Step one: Change the way you see yourself
If you are crying out for some ‘time out’, desperate to have the merry-go-round stop (or at least slow down), finding yourself becoming angry or annoyed with every task you feel you have to do and wishing you could just down tools – then you already know you are worth it. If you ask “Surely there is more to life than this?” you know that you need more in order to feel fulfilled. The big questions about the meaning of life are a topic unto themselves and something I cover in more detail in my book, ‘Living Your Dreams’ but these are questions we only ask when we feel that we are out of balance and we don’t know why. You need to realize that you have a divine right to be happy and if something isn’t working in your life, you are allowed to change it. When we are at the edge, we know that we either make changes or we ‘lose the plot’ and deepen our already growing sense of resentment and unhappiness. When there is no ‘me time’, and we think this is unfair, you know that you are important. If we wish for our busy life to be calmer and more in tune with what we feel within us, then we accept that our life has meaning and although we may not know exactly what this is just yet, we know that something isn’t right and that there is more to living than how we are doing it at present.
Believe you are important and believe what you feel is important. If you have to, tell yourself this over & over again. Sit with you and work out how you feel about all sorts of things (I find writing this down really helpful) … including you. If you have spent years being someone who does everything for others, your image of who you are isn’t always that great or that clear because “you” are the last thing you think about. When you ask yourself, “What do I want?” not only is this incredibly hard to answer but it is usually bound to what would make others happy too. There are loads of reasons why we don’t feel good about ourselves and this is the point of this step. We need to create some awareness as to our value as beings. Consciously understand that by pursuing your inner life and bringing it into your daily life, you will shift your perspective of who you are and your worth, exponentially.
So, what are we waiting for? When will be a good time to begin living? When our lives are over – they’re over and all we wished we had done won’t matter to us, but it will to those we leave behind. They will be the ones remembering regrets for you. They will be here wishing you had have done those things too and they, sadly, may even take on your dreams aiming to achieve them for you. There are so many questions in life, aren’t there? There are so many things to doubt and even more things to be afraid of … you shouldn’t be one of them. You are worth the life in your heart.
It is amazing how we find time when something has to get slotted in … like an urgent meeting you have to get to, or an extra assignment gets thrown your way. When something you weren’t expecting crops up, you juggle your time in order to make it fit in, don’t you?
Flexibility is the key. Above all else, we lock ourselves into our lives when we are so rigid and we become so pedantic about what must get done and when. There is a time and a place for this and I am the first to admit that I can rant & rave about what should be getting done. Deadlines exist and appointments exist and things do need to get done … but not all the time and not right here & now either. When we become so uptight about details and ‘stuff’, we miss out on everything else. We literally become so closed off that nothing else can get in. We also become stressed, anxious, worrisome and unhappy and this is a merry-go-round we so need to hop off.
If you have children, then you also had a life before them and, no doubt, one that was pretty full too. Isn’t it amazing how you have added so many more things into this new life of yours? Next, you can draw your own time-table…
