Working Towards Our Purpose

Welcome to episode 44 of Working Towards Our

Purpose. Thank you for being here once again. I

always like to start these episodes with a positive thing.

So I think the positive thing that's been on my mind

a bit has is how the beautiful the

weather has been recently. Last week was just

like ideal summer weather. Not too hot or

humid, just like beautiful, sunny. So,

yeah, I think it just reminds me

that I like living in New England because of the

seasons and because it gives you the sort

of choice chance to like, appreciate the seasons before they go away.

So there's always like a point mid summer where like I realize,

oh, it's, it's summer now and it's really nice out and in a couple

months it's going to be probably cold or not as nice

out. So I should enjoy what's currently

happening. So just wanted to, to acknowledge that

and say that it's still nice out and we can still go out and enjoy

the summer weather and then, yeah, just appreciate

that. I got my bike out for the

first time in a long time last week and that's been kind of a nice

thing to do as I'm enjoying the weather. So

looking forward to doing some more of that. But yeah, so getting into

today's episode, today

I want to talk about struggling.

I've been, I've been struggling this morning as, as you could

maybe tell by the lack of articulation in my intro.

But. But yeah, last night and this morning been really, been really

struggling with playing into fear,

you know, thinking you're not good enough, self

doubt, self criticism, feeling like

I can't do something, you know, thinking about the future,

thinking about the past, just, you know, too much thinking

about the possibilities of things going wrong.

And, and yeah, I kind of just wanted to,

you know, talk about that. I think I was, I was also, you

know, worrying about, like, what should this episode be about.

There's some other topics I wanted to. Was thinking about talking about.

But I think as I want this

podcast to be sort of

what's happening currently and authentic and genuine to who I am,

I think, yeah, talking about struggling right now

seems to be what I'm being pushed

to talk about. So, yeah, I think

if you're struggling right now or if you've ever struggled in the past, we all

have. I think thinking about it and then

thinking about, like, what we can do to kind of

pull ourselves out of it. And specifically, I

think, you know, what I'm struggling with is playing into

fear. And I feel like there's

always two choices. You can Pick that. You can either

play into fear or you could play into

faith or hope or positivity, however you want to call it.

And there's always like two ways of looking at things. You can always look at

the negative or the positive. That's. That's what I'm trying to say. The negative or

the positive. So, you know, when. When you're in a negative mindset. When

I'm in a negative mindset, all the fears, all the negative

negativities coming through, and

I think, you know, I've kind of made some

notes for this episode and I think I have like three. Three steps, I guess,

if you will, to try to help pull yourself out of a negative mindset

or a negative feeling. And

I think the first one is kind of just

accepting and realizing that that's happening. I think for

me, a lot of times in the past, I can go

into negative thought cycles and feel bad

about myself and not even really realize that I'm doing it.

But I think through going to therapy and working on myself

and learning about emotions,

I realized that, like, these sort

of emotions and the way you're feeling about something

can come and go. And that if you're stuck

in a negative cycle or a negative thought

pattern, it doesn't necessarily mean, like, that's who you are. I

think I always kind of like, tied it to, like, my self worth. If I'm

feeling bad or negative, then that means I'm a bad person

and I'm negative and there's something wrong with me. So I think the first step

is accepting that how you're feeling is

okay and you're worthy as you are and there's nothing wrong with

you. And I think I constantly

have to kind of remind myself that. And,

you know, maybe if you need that reminder today that you are

worthy as you are and you know however you're feeling

is acceptable. I think there's probably a lot

of reasons why we think that, or I

think that that could not be acceptable. But

yeah, I think that it doesn't matter. The truth is that you are

however you're feeling. So I think that's the first step in trying to

get out of this negative cycle is to first

just accept that and then the next thing

that you can try to do is just focus on the present tense. Because

a lot of things, a lot of the things that you're worrying about or

that I'm worrying about aren't. They don't have anything

to do with, like, right now. They only have to do with things in the

past that maybe I, oh, I should have done this, or maybe I should have

done this, or maybe I shouldn't have done this, or it's the future thinking

about, well, you know, I want this in the future, but I don't know how

to get there. Worrying about if I can get there

or certain monetary

things, will I have enough money then? Will this thing

make me enough money? So just worrying about

things that really you can't do anything about

right now. The present tense is the only thing that's real and it's

the only thing that you can actually do something in and focus

on. So trying to get yourself to

the present tense. And

I think that

trying to do. There's things you can do to

get yourself to the present tense. And that's kind of what I was doing with

my morning. So I just paused because I was

looking at these three steps that I wrote. And step two and three

are basically the same thing. Just bring yourself to the present tense.

So in that case, we have two steps today. So I got two steps for

you. One of them is just accepting, like I said, and then the second one

is bring yourself to the present tense. And yeah, so

that's what I've been doing kind of in my, with, with my morning, trying

to do things that bring me to the present tense. So for

me, going for a run is

good at helping me become present because for me,

running is a difficult thing and you have to like, focus on,

you know, putting one step in front of the other and running and not

stopping and, you know, thinking about your pace and stuff.

Um, so, so that's really helpful. Walking is also really

helpful if you're not a runner. Um, I think going for a walk can

be really helpful to get out of your head. Can be helpful to like focus

on other things, you know, interact with nature,

being outside. Something else that can be really helpful

is yoga. I've noticed, for me, because

it's like, it's like a simple thing. I do YouTube yoga and

I'm by no means an expert or anything. I just started one day on

YouTube and I do these 10 minute yogas and

they can be challenging sometimes, but it's, it's just a.

And I'm sure this is, you know, proven in yoga books a thousand times

over. But doing something as simple as just like moving and

breathing how the instructor is telling you to do it

doesn't leave room for thinking about other things because you're

like, I gotta put my leg over here and then I gotta put my arm

up Here. And you're constantly kind of just moving your body

and breathing, and then before you know it, you didn't think about any

of the negative stuff that you were thinking about before you started yoga.

And it kind of gives you a little bit of a break.

Another thing that I like to do

is journaling. And that can be, sometimes that can be good, sometimes that

can be bad, but I think all depending on how you're feeling.

But one thing that was helpful for me was practicing

gratitude and physically just writing down the things

that you're grateful for. And I think that that's always a good thing,

because when you are practicing appreciating the things

that you have, it becomes really hard to think about

the things that you don't have or to, you know, think about, like, oh, well,

you know, maybe I should worry about this or that when you're, when you're

actively being like, I'm grateful for the food that's in

my fridge because I won't go hungry for the rest of the day.

Like, you can't, you can't think negative. It's like,

there's only space, space for one thing to exist

almost. And then, yeah. Lastly,

I think slowing down is, is helpful. Um, I

think for me, when I have a lot of things that

I want to do and I'm trying to focus on too many things at once,

I could feel like I'm not making enough progress or I'm not doing

enough things, not working enough. Um,

and you kind of, I, I, I kind of just, like, keep falling

down that pattern of not enough. Right.

Because it becomes like, oh, well, these are all the things I want to do.

I'm not doing them fast enough. I want to do more things. So that

means, you know, I'm not good enough because I should be making more of them,

doing more things, accomplishing more. And

then it just, you know, gets you right back down to the you are not

worthy sort of thinking.

So, yeah, slowing down, taking some stuff off your plate, if

that's what's necessary, focusing on one thing

and really just trying to,

I don't know, get back to yourself

and, and, and be comfortable with, like, however it is that

you're feeling. And I think something else, too,

that, like, I'm noticing as I'm, like, going through my morning, is

that once I did sort of accept that maybe I'm not

feeling great and I'm gonna, like, try to take it easy. Like, I thought about

the podcast. I'm like, okay, if it's a little shorter today, that's fine.

You know at least I, at least I got there and

was authentic and myself and that's my goal with this

so you know that's okay and that's enough. Like it doesn't,

doesn't have to be 25 minutes, doesn't have to be 20 minutes. It can be

12 minutes and that's fine. And yeah,

just again kind of practicing in real time accepting

how I am and yeah,

that's pretty much what I got for you today. Might,

might've been all over the place. Hopefully it helps somebody out there.

Um, but yeah, as always you can sign

up for a purpose call

session with me for free for 30 minutes. Um, there's a link

in the show notes email and you can always follow me on Subzac

for more working towards our purpose stuff and writings

and I will see you on the next podcast next week.

I hope you have a great week and enjoy the weather. Thanks for

listening.