Create your default settings…

I have come to realise and appreciate that our default settings, our foundations for our feelings, beliefs and attitudes are not even ours! You know when you get a new phone and the ring sound, the wallpaper and the set up is the ‘factory settings’ well guess what our factory settings are our parents!

Whilst working with a teenager yesterday he came to recognise that his default background feeling was sad, and that he has known this most of his life, so he will do all the he can to find sad, to feel sad and unconsciously create it. Happy feels both alien and uncomfortable!

I wanted then to explore ‘default’ ~” a preselected option adopted when no alternative is specified by the user.”

We cannot select anther option unless we know that our default is a default, so I want you to take a moment and just reflect;

  • What is the most natural feeling for you?
  • How do you create this feeling in your life?
  • What do you think in this ‘mood’?
  • What feelings would you like to default too?
  • What do you do in your life that would create this new feeling?

Our primary caregivers have unknowingly programmed within us our default feelings, unless they did the ‘therapeutic work’ to heal their mental and emotional wounds. We will have unconsciously picked them up and lived their defaults, until we do the excavating, the healing and making different choices, living emotionally consciously!

How can you start doing the ‘healing work?’ ~ maybe it is to stop and reflect;

  1. where in your life you hold yourself back?
  2. where you recognise your beliefs work against you?
  3. which habits, your coping mechanisms, no longer work?
  4. what stops you from creating the life you want?
  5. what in your past still haunts you and impacts today?
  6. where do you feel overwhelmed in your life?
  7. where do you not take care of you?
  8. recognise the feelings you avoid by thinking?
  9. taking time to journal, share, therapy, feel, be, do more of what you love, forgive and allow yourself to create more of what supports you!

To live in this moment, consciously and with awareness, is to be really present and to witness ourself, our behaviour and all we continue to do, whether it serves us or not. To take as much responsibility for our wellbeing as we do the ones we love.

I was always led to believe it was selfish to look after me, however I have come to realise that to not look after me well, means I then cannot look after anyone else well. It is our responsibility to role model, as our default, healthy emotional self care, self respect and through this we create self love!

Allow yourself to witness your default feelings, behaviour, attitudes, then you decide whether these work with you to create the life that feels right for you at this time, if they don’t work on changing them!!

Happy?

I know I have been guilty of expecting others to make me happy, I recognise that I have placed my happiness on many occasions in the hands of others and then been really upset, disappointed & let down when they didn’t make me happy!

The more therapy I have both engaged in & facilitated the more I have recognised, we all have an expectation, a belief that someone else, other than us has a responsibility to make us happy! Now I can see how risky that really is, it is like we are driving the car knowing exactly where we want to go but we let someone else take over the steering & we don’t tell them our destination!!

Our happiness, is based on our choices, our understanding of what makes us feel, grateful, connected, seen, heard & cared for! Initially we have to learn to recognise what, who, where & how we feel happy & these will change as we change!

Take a moment & reflect;

What do you do that feels good?

What allows you to feel ‘connected?’

What, who, where are you grateful for in your life?

When do you stop & just recognise all that is in your life?

Where & who allows you to feel seen, heard & cared for?

When do you stop & notice ‘happy?’

Do you ever take time to really immerse yourself in the good in your life?

It is all too easy to think we want more, or different or see that others are appearing happy, social media is a great distortion for that~ but if you actually just PAUSE & reflect & acknowledge all that you are, all that you care for, all that you enjoy, all that enhances you, you might be surprised at your life!

Write down;

What are you grateful for today?

Who are you grateful for today?

We read that when we are grateful it changes how we feel, this is true because until we acknowledge; who we are, what we have created, how far we have come, we will never recognise the good in our life, so we will never CREATE appreciation for our life, so then how can we feel ‘happy, well or content’ if we are not grateful!

We are never taught that happiness is a state of mind, of the way we think & we have to create the foundations, the understandings to allow it!

We are taught, to get good grades, to get a degree, apprenticeship, job, to earn money, to want for things, materialistic requirements ~ we are taught to chase the illusion of happiness but not how to be happy!

I hope you create happiness for you by looking at your life & finding gratitude within the moments, the memories & the day to day experiences!