We often underestimate how much our mindset influences our lives.

Working with your mindset to improve your life takes care of the thought that you should do better. It helps you understand and empathize with others when they get frustrated, sad, hurt, or angry, and it makes YOUR life so much easier!

Mindset Colors Your Experience 

I’m sure you know that your state of mind colors your experience of any given situation. For example, when your husband remembers your birthday and brings you a huge bunch of roses, your day afterward is likely to be more joyful than when he forgets to call from a business trip – that he took on because he forgot your birthday.

Right?

And maybe not.

Working With Your Mindset

Most of us have some strategies to improve our mindset when it goes black and blue. And that’s great!

The trouble is that when we get triggered by something or someone we forget to use them. The truth is that the emotions triggered are so powerful that we have no way of remembering saner strategies and choosing pain-free approaches.

Those emotions just take us over. 

And because we are stuck in these emotions with no way out – we go to blame. We either blame others – the person who ‘caused’ the situation – or, we direct the blame inward, shaming ourselves.

“I should have been able to deal with this better!”

“I always do this!”

You Are Not To Blame

The most important first step out of these cycles is to understand that you are not to blame. I repeat – You Are NOT To Blame.

This is simply the way you have been conditioned from early childhood until now. It is the way the human mind works (for now).

This is not a personal problem or a personal failure.

It’s also not the shortcoming of other people in your life.

The problem is that you have been conditioned to believe that other people and situations are – or even can be – responsible for your state of mind. 

How The Conditioning Happens

Have you ever watched mum say: “Eat your food for mummy.” “Put your jacket on for mummy.”?

These requests and many similar ones we use to handle our kids – with the best and most loving intentions! – teach them that if they are good, and do what we say, they’ll make us happy. And what a strange and wonderful power that is, being able to make your parents happy, even at that age! 

In school, we earn appreciation through being good students. Being a rebel is really just the other side of that same coin – getting attention and appreciation through being “bad”. 

We carry that fundamental belief into our relationships and our working lives. Unless we work with our mindset we are stuck in repeating the same patterns over and over again.

Because we believe that other people are responsible for how we feel, we spend our lives working to gain love, approval, and appreciation. And when they seem to be at risk, we think we need to do better.

The Need For Boundaries

If you have taken any course in wellness or self-care you have most probably come across the ‘need for boundaries’. When the suffering and dissatisfaction of a life lived to gain appreciation and love become too much, we begin to set boundaries towards the other.

Boundaries will give you a breathing space.

They’ll allow you to begin to say: “No.”

You learn that a NO to someone else can be a YES to yourself, to your own needs. It can even be a kind response that prevents you from building up resentment toward the other (for saying yes when you meant no).

What boundaries can’t do is address the underlying cause – the belief that others can make you happy or unhappy. They keep the belief that you are responsible for others’ state of mind, and they are responsible for yours. 

Letting Off Steam

Venting allows you to let off steam before you explode.

Anger, gossip, and even shouting can be a safety valve that keeps us from exploding in the face of our clients and family members before we cause physical or other irreparable damage.

I love that people have safe places to vent their steam. I love it if that works for you, for as long as it does. 

Venting your anger, frustration, or sadness can be life-saving. It works like the relief valve on a pressure cooker.

But if you want the pot to stop boiling you will need to turn down the heat or remove it from the flame. The same goes for your frustration, depression, or anxiety. To keep these emotions from creating that steam, that intense emotional state that is so hard to deal with, you will have to go to the root causes. And those are in your mind. 

Surely The World Is At Least Partially Causing How I Feel? 

I know that is what it looks like. Let’s do a thought experiment.

Remember the birthday situation we started this exploration with?

Imagine then going to work and meeting an irate client.

Imagine yourself with the same client, either being disappointed and angry at your husband or being happy about your roses and feeling loved.

Can you see how you’ll most probably feel vastly differently about that client?

And yet, the client hasn’t changed.

The only difference is the mindset that you bring into the situation.

The Power Of Working With Your Mind

This is very powerful stuff.

It means that you can take control of a situation. Once you understand that it is your state of mind that dictates how you feel you can start to take responsibility for it. It’s a powerful realization.

It’s the first step to take if you are overwhelmed by your negative emotions in any situation.

Take a step back, notice if you’re blaming anyone, and reconsider what is happening. Come back to yourself.

Don’t blame yourself either! That’s a trap we fall into easily. Know that you are conditioned, take a step to the side, and take a deep breath. For some instant reset techniques, you could download this HALT doc. It’s free. 

How Do I Change My Conditioning? 

Well, I’m glad you asked.

This is where you begin to enjoy your life so much more. This is where you’ll have more energy, more patience, more time, and develop the ability to support YOURSELF without needing to push others away.

There are many paths to understanding the shenanigans of your mind.

The process I use to support all my clients is called The Work of Byron Katie, or Inquiry-based stress release. It’s a process that allows you to see yourself more clearly and helps you undo your personal triggers.

When those triggers have lost their power you’ll be less flooded with emotion. You’ll see that you are doing fine.

You’ll be clearer, kinder, and more confident in your actions.

How To Learn?

If you want to learn inquiry join me for the Culture Shift Masterminds on Thursdays. You’ll be in great company – self-aware, caring, and dedicated people who are willing and ready to look to themselves first – because they want to be in integrity and authentic – and also because blaming others hasn’t worked to shift culture.

For recorded talks on Inquiry, you can check out my YouTube Channel.