Posted in Events, Keep Moving: Motivation and Inspiration, Mental Health, Potential and Worth, Power, Reflection, Self-Care, Self-Talk

“This is Me” Reflection: Self-Reflection is Powerful

To acknowledge, reflect, visualize, create, and share goals, aspirations, next steps, and working points are the backbone of improvement and progress. “This is Me” opened up a space of opportunity to understand not only who you are, but also what you want. To be able to pick images, quotes, letters, words and symbols that reveal and mirror what it is you want to accomplish takes strength and dedication.

The Event

Who am I?

Before building our vision boards, I came up with a small diagram to get everyone to think of different angles to approach the “who am I?” question. While this is the most complex question to ask yourself, visualizing different parts of your identity can help to jump into ideas about goals, achievements, feelings, strengths, limiting beliefs, toxic tendencies, memories, things you’ve learned, and where you want to go.

It’s not only useful to think up goals and how you want to get there but also asking yourself critical questions of ways to improve allows for a grounded and holistic approach to becoming who you want to be. Vision boards allow you to see yourself in all that is you. They show you the space to see past, present, and future possibilities while influencing and reminding you how to get there by reflecting on yourself.

While we tend to focus on one part of our identity, it’s helpful to dig into ourselves and all of our dimensions to answer questions only one part may not be able to answer. Focusing on our career and professional goals can be supplemented by our mental and spiritual strengths to place ourselves in work environments that fit us. What do we actually want? How can we improve and become better versions of ourselves by tapping into all of who we are? We are a complete being, therefore we must look at everything that makes us a whole.

The Boards

The more we looked at our identity’s focal points and where we were currently, the more we were able to grab images that mirrored how we wanted to approach our visions. I was excited to see how much work was put into visualizing the “who am I?” question. With only a limited amount of time, we were able to build and dive into ourselves to create works of art that symbolized us and what we wanted to accomplish next.

I’m extremely grateful for those who came out to “This is Me.” We answered big questions, reflected on who we wanted to be and where we want to go, while also being gentle and progressive with our progress.

Moving Forward

As I become more and more of myself every day, I see and appreciate how far I’ve come. Understanding and witnessing others in their goals, feelings, and aspirations helped me to see myself in mine. While I will always be a work in progress, I must also look at how much progress I’ve made. With all that I want to accomplish I get stuck in how much I need to do instead of appreciating the process.

I’ve learned to love and see myself as so much bigger than ever imagined. I say “I can” more and I’m excited to see where I go next. “This is Me” showed me to appreciate everything about my identity even the things I need to improve. I am me in everything that I am and will continue to work toward becoming more of myself.

Stay tuned for more events and reflections.

Posted in Keep Moving: Motivation and Inspiration, Mental Health, Potential and Worth, Self-Care, Self-Talk

Subduing the Mental Bully: Creating a Positive and Workable Self-Talk

 

What is Self-Talk?

How often do you think about the ways you speak to yourself? When faced with an unfortunate circumstance, a setback, challenge, or difficult moment how do you respond or reflect on it? How can you become more active in managing or controlling your mental approach to hardships, triggers, or difficulties? The daily dialogues you have with yourself are the most powerful steps in improving your mental well being. Changing how you speak, manifest, affirm or declare ideas and reflections have the potential to alter how you view and approach negativity. Therefore, as we debate, struggle, or even celebrate mentally, self-talk is how we are processing what goes on around us. What is self-talk?

Self-talk is reflective of how we see ourselves in our circumstances. If we feel overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, or depressed, those feelings will continue to overcome us until we get a hold of a more positive and workable view of our current state. How do we flip a negative self-image or view to a workable one?

The Toxic Perfectionist

When first introduced to the phrase “self-talk,” I sat anxiously in a counselor’s office while in college. Unaware of how self-talk affected my daily activities; the ways I spoke about myself reflected my daily thoughts. Quickly noticing the pattern, my counselor intervened every time I bullied my academic and personal progress. She showed me how my language and self-talk sabotaged my mental health. Instead of being proud of my achievements I would comment with phrases such as “I need to do better,” “That’s just who I am,” ” I’m failing,” I’m not good enough,””I have too much to do, but I feel like I can’t do it,” what’s wrong with me?” “I have to finish,” I have to fix myself.”

The more negativity I fed myself, the more I was unable to see a workable view of my anxious and depressive thoughts. My anxiety and depression continued to build because of the continuous negative self-talk I grew up maintaining. I fed my urge to remain the best; I pushed myself past my limits, forced myself to finish everything, added more than I needed to most of the time, and did not accept any grades under an A-. I was a toxic perfectionist.

The Switch

Now that I’m aware of the dangers of negative self-talk, I work more diligently and actively to flip, switch, and change how I approach overwhelming situations. I think twice about how I view working, writing, and accepting new opportunities (since I’m no longer in school). I make sure I’m being more gentle and kind to myself in general as well. In order to maintain an approachable and more workable stance to challenges, I am changing how I see myself in each moment. I see myself in power and not in defeat. I see what I can do instead of what I can’t.

Here are some ways you too can switch up and subdue your mental bully by changing phrases you may think of everyday:

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Try to manipulate and change your mental language in order to further improve your mental health for yourself too. What are some phrases you can change to better approach a difficult or challenging situation? How can you control or manage the situation better by the ways you think and see yourself in it? What does your self-talk look like now that you are switching it up?

Posted in Bulletins, Keep Moving: Motivation and Inspiration, Potential and Worth, Power, Self-Talk

Bulletin: Abundance

What we see for ourselves is limited to how we see ourselves. Can we see ourselves in a place, situation, circumstance that is more? Can we see ourselves as more? Let’s start thinking in terms of abundance and opportunity. Not everything is a loss or a failure. There is more out there. There are spaces you belong in, there are people who need to hear your story, there are opportunities that you fit but you can’t see yourself in. See yourself in abundance. Say “what’s next?” and not “that’s all I see myself doing.”

There is too much to be done for you not to see how big your purpose is. Branch out. You are needed. Your life plan might not be what is coming. Let go of what didn’t work and continue to progress. Keep on regardless of downfalls, setbacks, or failed attempts. That wasn’t for you. What is for you is waiting in the midst of learning and accepting abundance. Once you see how much is out there, you will not stop till you find what you’re excited doing. Abundance will teach you open-mindedness. Keep trying.

Posted in Defying Shadows Articles, Keep Moving: Motivation and Inspiration, Mental Health, Potential and Worth, Self-Care

Defying Shadows Article: How to Manage and Pull Yourself out of a Panic Attack

What are tactics you can use in pulling yourself from a panic attack? If you feel overwhelmed how can you gain control of your intrusive thoughts? What are ways you can manage and understand how to avoid triggers that can potentially lead to a panic attack?

Check out my Defying Shadows article in learning methods to help you through panic attacks.

How to Manage and Pull Yourself out of a Panic Attack

Posted in Confessions, Keep Moving: Motivation and Inspiration, Love, Mental Health, Potential and Worth, Power, Reflection, Self-Talk, What Just Happened: Personal Anecdotes

Dear Nina, Let It Go

Dear Nina,
You’ve been rejected.
You’ve been betrayed.
You’ve been replaced without notice.
You’ve been looked at as second best.
You’ve been abandoned.
You’ve been left behind.
You feel like you will never be a priority.
You feel like no one will love you.
You’ve never been anyone’s favorite.
You’ve been called weak and pushed to the sidelines.
You’ve been underestimated.
You weren’t taken seriously.
You’ve gotten blank stares.
You’ve tried to be perfect.
You’ve tried to make yourself favorable.
You’ve felt less-than.
You’ve felt unattractive and ugly.

But I’m here to rewrite the script for you.

No matter how you’ve shaped your self-worth or what thoughts you thought you got over but in dark times resurfaced, its time to let it go. You are all the things you’ve convinced yourself that you are not. You are beyond worthy of life, love, acceptance, peace and compassion.

Retake your life from the thoughts that hold you hostage. It doesn’t matter anymore. Live in today. Live in right now. Whatever pain you’ve gone through has made you into the beautiful, empathetic, caring, ruthless, ambitious, untouchable, unstoppable creation that is you. You are a progressed product of what has happened and all of that is now over. You lived in the pain and now you’ve learned. Stop picking at the wounds that are healing. Don’t make your wombs bleed again. Sometimes it feels like the same things are happening again, but guess what? Now it’s time to use what you’ve learned. Don’t fall back into the cycles that amplified your depressive or anxious thoughts. You have the power. You have all the power. I will keep telling you until you believe it for yourself.

Sincerely,
SparklyWarTanks
Posted in Confessions, Keep Moving: Motivation and Inspiration, Potential and Worth, Power, Quotes, Reflection, Self-Care, Self-Talk, What Just Happened: Personal Anecdotes

Purposeful Pain

Some morning are particularly hard, but this morning made it to top 5. I had to write myself out of a potential downward spiral into depression. I forced myself to see my self-worth and value even in the midst of heartache and self-doubt. A love letter of sorts to keep going even when feeling emotionally weak.

The face that I look at every morning is powerful and deserves peace of mind and joy amongst other things, but most important she deserves to know that her life is worth something.

As long as her heart beats, purpose flows through every vein all the time. Standing is hard, but I can’t stay down for too long.

Posted in Confessions, Defying Shadows Articles, Keep Moving: Motivation and Inspiration, Mental Health, Other Publications, Potential and Worth, Power, Self-Care, Self-Talk, What Just Happened: Personal Anecdotes

Defying Shadows Article: What I learned After Neglecting My Mental Health

What did I learn after I neglected my mental health? What does neglecting my mental health look like? Why is prioritizing your mental health important? How can you improve your mental health?

In my Defying Shadows article, I navigate and discuss my difficult moments with my mental health, how I learned about what mental health is, and why it’s so important.

What I learned After Neglecting My Mental Health

Posted in Keep Moving: Motivation and Inspiration, Mental Health, Potential and Worth, Power, Quotes, Self-Care, Self-Talk, Tips

Start With Yourself

In this context of healing, you are progressing, letting go, moving on, and allowing yourself rest from constant mental turmoil. What does that look like for you? What do you need to come to terms with to allow the healing process to surface and take its course?

Say whatever is bothering your peace of mind out loud. Speak in order to establish the pain. Do not remain in denial or give excuses. What is it that bothers you the most?

When you put together the pain you feel into words affirm and declare something different. Speak in terms of what, why, and how in order to establish contact with the pain and negative thoughts.

What now? What do you need in order to let go? How will you take a step forward from that point of pain?

Start with yourself. Turn pain into peace. Establish peace in pain.