Are we a slave to our own feelings?

I’m sitting in Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas writing this in my last couple of hours here before catching a plane to Phoenix for SFM and Digital Marketer’s Gold convention.

Safe to say Vegas has definitely delivered again, and I’m grateful that I’ve survived! Well… I’m not actually out the city yet so I might be speaking too soon…

ANYWAY

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with one of my buddies who I was here with about your state of mind in certain situations.

We were talking about how the more you work on yourself and the more self-confidence you can develop through personal development, the less a hangover seems to mentally affect you (Yea I know… but stay with me here).

Basically when we’re in a bit of a fragile physical state, it’s very easy to get sucked into a fragile mental state as well.

But I’ve noticed through meditation and working on myself, that being hungover seems to have less of an impact mentally. Before, I’d get sucked into how bad I felt, and I’d wanna hide away from people and avoid social interaction.

We are not the hangover

But really that was coming from a place of insecurity. Feeling that I’m not myself, feeling that I have to try and pretend to be someone else in that moment, or feeling that people will judge me and think shy, quiet, boring etc.

However once you reach a point where you really don’t care what people choose to think about you, the mental limitations disappear.

Yes you might be physically not in a great way when you’re hungover (Thanks Vegas), but mentally you can choose to step away from that feeling, you can choose to observe it, and not need to try and “deliver” on some image that you have in your head of how you think people should see you.

Become the “Watcher”

Another thing that I’ve started doing, is to observe the feelings in my body. I don’t become them, I just watch them.

Those feelings in that moment are not you, because you are far more than your physical state. You can choose to watch those feelings, notice that your body is not feeling 100% right now, but beyond that the essence of who you are is still exactly the same person. You don’t need to become those feelings.

And this applies to so many other things as well. If you’re in a business meeting and you need to do a presentation for example, but you’re very self conscious about how you’re going to come across… then your presentation will likely not be your best.

However if you choose to not take other’s impressions of you personally, if you believe in yourself no matter what others think of you, and you decide to observe the feelings of nervousness within your body instead of becoming those feelings… Then it completely frees you up to live life in a totally unrestricted and authentic way.

Because think of it, who is the only one who might really care what others think of you? You. Only you. And if we chose to not care about that instead of feeling paralysed by it and living inside our own heads, life is far less stressful, far more enjoyable, and we can be ourselves.

Two of the best ways that I’ve found to work on this are meditation, and pushing your comfort zones and putting yourself in situations that you fear. Because every time you do something you fear, so many other things become much easier.

As your comfort zone grows, so does the number of things that you feel confident doing.

So look into meditation, and do things that scare you. Every day. Do you find yourself getting sucked into your feelings, or future projecting scenarios based on what you think others think of you?

Becoming aware enables change.

Have an amazing week, we’ll speak soon.

Dan