The goal of last week’s blog was to learn how to avoid adding more emotional weight. This week we will look at ways to shed those thoughts that weigh down your life.How do I lose weight? My intake of food is smaller than my output of energy. I burn more calories than I eat.How do I lose emotional weight? My input of thoughts from external influences is less than my output of actions from those influences. I pay attention to my “self” more than messages from outside of “self”.Self. My mind is not me. The voice in my mind is from my culture and upbringing, and is filled with fears. It creates chaos and leads me down the wrong roads, creating a life I do not desire.

Who Am I?

Our identities come in the form of an “I”.I am a businesswoman.I am a mother.I am a friend.I am a yoga teacher.I blow-dry my hair.I enjoy summer more than winter.Being a mother, friend, yoga teacher are all authentic identities and I know this because I am content in this area of my life.Sometimes we take on identities that are not aligned with our authentic selves. When this happens, we suffer.

 How do we gain emotional weight?

Children are born with clarity about who they are, until culture and upbringing erode their ability to hold onto the parts of them that are fundamental to who they are.Because children are desperate to please, and get the rewards of love, they begin to compromise their values and identities.An artist becomes a businessman, a businessman becomes a doctor, and a teacher becomes a lawyer. In my case, a writer became a businesswoman. We believe that this is who we are and we no longer remember who we once were. As we do this, we pack on the emotional pounds.

Find your unique self and lose unwanted emotional weight

What is self? Self is a feeling or a sense of what we want. In each of us exists a unique sense of what we desire. When this desire is left alone, we can take action from it and create our desired life.As I cultivated the skill to turn inward, look for a sense of my own desires, I began to find what I had been looking for, but had failed to achieve.In locating this sense, I found my unique desires and began taking action from this place. With each decision that originated from my unique desires, I began to feel lighter and happier as the emotional weight dropped off.As I practiced this new skill, I found my authentic self. I knew I had achieved this because I had a sense of calm, joy, “flow”, passion and work no longer felt like work because I did what I loved.

Ready to lose 5 emotional pounds today!

Begin by following these simple principles:

  • Get out of your head. If I asked you to point to yourself, where would you point? Your head or your heart? Most people would point to our heart.
  • Operate from your gut or heart.  When faced with a decision, stop. Turn to your heart and see how it feels.
  • Distinguish between emotions. You want to feel: excited, passionate, interested, curious, open, alive, joyous, stimulated, even disappointed and tired. Yes, you can feel something negative because life does not always work out the way we want. However, when the things we work hard to achieve do not happen, the emotional experience does not overtake our lives. You want to avoid feeling: resentful, anxious, heavy, overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, or depressed.

 My steps to shedding unwanted emotional pounds:

 

  1. I am faced with a decision.
  2. I ignore my mind.
  3. I tune into my body.
  4. I look for what emotional state I am experiencing.
  5. If it is negative, I ask myself what story am I telling myself to cause those negative emotions.
  6. I ask: can I look at it differently and feel differently?
  7. If not, I pass. EVEN WHEN MY MIND IS YELLING AT ME TO SAY YES. Remember the impostor voice returns frequently.
  8. If my body and mind are not aligned, the answer is no, for now.
  9. When I have that gut sense that I am on the right path for me, I move forward.
  10. My sense of what I want(input) drives my actions(output).

 

How do these steps cause emotional weight loss?

Each decision that you make from your “gut” instinct allows you to design the life you desire, shedding the emotional baggage decision by decision. In other words, I gain pounds when I take action from external influences and I lose emotional pounds when I take action from my authentic voice.My mind is the tool that allows me to function in the world. I make choices from my heart and I execute from my head through language, senses, logic, etc.I have a sense, creative instinct, vision, gut feeling, or idea. I use my thoughts to translate this to the world via language, visual arts, music, or any other means possible.Just like the pen writes the thoughts, my mind translates my dreams.