I just finished reading the Holistic Psychologists new book 'How To Do The Work: Recognise Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self' by Nicola Lapera a couple of days ago. For those that don't know who the Holistic Psychologist is then I would look her up on Instagram and YouTube, I think she's revolutionary in her work and her approach to healing. I really love what she's doing.
One of the things that I took from the book was the incredible importance of establishing trust in oneself on the healing journey or just in life. Without trust in yourself you will always look to others for guidance and to know what is the right way or what is the truth. But the truth is that no one can tell you what is right for you unless it's an expert in an area where you lack knowledge such as a dentist or a surgeon perhaps. But even then we still need to go back to ourselves, do I trust this persons advice? Does this person make me feel safe to follow his/her advice? Or will I just follow blindly?
Nicola Lapera talks in her book about when we want to create changes in our life we often set ourselves up with this great plan where we plan to change our entire life in 180 or 360 degrees and then we often end up abandoning the whole project after x amount of time. Why does this happen?
Because we overwhelm ourselves with too many great changes all at once. If you haven't left yourself with any familiar comfort that you can retreat to when you feel the need for comfort you will most likely throw the whole plan away. So she suggest that you start with one small thing that you do every day like drinking a glass of water the first thing you do in the morning. Then you keep on doing this for the rest of your life. Such a small promise and commitment won't overwhelm you or stress you out but it will instead create a trust in yourself that you can keep promises to yourself. That your word to yourself means something.
Have you ever tried to change your life and failed your plan to do so and then every time you try again you end up abandoning the plan? This creates a distrust to yourself. It may also bring up a lot of feelings of shame and guilt - "why can't I do it when "everyone" else can... what's wrong with me?"
So what Lapera says in her book which I love is that before a great change can happen, we need to trust our self. We have to become our best friend, we have to be the person that we trust the most. We have to become the person that we believe in. How do we do that? By keeping our commitments to ourselves and by creating small changes in our life that we can easily do without overwhelming ourselves. That's what great friends do to each other right? You check in and make sure that the tasks that you set out to do aren't too great, that they are within your capacity to do. Today as you are now. Not how you imagine that your future self 'should' be where the distance to who you are today is simply just too great. Then we end up feeling defeated and as failures.
But instead if we approach change with kindness to ourselves. What can I possibly change today that my future self would thank me for? A small thing that I can keep doing everyday for as long as I choose to?
Remember that this is something that you are doing for You. Something that you know will improve your life quality. Something that will make you feel better in the long term.
A few suggestions:
- a glass of water first thing after awakening
- going for a walk in nature upon waking
- turning of my wifi before going to bed
- stretching upon waking f.ex. 2 minute cat and cow stretch
- 5 min meditation in the evening
What kind of small change could you implement in your life today to create greater trust in yourself?
Thank you for reading!
Much Love,
Kristina