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Welcome to The Limitless Blog! My name is Radhika and I'm the founder of Jiva More Life. Our mission is to inspire you to believe that you are limitless.
Today, we're continuing our discussion on mindset. Our mind controls what we do and sometimes we get great outcomes while other times our minds can sabotage us.
How can you tell when your mind is sabotaging you?
The first thing you have to do is recognize that you are not your mind. Your mind is thinking and doing things to protect you or what it thinks is in your best interest based on past experience, but your mind is not you. That's kind of a difficult concept because a lot of us think we are our mind, but if you know that they're separate, then you can kind of see, "Okay, my mind is telling me 'Hey! Look, both ways before crossing the street.' That's for safety. It's a good thing that it's telling me to do that. But also my mind is saying 'Umm... I don't want to try this new thing because it's scary.' Well, maybe it'll be amazing??" But your mind is trying to save you from embarrassment or save you from doing something hard, when in reality it could be really, really fun too, you have no idea.
Those are the times your mind is not you. Those are the times your mind is sabotaging you because it's stopping you from doing the things that could benefit you, like new experiences, new challenges, or something different. So you really have to look at when your mind is telling you to do something, what is the outcome? Is it for your safety? Is a really helping you in this moment? Or is it hindering you?
Oftentimes, we face a lot of negativity in life and sometimes it can come from our friends or family that are actually super close to us so it's unavoidable to not talk to them. How do you deal with this while maintaining a positive mindset?
What helps me is like disassociating from it. So when you call someone or you're talking to someone who is negative, maybe they're just trying to vent. If you understand that they're just trying to vent, then you can think "I'm just here for them. I can listen to them vent, but this has nothing to do with me. I'm not going to carry this and take this with me. I'm here for them, which is hearing them vent."
Sometimes they're looking for a solution or looking for help. Now that's a positive spin. So you are taking the positive spin of the negativity,. You're turning it around, so then it's not negative anymore. I think the dissociation really helps because sometimes we're just hearing negativity, like if you're at a restaurant and you're hearing people complain next to you, just disassociate it and remove yourself from it. So when you leave that space or that conversation, it's not bothering you anymore.
Another way to dissociate is to remember that what people are saying is a reflection of them and not you. They may be frustrated so they're taking their anger out on you, or they're complaining, or spewing out negative vibes to you, but that's because of what they're going through. It has nothing to do with you. That's another way to dissociate from those negative thoughts and feelings that you may be around so you can still have a positive mindset.