Self discipline.

[Fatimaaa]

Hey everyone! i am new to the community and i wanted to genuinely share my problem with you guys.

I suffer from anxiety, panic attacks and i basically over think every situation and create scenarios in my head that it all just leaves me laying in bed feeling helpless and very unproductive and i have been like that for almost two years now. I want to practice having control over my mind, body and spirit. In other words i want to have full control of how i act when negative thoughts creep on me. My life progress has been hindered and i feel like i'm stuck in a loop IN the same PLACE. I would love to hear any suggestions or helpful practices that will help support this journey of my inner work.

Thank you guys for reading :) x

[Candace]

Hi and welcome! Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing. I’ve felt similarly in dealing with negative thought forms before and something I’ve practiced when those thoughts come up is to be curious about why it’s coming up in me. If I’m able to I’ll journal and write it out. I also ask myself if I’m loving myself in those moments. And then I’ll show myself some love and compassion. Also I’ve learned sometimes I need to go take a walk or something just to move my body.
I hope this helps!

[Shabanaxo]

Hey Fatima,

Welcome to the community and thank you for sharing.

It can be a difficult thing to advise on, I do however have personal experience of what you describe and it's been on and off for almost a decade now. My situation has been mixed with depression and insomnia too. Please take any advice regarding YOUR mental health with caution because all our situations are different. It's your journey and the good or bad outcomes of others need not necessarily apply to you.

1) Nutrition - I had a terrible diet with much sugar & processed foods, this had to go.
2) Exercise - I hardly exercised, this had to change, I increased dance and gym, walks outside. Do what you can!
3) Medication - There were times I was bed bound with depression and Citalopram helped me function, although I never took it for longer than 6 months. When things became really tough I had to seek medical help.
4) Therapy - I went to Counselling, wasn't helpful for me. CBT, was somewhat helpful. Currently I am working with a Schema Therapist and it is the most helpful type of therapy I have undertaken, helping me to recognise which schemas are active in my life and affecting me and how to address them.
5) Friends - I changed my friends circle, those who just didn't seem to be on my path, holding me back, negative. I was happy on my own for a while and eventually found some great friends who care for me the way I care for them.
6) Family - I come from a close family but due to cultural differences I felt ostracised and had to really work on my family relationships over a period of 10 years to ensure that I could be myself and loved unconditionally. For me it was worth the effort but it was a really hard journey.

I think I'll leave it there for you to check in with yourself and see if any of these apply. I recently have read a book called The Now Habit and I thoroughly recommend it. I realise now that I had been suffering more from procrastination and as a result self disappointment than possibly true depression over that whole time.

I went from being very productive to hardly productive for a good while, this book helped me recognise some of the things holding me back and I am now gaining my discipline back into my life. I really couldn't recommend it enough. I realised where I had been causing my own anxiety & depression due to my thoughts.

Aside from this, if you were to focus on ONE thing for yourself in the morning. I would recommend a 10 minute meditation and a 5 minute yoga. Just start with that and see how good you'll feel and see what you're inspire to do next.

I hope this helps you somehow.
You got this.
xx

[Laurette]

Hello!

I felt really called to respond to this because that is something i've been dealing with my whole life and in the last couple years I really got down to the root of the problem and it improved drastically. How I experience it is being completely paralyzed by fear. You want to do all these things, be productive, make changes, be more in control but there's just this heavy block of fear that causes all this anxiety, negative thoughts, and keeps you STUCK. Staying in that loop feels like a cloud of stagnant energy and all you can do is keep going around and around making no progress and then feeling shame for the fact that you aren't making any progress and blame yourself. The number one thing that helped me is inner child work. Building that strong amazing relationship with my inner child and understanding her. Why is she so scared and anxious? What does she need? Getting to the absolute root of my patterns, behaviors and thoughts and what causes them and then I am able to observe myself when I am in the stuck loop without judgement and see where I have unmet needs that leave me paralyzed by fear. It’s a journey of reparenting and nurturing yourself back to a safe space that allows you to gently and softly get out of the loop of anxiety and fear.

The other HUGE thing is movement. Observing how my body reacts when I am in the loop and listening to what it needs was a game changer. Allowing the stuck energy to move flow and release. Dancing has been so helpful. A lot of the times I find myself in a negative thought loop, feeling stuck and scared and I gently acknowledge my inner child is not feeling safe and I dance with her. I got to the point where I did so much inner work that aloud me to overcome this loop but my body was still there and stuck. Making movement part of my daily routine has transformed that. Dancing, yoga, shaking, running, walking. In my experience, anxiety and fear doesn't have this easy linear step by step healing process. It’s a constant intimate, vulnerable dialogue that allows every part of yourself to feel safe and powerful. I hope this helps and welcome to NEMS :)

[MildredMonique]

Whaddup!!!

You have some great suggestions from folks. One of the most practical practices of devotion that I picked up years ago was morning pages. I learned about them from Janet Mock  in this interview https://youtu.be/xHjqKOt1Jb0

Then I kept receiving synchronicities that led me to start them. For me I do not do it everyday and I type out my morning pages. I am proud of myself each day I do it and I am finally in a place where I see the benefit. To get every thought out and return to zero point to receive the most relevant information for me has been helpful. For me it is less about being productive and more about doing what is best for me. Also, I would add affirmations setting a goal to affirm myself for at least ten days to help change my mindset and reprogram my thinking. I started writing them in a sketchbook.

In the course, "Rebirthing Becoming Who You Are 1.0." Has shares a list of affirmations that helped me a lot recently as I was coming out of a dark night of the soul experience.

Small intentional actions lead to powerful shifts. Be gentle with yourself. Your soul is timeless.

Love, grace, and peace to your whole being especially your mind.

[CierraMadison]

Hey y’all! Such beautiful insights/encouragement. Thank you for sharing. I felt called to respond bc I find myself feeling the same ways & stuck in some of the same loops- especially with the more space I give myself to work through things, I find more fears surface, my mind takes over & I start to feel like I am not really in control of myself. Feel terrible about feeling terrible and yada, yada...the cycle continues. I just want to say you are not alone.
I may be in this space some days, other days I’m floating or have moments of incredible clarity. Sometimes I’m able to pull myself out relatively quickly and other times it drags on and on.

I agree with the other sentiments about how this is not linear, it is not one-size-fits-all, and it may take quite a bit of “time” (although time is an illusion). You have to follow what feels right for you & above all be compassionate, gracious, patient with yourself. We are learning what it means to love ourselves.
A big game changer for me has been practicing presence. A lot of times when I let go of my thoughts about the future, my performance, the past, etc and just ask myself what do I really need like right now? What would be the best feeling thing for me in this very moment? (Maryam talks about it in some of her videos as well). That can be different for every person & also depends on the moment, which is why giving advice can be sticky.
But when I ask myself that, it can be a range of things: to breathe more intentionally, shower/bathe, stretch/move/dance, play a good song, eat/drink something nourishing, get some sun, go for a walk, water my plants, call/text a good friend, make something..it all depends. But when I can just do one little thing, it’s a step that can help build momentum or shift the direction you feel yourself going in. Learning to listen to and nurture my inner child has been a beautiful practice as well.

I know it may feel contradictory to say be easeful as you’re asking about self discipline, but that really is a component of it. Force alone can’t do it- I’ve been there. You have reach for it with a spirit of love.

You absolutely can do this- we both can.