Are you too hard on yourself?
Does it feel like the only way?
Does it seem like if you relax a little that things will fall apart?
I read this on Big Think and it got me big-thinking:
“Over at The Huffington Post, author Margie Warrell promotes her new book Brave with an article on why it’s so important not to be so hard on yourself:
“The negative emotions we create by being overly hard on ourselves not only erode our happiness, but change our physiology. Beating up on yourself actually narrows your peripheral vision so that, both metaphorically and literally, you can see less opportunity to address your challenges, fix your mistakes, and create the opportunities you want.”
Being too hard on yourself actually makes your world shrink and it makes it super-hard to grow.
So, if you’re busy looking at all your flaws under a magnifying glass, hard-driving yourself to “success” or any other type of crazy-making super-tough stuff that leaves you little room to breathe… today, it’s feng shui to lighten up and expand your life without any stress involved.
Unless you’re very new to the idea of personal growth, by now you’re likely one of the 24 +million people who has at least heard of Brene Brown’s TED Talk on Vulnerability, and if you haven’t… well… here’s a treat for you.
It’s powerful to be soft. It’s also scary sometimes.
If you’ve spent a lot of time developing toughness, you probably have an aversion to hearing that you’re being too hard on yourself. And too tough.
I used to secretly and very viscerally reject, judge and even resent people who tried to tell me at various points in my insanely-hard-on-myself life that I needed to relax more, I needed to enjoy my life more or, the worst, I needed to have more fun.
I would hear these things and get so irritated. It took me a long time to become tough and learn to be competitive and high-achieving and I wasn’t going to give it up for relaxation!
Instead, I wound up sick for months.I lost loves.I created more rigorous ways to be better. And I lost passion projects.
The harder I tried to push life the more it pushed me back.
I’ve seen other people doing the same things. Working till they’re spent, then running themself to empty in their personal life, treating the people they love with as much toughness as they treat themselves.
And it all gets strained. All the joy goes away.
In feng shui, it’s softness that creates magnetic power.
You want to sit on a softer sofa, you want to sleep on softer sheets, you feel more at home with softer edges… even our brains feel more attracted to softer lines than they do to harder lines.
Soften up and you’ll gain so much.
Work less hours. Sleep more. Celebrate your success instead of fixating on how far you are from the finish line. Take naps. Live better.
It’s wild when you come to see that being so hard on yourself could be chasing away a whole lot of abundance.
Happiness breeds more successin every single way you can think of…and this is an awesome scientific fact to live by instead of anything that resembles self-imposed suffering.
xoxo Dana
P.S.: If you’re ready to take the energy around you to the next level, detox the negativity and make space for joy, the Joy Immersion: 30 Day Negativity Detox is here for you.
THE JOY IMMERSION is a commitment to happy-making, mirror-polishing, life-lifting and simple space shifting for 30 days. It’s loaded with lots of actions that can help you detox from your own negative stuff, uncover more of your greatness and light, and see happiness everywhere you look…!
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Welcome to Creating Genius!
I spent the last year creating this e-guide to balancing and unblocking life by pulling together the best of a decade of space-changing and life-shifting feng shui! It’s 50 days and 50 ways to use feng shui to shift your space and your routines to move from “stuck” to creatively inspired and alive.
Start Creating Genius right HERE!
And… As a special bonus when you get the e-guide– a bonus that thrills me!— I’m leading a private Creating Genius + Artist’s Way Group for all of you, to guide you online through twelve weeks of creative awesomeness this year!
Gather up your magic & make gorgeous dreams come true!
xoxo Dana
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