5 Easy Ways to Train your Mind to Be Authentic
What does being authentic feel like to you? And yes, I did say feel like, because being authentic feels different to everyone.
Being authentic means a whole plethora of things to different people. It can mean to live in accordance with what makes you feel good, what makes you tic or what brings you joy and happiness.
So at the start of your journey of being authentic you need to find out what being authentic actually means to you.
Empowerment too, is a word that can come into play alongside the word authentic. We can say we are empowered when we are living authentically.
But again taking the word empowerment and defining it and asking yourself “What does this mean to YOU as opposed to perhaps googling it and coming up with a universally accepted definition that you feel you need to fit into”.
Empowerment like authentic can mean so many different things to different people, it depends on where you are in your life.
For some it can be a deep desire to finally stand up for themselves.
For others it may be a desire to be free and for more a desire to just be.
What story we tell ourselves around empowerment is important to our success in achieving what we want to achieve. Sometimes what we desire is not possible for us at this exact moment of our life but maybe it can be possible in the future. This doesn’t mean we cannot desire it and draw it to us but this may be the time to just allow acceptance of where we are right now. But know that accepting a situation for the way it is, is in fact empowering. It is a step in the right direction.
The best gauge for being authentic is by following your heart. I did a survey recently asking people what they thought empowerment meant and a lot of the answers came back with the definition of “being free to be me”.
If then being “free to be me” is something you feel is authentic and would bring you empowerment why oh why do we constantly sabotage ourselves from being authentic and empowered beings?
Too often we don’t use our internal gauge correctly, we may listen to it alright but then when someone says something to us about, lets say a decision we make that feels on track and authentic to ourselves, we question this decision and perhaps don’t follow through with it.
Is this living in a way that is being free to be me?
It’s hard at first to break that cycle of allowing another’s judgments define us, if this is the way we have lived our lives to date. BUT it is not impossible to change. We can work with our mind just like we can work our muscles. We can train our mind differently … what a fascinating discovery that is!!
Training our mind differently or training ourselves to just be without allowing others define us is very doable!
Here are my five top tips for doing this.
Remember a time in your life when you did something that made you feel good only to feel deflated when your partner or your parent or someone else made a comment and you really took that comment on board. How did you feel?
Really dissect the way it made you feel. Were you angry, sad, frustrated or did you go back to feeling helpless, useless or feeling like a victim? In other words an old pattern that your mind is used to.
Realise that this thought made you take an action, our thoughts fuel our actions. Imagine if you could find a trigger that would not automatically make you go into auto pilot and take the usual action that you normally take?
Which brings us to the “personal power point” as I call it. What was it that got triggered and what is it that triggers you time and time again when you feel a particular way? Knowing this personal power point is the gem of wisdom from which you can turn around and teach your mind something different.
Remember your thought is in your head, your feelings are in your body. Sometimes we need to let the head not be so involved and allow our feelings be in control.
Look at how similar our body reacts in these two situations.
Think of when you are in danger of something. You have a thought that you are going to be attacked by a big dog, your body reacts to this thought by producing all sorts of feelings and adrenaline. Your heart might start to race and your palms may get sweaty.
On the other hand if something fantastic happens to you and you get a rush of excitement similar things can happen in the body. Maybe you have been nominated for an award and your name is called out. Your body reacts with an adrenaline rush, sweaty hands at the thought of going up to receive your prize and your heart might be racing.
We can train our mind to take different actions.
So to recap find your personal power point and from there we can learn the triggers that need to be changed in order to train our mind to take different actions.
More on that in the next episode
Until then keep empowered …. Dolores Andrew-Gavin, Founder IrishHealthHour, Author, Empowerment and Assertive Coachand Energy Therapist.
