Stress: The Ultimate Unhealthy Lifestyle

Stress Unbalances Your Life

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If you’re like most people nowadays, you’ve accepted a high level of stress as a normal part of your lifestyle. Is it any wonder people are lashing out, and being hateful and ugly to others? You simply cannot live a healthy, balanced, happy life when your stress level is constantly off the charts. Your mind and body, like a pressure cooker, need to blow off steam somehow. Unfortunately, too many people think it’s OK to do so at the expense of someone else.

I’m here to tell you, spewing vitriol at someone else, be it verbally, physically, or in print is a sure way to escalate your body’s stress. Hate and abuse fuel stress. They don’t assuage it. Think about the last time you argued with someone. Did screaming at each other make things better? Were you able to calm yourself and think rationally while flinging abuse and accusations? Or were you better served by stepping away, taking a few deep breaths, and speaking calmly?

I don’t know about you, but as long as I’m screaming, or hurling insults and accusations, not only am I not resolving the situation, but I’m growing angrier, and more stressed by the minute. As long as I allow my emotions to lead the charge, I’m losing ground fast, and negatively impacting my own health and well-being. Yet you’re probably doing it on a daily basis without realizing it, even if you’re internalizing everything instead of expressing it.

Physical Signs of Stress

The first step is recognizing the signals your body gives you when it’s experiencing stress. In the beginning, you might need to look for the more obvious signs as you may have already rationalized the subtler ones, and tossed them in your “I’ll deal with it when I have time” pile. These can manifest in many ways, depending on your personality and genetics. According to the Cleveland Clinic, some overt manifestations people experience include:

• Chest pain or a feeling like your heart is racing.
• Exhaustion or trouble sleeping.
• Headaches, dizziness or shaking.
• High blood pressure.
• Muscle tension or jaw clenching.
• Stomach or digestive problems.
• Trouble having sex.
• Weak immune system.

Unrelieved stress can lead to:

• Anxiety or irritability.
• Depression.
• Panic attacks.
• Sadness.

Many people unconsciously express high stress levels with obsessive-compulsive behavior like:

• Gambling
• Drinking
• Shopping
• Sex
• Drugs
• Eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia
• Overeating

This is far from an exhaustive list, however. Unrelieved stress and the associated unhealthy behaviors can lead to activities harmful to the individual, to others, or more than likely, both.

Lashing Out at Others Does You No Favors

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I believe the rash of mass shootings, violence on the part of police officers as well as private citizens, and hate crimes in general are all stress-related. People simply do not have the necessary tools to release stress in a healthy manner, and keep stress levels from spiraling out of control. In fact, so many are already existing at such high levels, I think stress becomes a kind of drug in and of itself. People believe they need to feed their own beast by behaving badly, or blaming innocent people who have nothing to do with it in the first place.

Blaming others, or taking out your frustration and anger on innocent bystanders isn’t the solution. You might think misery loves company, but in truth, miserable people aren’t there because they want to be. They’re there because they’ve gotten stuck on a hamster wheel of unhappiness where they mistakenly believe inflicting misery on others is the only way off. Instead, they run faster and faster, getting nowhere, and growing more angry and frustrated in the process.

The first thing you need to realize is life isn’t a hamster wheel. It’s more of a spiral. That spiral can go up or down, but I guarantee, focusing on your misery means you’re hanging onto the past, and there’s nowhere to go but down. In order to turn around and start spiraling upwards, you have to be willing to cut your ties to the past so you no longer feel angry over real or imagined pain inflicted on you by other people or circumstances. You have to let go of the belief you made bad decisions, or were held back from reaching your dreams by circumstances beyond your control.

Accepting Life’s Imperfections

No one’s life is perfect. How you deal with those imperfections, molding them and shaping them, or allowing them to mold and shape you is where the choice between happiness or misery lives. You can’t always control a situation, but you can always control how your respond to it. Do you react, or do you take a step back and disconnect from any thoughts or feelings that it’s personal? Here’s a clue. Nothing anyone else says or does is personal.

Unkind words and acts come from a person’s own pain. It may feel like they’re trying to inflict some of that pain on you, but the truth is, you just happened to be in the line of fire when they let loose. It could have been anyone. In their unhappiness and misery, they need to release the pressure, but haven’t yet learned to do so constructively. If you can detach, and understand they truly had no intended target, it will be easier to stop the knee-jerk reaction.

I realize it’s often easier said than done, especially when another’s actions or words hit one of your own pain points. Like establishing a healthy habit, refraining from reacting to another’s pain takes practice. Stopping your own emotions from triggering is hard work, especially when buttons attached to your own unhealed trauma or pain are inadvertently pushed.

The Cycle Ends With You

Sure, there are some who seem to know exactly which buttons to push to get you to react, but if they do, it’s because, like Pavlov’s dog, you’ve given them a similar reaction enough times to train them where to aim. Take away the conditioned response they’re expecting, and I assure you, they’ll aim elsewhere. It might still be you until you’ve trained yourself to remain impassive, or even sympathetic to their attacks, but eventually, they’ll tire of failing to get the response they want, and might even believe they need.

There are times when a person is so angry, miserable, and toxic, your only option is to detach completely. If it’s someone you care about, this isn’t an easy choice. I look at it this way. Who will always be there to look after your well-being? Who will never abandon you, or be called away on other business when you need support the most? Who simply has other priorities?

The answer is simple. The only person in the world who will never have priorities more important than yours is you. Everyone else is bound to take care of themselves first. Many allow themselves to push aside their own needs to support someone else, and likely, you’re one of them. Until you feel strong, supported, and recharged, you’re more of a hindrance than a help to anyone else. So get your priorities in order. Support yourself so you can honor your nurturing side and support others in a manner that feeds your heart and soul instead of draining them.

Turn Your Life Around With Gratitude

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful I learned to fill my own cup first.
2. I’m grateful I’m learning no one can hurt me without my permission.
3. I’m grateful I’m learning nothing is personal.
4. I’m grateful I’m learning to take a step back before reacting in anger or pain.
5. I’m grateful for abundance; love, respect, compassion, kindness, friendship, sanity, joy, peace, health, balance, harmony, philanthropy, and prosperity.

Namaste

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.

If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook as Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author

Compassion Freely Given

Losing My Heart in the Month of Love

Dylan My Heart

February ended on a low note for me. I won’t sugar coat it. In so doing, it taught me a couple of valuable lessons. But let me lay the ground work first.

Though the vets and I fought hard, my sweet boy, Dylan lost his last battle, and went home to join Toby, Scooby, Munchkin, Loki, and Patches, as well as the many cats who came before them all. I grieve all of their losses, but Dylan, and Toby before him are probably the hardest of all. Dylan was my soul cat, and Toby had a way of winding his gargantuan, fluffy self around your heart.

Dylan chose me by putting his paws on my shoulders and licking my cheek when I met him at PetSmart. We’ve been a bonded pair for over 14 years. He’s gotten me through the losses of the others, and some pretty rough roads on my rarely smooth, and never dull lifetime journey. I’m not entirely sure how I’ll get through the next ones, though Scrappy Doo, Pyewacket, Mulan, Cinders, and Max are doing their best to ensure I do.

So many people reached out to me during Dylan’s unsuccessful fight for life, boosting my spirits, making me feel loved, and ultimately, sharing my pain. Support came from so many directions I didn’t expect, and didn’t come from one I did. At first, I was angry, but as I dealt with my grief, and continued to receive an outpouring of love and compassion from many directions I realized something. Who you give compassion to is your choice. That being said, though you’ll always give more to some than others, it shouldn’t be selective, yet I, myself have been guilty of offering it selectively.

Expect Nothing, Appreciate Everything

Only by experiencing lack from an unexpected direction am I learning to look in the mirror and recognize I need to acknowledge an area where I need to make improvements. Though it hurts to experience this particular lack, I doubt the lesson would have been as meaningful any other way, or have raised my own failings to a level where I’d be inclined to do something about it.

I realize compassion is most genuine and honest when it’s given without judgement or reservation, to any and all who need it. Sometimes those who need it most are the ones we’re least inclined to give it to. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the words, deeds, or affiliations that inhibit your compassionate nature. Those are simply a reflection of their internal pain, and magnify their need for compassion rather than judgement.

Learning not to expect compassion is the first piece of a two-part lesson for me. The funny thing is, I don’t typically believe certain bonds would mean it was always there. I took it for granted those bonds couldn’t be broken, and in that, I was wrong on two counts, the first of which was taking anything for granted.

The human element of free will means people will often do the unexpected, both positively and negatively. More often than not, it’s in the gray area that’s neither. Thus, the best rule of thumb I’ve learned when dealing with humans is; expect nothing, appreciate everything.

Letting Go of Expectations

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Failing to find compassion where I once expected it has actually taught me a couple of things. Not only will I look for more opportunities to offer compassion myself, and to do so while putting my judgement aside, I’ll be more likely to recognize and appreciate every single bit that comes my way.

Knowing what I see is the tip of the iceberg, and is given from someone’s heart unreservedly is truly the greatest gift one person can give to another. Recognizing compassion is never an obligation, but always a true, honest desire is reinforcing my faith in humanity.

Feeling compassion for those who are as yet unable to offer it themselves is part of one of my own life lessons. Giving kindness and compassion isn’t about getting anything in return. It’s about living from your heart, or to use the phrase I adopted a couple of years ago, “putting your whole heart forward”. It doesn’t mean you won’t get slapped down or stomped on at times. It means you’re willing to risk it because kindness and love feel better than anger and hate, or worse, indifference. That process, contrary to popular belief, begins with what you exude, not with what you receive.

Learning to Respond Rather than React

It doesn’t mean I’m not working through my own hurt, angry spaces, or that there aren’t people to whom I simply can’t offer compassion right now. But I do recognize I need to work through the hurt and anger, find forgiveness, and allow myself to see the pain from which their words or actions came in the first place. Most of all, I need to recognize and accept their pain has nothing to do with me, nor can I do anything to assuage it. Sometimes, stepping away and offering no further fuel is an act of kindness and compassion in and of itself.

I guess what I’m saying is compassion comes in many forms. While the overt examples are easiest to recognize, the subtle ones are probably more commonplace than you realize. It might be sending good thoughts towards a woman who’s child is screaming in a store, or the aforementioned stepping away from a situation so you no longer fuel another’s anger or pain.

In situations like these, it’s all too easy to react with anger or frustration, thereby making the whole situation worse. Giving yourself a moment to step back, and maybe put yourself into the other person’s shoes can give them space to do the same. Instead of having to defend the child, or their own irrational response, you give them space to deal with what’s in front of them without feeling judged or defensive. Think about how many times you’ve been the one feeling judged, exposed, and frustrated. How far did someone else’s calmness or understanding go in defusing the situation for you? Conversely, how did someone else’s judgement and anger escalate things until they were completely out of control?

The older I get, and the more I’m able to recognize compassion in its many forms, the more I realize I’m responsible for my own behavior. I’m the one who gets to choose whether to react and escalate another’s pain, or respond and assuage it. It took a lot of personal pain for me to finally realize not only do I have the choice, but that the choice is obvious.

Grateful for the Many Blessings in My Life

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for the lessons that taught me to choose compassion.
2. I’m grateful for the pain I’ve experienced which allows me to understand others are struggling too.
3. I’m grateful for the people who’ve shown me by their examples that I, too can be a compassionate human being.
4. I’m grateful for the people in my life who make my road a little smoother.
5. I’m grateful for abundance; love, compassion, friendship, kindness, peace, harmony, balance, health, philanthropy, and prosperity.

Namaste

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.

If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook as Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author

Are You Letting Your Hot Buttons Mask What Matters?

Reacting With Your Hot Button

Once again, the world, and especially the US is in a turmoil over a hot button. This time, the button is (for the bazillionth time) abortion. Equally predictable is the fact it masks a much more insidious agenda: women’s rights and the current administration’s continued attack on Roe vs. Wade. Make no mistake. The decision in Alabama and elsewhere is nothing less than an effort to take women’s rights back to a time when women were nothing more than chattel, and of less value than a man’s livestock.

Forget the fact that the Human Race would die out in short order without women to continue bearing children. Ignore the fact that all the culling efforts in China to select for male children has led to a serious shortage of those women to give said males a way to keep their name alive. The simple and sordid fact is, men know women have the ability and the brains to be their equal or maybe more, and they’re resorting to underhanded tactics to bring them back to their knees, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

Women in Power Are Being Manipulated Too

Yet, as the decision in Alabama indicates, there are women in high places who are buying into this load of hogwash because the men behind the plan know how to push the hot button called “abortion” and blow it so far out of proportion as to spread rampant lies about late-term abortions which, for the record aren’t abortions at all. They’re Births! Never mind the fact that in the words of Planned Parenthood:

Generally, in the US, abortion is an option from very early pregnancy (somewhere between 4-6 weeks, depending on where you go) until about 24 weeks. Abortions are available later than 24 weeks only in rare cases for medical reasons. (bold and italics added)

I know I’ll take some heat over this reference, but as Planned Parenthood’s primary concern is women’s health, I’m more inclined to believe them than some of the more questionable sources out there.

Fake News Again!

Unfortunately, all too many are taking sides on the fake-news-fueled issue, failing to do their own due diligence (no real surprise there) and thinking legislation regulating what women can do with their bodies is a good thing!

Seriously! Let’s listen to science. At least the results are provable and replicable, which is more than I can say for what’s coming out of the mouths of the fanatics lately.

Still and all, people are taking to the streets, social media, and anywhere else they think they have a platform, and shouting their opinions to the hills without digging deeper into the hows and whys of the latest hornswoggling.

Manipulation Runs Rampant

Let’s look at a few possible reasons behind pressing one of our most emotion-grabbing hot buttons:

• Who is the real power behind the throne, so to speak. In other words, who’s behind everyone jumping into an old, tired, yet still emotionally charged fray?
• Where are the horrific pictures and videos they’re posting coming from?
• Why do people react to words and pictures with fabricated captions instead of going back to the source to find out what those words, pictures, and videos really represent?
• What do all of the emotionally triggered issues have in common when you trace them back to their roots?
• What are the people behind them truly hoping to achieve?
• How are they using fear and horror to manipulate others to act and speak instead of think?

When I was younger, I heard a suggestion to count to 10 before voicing anger. The point was, when your ire (or for that matter, any other highly charged emotion) is triggered, it’s unwise to let loose with your first reaction. As I grew older, and life got faster as a result of technology, the sentiment changed a bit, but essentially remained the same. If you want to respond to an email or call which set you off, it’s best to sleep on it before dashing off an emotionally charged tirade.

Acting Without Thinking

In this world of instant gratification, and yes, a proliferation of lemming mentality, people act out their outrage as quickly as it occurs. They don’t take a step back or look closely at what set them off to determine its validity. Their emotions are triggered and they react accordingly.

So we hate entire cultural groups for no good reason. We boycott companies because we’ve been told they mistreated someone from a group we support. Our police officers’ lives are in more danger than ever, and in some cases, they overreact as a result. After all, they’re as human as we are, even if they’re highly trained. You bombard a human with enough stimulation, most will still crack, regardless of training and extraordinary levels of control.

Missing the Point

We jump up and down about the attacks on Roe vs. Wade, the rights of women to make decisions about their own bodies, and more, missing the entire point, exactly as the button pushers planned. While the shepherd sleeps, the thieves run away with the flock. Except, in this case, we are the sheep.

What rights are we giving away willingly because this game of sleight of hand has us looking in the wrong direction? What are we accepting willingly because we’re reacting with our emotions instead of thinking with our brains. We’re forgetting to ask for the whole story instead of what a bunch of scared old doddering idiots want us to know? How much of our proverbial farm are we going to give away before we wake up and start asking questions? If we ever do.

How long are we going to argue with people who don’t listen before we realize how much effort we’ve wasted, and how much ground we’ve already lost?

Taking a Pause for the Real Cause

If you ask me, it’s in our collective best interests to:

• Count to 10, or even 100 before reacting/responding to inflammatory stories or comments.
• Sleep on it before mounting a campaign for, against, or anything else.
• Dig deep. See what’s behind the comments, decisions, legislation, or campaigns of anyone who raises hot issues once, or repeatedly. Lift the curtain and see what lurks behind it.

All too often, things aren’t what they seem, and few in power have anyone’s best interests at heart but their own. I hate to say it, but in many areas these days, the admonition “Trust No One” is apt and good advice to follow. There are many who, if they told me the sky was blue, I’d go outside and check. Even then, I’d probably do some research about the sky and how we perceive the color. I might even look into colors themselves and what truly constitutes “blue”.

Being a skeptic in today’s climate, even with our own reactions is probably safer, wiser, and in the long run, more efficient. It will save hours of time spent following a rut-ridden path to nowhere fast. I’m taking the position, when all else fails to say “Show me the money”. Not in the usual sense, of asking for payment, but instead, to illuminate the sources behind the stories they want us to buy into. I’ll then be able to do my own due diligence and determine whether I think that source and the information it flings can be trusted.

Questioning Everything Beats Questioning Nothing

All too often, when emotions are triggered, I’m already taking the position the source is suspect and fueling it’s own agenda at the expense of the greater good. Then again, I fear the greater good hasn’t been a consideration for a very long time, and it’s supporters are being forced to put their efforts into keeping their own heads above water. The masses are being left without support or representation. History has shown us that turning large groups of people loose to fend for themselves after having their basic needs (food, shelter) provided for lifetimes leads to its own set of problems, both personal and social.

Still, lack of a transitional period gives the powerful reason to point at the failures and convince themselves they’d been right to try to maintain the status quo, ignorant of less obvious basic needs like human dignity. What’s needed instead is simply transition and support rather than casting people out to sink or swim in their hideously under-prepared state. Worse still when support is withdrawn without warning or preparation.

Teaching the Masses to be Self-Supporting

It’s like kicking a baby out of the womb and telling her she must now fend for herself. There has been no warning or preparation; no skills learned or even a basic understanding of what needs to be done. Those who ensured the masses could survive and even thrive are now mired in garbage-filled bogs, fighting for their own lives, unable to offer even a minimal amount of guidance or support.

Still, the masses think with their hot buttons, react to wildly exaggerated claims, and fight amongst themselves, just as they’re supposed to. They’re rats in a maze, changing directions with every new electrical shock. Mindlessly racing around, getting nowhere, until they collapse from exhaustion, little realizing they’re locked in an endless, unsolvable maze, dancing to someone else’s tune.

If you ask me, the world needs a pause button to give people time to catch up, breathe, stop reacting, and learn some of those critical skills so they can advocate for themselves and their peers. More, they deserve an opportunity to see the truth, and to properly dispose of all the garbage being flung. There’s still beauty and purpose underneath all the crap, but the chest-pounding, reacting, and internal fighting has to stop before we’ll see the flower pushing it’s way through the sidewalk crack.

Are you ready to give that flower space to bloom? I’ll bring the broom if you’ll grab a rake and help me clear the way.

Let’s Do This Together!

Are you struggling to wade through all the garbage that keeps you from reaching your goals? Would you like to help clearing the way? Maybe it’s content creation, or perhaps it’s getting your books in order and creating a budget. If this sounds familiar and you’re ready to streamline your life and give your business space to grow and thrive, CONTACT ME and let’s talk!

Start Clearing the Way With Gratitude

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for my community. We have people who know how to navigate the sewer of falseness, and see where we’re being manipulated rather than led. We share research, and more, support each other.
2. I’m grateful for setbacks which teach me I’m not alone in finding those who’d hold me back for their own gain.
3. I’m grateful for strength to weather a setback, and with the help of my friends and community, get back up and forge forward again.
4. I’m grateful for my butt-kickers who empathize, but don’t allow me to wallow.
5. I’m grateful for abundance: love, friendship, support, community, lessons, challenges, opportunities, healthy, peace, harmony, philanthropy, and prosperity.

Love and Light

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a writer, blogger, ghostwriter, and advocate for cats. Sheri believes in the Laws , of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author or in her new group, Putting Your Whole Heart Forward

Time to Re-set Our Triggers

Recognizing Reactions Are Our Triggers

This morning, I got a wake up call in the form of a kick in the pants, virtually. Upon reading a friend’s post which started “after my morning bible study” I caught myself thinking disdainful, unkind, and utterly unwarranted thoughts. Catching myself in those thoughts, I pulled up short and asked: how is morning bible study any different from my own practice of writing morning pages? I had to answer honestly that it’s no different, any more than praying is different from my practice of meditating.

How we do what we do isn’t nearly as important as the fact we take time to listen and learn every day. What does it matter that some people use a book or listen to someone they respect, or call the source of their guidance by a name I don’t choose to recognize? They’re doing something which ultimately makes them treat others with more compassion, and treat themselves respectfully too.

The thought stream continued as I chopped vegetables for the large bowl of salad I like to keep in my refrigerator to ensure at least part of what I eat is healthy. I started thinking about the friends who are on the opposite side of the ring in today’s political arena. All too often, I’ll find myself thinking How can they possibly believe that way given everything that’s being said and done these days?

We’re the Same When You Peel Away the Layers

Suddenly, I wanted to laugh like a loon. I realized from their point of view, my beliefs are equally unfathomable. Nevertheless, we’re friends and don’t see a need to argue our points. In fact, most of the time, when a hot issue is raised by someone who sees things opposite from the way I do, I’ll either make an innocuous comment before going silent, or, if the conversation continues with others who agree with them, I’ll find the opportunity to slip away.

I’ve learned, often the hard way that when our belief in something or someone has any kind of emotional trigger, it’s unlikely either side will be able to look at things through the eyes of the other. Even now as many people are claiming the economy is in better shape than ever, I look at the latest drop in stock values, or I want to ask what the current poverty level sits at. What are the major indicators which point to a healthy or weak economy, and do they consider factors for all economic levels, or just the ones deemed worthy of measurement? I know my disbelief has a strong basis in my emotional reactions to factors indirectly related to the economy. As such, I need a whole lot more than someone telling me things are better. And, I’m embarrassed to admit, it would have to come from a source I feel (not believe as it’s a purely emotional response) is reputable, preferably with facts and figures I can verify myself.

We all have our biases, no matter how hard we try not to. Even as many are trying to present both sides, their sources are typically ones they trust, and rarely a source they don’t. As such, they too are biased in what they choose to share. I’ve learned there’s no such thing as a completely unbiased opinion or report when it comes to the media, or humans for that matter. I’ve tried to counteract the bias somewhat by looking at the same story as told by a source with whom I have faith, as well as a source I have mentally deemed the bearer of fake news. When both sides agree (which actually does happen) on the recounting of a fact, I tend to conclude there’s more of a likelihood the information is valid than if each side told a completely different story.

Pause to Respond Instead of React

It isn’t always easy to step back and not try to argue a point, or question words used, or have a knee-jerk reaction to something I oppose on a visceral level. I’m learning it’s often a matter of pausing for a few seconds to allow my brain to engage, allowing me to respond rather than react. In that brief span of time, I can not only consider the words, but the speaker, and formulate a response which won’t incite an unnecessary argument.

It’s often impossible to tell why someone poses a question on a topic they know is highly emotional. Sometimes, they honestly want to understand how others feel. Others, they want to start a debate. There might also be a need on their part to see how many people are on the same page they are, and with whom they can openly “discuss” a subject they already agree on. My goal right now is to avoid getting sucked in if their purpose is anything other than the first one. To ensure my success, a pause is crucial because if I allow the first thing I think of to come out of my mouth, I’ve already undermined any opportunity I might have had to understand another point of view.

Creating Safe Zones With Our Experiences

I talk about a lot of sensitive subjects these days and endeavor to be a safe zone where those topics can be discussed by others who have been through similar challenges without fear of judgement or worse, the listener trying to fix something that isn’t broken in the traditional sense of the word. Quite often, a discussion ensues for the sole purpose of feeling support from our community.

We open up to people about our lives to enable connection. Sharing what isn’t perfect in our lives lets others know we have parts of ourselves we’re working on, just like they do. Sharing is like a door into our world. The door is an empathic connection between hearts. When one heart is closed, the door won’t open because the connection is missing and the corresponding door may not even exist.

Walls That Isolate Us

When we’ve been hurt or traumatized, we build walls to protect ourselves. In the moment, we don’t think about creating a way for people to come in and out. We’re simply trying to block out the pain and discomfort. We build walls without gates; houses without doors and windows. Only when we’ve built up some scar tissue do we realize we omitted something important. Then we have to decide whether a bit of demolition to correct the oversight is worth the pain we know we’ll endure by cracking the edifice we constructed so intensely in a moment when we were all feelings and no logic.

Knocking out a hole in the wall to make room for a door means releasing some of the pent-up pain we walled in during construction. With no guarantee that whoever is on the other side will be gentle with the flood of feelings, we huddle behind the wall, often imagining the worst. We believe only what comes to us from people and places we trust implicitly.

Endure Initial Pain to Re-set our Triggers

The trouble is, we huddle behind those pain-induced walls for so many reasons. We isolate ourselves from the mainstream of life without even realizing it. We do it every time we close our minds to how similar we are, despite our disagreement on what we believe are monumental issues. If we stopped to realize how similar we are, we’d never have to withhold our feelings again.

What we believe to the depths of our souls might not be the same, but how we came by those beliefs, if taken down to the basic components is exactly the same. It’s a crazy mix of what we read, what we hear, what we’ve been taught by example, and what triggers are set off inside us which filter how we process stimuli that has our neurons working overtime trying to keep up.

If you ask me, it’s not the beliefs we need to relax our death grip on. Instead, we need to go back and revisit the birth of our triggers and reprogram them. We need to find a compassion for ourselves we walled away during times of stress. When we accept ourselves as works in progress, we’ll find it easier to accept others with their differences of opinion, their areas of strength and weakness, and triggers of their own much more easily. I’ve always believed that if we learn to love ourselves, we extend that love to others effortlessly. Now, more than ever, I believe it’s true, because I see far too much self-loathing, buried deep within every one of us.

Many of us have come a long way on the road to self-acceptance, but have places deep inside that still fight our efforts to love ourselves unconditionally. An organism or being which loves itself unconditionally doesn’t need to react from an emotional place of hurt and insecurity because they’ve loved the hurt and insecurity away.

Start with Gratitude

My gratitudes today are;

1. I am grateful for virtual but kicks.
2. I am grateful I can laugh at my own foibles and backwards steps.
3. I am grateful I’m learning to love myself unconditionally, and give up on the idea of perfection.
4. I am grateful for the people in my life who love and support me, and know I don’t expect them to agree with me on everything. In fact, I’d prefer they didn’t.
5. I am grateful for abundance; inspiration, motivation, excitement, anticipation, joy, love, friendship, encouragement, opportunities, new people, harmony, peace, health, philanthropy, and prosperity.

Love and Light

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a writer, blogger, ghostwriter, and advocate for cats. Sheri believes in the Laws , of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author or in her new group, Putting Your Whole Heart Forward.