Have you ever experienced someone making a suggestion to you, something you haven’t given a thought to, but suddenly you are thinking about it a lot.
For example, you might be feeling perfectly ok, and then someone at work says to you are you ok, you don’t look
too well? Or you are looking tired today, are you ok?
Suddenly, you start to think, actually I do feel tired, or I haven’t been feeling too good, you might look in the mirror and start examining your face for black circles around your eyes … so a perfectly good day, that you might have been looking forward to, turns into a day of worrying about how you look and how you feel.
This happened to me last week, I went into the conversation feeling
good, quite confident with my plans, not really looking for anyone else’s opinion just sharing, then someone said something quite negative and it set a seed of doubt in my head. I came away from the meeting with worries which I hadn’t really thought about. Suddenly instead of confidence, feeling good, and in spite of evidence to the contrary, I am worried and concerned.
It’s difficult to get the mindset out of this place once it starts, but there are a few things to focus on
that may help...
Firstly, evidence — when people share their thoughts remember that it is only what they are thinking... which means it's not the truth, it's not factual and if everything you felt was good up until they shared their thoughts, then what matters is what you are thinking and feeling.
Secondly — practise a response when people are sharing their opinions, their negative experiences that are reflecting on you, or questioning you — Ooh
that’s an interesting thought …, or thank you for sharing, or thanks for thinking about me, I really appreciate it, or I can’t imagine how that is for you.
Thirdly — remember that when a seed of doubt is planted, it is feeding into your emotions so acknowledge how it makes you feel, accept that this will happen from time to time, and that everything that happens will teach you something about yourself and your
resilience.
Finally — when someone offers an opinion or shares their thoughts, they usually have your best interests at heart, and are doing it with love. If you don’t feel this is the case, then ask yourself should you really be letting them affect you? Because you will know that answer is NO.
I hope these suggestions will help when you find yourself in such a situation … it definitely helped me this
week.
Have a great week folks, keep moving, keep feeling good and I will see you in class.
With love
Jane xx
