Feeling Good!

I’m feeling really good today!

How often do we sit back and take stock of all the good things that are going on in our lives? I know I never used to do it often enough.

It’s human nature for us to focus on all the things that aren’t going well in our lives, Dr. Steve Peters would probably blame this on the ‘Chimp’. Dr. Steve Peters if you didn’t already know authored an amazing book called The Chimp Paradox, which looks at how our emotions can sometimes take over our lives and how mind management techniques can help us put these emotions into perspective and let the ‘human’ part of our brain take control back from the ‘chimp’ to help us make rational decisions and communicate effectively.

Reading this book really made me think about the way I looked at life. I was never really a glass half empty or glass half full kind of girl and I thought I had quite a good balance in my life where I looked at the positives and negatives of most situations but when things got really bad, especially things I had no control over, for example the health of my loved ones I found that I had a tendency to put too much emphasis on what I could do to make it all better therefore, putting too much pressure on myself.

These days however things are very different, I’m not saying I don’t still worry about the welfare of my nearest and dearest or have concerns about work or money but I deal with these situations differently. I talk more about how I’m feeling. I bet that sounds really simple doesn’t it but it was never an easy thing for me to do.  I would internalize everything until it got to a point where you didn’t need to wait for Bonfire Night for fireworks! J Now if something is on my mind I go to the source and explain how certain actions made me feel because believe it or not other people don’t always know they’ve done something to upset you.

Where I can’t explain how I’m feeling to an actual person I write down my thoughts in a journal, sometimes that’s all you need to get your thoughts out there, you’d be amazed at how different you feel about a situation when it’s staring back at you in black and white, nine times out of ten it doesn’t even seem that important anymore and in most cases you see a solution to a problem right there between the pages.

I used to keep a gratitude journal where I listed all the things and people I was grateful for every day and I have to say it was a great exercise to focus my mind on all the positives in my life. After a while though, I have to admit the things I was grateful for became a little repetitive for example, family and friends so instead of writing in the journal every day I would write once a week or now I write things down as and when they happen. There are always constants in my life that I’m always grateful for but sometimes unexpected things just make you smile and lift your spirits and you need to hold on to that feeling and document it because when things aren’t so great you can look back on these moments and remember that feeling and appreciate what you felt.

This not only helps the way you feel within yourself but it helps your relationships too. Talking is never overrated, tell someone how you feel or how they made you feel. If they did something you didn’t like maybe they can make it better or if they did something you did like tell them so they can do it more often. 

It’s about communication and knowing when to communicate. Don’t have a deep and meaningful when you know the other person is busy and can’t give you their undivided attention. It’s also about acknowledging your feelings, accept that you have feelings and try and understand them and not let that little ‘chimp’ get out of control.