Have you ever come across this statement in your life?
Heard it from someone? Said it yourself? Got angry with yourself for feeling like this? Upset for not getting the answers? Or maybe you got the answer too late, when the action had lost all meaning. Then you are lost in a mist of “What ifs…what if I had just done it? Why did I not give it more time? What went wrong?
Here is what went wrong.
FEAR. It grips our mind. Paralyses your thoughts. Takes over the rational thinking process of our brain. Physically it is demonstrated as heart pumping, palms sweating, short and heavy breaths. Somewhere deep down in your mind you know what you are feeling is unreal, it is not needed, you know what you are thinking is not true. But you can’t help yourself as you spiral down this vortex, feeling lonely and helpless, wanting to shout out but seem unable to do so.
EMOTION: It is a tidal wave of feelings. All sort of negative feelings building up towards conscious and unconscious emotions. Imagine dark clouds building up on your brain, stopping any kind of logical thinking, making you believe things that are not.
OVERTHINKING: is what usually happens at this stage when those dark clouds get bigger and bigger and start swirling round your head, making you want to close your eyes and shut yourself from the world.
So what do you do?
Talk. Talking is the best therapy. Talk to a friend, your spouse, talk to anyone who will listen, without any judgements, without giving any advice.
Talking helps to slowly move that dark cloud away, helping you unclog your mind, easing down emotions, letting logical thoughts flow through your brain once again, you can sense this as you take deep heavy breaths, your heart beat returns back to normal and you feel a lot calmer than before.
But sometimes you don’t want to share your deepest fears or your irrational emotions with people you know. Sometimes no matter how hard your loved one tries, judgements do come up which makes the easing process more difficult and complicated.
This is where a certified coach can help.
Besides establishing trust and active listening throughout the conversation, a coach can support you in being self-reliant by helping you realise your strengths, asking you questions in the right direction, working on your existing beliefs that can might be coming the way of your progress.
Goal setting is an important aspect of coaching and as you work along with your coach towards meeting your goal, in this case getting clarity about your fear, why does it occur, what causes it, what else is connected to this fear. And as you move closer towards the answer, you suddenly feel lighter, clearer, as if a huge boulder has been removed from your shoulders. This is the ‘Ah-ha’ moment!
Next you start working on an action plan that could help you overcome this fear, clear away those negative thoughts, set accountability for your actions and commitments. Repeated coaching trains the mind to work towards a problem in this same logical way till it becomes an old habit.
So that the next time you meet someone saying “I just can’t do it” ~ STOP, SIT and LISTEN.
Photo by Anh Nguyen on Unsplash
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