We are coming into a time of year that many look forward to. So many people love the holidays and eagerly anticipate spending time with family and friends. At the same time, a lot of people out there—family, friends, and those in your community—find this the most difficult time of the year. It’s also the time of year when anxiety can skyrocket, depression and negativity can overtake you, and many feel trapped and believe they just can’t make it. Some feel they just have to work harder, to do more, to put in more effort to overcome hurdles that they believe are especially trying this time of year, and maybe they feel as if they’re drowning. Everything they do consciously has them feeling as if everything is hard, and trying, and doom and gloom.
What many don’t realize is that you’re telling yourself this story consciously. If you put in half the effort to change your subconscious as you do to change your conscious actions, you would get more results. Here’s a great example, especially for this time of year. You don’t have enough money and you’re working your butt off, taking extra hours, trying to get that pay raise and trying to get promoted, but you have a subconscious belief that you don’t deserve it, or others are more qualified, or bad things always happen to you because it’s what you attract. Those beliefs will actually block you from getting that pay raise and feeling any joy at all.
Instead, you want to say and think, “Hey, I’m really good at my job! I have extraordinary talent to offer. I have a gift. I’m the one person in this office who’s so tremendously dedicated, and this new position has my name all over it.” If you believe you’re never going to get ahead, are not worthy of that relationship, will always have that guy or girl walking out the door on you, or will always be broke and never happy, of course you won’t, because you’re telling yourself that story.
Instead, change the story. If Christmas is an incredibly difficult time of year for you, then you need to start telling yourself a different story until you believe it. Stop trying to make conscious changes, which is extremely hard work and doesn’t give great results. Instead, make your mind your best friend and your most supportive ally.
Which brings me to your inner critic. I’ve talked about this before, but I think especially at this time of year, we all need a reminder that we’re hardwired to be negative. You hear people say, “Oh, just be positive, visualize yourself into being a positive person, and don’t be that negative Nancy.” That’s what my daughter caught me doing at one point, that negative slip-up. That had me laughing, because we all slip into it. I’m just fortunate to have a daughter who’s always so happy and can point out that pattern, and thankfully she isn’t plagued with that hardwired negativity. She really can see the positive, so apparently I did something right.
But remember, being hardwired for the negative was something back in the Stone Age that had us looking for danger, because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t have survived. Yes, we still need to look for danger. If you’re walking at night alone, or you’re in the city and lock your car door at night, or you lock the door of your house, is this being negative? In order to be safe, you have to think of negative things. It’s wired into us to be negative in order to survive, but only to the point that you don’t get carried away. You lock your door, you don’t walk in unlit places, you put your seatbelt on in your car to be safe, but you don’t think the whole time you’re walking that you’re going to get attacked or robbed, or that your car will be broken into, or that you’re going to get into an accident while driving and be killed.
We’re wired to be a little negative, but what we often do when something bad happens is immediately fall back into that trap of saying to ourselves or others, “I knew that was a bad idea. I knew that would never work.” You can have a little negativity in your day only if the outcome is to protect you, but once you’ve fastened that seatbelt, stop being negative and move into positivity. Think 90% positive and 10% negative, and then you won’t beat yourself up for not being a positive Polly every day.
Your mind’s job is to keep you safe on the planet against what were once not great odds, but now for your mind to do its job, you have to do your job and tell your mind what you expect of yourself every day. Tell it how you want it to be, what you want, and use detailed, positive, relevant language. It’s easy once you start, and when you do it enough, it stops being what you do and soon becomes who you are, and your life will really change. Try that this holiday season.
I wish every one of you a wonderful, joyous holiday and for good things to come your way.
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I had a generous fan e-mail me last week asking if there is a particular charity that I support. As you know, I have an autistic son who is now out of school, and I've been working hard the last few months to design a daily program for him. I was able to do so with the help of a local organization called GIFTS (Gulf Islands Families Together Society) which was formed by a group of parents of disabled children as nothing existed on the island to assist our kids. Through GIFTS, my son's days are now filled with jobs and activities, and I am continuing to work with them to create a pizza/movie night and other social opportunities and programs for these children that will connect them to the community. So to answer my inquiring fan's question, my charity of choice is this wonderful organization. If you are contemplating donating to a charity this holiday season and would keep GIFTS in mind, I'd be beyond grateful as funding is always a big obstacle with such programs. For more information, please click here. And if you decide to make a contribution of any amount, please be sure to reference "Author Lorhainne Eckhart's annual charity drive" in the message box. With my sincerest appreciation~ Lorhainne
