Day 44 – In the Success of 2010

Good afternoon everyone!!!

It is the 28th of March 2010 today. The sun is shining brilliantly in Sydney Australia. These early autumn days still hold the warmth and strength of the summer sun!!!

As I am writing this outside my apartment window is a chain-saw being used to cut down part of a tree.

Now you may be wondering why I am mentioning this???!!!!

Well I am mentioning it because it is rather loud and noisy. It has been going for over an hour now so it has been constant and consistent. To many it may seem ‘irritating’ and ‘stressful’ for to the sensitive nervous-system that some of us have sometimes this additional ‘irritations’ to our days on-top of what we already cope with can sometimes ‘push us over the edge’ with anxiety, stress and frustration. I am sure my neighbour upstairs with the very young child may be feeling a little on edge, especially if this is the time of day her little one sleeps!!! How often as a mother or father of small children when there is a risk of noise that might disrupt that all important day-sleep (for this day-sleep is such a sanity-checker for parents) would possibly feel like running out and saying ‘ENOUGH ALREADY’ to the chain-saw enthusiast???!!!

How often though do you feel ‘pushed to the edge’? Whereby it would just take one more ‘thing’ and you are ‘over it’? How many of you feel constantly just on the edge of ‘coping well’ where there feels like there is a fine line between ‘doing well’ and ‘losing it’?

Now you are not alone here.

It does not matter how successful, rich, thin, fat, poor, have children, don’t have children, play sport, don’t play sport, have a high income, live on a pension etc for most of us at some stage in our lives the smallest ‘irritation’ can sometimes push us over the edge from ‘coping well’ to ‘losing it’.

Now when you ‘lose it’ what I mean is you feel like you have lost your ability to cope well. You start to take on coping strategies that in the sort term may help to make you feel better but in the long term they adversely affect your health, relationships, ability to thrive and get ahead and your prospects in life start to flounder.

For example imagine you are someone who normally exercises and eats well. Then something occurs in life that you were completely not expecting i.e. relationship break-up or lost job. Now because so many life events are not expected they catch us by surprise. Now if you are already loaded with a reasonable amount of stress and anxiety (which simply comes from living life and taking care of yourself and your family) an extra unexpected change may be enough to push you past your normal threshold for stress and anxiety. What happens in your mind is you go into overwhelm mode. Where your body and mind collude (because hormonally your body is telling your mind ‘Run! Get out of this situation or fight it. Either way it is not good for me!’ What happens is your mind goes into panic mode and you move into a state of fear.

Now this fear is so powerful for it is hormonally backed by your body!!! So it is really really hard to click out of if you don’t get support to do so.

Now getting stuck in this fear is what is so detrimental to you. For what happens is you ‘close your eyes’ spiritually which means the ‘way out’ or ‘the answer’ to grow, develop and beautifully expand up and out of this situation is ‘pinched off’ and you can’t see. So it is akin to standing in a pitch black room with no idea where the door is to get out of the room.

So you don’t move. So in your life you become emotionally paralysed. You can’t move. Now you either take two steps from here. You ‘run away’ from the fear or the situation or you ‘fight’ it.

Now in our example what this means is that for a normally fit and healthy person you may stop exercising and start eating poorer quality foods that you won’t normally eat and eat them erratically and with ‘stress’. Like you are ‘stuffing’ yourself with food at odd hours of the day. What your mind and body are driving you to do is ‘run away’, hide away from the ‘threat’. It’s known as the ‘Fight or Flight’ response. So your body gains weight to ‘hide you’ from the scare!!! Or you take on the same behaviour for inside you are providing yourself with the energy required to ‘slay the dragon’. So you are ‘bulking up’ to prepare.

Either way it actually doesn’t solve the threat or presenting issue. The first couple of litre tubs of ice-cream may medicate you. But 30 kilos of body fat later it won’t taste so good. In fact it will taste of the essence of feeling hopeless, useless, out of control and totally demoralised and ‘not good enough’.

So how do we actually by-pass even having this reaction? Or if we do have this reaction how can we solve it as quickly, effectively and efficiently and work towards preventing it in the future?

Now the answer comes down to simply what judgements you make about life based on your life experience. For example if you lose your job, dialogues like ‘I’ll never get a job as good as that one. How am I going to survive? I can’t believe this has happened. I don’t know where I will get another job like that one? What if I’m unemployed for the rest of the year? What will happen if I never get another job? This is hopeless. I feel hopeless. I am hopeless. What a loser I am ’ all create fear and emotional paralysis.

Conversations like ‘I know this seems scary to start with but maybe, just maybe this has happened because there is something better for me just around the corner. How exciting is that. For I know that when something is taken away in life that it is because something better is there to be received. I am going to relax in my mind so I can ‘see’ what is around the corner for me’.

This second conversation allows you to open your spiritual senses so you can pull towards you the next experience of employment for you.

For nothing is taken away unless it is to be replaced with better.

Sometimes it takes us a few moments to ‘get’ that the ‘better’ is better for we often have so many judgements about what ‘better’ really means.

With willingness and grace I suggest you take these steps when ‘something unexpected’ happens!!!

• React first with shock. Call someone or set a time to talk to someone you trust who can ‘talk you through’ the initial disbelief but will lead you to a ‘positive’ dialogue about the situation. I spend all day doing this with all my clients, colleagues, friends and family!!! It is crucial to have a ‘story’ about life that encourages you to grow and blossom and not stay stuck in the pit!!!
• Start focussing on the new dialogue to soothe your mind and body until you feel calm and composed again. Persist with this until you do.
• Be open to the universal ‘nudges’ that guide you to ‘better’. For example you are guided to call a colleague a few days after your retrenchment and they ‘happen’ to of heard of someone who needed someone with your skills. They willingly put you into contact with this new source. Perfect!

There is never any point in getting caught in ‘Fight or Flight’ for it can ruin your health, weight, self-esteem and confidence if you don’t act to fix it asap.

Let me know your thoughts on this!!!

If you are struggling with your eating and weight and are sick of looking and feeling a way you never dreamed you would ever be then please feel free to contact us on +61 2 9531 6752 or email on jo@joanneprior.com and we will ‘click’ you out of ‘Fight or Flight’ and get you living as the magnificent being that you truly are. The one who has all the skills and abilities to cope with life in a way that doesn’t harm their eating and weight. Which means you look and feel GREAT FOR LIFE!!!

Love J and TT xxx