You may already have a daily mindfulness practice. Or, you may be in therapy to work on your perspective, and learn to manage your emotions.
Perhaps you are actively working to improve your relationships, accept responsibility for your mistakes, and improve your overall mental state.
To all of that, I say “GREAT JOB!”
Rather than focusing on changing the world around you to fit your set of expectations, you are doing the work to improve your own perspective and create a more optimistic state of mind.
Inner Work Is Hard But Important
This work is some of the most important work you can ever do.
This inner work is not only important, but it’s really hard. We are not wired to focus on the positive. In fact, finding positive thoughts feels more like an archeological dig than a natural state.
The reason for this is that we are often attempting to put positive thinking on top of a pile of negative thoughts that have been building up over the years. It’s essentially a pile of garbage that we have been tending to, not even considering the idea of getting rid of it.
8 Ways to Cleanup Your Mind
In this video blog, you will get our top eight tips to rid yourself of the unnecessary suffering that comes from our negative thought patterns. This weekend, instead of cleaning up your house, let’s take this time to clean up your mind.
1. Release your developmental trauma
Even if you had a lovely childhood, you still will want to know about a newer concept in psychology called ‘developmental trauma.’ These are patterns that crop up from negative or even mildly distressing experiences in childhood.
It might be that a teacher told you that you were lazy. Maybe a parent or family member told you that you are not good enough in some way. What happens is that those beliefs get trapped. As children, we lacked a filter for this information and we might have taken these lies in as if they were true.
Now, as adults, we catch ourselves in unproductive and self-sabotaging situations. Why? Because these situations are consistent with our negative shame-filled beliefs about ourselves. So, what can we do? Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do! Find out how in this video.
2. Give shame and blame the boot
Speaking of negative thoughts and beliefs, let’s take a look at these yucky words that just about no one wants to entertain. Shame and blame. It’s no surprise that these terms rhyme.
Shame and blame are what I call the toxic twins. Psychologists have a bit of a debate over the concept of shame. Some have suggested that shame is not an emotion but more of a process. Shame can be understood as a process of self-rejection, self-criticism, and self-judgment. But there’s good news.
Once you are aware of the fact that shame and blame are literally doing you no good at all, you can set yourself free. Learn how to do this in this video.
3. Let go of mistakes
Perhaps the most important mindfulness practice of all is letting go.
And you know what one of the hardest things is for us to let go? Our mistakes. If we stop for a minute and think about our mistakes, we can begin to notice how minimal and inconsequential they are. We may be thinking, “Everyone knows I did that. They think I am an idiot now!” If you really stopped to ask them, I’m going to venture a guess they hardly remember your mistake. Why? Because they were busy focusing on their own mistakes and problems.
Far too much energy is wasted on mistakes, regrets, and resentments from yesterday. Although this video has a bit of a kid-like flare, I think we can all agree that we have done this either in our personal lives or at work. Have a look at this video and see if it applies to some of your past regrets.
4. Spend more time with your dog
If you have a dog, you have a model citizen in your home in terms of staying in the moment and letting go of the past.
Have you noticed how quickly a dog can go from upset to content? Do you see how dogs spend much of their time wagging their tail or peacefully napping on the couch?
We can learn something from them. But just having a dog is not enough to enact these benefits. We need to do what the research suggests to truly create more health and wellness in our lives. See how to do this in this video.
5. Stop taking yourself so seriously
One reason why our mental health suffers is that we get caught up in our own heads. We take a close-up view of our lives rather than zooming out to see the vast expanse of the world around us.
It’s so natural to take things personally. When someone is upset in our vicinity, we instantly jump to the conclusion that it must be about something we did wrong. Unfortunately, much of this is wasted energy. I’ve heard it said, “You would care less what people thought about you if you knew how little they do.”
Take a moment to zoom out to the wide world around you. Gaze up at the stars at night. Then, look back at your problems and mistakes. How big of a deal is this really? Although this video is written with kids in mind, see if you can gain some insights here.
6. Let go of what you can’t control
A major cause of suffering is trying to control certain aspects of our lives.
When we are really honest with ourselves, we start to notice what is inside our ‘sphere of influence’ and what is outside of it.
What can we control? Our reactions, our beliefs about an event, and our perspective. Fortunately, that’s a long list. Most of our happiness comes from our internal experience. We get joy from how we think and interact with the moment that is unfolding in front of us.
However, what can we not control? Other people’s words, other people’s beliefs, other people’s expectations, other people’s behaviors. If only we could learn to let go of that illusion of control. Learn how to do that in this video.
7. Leave the ‘what ifs’ behind
Think about a time in your life when your thoughts were dominated by statements that started with ‘WHAT IF…’ Notice what feeling is accompanied by these statements.
About nine times out of ten, your ‘what if’ statements are paired with anxiety. Why? What is happening is that your worried mind is trying to predict the future. I have heard the phrase, “Worrying is like praying for what we don’t want.” Ouch!
What can you do about this? Learn to notice the what ifs in your life and actively question their validity. See how likely these terrible scenarios are to happen. In my example in this video, see just how ridiculous our anxious thoughts can get. Learn how to tame your worried mind in this video.
8. Release your secrets & share your truth
Perhaps, some of the biggest pieces of garbage we have stored inside can be thought of like a beach ball. That is, we all probably have a few little unsightly ideas we are stuffing deep down inside ourselves.
Psychologists refer to this habit as repression. It’s the act of taking some difficult feeling and pushing it down, holding it back, and refusing to share it with anyone. This might be a secret you are storing. You may believe that if anyone knew this about you, they would reject you.
I’ve heard it said that “your secrets keep you sick,” and I couldn’t agree more. Or, perhaps just as dangerous are those important conversations you are procrastinating having with loved ones. The longer you wait to have this important discussion, the more damage it does. Learn how to deal with these beasts of unnecessary suffering. These next two videos show you how.
Congratulations!
You did it. You learned something that really isn’t taught.
You learned that a lot of what it takes to think positively has nothing to do with introducing new positive thoughts. It’s about letting go of the negative.
It’s almost like walking into a beautiful home that has been left unkempt for far too long. There are empty pizza boxes and pieces of garbage all over the floor. If you wanted to redecorate this place and make it look beautiful again, you wouldn’t start by bringing stuff into the house. You would start by taking stuff out. You have to clean up the mess before you can truly make this a pleasant place to be. It is the same with your mind.
We talked about how to let go of our mistakes and regrets from the past. We looked at how some of our negative thought patterns from childhood can get trapped and trip us up as adults.
We looked at ways to take yourself less seriously, avoid taking things personally, and let go of things we cannot control. In this funny piece about the ‘land of the what ifs,’ we thought about how ridiculous our worried thoughts can be.
Finally, we learned how to let go of insidious secrets and share our truth with the people we love.
Now, you have some new tools to clean up that place you live. You know that place inside your mind you occupy all day long? That place. You have done such a nice job getting rid of this mess that you can sit down and enjoy your clean space. Great work!