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Have You Tried Failing Forward?

Have You Tried Failing Forward?

by | Jan 31, 2024 | Self Development

10 Ways To Change Your Mindset And Achieve Success

Our modern society has made us soft. So many clients that I work with experience anxiety because they lack the resilience skills to pick themselves up off the floor after splatting against the wall.

When was the last time you tried something new? I am being serious now. I am talking about sticking to something until you nail the outcome you want.

I will share an example of my tenacity. I hate tech. Hate is a big word to use, but when it comes to figuring out tech I would rather have a colonoscopy without the good drugs. When the tech doesn’t work, it can be so easy for me to feel overwhelmed to the point that there are tears.

Sometimes I have to remind myself how much my laptop costs before I throw it out the window whilst in the throes of frustration. What I have come to learn, is how to change my mindset so I don’t go out of control and activate my inner four-year-old tantrum self.

What I have learnt is that stumbling is a natural human art form. It’s normal to stumble, trip, and navigate your way around obstacles. As long as you can propel yourself forward, you’re still winning!

I do these things instead to ensure I continue moving forward, even if I am stumbling.

1. I take a couple of mindful breaths. 

Breathing slowly and purposefully allows you to become present. The present moment is a choice point. This is the headspace that allows you to choose your next action, rather than continue reacting defensively from a place of survival (and lack of clarity).

2. Adopt the mindset that every attempt is simply more experience

I remind myself I am learning something new. Every attempt I make with new action is building muscle memory and a foundation archive of experiences. There is no pass or fail, good or bad. 

The best part of learning is you are refining your brilliance, therefore your actions do not have to be perfect. When you gift yourself this awareness you are practicing kindness. Allowing yourself to learn means you move forward practising and refining your moves.

3. Connect with the feelings of trying

There’s great emotional power to be embraced when you work from your heart space instead of your head. Embracing your feelings allows you to step out of judgment about your performance, and simply step into your cheerleader outfit. This is one of the best forms of self-care — simply observing yourself do-ing rather than wish-ing!

4. Set a reasonable timeframe for your attempt. 

Where possible, do not continue with the frustration of not successfully attempting something new for hours. Perpetuating a perceived failure only makes you feel like shit and reinforces you are failing (in that moment).

This is demonstrated well when training a new puppy. A couple of minutes with a treat to repeat the first step of the sequence is all you need to create the dopamine effect associated with the attempt rather than the outcome.

5. Have a plan when success isn’t instant

For those occasions that I am unable to figure out the problem (and it’s usually tech) in twenty minutes I walk away. This singular action saves my nervous system 90 minutes to have to calm down from an episode of anxiety.

6. Do something different

I do something completely different for five minutes to reframe my visual reality. This soothes my nervous system. More importantly, doing something different gives you a fresh view and provides you with a different perspective. This is often where you open the door to possibilities. The fresh perspective is where you find new options and solutions.

7. Try bush flower essences

I take an electro essence by Australian Bush Flower Essences when doing anything electronic. A couple of drops of that elixir and the tech gremlins disappear. 

If you experience anxiety you may choose Rescue Remedy (Bach Flower Essence). Energy medicine is gentle and powerful at the same time. Open that mind of yours and see what might work for you.

8. Try again

I sit and make another attempt. If the tech still glitches I reboot my computer. If all else fails, I ask for help. There’s no point getting my knickers into a twist. I email or ring my tech person for support. I fall forward rather than stagnate in stress or overwhelm.

I did not realise there is a secret to be discovered when something continues to not work the way you want. The secret is that you are learning about the working parts of the problem. This enables you to describe the problem in detail. It also supports you to know what to ask help for from a big picture down to a microscopic view.

9. Know when to delegate

Some tasks initially seem impossible and completely out of your sphere of expertise. Here is an example. I recently received an email from my email platform providing me with the exciting news that Google was changing requirements for free email. To comply and have my emails not land in the spam folder I needed to take care of the SKM files.

Yeah, I had to look up what that acronym link meant as well, and still had no idea. I chose not to panic, I chose to be proactive and watch the instruction video. Still had no idea, and instead of panicking remembered that my website host has brilliant technicians who perform miracles like this task every single day. So I requested that they perform the task and explained I’m a bit of a technotard.

Bazinga five minutes later, I still have no idea what an SKM link is, but the email platform now links correctly. Problem solved.

10. Let go of expectations of how success will arrive

Allow yourself to experience the joy of simply being well enough to participate, without the expectation of completing what you are attempting. This is a mindful practice of simply being present at the moment and allowing yourself to observe what is happening.

When you are present, your need for control is reduced.

Conclusion

This is your permission slip to continue dreaming. Dream as big as you want. Just be sure to take small, achievable steps using these tips, to the summit of the outcomes you desire. Know that you may stumble, trip, have obstacles in the way and may need to fall to learn. Just be sure to fall forward!

Listen to the audio version via the “I Am Change-ing” Podcast – click here

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Change Facilitator — Kinesiology Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Wellness Coach, and Training Resource Therapist.

She is a published author of This Is My Roar.

She is a self-confessed laughaholic and loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland

Are You A Quitter?

Are You A Quitter?

by | Jan 22, 2024 | Self Development

Last Friday was known as Quitters Day. When I read that, I spat my coffee out. That sounds a little weird right? But when I read a Fortune Well article, I was astounded that they have a name for the second Friday of January —  

“Only two weeks into the year, many people have fallen short of their New Year’s goals. The second Friday in January is known as “Quitter’s Day,” when people are most likely to throw in the towel on their resolutions.”

Studying the statistics of people who resolved on New Year’s Eve, yesterday was the day you were likely to have stopped backing yourself.

The reality is that sticking to something new can feel hard and uncomfortable. That’s a normal and very human reaction to change. Any form of desired change takes effort and requires consistency.

Here are seven tips to support you to continue your pursuit of the goal

1. Reconnect with your big goal

When working in my own clinical practice, I prioritise bringing my client to a place of remembrance. What is it they want to feel when living out their dreams? For there is great power to be wielded when you reactive your feelings centre.

Unfortunately, when it comes to activating change, our normal human neurological survival programming will activate diversion to defend yourself when anything in life feels uncomfortable. This will look like avoidance and procrastination.

This will immediately impact your capacity for change. Anything new, foreign, unknown or hard will turn on your defence program. This means when anything starts to feel hard your brain will drive you to stop. Your brain will take the path of least resistance because it takes energy to create change.

That same defence program will subconsciously sabotage your willingness to maintain a new routine, thing or aspirational activity. Your defence program causes you to quit because your brain is holding onto a program that is signalling an alert it’s not safe.

What does help to soothe the defensive program is to connect with the positive feelings of your desired goal, and breathe mindfully. 

2. Take bite-size actions

Often when you create a goal, the dream of what you want is vastly different from the place where you are now. Therefore the leap from the present moment to the future can induce overwhelm, doubt and fear. Often the actions you attempt are drastically different from what you are used to doing and this triggers the unsafe reaction.

Here’s the thing, you can eat an elephant, you just have to take one bite at a time. You can complete a marathon, one step at a time. No one says you have to run it. These metaphors are useful reminders that small actions, repeated consistently over time, generate big change outcomes.

3. Keep trying

Many people attempt at a new activity, and when they fail, they give up. There are a couple of reasons for this. 

  • Some people have a fear of failure, so the mere thought of attempting something they have never done before causes paralysis
  • Some people need things to be perfect, so to attempt something new and not be good at it, causes their self-worth to diminish
  • Some people fear the unknown, so the thought of trying something new without knowing the outcome can induce inexplicable anxiety
  • Some people have a fear of being out of control and will invest their time and energy planning. This creates unrealistic expectations of outcomes being a certain way and generates disappointment when the expectation isn’t met. Planning also negates the windows of opportunity and flow to close off, which can diminish the excitement of performing new things.

The trick with anything new is to make the new action so small that it doesn’t matter if you don’t get it right the first time. You simply continue trying until you’ve mastered the task and then continue to the next stepping stone. 

Small actions allow you to push through fears and be spontaneous until you achieve victory. Remind yourself that when you were born, you didn’t stand up and run around. Learning to walk took a year. This gives you that little bit of perspective and incentive to keep trying.

4. When you don’t see an instant result

It’s frustrating when you’re investing the effort and don’t perceive any external changes. This is a choice point, and often the place where many people go back to the beginning and give up.

The trick here is to be consistent with two things — 

a) undertaking small change activities every day (many small steps create a big change path)

b) reminding yourself daily of how living the dream life feels 

This advice sounds counterintuitive, however, real change comes when we reverse engineer our action steps based on our connection with how we want to feel. The more you remind yourself of what the energetic frequency of the dream feels like, the more you will want to connect to it and be living it.

5. When you invest and still don’t see results

Whatever you do, don’t stop. When you hit that point when you’re not seeing results, and you will, this is the time to remind yourself of the success already achieved. 

Celebrate every little success, every step taken, every day that you have been consistent. Recognising every little achievement, and every positive bite of success verifies your desire for change. Celebration keeps the resilience momentum going.

If the motivation has taken a hit, and you feel the speed wobbles beginning to shake get an external cheerleader. Take a new action, get support, or shake up the new routine.

I walk every day. But I walk further and faster when I have a walking ‘mate date’.

When I decide I want to change something in my life I do this —  

  • I reflected on the feelings of living the desired result of what I want
  • I pondered all of the likely steps involved in gently moving forward, you can call them milestones if you like
  • I listed all the likely supports I might need like comfortable shoes, a walking buddy, or even a YouTube exercise class (for rainy days)
  • I explored all the beautiful areas I find myself relaxing in when I walk so that my eyes have different perspectives and never get bored when I exercise
  • I created a list of audio books thanks to Spotify that keep me company when I do the tread mill

So you see a plan can look easy enough, right? It is. 

Remember how you learned to walk. First, you engaged your core muscles so you could sit upright. Then momentum had you on your tummy. Then you developed the strength to use your arms and you learned to crawl. Then you stood, then stepped. 

It’s a process and it takes time. Be kind to yourself as the change unfolds. I remind clients who wish to lose a lot of weight. There will be plateaus as your body recalibrates the metabolism and hormonal programs. Be patient and continue being consistent.

Often the change we want occurs and we don’t see it until someone points it out to us. Go back to the client wanting to lose weight. They know the scales state the numbers are dropping, but they perceive they haven’t lost anything until they bump into someone they haven’t seen in a while.

Remind yourself that your mind will play tricks and default to the basic setting of where you started. If you find yourself floundering, get into your journal, or book an appointment with your therapist and purge out all the feelings associated with your current roadblock.

6. What to do when your life feels “blah” and uninspiring

When you experience that can’t be bothered feeling when you wake up first thing in the morning, take action anyway. This is a crunch moment whereby your brain has defaulted back to the beginning. You need to remind that brain program that it is unwanted and change is required.

Have your workout clothes beside your bed so that you have little choice but to put them on and go outside walking. Preparation for the ‘blah’ moment is critical. 

If your goal is to lose weight, then invest time each week in planning meals. If you know you’re prone to take out or have a busy schedule, devote a couple of hours on the weekend prepping a pre-planning menu. This is one of the very best ways to love the inside of you when you’re busy and want to achieve success.

When you go to bed at the end of the day, think of your dream goal outcome. Go to sleep focussed on how good it feels to be living that outcome. This creates the mental space and high vibe for you to awaken to tomorrow.

7. Accept Failure Is Likely

When you scaffold a new habit, you need to have a level of acceptance that your desired outcomes may not initially be perfect. What is critical for ultimate success is the initial adoption of a mindset that incorporates consistent efforts. This means becoming your cheerleader and congratulating yourself every time you try.

Taking the action is what you should consider as significant and a win.

Conclusion

Whether you made a NYE resolution or not, deciding to change something in your life is the easy part. Following up with consistent action and backing yourself is achievable when you have tips on how first to plan and then follow through.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland

What If You Were One Decision Away?

What If You Were One Decision Away?

by | Jan 15, 2024 | Self Development

Could that choice change your entire life?

Did you recently get sucked into the vortex of shiny object syndrome? Go on be honest, if only with yourself. Do you watch those skinny people videos and wish silently to yourself “I wish that were me?”

I recognise that’s got the potential hit of a fish slap to the face, but the reality is, the media we are exposed to at this time of the year can feel icky. There’s so much shiny shit everywhere, it’s almost a syndrome. Those shiny videos incorporate a bombardment of a specific type of messaging that commences the exact moment the last Christmas carol is sung, and we’ve stuffed that last bit of turkey into our mouth.

Yep, I’m talking about the flood of social media messages to create the perfect New Year’s Resolution. The messages bombard the societal audience with the falsehood of unobtainable perfection.

The reality is that these messages are based on the foundation of shame and societal expectations. There’s no consideration for the experiences that caused you to react to life and create a defensive reaction.

The modern-day New Year Resolution marketing suggests that you need, should, and must, be actively wishing your life to become drastically changed. Those boosted social media posts and paid advertising, provides the false enticement to the audience, that you can live your dream life.

The reality is that this messaging drives an unhealthy desire for a life that is outside of you. It also drives an unhealthy comparison-itis, where you judge yourself for being too much or too little, and not being perfect. This activates a deep sense of shame and unworthiness.

According to the Australian Institute of Health & Welfare, New Year’s Day is a red-flagged day for increased instances of suicide rate. Frankly is it any wonder people don’t feel good enough when the societal voices flood our sensory experiences with messages of perfection?

A good therapist, practitioner, or even coach should remind their clients of this fundamental truth — there is no such thing as perfection.

Who’s to say there is anything wrong with you?

Your support person should be asking you this instead. “Why is it you believe you need to change so drastically?” They will help you explore the driving force behind the desire for change, to help you gain an understanding of your why.

As a Change Facilitator, my clinical role is to support people to first identify a client’s big goals. Then together we create a realistic action plan that maps out those success steps toward the outcome, including how each phase will feel.

Only then can the real work begin, whereby we unpack the obstacles that lay in front of the action needed to be implemented? Together we explore the space of discomfort.

Discomfort is the common ground for many who feel stuck, overwhelmed or unable to proceed forward. It’s the place where failure is born. Uncomfortable is the destination, where there is a scrap pile of parts of you that require resolution, resources and support for you to move forward.

We all have parts of us, that come out on deck and help navigate the ship. Some get to steer the wheel, and some parts of you influence which direction you take — approach or avoidance.

When working with parts of a person, whether it be their anger, frustration, or even confidence, there is a fundamental truth that nearly always applies to every single client. You can’t move forward without embracing discomfort in some way.

Think of a time you loved the thought of going to a workout. Does that feel pleasant? Now remember how good it felt afterwards. It felt great — right?

As we enter a new year, we’re entering an energetic space of self-discovery, exploring the parts of you holding onto discomfort. This can be the joy of the New Year energy. You get to look forward and focus for a few moments, on how you want to be living your life. You have the choice to reflect on how well you want to shine your light.

This reflection will highlight that you have amazing parts. Additionally, your exploration may uncover that there is discomfort being held within.

The reality is that there are parts of you that you needed when you were young, that have now evolved, matured or faded. Those historical parts may still be holding onto thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that once helped you to feel safe, secure and comfortable. Some of these parts may now be outdated, outgrown, or simply unresolved.

In your evolution called life, you’ve matured, you’ve had experiences that have enabled you to learn and mature. However, there may still be a subconscious part that is holding onto some form of stress or discomfort.

Get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

To step forward into the next version of you, you have to get comfortable with that discomfort. It is part of you, and therefore not something to avoid.

There I said it, out aloud. To create change in your life, you need to push yourself beyond the discomfort that is currently holding you back. To create meaningful change in your life you need to be able to meet your discomfort where it is at. This is where the lesson learning takes place.

To overcome the intensity of discomfort take consistent action, every day. It’s a form of desensitization, showing up to the discomfort and performing the change action.

So remind yourself of how it will feel after taking action. This will help you make the start. This is the single decision that creates change. Face the discomfort and decide to do it anyway!

Make that decision that recognises the most potent part of you needs to be out on deck, steering your ship forward. Make that decision that those parts of you beneath the deck need to be heard, seen, and acknowledged in some way. Working with your parts will make your journey a little easier in the long run.

Conclusion

As you make that all-important decision to change, allow me to remind you to be gentle with yourself and your decision. Your decisions should acknowledge and include embracing those parts of you that require healing, forgiveness, or even letting go. Activating change in your life requires bringing love and acceptance to all of your parts, especially those that hold onto and generate the sensation of discomfort.

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland

Meet Joy In It’s Tracks!

Meet Joy In It’s Tracks!

by | Oct 29, 2023 | Self Development

Tell Yourself These Three Things To Find Your Peace

I have found myself working with clients lately who tell me they feel completely stuck in their lives. They describe experiencing lots of intense big feelings. They are connected to symptoms of anxiety, overwhelm and report an inability to move forward.

Are you experiencing this too?

Are you lying in bed at night, and feeling completely overwhelmed with all the thoughts of the day, instead of falling asleep?

Do you wake feeling exhausted and continue to overanalyse life? Is it easy for you to make decisions, or does the analysis paralysis kick in and everything has to be considered?

Before I commence any work with clients, I find myself exploring all their perceived blockages. I get the client to explain in detail how they internally experience their challenge.

When you breathe air into that area that feels stuck, things start to open up from within. You can gain an incredible understanding of exactly what is jammed into tiny spaces. You can learn, see and feel all of the things that contribute to what you are perceiving as stuck. When you shine a light on the resultant subconscious behaviours that you implement unknowingly to keep you safe.

When you are in neurological survival, you aren’t thriving. Your clarity of thought has been sabotaged. Your decision-making ability has been hindered by trying to process too much information.

When you are in survival, your brain is simply reacting to the outside world. You aren’t seeking joy bubbles, and you are running a behavioural program that is likely anchored into something from the past.

When you are in the space of survival, you are not present.

There is an art to returning to the present moment. It is where you can create change. The present moment is where you can reset and revitalise. It’s also where you maintain motivation to continue chasing joy bubbles.

 

Here are three things you can tell yourself to return to right here, right now.

1. Start the day right

Before your feet hit the floor, the moment you wake up. Take a deep breath in and out. Smile (because the muscles required to move your face generate a tiny dopamine hit) broadly and state the following-

“Good morning gorgeous! Today is going to be a great day!”

Sounds ridiculous I know. But seriously try this. The reason it’s so successful is that this is your first energetic intention for the day. 

This singular statement can be likened to ringing the bell for the universe to come calling, ready to take your order for the day. This statement (or something like it) is very intentional. It drives purpose and it is very high in vibrational energy.

Stating this statement first thing in the morning is like you are creating your internal weather system. It’s the easiest way to manifest emotional sunshine for your day ahead!

2. Choose again.

Throughout the day, remind yourself that the human mind can experience up to 80,000 thoughts a day. I know busy mind right? Additionally, you need to be aware that these mostly subconscious thought processes can contain up to seventy-five per cent negativity.

Why so blue?

Your brain automatically defaults to what you thought about yesterday. You’ve laid the thought cable already through your analysis, review, and audit. And then you attached emotions to the thoughts — in other words you have already attached evidence that you were correct to feel bad about the thought.

The brain has already placed the thoughts into the memory system. Evidence locked in. It’s that simple.

When you have a positive thought, your brain will seek evidence to demonstrate you were correct. Therefore it takes a little more effort on your part to create a shift in the tide of negative you think about.

I liken your body to a gigantic hotel. Your mind is the presidential suite. When you have a negative thought come along, it’s like a homeless person is using the bed of the presidential suite as a toilet — you get the drift. 

That negativity needs to be immediately evicted for you to remain present.

If the thought is crappy and negative, then your presidential suite is being trashed and abused. This is what negativity does to your psyche.

Due to the sheer number of thoughts in your mind, in my clinical experience, we don’t need to analyse everything. You simply need to insert a circuit breaker into the mind mix and change the direction of where you’re heading.

You can try saying “choose again”, which was coined by Gabby Bernstein a decade ago. Alternatively, you could try the Byron Katie question “Is that real?”

Both are useful and have their place as guards against negative thoughts continuing.

Here’s the thing, the moment you consciously recognise that something negative has sprung up into the mind, you can choose to take action. Insert the circuit breaker question and simply breathe.

The use of breath allows you to calm down physically through the recognition that you aren’t under threat. This breath brings you into the present moment and reactivates the brain that the old survival program is not required.

Once you’re present again, you can better discern what is real and right in front of you, or what is simply an old and unwanted thought pattern. In this moment of recognition, you are changing the plasticity of your brain and choosing a new neural pathway to reroute the thoughts.

Fair warning. When you first begin to ‘choose again’, or ask yourself ‘is this true?’, you may easily become overwhelmed with the number of times your awareness is alerted to negativity.

Let me say that this is normal when you first realise how much smack you think and say to yourself!

I choose to see this as a very productive step forward, and you can too. The more you acknowledge, the more you shift, and the faster you change the old reactive thoughts.

3. Wrap up the day well

At the end of the day, as you’re brushing your teeth be sure to make eye contact with yourself. Allow your eyes to soften at who you see. 

This is a simple act of kindness to and for yourself.

This single gesture also sets you up to dialogue with yourself. No matter how extreme your day has been, you need to celebrate you survived another day. 

Dig deep and find some small component of your day that you could celebrate — even if only starting a high vibe with your morning intention.

Celebrating small wins allows the body to create small hits of dopamine. It also trains your mind to actively seek positivity, instead of becoming trapped once more on the negative mouse wheel.

This simple exercise works well for your night and sleep routine. You’ve inserted a circuit breaker of thinking of the negative and actively gone searching for evidence of what was potentially good. 

For those days where it seems nothing has gone well, I invite you to use the time to reflect on what you learnt about yourself or another. This activity allows you to place yourself in another’s shoes and observe their behaviour or actions. 

Observation allows you to see another’s experience, without you having to judge or invest in their drama. Sometimes when you can acknowledge that another‘s behaviour is subpar, the realisation is a gift on many levels. 

We are all human, working towards perfecting our imperfections. We all have good and bad days. We all experience stress. We all respond differently to stress.

Conclusion

What might you lose if you could set your intention, keep those negative thoughts in check, and wrap up a day by being your cheerleader? Give just one of these tips a go, to shift your motivation to live the life you want!

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Need a taste of calm?

Click here to enjoy Karen’s latest
freebie offer.

Enjoy this program’s short presentation, which includes the experience of a meditative hypnotic recording to support resetting your calm.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website. Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here 8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland
Do you look good in orange

Do you look good in orange

by | Oct 22, 2023 | Self Development

Ask yourself this question next time you’re about to lose it

I had a client exclaim in her clinic session the other day that she was ready to kill someone. Namely one of her family members.

Don’t worry. She’s not a serial killer. And I took the opportunity to remind her that losing your shit causes you to wear orange and heavy duty bracelets!

It’s just that her frustration had escalated so significantly and tipped over into a space of unregulated emotion — namely anger and rage.

She had become a volcano head – ready to explode at any moment, fuming and seething with barely contained disdain. She was exactly like a volcano before it erupted, just smoking away frightening the local townsfolk -namely her family. Her emotional state was exceptionally volatile and she felt completely out of control.

There are numerous things that lead us to feel frustrated. Here are some examples:

  • Feeling not heard within a conversation or space
  • expectations not met despite your best planning efforts
  • juggling too many balls in the air at any given time

Frustration is likely to be the top layer of a feeling. There will be more emotion beneath that has not been spoken, expressed, or given air. It’s highly likely that you may not even be consciously aware of all that is festering beneath the surface.

Frustration can have a voice of its own. A voice that rants, raves and yells uncontrollably. A voice that speaks often from a sense of stagnation or helplessness, an inability to make things happen in the way that someone wants.

The vibrational frequency of frustration means that those feelings of unmet expectation can rapidly escalate to anger or rage in the blink of an eye.

Need some tips to release frustration?

Frustration is often a kinetic energy. This means frustration is a moving emotion, and you’re unlikely to be able to sit still with it. Additionally, you are likely to require some movement to shift the sensation of the unwelcome negative-based emotion. Moving your mouth will commence activation of the release, but you are likely to continue to feel frustration deeply within your body.

1. Stay present

When we feel uncertain about something, this can be likened to triggering an unconscious fear. Therefore our human reaction is that we tend to want to control the process or outcome. This is driven by fear of the unknown, uncertainty, or loss of control. It’s an emotion that is based on the future tense.

When you can remain present, you’re not activating the neurological survival program that drives you to start planning all of those contingencies in your head to counteract the undoubted and misperceived doom you’re stressing about.

2. Accept you are human

Our human existence mandates that we are always gathering data from our experiences. Our brain gathers sensory data of what we see, hear and feel. What also happens is that our brain attaches an emotional response to the sensory data, and creates a program.

This allows your brain to simply respond when an experience is repeated without having to recreate the same program. When we re-experience an emotional response, our brain simply reactivates the survival reaction that was originally created.

Why?? Because change is a constant in our lives. Our brain has a wonderful compensation program to reduce the need for reprograming everything, and therefore screen out what it perceives as useless detail.

Change is a gift. A gift to learn more. A gift to evolve. A gift to flow and receive/give more through our life. I am referring to the gift of shifting or relearning the subconscious survival reactions to create positive change in your life.

However, if your expectation is unrealistic — that you want the outcome to be perfect the first time — you’re setting yourself up for heartache. We weren’t born and then ran within hours of birth.

You’re not a horse. You are human.

You must first engage your neural pathways to create patterns and habits, rather than stumble, trip or fall. In turn, this trains the brain muscles to move you into new experiences of attempting to walk in new ways without falling. You learn to step out of your survival reaction, refine your resilience and then move forward metaphorically.

3. Manage Expectations

When you place an unrealistic expectation in relation to that experience you attempt something the first time and there is failure, two things happen. You doubt yourself.

Doubt makes you feel big emotions associated with failure when you don’t meet the expected outcome. You shame yourself subconsciously in relation to not achieving. This can lead to diminished self-worth and a misperception of insecurity. This doubt expands your fear of trying again and failing, rather than simply feeling safe or confident enough to make another attempt to achieve the experience.

4. Acknowledge your beliefs

Think back to when you were younger. Were you raised a winner?

I’m being serious now.

Set the snoopy snigger aside, and reflect on whether you were raised with ‘tough love’ or ‘all participants receive a reward’?

Your response links to the previous point and the potential expectations you developed from childhood about how things should be. Your beliefs and values influence your bias, what you know to be true. These aspects of your psyche also influence your behavioural patterning.

When your perceived expectations are not met, this will generate a negative emotional response. This reaction is often subconscious and not something we can initially control. This reaction reaffirms the fear to be true.

Continually failing to meet expectations can generate bad behaviour within ourselves, and worse, trigger misperceptions in others about who we are. In other words, it can quickly lead to a misperception of feeling, or worse feeling judged.

In this circumstance, before you lose it ask yourself the Byron Katie question in relation to the unrealistic expectation — “Is this real?”

This singular and powerful question allows you to acknowledge that the old reactive belief (based on the survival reaction) may now be outdated or no longer serve you. This acknowledgement allows you to step out of the old non-serving program, and release the negativity of frustration, anger and rage. It allows you to choose a different emotional outlook.

Our old programmed survival reactions drive the negativity of frustration and anger. Ignoring the signals this emotion generates, allows the energy of it to build.

As the frustration escalates, your capacity to remain calm diminishes, because your survival reaction is heightened. This is the mental and emotional tipping point of whether you change the colour of your outfits — can you walk away or do you find yourself reacting and later regretting?

Conclusion

Consider implementing one of the suggested actions should you experience those moments of intense frustration, anger, or rage and don’t want to wear an orange jumpsuit!!

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Want to read more like this?

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Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

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About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Wellbeing Coach, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, Clinical Hypnotherapist, and training Resource Therapist. She’s also a published author. 

She is a self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland