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If you’re like me, you’re very familiar with the emotion of confusion. Confusion keeps us from looking at the things we want and need in order to keep moving forward. This is where awareness comes into play.
For any HSP or human for that matter, building awareness is the foundation to making the kind of change you want in your life because it all starts with your self-concept. If you don’t have awareness, you can’t do anything about it – it’s a mystery, hence the confusion I mentioned earlier.
Today we’re talking all about building awareness and I’m giving you a sneak peek inside the My Sensitive Self program so you can start building awareness and start making changes to reduce overthinking, build confidence, and embrace all of who you are so you can go after what you want.
Here’s what I’m covering today:
What are Thought Downloads and How Can They Help Me?
How Can I Use Self-Coaching to Improve My Mental Well-Being?
What Are Limiting Beliefs and How Can I Overcome Them?
How Can I Incorporate Mindfulness into My Daily Life as an HSP?
How Do Thought Downloads and Self-Coaching Relate to Mental Health Awareness?
Let’s start with the #1 awareness tool that has been used since the beginning of time….
What are Thought Downloads and How Can They Help Me?
What exactly is a Thought Download?
A thought download is kind of like journaling, but it’s more of a free-flow writing style. Thought downloads are where you literally write down any thought that comes into your head. It’s about writing without censoring yourself in any way. If all you can think of is “I don’t want to do this exercise…” then that is exactly what you write until another thought pops into your head.
How can Thought Downloads benefit my mental health?
Thought downloads are beneficial to our mental health because they help us empty our brains of all the noise – the doubt, judgment, etc. It’s a way for us to clear our mind AND show us the words that tend to cycle through our heads – some of which we are probably not even aware of. This is why it’s the #1 tool to start building awareness.
Are there specific techniques for practicing Thought Downloads effectively?
The most effective way is to handwrite these thought downloads; however, that may be a pain (I know it can be for me!). Take the concept and make it work for you. Personally, I’m much faster at typing so it’s easier for my fingers to keep up with my brain. So I will pull up a Google Doc or notepad, start typing, purposefully not look at the screen so I can’t judge what I’m writing or judge the typos. Find the way that works for you – again, the idea is to empty your mind and get into a free-flow writing state where you can write your thoughts without judging them.
How Can I Use Self-Coaching to Improve My Mental Well-Being?
What is self-coaching and how does it work?
Self-coaching is the art of coaching yourself or becoming the observer of your thoughts so you can consciously choose a different action/outcome. This is why self-coaching starts with a thought download because our brain is full of unhelpful thoughts that aren’t true and are holding us back – we need to be aware of them so we can challenge them. More on this in a moment.
What are some practical techniques for self-coaching?
First, start with the thought download, you will most likely be surprised by some of the things you write down. You can do this for a specific topic (i.e. an argument with a partner) or just generalize as part of a daily practice.
Once you’ve done a thought download, pick one thought and check in to see how it makes you feel. Remember, our thoughts are what create our emotions. Identify what emotion you’re taking actions from and evaluate whether those actions are getting you what you want.
Can you provide examples of self-coaching in action?
As an example, let’s use the thought of “I’m selfish” as our self-coaching example and go line by line:
- I’m selfish
- How does that make you feel?
- I feel guilty.
- What makes you feel guilty about being selfish?
- If I’m being selfish I’m not doing things for others and people will think less of me.
- Okay, so what do you do in that instance?
- I ignore what I want and I begrudgingly help the other person.
- How does that feel when you do that?
- I feel resentful and burnt out and don’t take care of my family or myself.
What do you see in that self-coaching?
From a coaching perspective, I see that when you think you’re being selfish, that results in you not taking care of yourself which leads you to not showing up and helping the people you want to be helping. What happens if you shift to “sometimes it’s okay to be selfish because it actually allows me to help others AND feel good about doing it”?
Now you’ve started to build awareness around what it means to be selfish and how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors create your results/outcomes. AND we took it a step further and began to challenge the limiting belief.
What Are Limiting Beliefs and How Can I Overcome Them?
How do I identify my own limiting beliefs?
After doing a few thought downloads, use your HSP superpowers and take note of what patterns you notice. These patterns are how you will start to identify limiting beliefs that are holding you back AND help you identify ways in which you may be self-sabotaging.
What strategies can I use to challenge and reframe limiting beliefs?
Here are my top two strategies that are useful at both the beginning stages of building awareness AND even if you’re already pretty aware and consider yourself a master:
- Facts vs Stories: What are the cold, hard, facts of the situation you’re examining? When I say facts, I mean things that could be scientifically replicated in an experiment or proven in a court of law. Everything outside of that is a story.
- Equal air-time: if the thought you identified isn’t true, then what is? How can the opposite of this thought actually be true? Asking these questions will help your brain find the evidence.
Here’s an example I’ve experienced with my partner AND have coached on something similar with my clients a lot this past week: They’re angry with me. What are the facts? Vocal volume increased. Their facial expression changed. The story is that they’re angry – it may not even be true. So if it’s not, then what could be? They’re angry with a situation that doesn’t have to do with me but is sharing it with me. This doesn’t mean they’re angry WITH me.
How does self-compassion play a role in overcoming limiting beliefs?
I LOVE this question! Self-compassion is the antidote to so many HSP problems. Self-compassion normalizes our experience and helps us tune back into what our innocent intent is rather than the judgment. Compassion and judgment cannot occupy the same space so if you can hone the skill of self-compassion and offer it to yourself as you do to others, your life will completely shift – imagine going from cloudy skies to sunshine!
How Can I Incorporate Mindfulness into My Daily Life as an HSP?
What is mindfulness and why is it important for highly sensitive people?
Practicing mindfulness, like meditation, mindful eating, intentional breathing, etc. are fantastic ways to start building awareness. Awareness is really the ability to be present with yourself in whatever is happening. In what ways do you practice mindfulness? When you are present and practicing mindfulness, what differences do you notice in your day-to-day experience?
What are some simple ways I can practice mindfulness in my daily activities?
If you’re not sure where to start, start with a thought download. Set a timer for 5 min and just start writing. Other ways to incorporate mindfulness is by bringing awareness to your body – what is it like to walk? When you sit, how does the pressure feel? What do your clothes feel like on your skin? Mindfulness doesn’t need to be meditating for an hour a day, it can be as simple as taking a couple of seconds to notice your physical experience.
How can I tailor mindfulness practices to suit my sensitivity as an HSP?
With our sensitivity to the senses, mindfulness can actually be made easier for us. Pick your favorite smell and find a way to incorporate aroma therapy into your day (e.g. smelling your coffee, using an oil roller, etc.). That amazingly soft and comfy blanket you have lying on your bed, feel its softness with intention every time you get out of bed. Your senses are heightened which makes it so much easier to place your attention there – just do it with the intention to experience the thing in a positive way.
How Do Thought Downloads and Self-Coaching Relate to Mental Health Awareness?
How do Thought Downloads and self-coaching foster self-awareness and emotional regulation?
Thought downloads and self-coaching build awareness of how your thoughts, feelings, and actions all function together to create your results or outcomes. The root cause of a lot of our problems is how we perceive it. If you can change how you perceive something, you will feel differently about it. This is why building awareness helps with emotional regulation.
What role does mindfulness play in managing mental health challenges?
Mindfulness helps you slow down. As HSPs who are prone to overthinking due to the depth of our processing and intense feelings, we easily get stuck in thought/emotion spirals. Mindfulness helps us slow our brain down, which is a skill in and of itself, that lends to a more embodied experience rather than a cognitive and intellectualizing one (which is where we can get stuck).
How can I use conscious awareness to take control of my mental well-being?
Because so much of our life is run by our subconscious, the more we can bring forward into our conscious mind the more control we can give ourselves to make the kinds of changes we want – reduce overthinking, learn how to socialize more effortlessly, build stronger connections and relationships, stop worrying about what other people think and just enjoy ourselves.
So many of those issues are run by our subconscious mind and thought downloads, mindfulness, and self-coaching help bring these things to the forefront so we can address them and choose to make a different decision. How would your life be different if you were able to see your self-sabotaging thoughts/emotions/behaviors, and choose differently? If you’re like me and my clients, it’s a total shift of your reality and self-perception. And if you perceive yourself as this powerful, magical, incredible, and amazing human…then what would you be willing to try or do or accomplish that will make your life better or more content? This is the magic, my friends.
Discover Your SECRET STRENGTH as a Sensitive Soul!
Take the ‘Elemental Energy Type’ quiz.
You’ll learn what your natural intuitive gifts are and exactly what to do to regain BALANCE when you feel stuck in the ruts of overthinking, doubt, frustration, overwhelm, etc., you just can’t think your way out of.
Ok, that quiz! OMG OMG! I went in curious and bemused and came out as a BELIEVER. lol. I sent a couple of folks over to take it and they were amazed too! I don’t know how you created that thing, but it was GOOOOOOODDDDDDDDD. So FUN!
G.N.
OMG! Everything was right on! How did you do this? I felt you knew my soul. It’s soooo good!!!! 🧡🤩
S.P.