If we do not take care of ourselves, no one else will. And if we are not well, then nothing in our life will be well. It all starts with us. However, we have been conditioned to believe that self-care is selfish – and at the same time that we need to be our best when interacting with others, in our “social box,” instead of being our best to ourselves, listening to our gut, our body and our heart.
What would you rather be? A healthy, well-balanced individual who may get criticized by people who do not have those qualities? Or an unhealthy, not well, stressed individual who fits into most social circles?
By the way, I am generalizing big time here and I know we cannot put all of society into two boxes. However, there is a lot of truth in these extreme examples. Let’s go one level deeper. Do you face any self-confidence, self-esteem and self-image challenges? We all do, it’s just that some people take action and do something about it, and others don’t.
Now, this is where all of the self-love challenges get tricky. You see, as a child we were born happy, full of joy and full of self-love. So, what happened? We were exposed to our environment, culture, schooling system — the list goes on. As we developed emotionally, our various life experiences were imprinted onto our psyche, which led to the different aspects of our personality today. Our unconscious mind absorbed all values and beliefs, primarily from our parents and then from everything and everyone else. In other words, we could say that our environment and the people in it built each one of us.
Yet, along the way, we absorbed feelings of guilt, shame, fear and all sorts of other negative emotions that are still unprocessed and blocked in our system, not allowing us to love ourselves as we could and should.
Fortunately, there are many tools to release, resolve and overcome the unprocessed negative emotions that are holding us back from that happiness we felt as children. Here are three practical, yet powerful, ways to help you do that. All are based on science and designed in a way to help you rewire your neuroconnections and release emotional charges trapped inside of you.
The “Remarkoble” Rewiring Method
• On a scale of 0 (negative emotion is not present at all) to 10 (negative emotion is paralyzing) how do you feel?
• What is your earliest memory from your childhood of this negative emotion?
• Remember a whole situation and ask yourself: “What are three positive things I learned from that situation that will help me resolve this emotion now?”
• Re-test your 1-10 scale of emotional charge
The “Remarkoble” Release Method
• Rate your mood on a scale of 0 (negative emotion is not present at all) to 10 (negative emotion is paralyzing).
• Now try to locate that negative emotion in your body. I want you to feel that emotion even more, to charge it up all the way up to 10, where every single atom of your body is fully experiencing this negative emotion. Hold that emotion there as long as possible, until it begins to dissipate.
• In case the charge does not fully disappear, repeat the process.
The “Remarkoble” Fear method
I use this method myself before public speaking, an important meeting or a difficult conversation with a colleague.
• Close your eyes and imagine/visualize yourself 15 minutes after you’ve already successfully delivered that speech.
• Describe to yourself how smoothly it all went, how confident you were and how you felt proud of yourself during the speech.
• Describe this amazing feeling of courage realized after successfully delivering the speech.
• Stay in this positive state for at least a few minutes until you really feel the positive switch in the body.
• Repeat this process at least three times.
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