From Challenge to Triumph: How a Change in Perception Alters your Situation

When faced with a tricky life situation. It's normal if the first thoughts and ideas that run through your head are limiting and negative. It's also really normal to feel defeated and to be stressed and overwhelmed depending on the severity of how your life will be impacted by this challenge.

I urge you to FEEL the feelings and let them be felt and heard as you face the challenge.

However, this is not where you settle. We 're not camping out in misery town, we're just passing through.

This is where most people get stuck with life. They fall victim to their circumstances and let the overwhelm swallow them whole. Disregulated and in their fear.

These first initial emotions we feel when faced with these problems are only the very basic, level one responses. It's even more basic than the survival instinct, because it's got no fire in it. It's more like disappointments and defeated mindset.

This has to be the dumbest you'll ever be, during this challenge you face and also it's where most people stay.

Really basic ideas like, oh well we just have to get through it. One foot in front of the other. It makes you feel like a slave, handing over your life to the powers that be.

If you know me, you know that I suffer severely and have done all my life with hayfever. I have tried many things, and I'm talking ALLLL the things to reduce, manage or improve my symptoms and nothing has ever taken it away forever. Just recently I was struck with another attack. I awoke one morning with bruising type pain along the bridge of my right nasal cavity. It has been painful ever since. I didn't think it was anything to be worried about so I have left it for a few days but the pain has stayed the same. Now I'm starting to feel unwell. It's time to go and see my GP.

The stories I'm telling myself about the size of the tumour running into my cheek and how I only have a few days left to live. Asking myself if I'm happy with the way I've lived my life? And I really should clean up some shit from the cupboards so as to not leave that to Ross (my darling husband) to clean up after I have passed. Dramatic, I know!

All of this is a normal narrative we have, perhaps a little over the top. But mostly, I would say when we are having weird things happening in our body we start to hit the panic button and feel like the challenge ahead is all down hill and I'm defeated already.

I'm wise enough to know that once I get a treatment or I understand more, my perception will change and so too will the outcome.

After you've had your initial moment to come to terms with things, then it's time to bring the creative mind out to play. Your creativity can look at your challenge through many different lenses and many perspectives, turning it upside down and taking a look from all angles.

Also, dreaming up what's important for you and how you want to live your life, not budging on how you're showing up for yourself in this life. Placing you in the picture, placing you as number one.

From here you can come up with new solutions and ways to look at the challenge.

If you're struggling to move past those initial feelings and emotions and see the situation any differently, it's because your nervous system has become disregulated and you have emotions that have not been processed and cleared yet. This can take time, or engaging with a therapist is beneficial to clearing the way and being able to see your life and your situation in a whole new stronger mindset.

I offer all sorts of processes and ways to look at your issues and problems that bring about clarity and also a fresh perspective and a way forward that feels empowering.

You can use this link to book a session in with me 

When you engage your creative brain, you look at the challenge in front of you through a different lens and the whole journey changes, all of a sudden there are opportunities and fresh perspectives that you hadn't noticed before.

The power of your mindset and engaging in the creative brain to think up a better life for yourself is underestimated. It literally changes the whole situation and the outcome, just through the power of our thoughts. We can change our reality and shift into a new paradigm. We can start to not only see but also experience life including the challenge in a very different way. with new stories and meaning attached to it.

This gives us a sense of autonomy over our life and a much healthier outlook on life and also on our abilities to face bigger challenges in the future. We build resilience and internal strength when we can get through things feeling victorious as opposed to defeated from the start.

An exercise I like to play with in my mind, is designing my life. I get to choose my attitude and what I do, I cant change the situation, but I can change anything and everything else. So I get to work thinking of things that I would LIKE to do to make this challenge more enjoyable for me. I think of podcasts I can be listening to, and people I get to meet, depending on the situations of course. I like to draw out all the fun from it and put me into the picture. The next thing I know I'm actually looking forward to the challenge.

If you know that there is another way and you don't have to live in the doldrums then I hope this blog post sparks some inspiration in you to start challenging your thinking and get the creative juices flowing for a situation in your life you want to change. You have the power!