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October 2, 2019 Julie Kurtz, Founder and CEO at the Center for Optimal Brain Integration®
"What we think is what we become." - Buddha
1. FEELINGS - Stop running from you. Keeping yourself busy every minute of the day prevents you from getting to know yourself or to attune to your values, perceptions, beliefs and reactions. Stop, reflect and connect to how you feel throughout the day. Emotions are fleeting like clouds. Being aware of a feeling/s in the moment, practice acknowledging them and with time they will pass. Knowing how you feel, the size (small, medium or large) of the emotion and finding strategies to self-regulate until your calm can prevent reactionary behavior to self and others. Next steps: Learn to identify emotions, size of emotions and build a self-regulation tool-kit to help calm big emotions.
2. REFRAME – Take any problem statement and reframe it. Usually a reframe is a way to gain perspective of the problem from a different angle. “I am too old to find love” versus “My wisdom and life experience will attract someone who has those same qualities.” Reframing changes feelings and then changes thoughts. Next step: Can you journal today? Notice some of your negative self-talk or negative other-talk. Write it down and practice reframing it. This habit can change your mindset.
3. SELF-NURTURING – When you start to do things for yourself that are nurturing and restorative then you send a message that you are worth investing in. The result over time could surprise you. Any business where they invest in employees produces so much more than when they are de-valued. Do you take time to nurture yourself? Next step: Make a list of 2-5 people, places, objects or activities that restore and refresh your energy.
4. SELF-REFLECTION – Creating awareness about thoughts, feelings and behaviors is the first step to change. Meditation, prayer, life coaching, close friends, writing in a journal, a quiet walk all are a few opportunities to tap in to the very thing that sets us apart form reptiles and mammals. Engaging our brain’s executive ability to think about our thinking, to wonder and notice about our feelings and behaviors and best of all recognize patterns and the ability to have a choice or make a change in our thinking or behavior is what sets us apart from the other species. Next step: What is one thing you do or could add to your daily practice to cultivate more inner reflection, self-reflection time or a pause in your day to wonder and notice your inner world?
5. THE MAGIC – Pick 1-2 small strategies to add to your daily to practice of a new behavior you wish to achieve. Practice for 6 months. This practice builds new pathways in the brain. A new pathway means a new habit. It will not work with minimal effort over time. Practice does not make perfect, it makes permanent. The brain is elastic throughout our lives and any pattern can change with consistent practice. Neurons that wire together then fire together. If you fire them every day, a new habit will begin to form.
Remember you attract whatever core belief you consistently say and feel about yourself! You also cannot help anyone farther than you have helped yourself grow socially and emotionally! Build a new habit of positive self-regard today. To do this, you must create a practice and walk a new path every day.
"What we think is what we become." - Buddha
Julie Kurtz is CEO and Founder at Center for Optimal Brain Integration®. For more information and resources on Self-Care visit www.optimalbrainintegration.com. We offer training and resources that may help you. You may also be interested in our book on Amazon called, Culturally Responsive Self-Care for Early Childhood Educators. Like Center for Optimal Brain Integration® on Facebook and join our COBI community of resources and support.