Many of us have such mixed feelings right now:
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The doom and gloom in the news
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The events of two weeks ago with Meghan Markle, Sarah Everard all coinciding with International Women’s day
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The excitement of a roadmap out of the current crisis by June 21st
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The anxiety of how will I adapt, how will my children adapt?
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The waiting on when will my family and I get the vaccine
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The lack of connection of not being able to see friends and family face to face
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The lack of touch by not being able to hug
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The financial worries about self- employment or making sure you stay at the top of your game to be the one that keeps your job if it all goes tits up!
With all this buzzing in your head, how do you stay sane and keep a clear head?
Well I’ve used a technique for a number of years and it’s simple…. “get **it out of your head!’
I can honestly say that I journaled my way through 2020
(you will be able see part of this as I’m sharing my story in a book collaboration, so i’ll let you know when it’s ready)
The aim of it is to stop feeling overwhelmed and to help you recognise patterns of thoughts, emotional and physical feelings, and behaviours. Recognising these patterns, can help us make choices on how we react and respond to them. Whether you prefer to talk it out or write it down, you will feel better just to get it out of your head.
For me I know that whilst it’s still in my head I can’t organise or prioritise it . If it’s something I have strong emotions or beliefs about, if left alone it can become like a bottle of pop waiting to explode. Sometimes I find it difficult to talk about my emotions. Getting it out by writing it down however gives me a way to rationalise and manage my feelings to be able to make better choices.
1.Talk it out
One of the NHS 5 ways to wellbeing is – connect . Connecting to good listeners who allow you to connect deeply can really help you, just getting it out of your mouth can be enough.
Sometimes it helps to make bullet points of what you want to talk about but by talking It can really help to relieve the potential stress and thoughts.
2.Brain dumps
Brain dumps can really help to get everything out of your head. When you do this activity, you should not worry about creating any order of these thoughts initially, just get all your thoughts down onto paper.
Once you have done this, you may decide you need to step away from your brain dump for a short period of time. Then return when you are ready to start forming actions. Or you may be ready to form actions straight away. Neither approach is right or wrong, just choose what you need at that moment. For example, if you need to do a brain dump to help you sleep, trying to then organise your thought at 2am, is not the best time, wait until you are refreshed.
Overwhelming feelings can hit at any time and place, you may find it helpful to have a notebook with you at all times, including putting it next to your bed when you sleep. This means you are always in a position where you can clear your head. Sometimes people will use their phones, but remember we have a lot of screen time already in our lives and the act of writing itself can be a key activity to make us feel better. This is especially true at night if you cannot sleep, reaching for the phone can hinder sleep even more.
So Grab a notebook and brain dump what is currently in your head. You do not need to wait until you are in an overwhelmed state for this to work. This can become part of your weekly or daily planning.
3.Organising your thoughts
Examine what you have written, think about how you could organise this into more of a plan of action. Consider putting the information into different headings. You can make these heading such as those in your jigsaw pieces, you can sort into things you can control and things you can’t so you can focus on what you can take action on whilst letting the other feelings go or you can organise them into more of a to do type list e.g important , not important or things i can control, things i can’t
4. Taking action
Once you’ve decided on the best way to organise your thoughts, think about what actions you need to undertake – creating stepping stones as opposed to complete solutions are fine at this stage. Also asking yourself what and who could help can help you to achieve more in less time, whether it be outsourcing or asking a family or friends to help.
This is just one of the 26 elements covered in my “Human Reboot’ Model – My unique formula for living, that will get you bouncing out of bed in a morning so you can be the true version of you and have the confidence to live the life the way you want to… Because you want more and you deserve more.
If you would like to hear more about how you can improve your wellbeing then I am looking for 8 people in April to join the next intake, so just drop me a message if you’d like to learn more
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