Do you ever feel tired or stressed, but in a deep, hard-to-explain kind of way? It’s like something is off in the very core of your being, and it eats away at you.

 

If this sounds familiar, then you need to get your spirit right. The idea of the spirit is nebulous, and no two people perfectly agree on what it means, but we can probably all agree that when things feel off that deep inside, any source of relief sounds great.

 

There are things that are good for your spirit. Some you have considered. Others might seem novel. The four below can help you search your soul a bit to find a way to relieve your stress and lift your spirit.

 

Walking Away

 

You don’t need to completely upend your life over some advice you read on the internet. But, there is a good chance that there is something in your life that you don’t need. There’s a bad habit or vice — something small — that you are actually ready to walk away from.

 

You already have it in mind, don’t you?

 

Walk away. Resolve to do it right now. You aren’t quitting all of your vices. You aren’t fixing everything in your life that brings you down. You’re just getting rid of this one small thing that bothers you. In a few weeks, when you look back, your spirit will thank you.

 

Giving Something Away

 

This is an old idea. We all know that selflessness can be great for your spirit. The key idea here is to really hone in on a specific act of selflessness. If you give away something that you personally value, your spirit will thank you.

 

For some, it might be money. For others, time means more than anything else. It could be an object of personal value. If you give it to someone who will need or appreciate it more than you, and you do it in person, you will reap spiritual benefits.

 

Doing Chores

 

There are two ways chores can help you. The first is psychological. Getting chores off of your list gives you a sense of accomplishment. It can also quiet some of the nagging in the back of your mind, and both of those things are good for you.

 

There’s also a spiritual component. When you do your chores, you are expending time and energy to show respect to your environment (which is not necessarily THE environment). Investing some of yourself into your surroundings puts a little of your spirit into them, and that will reflect back to you in positive ways.

 

Active Meditation

 

Most people recognize that meditation can be good for you, but meditation doesn’t have to be about quiet and stillness. Active meditation is the idea of doing an activity that allows your mind room for freedom.

 

For many people, taking a walk counts. Yoga might be great for you. A lot of crafts and hobbies can be meditative too. The point is to immerse yourself in the activity to allow it to bring you to a meditative state.

And, if you haven’t found your meditative activity yet, start exploring. That process will be good for your spirit too.

 

 

Before we dive full force into how to deal with self sabotage, let’s define what self sabotage is.

Self sabotage can be described as:

You, acting against your own best interests.

Why would anyone decide to act against their own best interests, you ask?

Most often, it has to do with the way a person frames their expectations. But we’ll get to this further on. For now, let’s look at an example.

Let’s say you’re trying to lose 30 pounds. Let’s even say you’ve been trying to lose these 30 pounds for the last 10 years.

The question, then, is: Why have you fallen short?

The answer is: Self sabotage stemming from impossible expectations.

(We promise this isn’t circular reasoning. Keep reading …)

Why Self Sabotage Often Wins

The reason you haven’t been able to stick with your plan to lose 30 pounds is because of the way you’ve framed your problem. Instead of using logic and reasoning, you’ve likely been setting totally out-of-reach expectations for yourself and framing your problem (the challenge to lose 30 lbs.) as an all-or-nothing affair. 

Here are some examples of this phenomenon in action:

• You wake up in the morning and tell yourself you want to lose weight, so you should completely stop eating sugary, fatty foods. Later that day, someone offers you a donut at work, and you take it and eat it. This is an example of self sabotage.
• You wake up in the morning and tell yourself you want to lose weight, so you need to start going to a walk-in aerobics class every single day after work. That day, you feel too tired, though, so you ditch and go home instead. This is an example of self sabotage.
• You wake up in the morning and tell yourself you want to lose weight, so you should eat a healthy, well-balanced breakfast every morning. You take too long getting ready for work, however, so you have to grab a sugary “breakfast bar” on the way out the door instead. This is an example of self sabotage.

Self sabotage is when you actively give yourself permission to go against your own “rules”. But here’s the kicker: It’s self sabotage because you are the one who has created those rules … and often, they are not at all realistic.

So, how do we change this?

Deflating the Negative Power of Perfectionism

Perfectionism is often what’s at the heart of self sabotage and outrageous, self-inflicted expectations.

Note that in each of the examples above, what you told yourself “in the morning” was a goal that is actually very difficult to achieve — especially when you do little to no planning. 

The expectation, for instance, that you can completely cut out sugary and fatty foods is absurd. Telling yourself that you’ll exercise every day after work when you know you’ll be tired and will just want to go home? Give yourself a break! And finally, deciding to have a huge, well-balanced and nutritious breakfast every morning is fine … but how exactly are you going to execute this when you probably never have enough time in the morning to begin with?

You must learn to work with yourself and be realistic.

What all of this comes down to is slowing down, looking at each issue that is causing you problems or that you could possibly change, and deciding on a realistic, logical, doable task that could make your situation better.

This is how you deal with self sabotage. You stop giving yourself permission to act against your own best interests. And you start strategizing and creating realistic thinking patterns and attainable doing patterns that will actually create change for the better in your life.

We have all done things that we regret. It’s an unfortunate part of the human experience. Most of the time, you can just acknowledge that it was a bad decision, apologize to the people you need to apologize to and move on. Sometimes, though, you can’t let go, can’t get past it – you can’t forgive yourself.

But you need to – and here’s why.

Why should you forgive yourself?

Self-forgiveness brings peace. It is good for both your mental and physical health. When you can’t forgive yourself, it brings torment and suffering. You ruminate on what happened and it erodes your emotional wellbeing.

This affects your relationships, how you function at work, how you sleep, even how well your organs function and how easily your body can fight illness. You may not realize it, but holding on to that thing and refusing to forgive yourself for it is like holding a toxic substance in your body. And like a toxic substance, it will eventually destroy you.

Why is forgiving yourself so hard?

We are our own worst critic. Most people are harder on themselves than they are on others. This can lead to difficulty in self-forgiveness. Often, though, the person carries a skewed sense of responsibility for the event, and they feel shame for it. Often, they believe that:

• They don’t deserve to be happy.
• If they do forgive themselves, then they are condoning what they believe they did.
• By forgiving themselves for this, they open themselves up to repeat the hurtful or harmful act.
• They deserve to suffer.

These things are not true, but they can certainly keep you from giving yourself the gift of forgiveness.

What should you forgive yourself for?

The things you need to forgive yourself for are the things that you can’t seem to put behind you. It’s the thing or things that replay in your mind, that keep you awake at night and cause you to feel shame. That looks different for different people.

Maybe you have a past you’re not proud of and even though you have moved past those things and live a different life, you can’t stop beating yourself up for it.  If you have failed relationships in your past, if you have weaknesses, if you’ve made mistakes, those could all be things that you need to forgive yourself for.

If it is eating you up, you need to process it and forgive yourself.

What if you can’t forgive yourself?

The first step in forgiving yourself is to accept responsibility. It’s hard to forgive yourself if you don’t take responsibility both personally and to the person you hurt or wronged. Sometimes it is not possible to talk to the person, but if you can, you need to – even if you just send them a letter. If possible, try to right the wrong.

If the person has passed on or you cannot talk to them for whatever reason, write a letter to them, asking for forgiveness. Just the act can be incredibly healing.

Then it is time to work on you. First, stop ruminating on the past. Focus on now and accept that what is done is done. Be kind to yourself, show yourself empathy, love. When those invasive thoughts try to bring shame, change that thought! Don’t let your mind play and replay what happened. You deserve forgiveness. You deserve peace. You deserve love.

Give it to yourself.

It can be easy to get swept away in the fast lane and forget to stop and show appreciation for what you have. A life well-lived is one of gratitude and thankfulness. Being grateful is an essential aspect of every individual’s life. Psychological studies show that gratitude is solidly and consistently associated with greater happiness.

Practice Abundance and Gratitude

By being grateful, a person appreciates what they have instead of reaching for something new in the false hope it will make them happier. Some people continually have an unsatisfied urge until every physical and material need is acquired. A grateful person refocuses on what they have instead of what they lack. It may feel contrived at first. However, this mental state grows stronger in the practice of abundance. Look for the gifts and emphasize appreciation. Every person can be grateful, regardless of their age or environment.

Appreciate Everything

Gratitude is not reserved for life’s “flush and big” things. The practice of gratitude begins small, with appreciating every positive thing in life. Then comes the realization that nothing is too small for thankfulness.

Appreciation resets our brains, and we feel more positive and seek the good in our lives. We tend to experience happy emotions and strengthen our connections. We rarely appreciate the little things in life until they are taken away from us. By actively paying attention to the positive things around us, we can be impressed by the beauty of life. Don’t leave anything out while practicing gratitude. It is as basic as enjoying the clear weather or how fast your mailman delivered your mail last Friday.

Find Gratefulness in your Challenges

Gratitude is more than being appreciative of great experiences. Looking back on challenging circumstances, how did they turn out in hindsight? This focuses your mind on thankfulness. Examine some of your former experiences to see how they have shaped you into the person you are now.

Volunteering is one way to express gratitude during difficult times. It gets you out of your head and teaches you to appreciate what you have while adding value to your community. Nonprofit organizations rely on volunteers to meet their objectives. Helping others is an integral part of boosting your happiness. When you serve others, you will experience their gratitude and reflect on the grateful emotions surrounding you.

Practice Mindfulness

Consider five things you are grateful for each day. Envision in your mind while maintaining a grateful mood in your body. This will automatically retrain your brain and shift to the appreciative mode. Daily practice resets your mindset to be innately more appreciative, and you will begin to feel more content. Eight weeks of gratitude practice allows people to exhibit altered brain patterns that lead to improved happiness. Your brain is a powerful tool, so embrace mindfulness.

Wrap up

Gratefulness is a daily moment-to-moment practice. Appreciation stimulates positive emotions, improves outlook and mindset, and develops great connections. No matter how challenging, always look for the gifts because they are there. In doing so, you will appreciate why living a life of mindful gratitude is vital when built upon. 

Everyone has dreams, but they often put those dreams on the back burner, or push them away. They don’t pursue them. Why? Because they don’t think they’re achievable, or that they have what it takes to truly make them a reality. After all, if you can’t bring your dreams to fruition, they can turn into frustrations pretty quickly.

But the good news is that you already have all that you need to follow any and all of your dreams. Everything you need is available to you, and the journey can start anytime you’re ready.

What Kinds of Dreams Do You Have?

What are the dreams you’re holding in your mind? There must be some that are more important to you than others, and some that you’ve been thinking about for a while. No matter what they are, you can work toward making them a reality.

Belief in yourself and the abilities you have are important parts of creating your dreams. When you focus on what you’re really dreaming of, you can begin looking for ways to work toward your goals.

What Fears Are Holding You Back?

When you plan to follow your dreams, it’s normal to be nervous. Depending on the specific dreams you have, your fears could be big or small. But you can’t allow your fears to get in the way. Some of them may be very realistic and worth considering.

Don’t let them make you give up. Instead, look for ways to conquer them. What can you do to mitigate true risk? How can you push through your fear and move forward? Being afraid is an honest reaction to big change, but it doesn’t have to stop you.

Are You Listening to Your Still, Small Voice?

“Going with your gut” is a common term, but it really means listening to that quiet little voice inside, that knows what you really want and what you should do. It’s like flipping a coin and, while it’s in the air, you instinctively know how you want it to land. That voice won’t steer you wrong, and it’s what you need to go after the dreams that matter most to you.

It can be hard to listen, because there’s so much noise from the outside world, but that still, small voice is the one that’s authentically yours. Follow it, and give it the chance to show you how you could make your dreams into reality for the future. You don’t have to settle where you are, if you want to have something more.

Why Not Get Started Today?

You can get started working toward your dreams anytime you want. Make a plan, and let your gut guide you toward the best ways to bring your dreams to pass, just the way you want. Remember, you have all you need to start pursuing your dreams. Along the way you might find that working toward them, and seeing where that effort leads you, is the real value of dreaming, after all.