When negative thoughts take over

So at certain periods of my life, I will be faced with very, very difficult emotions. And I know I'm not alone in this, where we can go through a period where we just feel amazing, like life is just working out for us and everything's great. And then it's like we just hit a wall and our internal world just kind of comes tumbling down. And I can only describe the way that I felt this past week. And when I feel like this, it's like I just want to disappear. Like, nothing I say is good enough. Nothing I do is good enough. I'm embarrassed of what I say. I'm embarrassed of how I look. I'm embarrassed of every little thing about myself. I push everybody away. I literally just want to be invisible when I feel like this. And I know that sounds really grim, and it's not something I normally talk about because I don't normally feel like this, thank God, anymore. I used to feel like this a lot, and I've done a lot of inner work to not feel like this anymore. So when this came on me this week, I really had to sit with it to try and see why all of this was coming up. I am so bad for trying to just jump on my emotions when they come up and explain them away. And this time I really couldn't. Like, they were so strong. I just had to feel them. I really tried to observe them, but really they had me. Like, they had me. For a few days there, these emotions just had me, and there was not much I could really do about it. I was meditating. I was journaling. I was in nature. I was touching grass, and the grass was not hitting. It wasn't working, and it was just really, really tough. Anyway, today I've come out of it. And who is blowing leaves at a time like this? As I was in it, I was obviously journaling a lot and reflecting a lot on why this happens, because it just felt so polar opposite to how I normally feel. And it definitely felt polar opposite to how I want to feel. And I just thought I used to feel like this all the time. And if there's anything I can share that would help anyone get out of this feeling, then that would be amazing because I just know how awful it is and how powerless you feel when you feel like that somebody actually is blowing leaves. Hold on, let me close the window. During this time, it was like I just couldn't switch off my brain. Like, that inner critic voice was so, so loud. It was. I just couldn't get away from it, no matter what I did. I. And the problem is, when you're in this state, you think it's everything and everyone around you. So I was starting fights with my boyfriend. I was questioning every little thing about my life. Like, everything was just wrong, and I was wrong for everything. And I couldn't find meaning, really, in anything at all. The thing is, when you're in this period and you feel this bad and you feel very, like, insecure, frustrated, angry, hopeless, whatever it is, it's really important not to take that out on people around you. And I know that's easier said than done. And sometimes, maybe there are issues with people or things around you, but while you're in these really bad, irrational feelings and that inner critic is just attacking you and everything about your life, it helps a lot to wait for that storm to pass before you go talking or attacking anything else in your life that you think might be causing it. Because, honestly, most of the time, the source of this pain is internal. And, yeah, there could be things in your life that you need to change, but really, if you have. If what I'm saying resonates, and you have periods in your life where you're really good for a while, and then all of a sudden you feel awful and terrible and hopeless and whatever that is, an internal issue like that is your traumas and your past wounds rearing their head. And that's why you feel like that having just honesty with yourself and compassion with yourself is how you kind of start to work your way through this. Because you might be, like, your inner critic might be hating on you, shouting at you, but there's a reason all of this is coming up in the first place. And there's a reason. There's something that set this thought process in motion. So sometimes I think we just have darkness inside of us that needs to be heard without being judged or without us trying to turn it into something else. And that's something, for me, that's been so difficult because I strongly identify as the strong parts of myself. I am productive. I don't dwell on negative things. I'm positive, I'm optimistic. I always have a reason or a solution. That is my identity. That is where my ego is tied up. It's in that identity. And so when things come up and emotions come up that are the total opposite to that, that are maybe perceived as weak, that have no meaning or explanation that. That are negative, my ego does not like that. And my ego fights against that because that challenges my identity and who I think I am, which your ego will try to Protect yourself, your identity at all costs. Because without it, the ego disappears. So it's a survival instinct of the ego to protect the self. And we're going to get into this on a deeper level because I've obviously try to explain this on the deepest possible level, but that's basically what's going on when you have periods where you feel so unlike yourself. That's why it feels like a war in your mind. It's because your ego is attacking that part of you. And this is why the inner critic gets so loud and why it just becomes so painful to deal with is because there's different parts of you fighting with each other internally. So yourself basically, when you were born, you came down onto this earth, you were born. When we are born, we're whole. And as we go throughout life and we encounter different life experiences and events that may be called traumas. So this could be something as small as being shouted at or you know, being left by yourself. Whatever it is, these little traumatic events, trauma on a very low scale, to a very high scale, doesn't have to be a high scale for this to happen. Every single person on this planet experience something that's called fragmentation of the self. So essentially your self fragments at the point of trauma. And trauma usually is something associated with a certain level of distress. So it could be very low level. And yourself basically splits into two parts. We have a vulnerable part and a protector part. So there's two aspects. The vulnerable part is the part that feels the pain at the point of trauma. So this is the part that feels that fear of rejection, abandonment, isolation, unworthiness, shock, shame. Those are like vulnerability is really the core of all of those deep, deep rooted negative emotions. Okay. And then on the opposite side you have your protect yourself. So your protector self was created and comes in to save you from feeling like that vulnerable self. So let's say something happened, you were left by yourself as a child for too long or something, I don't know. And you developed a very small vulnerability around abandonment. And so this branched off into a protect yourself that started people pleasing. Because in your mind, in your young brain, you decided, okay, this is how we get people not to leave us. If we meet their every need, if we satisfy their every need, they won't want to leave us because maybe that person left because I didn't do what they said, or I didn't do what I was told, or whatever it is. So you can see how in the moment of trauma, your brain usually always internalizes whatever happened and comes up with A way to protect you from that happening again or from you ever feeling like that again. And basically your entire personality is made up of all of these protector sides that have split off over the years. So, like, it could be even small things, even good things. It could be good, bad, whatever qualities. So you could be very productive as a way to protect yourself from feeling unworthy. You could be very controlling as a way to protect yourself from fear of the unknown, whatever it is. All of these little things that you've built up are just the protector aspects of your personality. But the vulnerable aspects of your personality don't disappear. And what I believe is happening when we have periods where we feel really, really bad. I think it's your vulnerable aspects, your vulnerable splits coming up to be felt. And I think they come up to be felt because most of the time, because we've been triggered. And people, I think, don't realize how strong triggers are. Like, they are so powerful and they're sneaky. And sometimes you don't know what's triggered you because for you to realize the trigger that's come up, you have to realize something that exists inside yourself that you don't want to realize. I'm gonna try to think of an example. Oh, yeah, okay. So basically, I think what I'm gonna give you my example and I'm just gonna be real vulnerable here because that is the attitude of this whole video. Basically, I started going down this kind of negative emotions route where I started feeling really, really bad and like all these low level emotions after an event happened that triggered me feeling inferior or internalizing something as meaning I was inferior in some way. And the thing with the trigger is once your brain recognizes an event as familiar to a past event that was traumatic, it triggers the same neural pathways as that past event. And it signals to your brain and your body that the exact same same thing has happened. And so even though it could be something so small and it could be an entirely different situation, your brain and your body doesn't know any different until you soothe it. So really, you could be. And you see this a lot in relationships. You could have a situation where you have, you know, you're with a new partner, your partner's very loyal, and you see them talking to a girl, but that's their friend. And like, it's a perfectly platonic conversation. But if you have past trauma of seeing your ex speaking to a girl and it turns out he was really sneaky with that girl or something along those lines, or you have a past history of being cheated on that innocent event, this new event that is actually innocent can trigger the trauma and the same emotional and mental response as the past event. So your brain will signal to your body that you're in danger. You might have a lot of anxiety, you might have a lot of panic, you might feel rage, jealousy, insecurity. Basically when the trigger happens, then the same thought patterns that your, your brain laid down when the past event happened start going off. And your brain is literally just trying to protect you. It's trying to tell you like, hey, when this happened before, it meant this and it meant this and this and this and this and this. And so that's what this means now. So that's how your brain jumps to certain emotions and certain thought patterns when it perceives something as a trigger, which is the same as before. And the thing is, it can be very subtle and it can be very hard to know when you have been triggered, but you will know because you will be feeling really, really a really strong emotional response to something. And you don't know why, and it doesn't make sense. That's how you know you've been triggered. And I, I feel like there's a lot of like, oh, I'm so triggered, I'm so triggered. And people like throw the word triggered around. And that really bothers me because it's a real thing. And the thing with the trigger is it's, it's serious. Like it really can throw you off. It feels like you're right back in that moment where the really, really bad thing happened to you. And a lot of people don't understand what it is. And it's just you so casually now. It's not something that should be kind of taken lightly because a trigger is usually a very serious mental, emotional and physical response to an event. So when you are triggered, it is an opportunity for you to self soothe that part of yourself that's popping up because of the trigger. Because all these parts, basically we repress them. We perceive these vulnerable parts of ourselves as bad and negative. And so we push them away and push them away until our brain makes them kind of unconscious. And what can happen is like, you'll see this in a lot of people who are just. They're quite problematic. And you can see they have some unresolved issues in how they behave, but they cannot see it. And they are very unaware of their own issues. And this happens from repressing parts of yourself and not wanting to face them because we think they're going to be too painful to face. So really when you're triggered, it's an opportunity to have awareness of parts of yourself that you have repressed. Reason why I think it's just so helpful to know this is because you can see that really the self is just a made up thing. And pain and suffering really comes from us overly attaching ourselves to certain parts of ourselves and deriving our ego from certain aspects of the self. And the ego is addicted to thinking. Okay, your ego needs to keep thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking about things that proves its existence and that will sustain its survival into the future. So that's why whatever we think about constantly is a reflection of who we are or who, what our ego is, what our self is made up of. And the thing is, you can detach from this incessant thinking if you feel like you're just drowning in your thoughts and your inner critic is just constantly badgering at you. The beauty of knowing this is that you can see that that is just ego feeding itself, feeding your thought patterns to keep itself, yourself alive. And it's a very, very strong thing because the ego's trying to survive. But you can give yourself some peace in knowing that that's kind of all that it is. And you are not your ego. Well, you are, but you are not just your ego. And you don't have to stay addicted to these thinking patterns that you've been addicted to, because that's all it is. You're not your thoughts and you're not your ego. You're more than that. So if you understand that, you can understand that this is not all of you. This is just your ego trying to keep a story alive based on your thoughts that you've been thinking. And when you can see, like this is, I, I kind of visualize it as like this ball. I. This is ego, right? This is ego. This is, that has been fed from my thoughts about myself recently. But outside of that, like all around is space, presence, awareness and consciousness, which is really who you are. That's actually who you are. You're not this little part that is ego. You're this, you are this. But you're also, more importantly, you're this. This is important. I'm not saying you shouldn't have an ego. I think a lot of people say that ego is important because it gives you personality, direction, whatever. But this is really who you are and who we all are. We're all source consciousness. And getting out of this when it feels heavy and bad and getting into this source consciousness energy is what's going to give you relief from that inner critic. It's what's going to give you relief from that incessant noise, those feelings of unworthiness, this really bad story that you're telling yourself about yourself. It's just your ego that's feeding this negative loop. And so if you can get yourself out of that ego, of that feedback loop, and you can get into your more conscious state, where you're more connected and you're more present and you're detached from thinking, you can release so much of the negative stuff that ego is holding on to because you can see it as an observer rather than seeing it as you. And that is the key to all of this. If you don't even know what your unconscious thoughts are about yourself, you can figure them out by looking at your emotions. Your emotions are just thoughts manifested in physical feelings in the body. And so if you're feeling shame, you know that there's a wound there, there's a thought pattern there that's going on that's dictating to your body that you should be feeling this feeling of shame. So those are signals that there's something going on in your mind. And usually the thoughts going on in your mind are trying to tell you that there's some part of you that is needing comfort and soothing and reassurance, rather than you trying to repress it and push it away all the time. So when you notice parts yourself that are very uncomfortable. I know this sounds weird and strange, but this is actually something to be very happy about. Because up until this point, those parts of you were unconscious. And if they're unconscious, that means you can't do anything with them or about them. They're just within you and you're unaware of them. And they may cause you to act a certain way or be a certain way, which is not optimal for you without you realizing why you're doing it or that there's anything really wrong with it. So obviously your vulnerable aspects that have split off over the years, those really. This is all connected to, like inner child work and everything like that as well. Your vulnerable sides are associated with your painful emotions. But what can be really difficult to look at is your protector side, which is usually the self, which is usually wrapped up in ego. They may have some unhelpful or kind of ugly aspects to them that we can't see because our ego is wrapped up in them. So that was the case for me, and that's why it took me a while to figure out what was going on. I had a certain pattern that was a protector side of myself. So that part was looking out for me. It was trying to keep me from feeling pain, but it was doing it. And it was seeking things that I know don't really go with my core values. And that kind of created an internal conflict. But I couldn't see where it was coming from because it was part of my identity and my ego to be like that and be that way. And the thing is, when I initially realized, like what had triggered me was feeling inferior, and that part of my ego, really a protector side of me that was wrapped up in my ego really wanted me to be feeling superior to other people in certain situations to avoid feeling that fear of rejection or that inferiority or abandonment. And so this was part of my ego and part of myself, part of my protector aspects. And it was something that really was causing a bit of internal conflict within me for a while until an event happened that really triggered the vulnerable side of it. Then I got to unpack the whole thing and realize that this was what was going on with me. This was what triggered the sequence of thoughts and emotions that had me feeling so, so bad. But I did not know that that was the event that triggered me because I could not see that I had a little bit of a superiority complex because that's difficult to look at. And that was part of my ego. But the thing, thing is, as soon as you become aware of it, it's no longer ego. The only really things that are a part of your ego are things that you're unconscious of. So our vulnerable aspects, when they come up, they feel like shame, they feel like fear of rejection, fear in general, and honestly, just the struggle for feeling worthy. Those are the vulnerable aspects. And so all our protector sides is, are trying to do is protect us from feeling that. But the key to power, like the seat of feeling actually in control, powerful, balanced, is to be aware of all these aspects of yourself, but not actually identify fully as any of them. So the goal is to realize that you are simultaneously all of these parts, all of these fragmented parts of you, and also none of them at the same time. And this goes back to the consciousness part. Like when you zoom it out, you are just consciousness experiencing all of these things. And I think when you're feeling all this shame and unworthiness, you're operating from a false belief that any imperfection that you have means that you're unworthy. You're keeping yourself from this feeling of wholeness because you have a false perfect perception that any imperfection, any vulnerability that you have makes you Unworthy. And the thing is, most of the insecurities that we feel, other people feel them, but they don't perceive them the same way that someone else would. So if it's something like you're ashamed of certain things about yourself or, or you're fearful that you'll be rejected about certain things, that is just how you are interpreting those things about yourself. Because you're pushing them away and you're labeling them as bad. You're keeping yourself from actually being able to accept yourself fully and authentically. Whereas if you look at someone who just accepts those parts of themselves, even if they think they might be negative, if they just say, okay, it's okay, they're part of me, they're inviting in wholeness and connection because they know that the imperfections that they have, the vulnerabilities that they have are okay. Really, the most whole people, they know that vulnerability is just necessary. It's a part of life. Putting yourself out there, putting yourself at risk of being rejected, making your first move, going all in on something even though it might not work out, putting yourself in these vulnerable positions, feeling shame, admitting that you're in the wrong, admitting that you're ashamed of something from the past, allowing yourself to be upset with yourself over something from the past, allowing yourself to accept that you know you were rejected about something. All of these things are just a necessary part of life. And it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. Because every single person deals with these things. Every single person. And the reason, the reason it feels so heavy and your shame is so strong and your unworthiness is so strong is because you're telling yourself a story about the events of your past and you're making it mean that there's something really wrong with you. So it's probably a child aspect of you that you, you need to go back and talk to and you need to let that child, part of you know that it's okay that it wasn't your fault. Especially if it's something that you're carrying or if it's multiple things that you're carrying from your youth. Most of the time our child brains pick up on things and make them mean that they did something wrong. Because we don't have, we don't have enough external evidence yet to, to understand what's actually going on. We don't understand all the moving parts of the adult world yet. And so when something happens to us as a child, the easiest thing for our child brain to assume is that there's something wrong with us. And it's our fault. And the thing is, we're still carrying those things. And this is where shame comes from. It's the stories that we're still carrying. It's the little child part of ourselves that still think there's something wrong with them. And when these emotions, these horrible, terrible emotions come up and make us feel so vulnerable and bad and afraid and ashamed, that's an opportunity for you to sit down with that part of yourself and let that part of yourself know that there's nothing wrong with you just because you feel like this. Because even though vulnerability is kind of where we feel these bad emotions, it's also where we tap into connection, wholeness, joy, creativity. If you can let go of who you think like you should be and just be who you are, that sets you free from this inner critic, this internal monologue, this self judgment that just feels incessant. So how you do that, basically this is called a stream of consciousness exercise. And you can do this by speaking, you can do this by writing. But what you want to do is you want to the part of you that's, you know, that you want to understand the part of you that's cropping up, that you feel like needs a bit of air time, you want to just fully drop into that part of yourself. You want to close your eyes and you want to drop into that part of yourself and you want to let yourself just feel how that part of you feels. And you want to drop the judgment. And this is the hardest thing. You want to go in there with no judgment. No, literally all you're going in there with is compassion and the intention to genuinely understand that part and not understand through the lens of your identity and try to make it fit an identity that you would like to fit or try to change it in any way. You want to just understand. You really want to drop any resistance or disapproval for this part of yourself. Because the thing is, this part of you fragmented and came into existence for a reason. It was all to protect you. And so really the only thing you want to go in there with is compassion. So the goal is by doing this with all the different parts of yourself that keep coming up, you want to gain awareness of these parts, of their purpose, of why they're here, what their motivations are, what they're trying to protect you from, what their needs are. All of these questions you want to ask just to understand them so that you can acknowledge that all of these things are part of you. You don't resist any of them, but you don't overly attach to any of them either. So what I had to do when I was going in in a deep dive on the part of me that was cropping up, so this kind of part of me that was trying to make me feel superior to other people, I had to get into the part that was feeling inferior, where that came from, why that came up, what I was scared of. And really I dropped into both parts. So the part that was trying to make me feel superior and the part that was afraid of feeling inferior or that felt inferior, and I had to ask them what needs this part is trying to meet? What is this part of you protecting you from? What is the opposite part? How does this part feel about the opposite part? How can I understand this part? What is your motivation? And how can this part of me understand the opposite part of me? And that will just let you know the ins and outs and just like why it came about in the first place, it will let you know why these parts of you exist so you can genuinely have compassion for every part of yourself. I was watching a video, you know, might be able to tell because I repeat a lot of what she said in this video, but Brenny Brown's, I think it was like a TED Talk or something. And I think she says, your courage to be vulnerable is what makes you beautiful. And this is such a big thing. Like, even with shame, this has happened to me before where I there's certain things we can carry around and be so ashamed of within ourselves. And then when we look or someone else speaks about that same thing, we don't judge them, we just have compassion for them. We understand where they're coming from. And so we need to turn that back on ourselves and look at that within ourselves and realize that this repression of this thing is what is creating the shame. Speaking about it is what sets it free. And just being open about all the things, the things that you're afraid of, all the things that you just feel the inclined to repress is what will set you free from them. This shame, this unworthiness, this insecurity, whatever you're feeling, let yourself feel it. Let yourself hold space for it. And please know that this you feeling this doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with being vulnerable. There's nothing wrong with these human emotions that you're experiencing. Experiencing it literally just means that you're human. And to be human is to be imperfect. You're not the voice in your head. You are consciousness. You have more power than you think. You can interrupt those thoughts. You can zoom out. You can take your power back. And everything you need to feel joy, love, happiness and abundance is usually in allowing yourself to feel and talk about the things that you're avoiding most and that you're repressing most. I hope this video helped and I will see you in the next one.