying triggers: From our past life, there could be things that would trigger you. When they appear in this life, you might feel stressed. You may not know the reason for your actions.
Improving identified emotional regulation: How you manage emotions plays an essential role in identifying your triggers and finding out strategies on how to deal with things. Some strategies are identifying your triggers, naming emotions, and journaling your feelings.
There are various scientifically proven techniques to handle with emotions which are increasing behavioral awareness, cognitive restructuring, emotional regulation, behavioral actions, building resilience and self-compassion. All this would help you to increase your emotional regulation skills.
Someone with poor emotional regulation;
Alex had a huge conflict with his boss. This situation accumulated over time. Every time when he feels conflict he suppressed it and in the end there was an enormous anger. Alex started to react impulsively, and with anger. He could not hold himself. When the boss was criticizing, Alex started to feel triggered. He started to feel that he is stuck and there is nowhere to go. Alex got very angry and this influenced his mindset in a very negative way.
Alex did not know how to label emotions or explain the self. He also had issues with saying no or setting boundaries.
A healthier alternative to this reaction is when something is so distressing, try not to accumulate it, try to understand why it is so distressing. Then try to speak with the boss and explain the situation. If something comes to the point that it is a great burden, then the ideal is to let go of the situation.
There are healthier ways to release stress, such as doing exercise. If you can balance work and life in a healthy way, the tension would not accumulate as it would.
2. Meditation
Meditation helps to learn to focus your mindset. It helps you to identify your thinking patterns and differentiate what is real and what is an undesired product of your brain. In this way, next time when you experience feelings, you would learn to associate what is realistic and what is not realistic.
There are various ways of meditation. Body scan is very helpful to strengthen body and mind connection. Other benefits of meditation are reducing stress and anxiety, boosting emotional wellbeing, alleviating pain, promoting self-discovery, fostering a sense of inner peace.
- Meditation boosts emotional health
- Enhances self-awareness
- Strengthens memory
- Increase energy levels
- Develops resilience
- Connects for higher purpose
Click to learn more about meditation.
Some people think that meditation is a huge waste of time. It takes a great deal of effort to understand the notion behind it. You need to do it consistently, first time would not work for sure. I assure you that it is a worthwhile investment.
3. Breathing exercises:
Breathing is a vital mental health function. It is a very fundamental life process, and helps with stress and anxiety reduction. It helps to strengthen lungs and the respiratory system. Furthermore, it helps with improvement of sleep and has spiritual and meditative benefits. Conscious being fosters a sense of connection, inner peace and self-awareness. Click to learn more about breathing.
Here is a guided breathing exercise video.
4. Journalling:
Your brain is wired on thoughts. You can change them with positive one’s or just dive into the sea of negativity. Every day write few positive words on your diary. You have total freedom. You can either journal your thoughts, reflect on the day, reminisce about the past, it is totally up to you.
- “It is going to be a great day.”,
- “I am happy for being alive.”,
- “I embrace my new day with positivity.”,
- “I am thankful that I have an accurate vision.”
No matter where you are, your mind is your house and it better be good. It is up to you to have a positive mindset. The strategies are simple, but not easy. It requires a great deal of discipline and willpower to proceed with them.
