We are talking about your thoughts, your emotions as they are not you.

Today is Thoughtful Thursday

Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Now, have you heard this before? I'm sure you have right? 

• Thinking about the future or if you don't do something that you'll regret it.
• You need to plan for tomorrow.
• I wish I hadn't done that.
• Oh, will things ever work out for me?
• Why didn't I just do that?
• Why didn't they do that?
• Will I ever find happiness?
• Why life made me this way?
• What's wrong with me?

Do you find these thoughts running through your head around and around inside your mind? It's like a never-ending internal conversation full of questions and uncertainties

Why can't I stop them? Why can't I stop this insanity?

And what it can do is it can really start to depreciate your day. And are you looking for answers but you feel really overwhelmed by all the questions and the uncertainty and the indecisions.

And then you just get paralyzed with fear. And you're finding it so hard to hold relationships or even finding it hard to get answers to what you should be doing.

You just those thoughts, just random around and around and around inside your mind. Are you hearing me?

If you are still listening to me still, I'm sure that you want to change.

And when you're ready to make a change, and you're ready to accept responsibilities for your own behavior.

That's when your recovery can truly begin.

During my recovery, through PTSD and trauma, I was taught a behavior model called acceptance and Commitment Therapy or act.

This is based upon three main concept acceptance, which you learn to foster greater acceptance for your own thoughts and feelings, and of other people. 

Some events are beyond your control and the belief that you have at any given moment.

You need to be able to break away from your preoccupation with that exam, anxiety or sadness, so you can focus upon your own recovery

Next is fostering commitment.

Now you need to be committed to change, to focus upon moving forward to those things that really matter that matter in your life, and to continue to travel through the spiral of life.

But with both acceptance and commitment, that you want things to be better.

Now onto your behavior. You need to change your mind and your behavior.

And you do this through mindfulness.

You can learn that regardless of your circumstances, or your thoughts, all those thoughts that color, your perception, your behavior can either move you away, or towards those things that really really matter most to you.

And you know, you have a choice. Now, it's not necessarily going to be an easy choice, but it is a choice nonetheless.

These things you can truly learn when you become mindful, and you commit to acting mindfully.

This is not to say that our behavior is not without reason. I mean, far from it.

There's always a good reason for feeling anxious or to feel sadness, or even to feel happiness.

When you feel anxious or sad and you start to tell yourself, oh, I just can't cope.

Or you get angry and you say, Oh, look, I just don't see the point.

 Or when you feel happy. You feel like celebrating right?

In fact, the way we all work, in fact, we always have a huge supply of reasons, when you learn a coping strategy that enables you to manage this, this is when things can truly change.

It's like learning to drive or making a coffee, just like my beautiful long black here.

When you make that coffee in the morning, you do these things on autopilot without awareness of your own behavior.

And there's nothing wrong with that. That's a process.

And it's super important to be able to do this and to function day to day.

Because if every time you got behind a wheel, or you made a coffee, you had to consciously relearn the process, your day would soon become totally unmanageable

... and remember,

"Never let anyone dull your sparkle"

✨ 💜  Sally