#3 Journaling and processing your thoughts
It’s time to get your shit together and document your journey. This is what it’s all about. Staying in the moment. Being conscious of your thoughts and processing them, not just glancing over them or avoiding them. It’s time to dissect them. To get to know who you really are. Think about how you think and what drives you. Where do you get excited and find out the why. Thats how you start to guide your life in a joyful way, creating a happy environment. Remember, we are our thoughts, and if we don't acknowledge them, we will be functioning on automatic, and life will happen, and we will feel helpless. So slow down and start analyzing and observing your life, therefore your actions, creating your life. The more conspicuous you are about what you do, the more you are in control and at the driver’s seat of your life.
It is also time to find out what triggers you. A trigger is NOT what someone did to you. It’s how you reacted to the situation or what was said. It is YOU— NOT them. Remember, you are in control of your life. Your thoughts, which cause your feelings, which create your actions (consciously) or re-actions (subconsciously). When you are on automatic, it is driven by your subconscious. So let’s dig in. Every time someone or a situation triggers you, document or remember it so that you can go back and understand the trigger. A trigger is an opportunity for growth. Once you deal with it and understand the why, you can resolve it, but giving it the opportunity to declare itself, you can let it go. Meaning. Was it something from your childhood? The way your parents/ caretaker treated you? Was it kids at school? There has to be a payoff of some sort for you to get triggered.
Just as I thought no one could trigger me. No situation can trigger. I got triggered by a conversation about tortillas. Tortillas, really? Well, I realized being Mexican, I hated the fact that Mexico only had corn tortillas as long as I could remember. Now the restaurants ask for corn or flour? WTF! Since when was flour a fucken option? So I thought. Well, it came from my memory of being in a restaurant in Joplin, Missouri, and my father and I stopped for breakfast on our way to Mexico City to visit my grandma, and they served my father cold coffee. So when I asked the waitress for another cup of coffee because this one was cold, she did the same thing again. She brought cold coffee. So I experienced prejudice firsthand, and it did something to me to witness something so malicious. I felt, “Why would you go to another country and try to change how they live?” The whole point of travel is to experience other cultures and learn how they do things and adapt the best of what they do into your life.
So document your triggers, and I want you to start doing something else along with journaling. I don't know if you already have or not, so start. Get a morning routine. A morning ritual. Wake up, go pee. Get back in bed. Have your journal nearby. Pull out your gratitude list. What are you grateful for? Three things you noticed that you are grateful for from yesterday. Five things you are grateful for for today. A 5, 10, 15, 30-minute meditation. Yes. I will give you a few different ways to meditate. The point is to become aware of your thoughts and control them. Control them in a way that you acknowledge and steer to what you want to think or not think about.
Mirror work. Yes! Mirror work. What is that? Have you given much thought about how you talk to yourself ? Are you pleasant to yourself ? Most of us are hard on ourselves. Are you ? The main thing to do is to be aware of anything negative that you repeat and anything that is not 100% positive and clear. OK, so first mirror work. Write down three positive things you want to change about yourself. I am loved. I am beautiful. I am kind. I am safe. I am enough. Those were my. First ones. I couldn’t believe how I carried this shield all my life protecting that little boy inside me because no adult ever did. Until I faced my inner child and understood how vulnerable I felt growing up and how hard I had to get to feel strong enough to protect myself, I finally realized at my 60-plus years that I am safe. I created an environment that was safe and sound. But, I had to acknowledge that. I had to literally think of it and understand it, and I had to tell myself that so that I could believe and create this new reality that yes, in fact, I was safe.
So you stand in front of the mirror. Look straight into your eyes. It’s not going to be easy at the beginning. Go as far as you can. It does get easier until you create this fucken unbelievable joy and pride that you will absolutely change who you think you are, and you will become whole and enough by your own terms. So look into your eyes and say. “I love you”. This is making me emotional just reflecting on it right now. “I love you”. When was the last time you saw yourself and told yourself how much you loved yourself? Tell yourself. “I trust you”. “I am safe”. All of these beautiful things about yourself that you never complimented yourself, do it now. Yes! Do it! Create the love you need and want. No one in the world is going to love you the way only you can love yourself. You don't have to show anyone how. You don't have to teach anyone how to just do it. Love yourself and tell yourself. You will start believing it and living it and becoming it.
This shit can take days, weeks, months, or years. The best part is. You are on your way. You started. So compliment yourself for doing this for you. You are number one now mothafucker. Yes, you are !