Perhaps we are dealing with conflict, hardships, relationship difficulty, addictions, financial hardships or misfortunes, or we’re just not coping as well as we’d like to be.

When we feel like we – or our lives – are messy, most of us instinctively try to hide that mess and vulnerability from others. We worry that our ‘messiness’ will be seen as weak, needy, unworthy, and flawed and we will lose love, connection, and approval in our lives.

But research shows allowing other people to see our struggles, flaws, and faults makes us more appreciated and admired by others. They see it as an act of courage.

The problem is this: we tend to see our weaknesses more negatively than the way we see those of others. Researchers have called this the ‘beautiful mess’ effect.

Hit play on the podcast, or keep reading, to find out more about the beautiful mess effect, and how embracing it can lead to a deeper connection with the people around us and greater mental strength within us.

Why vulnerability feels scary, but is actually strength

On a conceptual level, I think we all know that everyone struggles sometimes. Everyone has flaws and makes mistakes. Everyone goes through tricky, messy times. And yet, so many of us still hold ourselves back from sharing our true experiences with others, worried we’ll come across as weak, needy, or flawed.

But there is a cost to hiding and holding back.

When we hide what we are going through, we often suffer through it alone instead of seeking support. We don’t admit to our mistakes or apologise for them so that we can save face. We find it hard to speak our true feelings and needs which in turn can mean we don’t set boundaries with others or have the important difficult conversations we may need to have.

Showing our messiness is really vulnerable and vulnerability touches so many aspects of our lives. The ability to admit your mistakes and learn from them, apologising and making amends; the ability to confess your authentic feelings and express your needs in healthy ways. The ability to change unhelpful habits, have difficult conversations, and seek help in hard times— all of these kinds of things require intentionally expressing vulnerability. It’s true that they expose us to fear of rejection, which is our underlying fear, but what we often don’t see clearly is that the benefits of being brave and vulnerable far outweigh the costs of hiding, pretending, and holding back.

The ‘beautiful mess’ effect

The ‘beautiful mess’ effect was coined by a group of psychologists in an article for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It’s important to understand this phenomenon because what it teaches us is that we’re often not seeing things clearly.

Professor Dr Anna Bruk and her team researched hundreds of participants in many different studies. They found that contrary to what we perceive, having the courage to show one’s vulnerability often reaps good rewards.

Researchers ran participants through scenarios where they were asked to display intentional vulnerability or rate someone else’s intentional vulnerability. Each time, the participants rated their own vulnerability more negatively than when judging other peoples’.

The vulnerability included things like confessing unspoken feelings or admitting a mistake or flaw, singing a song in front of a group of judges, and so on.

Time after time, researchers saw that “we love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we are afraid to let them see it in us.”

What’s more, they found that if people can overcome this fear and be more open and authentic with their messiness, there are big benefits.

Research Professor and author Brené Brown summarises the beautiful mess effect in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, where she notes “vulnerability is courage in you and weakness in me.”

“The difficult thing is that vulnerability,” she says, “is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you, it’s courage and daring. In me, it’s weakness.”

The benefits of embracing vulnerability

If we can open up to allowing people to see our messiness (in a safe environment with people we feel safe with) it has many benefits.

• Increases our confidence and self-esteem
• Boosts our self-awareness and emotional intelligence
• Improves the closeness and trust within our relationships – as vulnerability is the gateway to true connection
• Improves our mental health
• Increases our capacity for personal growth
• Improves our ability to maintain good self-care

In short, it seems to be worth overcoming our fears to find the courage to expose our weaknesses. Only in this way could we discover greater strength, love, and meaning in our lives.

The secret to embracing your imperfections

Several studies have shown that the best tool to balance the beautiful mess is learning the skill of self-compassion. Studies show that highly self-compassionate people are much more able to embrace and express their vulnerability in healthy and helpful ways.

According to researcher Kristen Neff, self-compassion consists of three components:

1. Self-kindness. A caring and understanding response towards one’s own suffering and flaws; speaking to yourself like you would a friend
2. Common humanity. Recognising pain, flaws, and failures as an unavoidable part of life that happens to us all. 
3. Mindfulness. A clear awareness of the present moment, neither ignoring or exaggerating the difficult circumstances in your life

Your mental strength practice – build your self-compassion

So for most of us, we are not naturally self-compassionate. It’s a skill we need to practice. The voice in our heads is, for most of us, not very self-compassionate. So if you don’t consider yourself naturally self-compassionate, don’t worry! Most of us aren’t. It’s a skill that we need to cultivate.

Here are 2 ways you can start to cultivate self-compassion and embrace your vulnerability and authenticity.

1. Try to replace self-criticism with compassionate self-talk. When the voice in your head pipes up and gets really mean and critical, try shifting your inner voice and tone to one of self-compassion. Try speaking words of comfort. Imagine a close friend was going through this situation, how would you talk to them? Try to switch your inner voice to that of a supportive coach instead of an inner critic. When you do this, really watch your tone. Make sure it’s warm, comforting, and kind.

2. Remind yourself of your common humanity. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone is messy sometimes. We all have flaws and no one has it all together. Remind yourself of this and try to accept yourself just as you are while also doing everything you can to look after yourself and make your situation better.

So let’s recap that –

1. Replacing self-criticism with self-compassion. Try to switch your self-talk from critical to kind and compassionate.
2. Remind yourself of your common humanity.

The next time you’re feeling a bit messy, try actively practicing the skills of self-compassion and authenticity to bolster your mental strength and bring more connection, support, and confidence into your life.

It’s true that there’s risk in vulnerability. We may get turned down, rejected, or cause others some inconvenience. But it’s also true that hiding our true selves, our needs, and our feelings usually causes even more problems in our lives and relationships than authenticity, bravery, and showing our beautiful mess does.

How can I deepen my mental strength practice?

1. Why not try my free 5-day mental strength challenge? You can start it right away, and it’s designed to give you quick wins in your mental strength, well-being, happiness, and resilience.
2. Get ongoing support for transforming your state of mind, in the Mental Strength School. For just a dollar a day, join Melli and other like-minded community members who are committed to mental strength practice. With access to powerful, evidence-based tools and techniques that will give you the unshakable inner strength you need to step into the best version of yourself.

The post The Beautiful Mess Effect appeared first on Melli O'Brien.

As we go about daily life, we spend a great deal of time in what researchers call ‘autopilot mode’. That is, we’re not truly present because our attention is lost in wandering thoughts.

This matters because on autopilot mode we tend to get caught in the same old habits, reactive patterns, and thinking patterns over and over again in loops, even if they are unhelpful, ineffective, or just plain bad for us.

So in this post, I’ll share a simple tool to help break old habits, called a habit releaser. The tool comes from a book called Mindfulness, A Practical Guide to Finding Peace In A Frantic World co-authored by Professor Mark Williams of Oxford University. I love it because it’s powerful, easy to deploy and it unlocks more enjoyment and spice in life. Press play on my latest podcast, or keep reading, to find out how to use this great mental strength tool in your life.

Breaking the habit of autopilot mode

Happiness research conducted by Harvard Psychologists Matt Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, revealed that most people spend almost half of the day (47.9%) on autopilot – lost in thinking about something else other than what we are actually doing. Unfortunately, this mind-wandering was found to be the main root cause of unhappiness for people.

The challenge with being on autopilot mode a lot is that we tend to live out of habit and reactivity instead of living deliberately. Importantly, we also just go through the motions only half here and we miss out on being fully present for moments, for our loved ones, for our lives. So life can start to feel quite dull. We keep playing out the same mental, emotional, and behavioural patterns even if they may not be good for us or helpful. Addictions, bad habits, boring routines, and unhelpful mental emotional patterns – all of these can be explained by a habit of autopilot living.

Much of our automaticity is shown in the fact that we tend to do the same thing day in and day out, in the same way. You know, we sit in the same seat at the dining table, we go the same route to work, we do the same thing when we wake up (for many of us it’s grabbing the phone) and we use the same coffee cup. We go to a lot of the same places and do the same things.

How a habit releaser can help

So the idea of a habit releaser is, you’re going to begin to deliberately break the chain of habitual things that you do each day. In doing that, you’ll be bringing more awareness to them. Which in turn interrupts the habit of just playing out the usual patterns – whether they be mental, emotional, or behavioural.

For example, you might choose to sit in a different chair at the table or in the living room, or on the train or bus. Or sleep on the other side of the bed at night. Take a different route to work. Go to a different place for lunch.

It might mean doing something different when you first wake up. If you usually grab a coffee or your iPhone, try walking outside or just waiting 10 minutes before doing that thing.

Other habit releasers you can try are:

• Brushing your teeth with a different hand.
• Walking or driving a different way to work.
• If you find yourself lost in your thoughts during the day, try physically stopping and looking around you at your surroundings – taking a deep breath before proceeding.
• You could try a food or a restaurant you’ve never tried before.
• If you really want to get creative, you can interrupt thinking patterns by simply just noticing when you’re thinking the same kind of things you always think. And instead, just being playful and trying a different way of seeing things or thinking.

A mental strength practice to try for 7 days

So I invite you to give this a try in your own life in the week ahead. Have a little experiment with it, and have some fun with it. Just see if you can do at least three things differently from your usual routine.

I hope you find benefit in this practice. I think you’ll find that if you continuously use these habit releasers you can bring more awareness, intention, and fun into your life. If variety is the spice of life, then repeating the same patterns is probably dampening that spice. So try it out – bring in some variety, shake it up, wake it up, and live a little less on autopilot and a little more with intention, awareness, and a sense of adventure.

I’d love to hear how it goes for you so feel free to share your stories and wins with me on socials, I love hearing from you. Wishing you a great week with this practice.

How can I deepen my mental strength practice?

Why not try my free 5-day mental strength challenge? You can start it right away, and it’s designed to give you quick wins in your mental strength, well-being, happiness, and resilience.

Get ongoing support for transforming your state of mind, in the Mental Strength School. For just a dollar a day, join Melli and other like-minded community members who are committed to mental strength practice. With access to powerful, evidence-based tools and techniques that will give you the unshakable inner strength you need to step into the best version of yourself.

The post A Simple Tool to Break Old Habits appeared first on Melli O'Brien.

We have the opportunity to change our world profoundly when we change our mindset.

The challenge is that many of us fall into unhelpful mental habits that sap our mental strength, drain our vitality and suck the meaning and joy out of daily life. And we fall into them without even realising we’re doing it.

One of the most simple and transformational mindset shifts I know of is the shift from the ‘I have to’ mindset to the ‘ I choose to’ mindset.

The ‘Choice Mindset’ empowers us to unwind or even eliminate much of our stress, anxiety and inner turmoil and take back our sense of agency and authenticity – allowing us to intentionally create the life we want instead of feeling stuck.

Hit play on the podcast, or keep reading, to find out how to cultivate a choice mindset, and how it can help you become mentally stronger and change your life for the better

Why ‘have to’ isn’t helpful

I ‘have to’ do the dishes, I ‘have to’ lose weight, I ‘have to’ go to work, I ‘have to’ spend time with the kids on the weekend, I ‘have to’ jump on social media for my business.

What do you notice in your body when hearing those words?

When we say “have to” it evokes in us feelings of resistance, resentment and restriction. It implies that we are doing something only out of a sense of obligation and constriction. Which in turn can drain our enthusiasm, lower our mood and elevates stress levels.

No one wants to have to do anything, right?

Recently I caught myself thinking, “I have to go and post on social media,” and I noticed my mood plummeted and I was feeling frustrated and agitated. I had been stuck in the unhelpful ‘have to’ mindset, and needed to make the shift to a more helpful approach.

The shift to ‘I choose to’

I ‘choose to’ take care of my health, I ‘choose to’ spend quality time with my family, I ‘choose to’ take out the garbage, I ‘choose to’ go to work, I ‘choose to’ go onto social media.

Then what is implied here is that we have agency and that our actions are driven from a sense of connection with our values and what truly matters to us.

When I shifted from ‘I have to’ go on social media, to ‘I choose to’ go on social media, I connected to the fact that I care about my work and I want to be able to help people. There is an important message and helpful tools I want to share that will help them.

Suddenly, my stress and resentment dissolved and I felt connected to a sense of purpose instead of pain and pressure.

That’s me, what about you? What are your ‘have to’s that need to shift?

When we adopt a choice mindset, saying to ourselves ‘I choose to’, we can approach situations differently – more intentionally, more honestly and with more agency. Just through this subtle shift in our self-talk (or out-loud talk) our attitude, our mood, our relationships and ultimately, our quality of life can transform significantly.

How to cultivate a choice mindset

If you find yourself in a ‘have to’ mindset, catch yourself and make the shift to ‘I choose to’: is there a value beneath the action that’s important to you?

Connect to the reason behind why you’re doing what you’re doing.

The reality is, that there is very little in this life that we actually have to do. We almost always have a choice. So as you go about your tasks, if you catch yourself in ‘have to’, check in. Is it actually something you ‘choose to’ do?

For instance, maybe you choose to do the dishes because you believe in fairness and kindness and want to help your partner?

Maybe you go to work because you want to look after yourself or have abundance? You choose to spend time with your family because you love them and it matters to you? Even if sometimes we feel conflicted and a part of us would rather do something else, we are still choosing our actions. By adopting the ‘choose to’ mindset we take back our sense of empowerment, agency and purpose and bring more awareness into our daily life.

Your mental strength practice for this week

For this week ahead, try a little experiment. Try substituting ‘have to’ with ‘choose to’ and see what effect this has on your body, mind and life.

Want to dive deeper into becoming mentally stronger? 

I have so many great resources to give you the support to do that.

Why not try my free 5-day Mental Strength Challenge? You can start it right away, and it’s designed to give you quick wins in your mental strength, wellbeing, happiness, and resilience.  

If you want access to ongoing tools to build your mental strength and a community to support you, join us in the Mental Strength School. For a dollar a day you can take care of your mental wellbeing once and for all with carefully crafted, cutting-edge and evidence-based tools to transform your mind for the better.

The post ‘Have to’ mindset vs ‘choose to’ mindset appeared first on Melli O'Brien.

And while this is a completely understandable response to feeling something really hard to be with, a compelling body of research strongly suggests that these strategies are counterproductive.

In clinical trials, researchers found that people who suppress feelings or struggle against emotions have an increased risk of mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety. And those who mentally struggle against them unwittingly end up increasing both the intensity of the emotion and its duration.

Research indicates people fare better when they accept and listen to their unpleasant emotions, rather than try to fight or suppress them.

Hit play on the podcast below, or keep reading, to learn a three-step process for listening to your emotions. This practice will allow you to regulate emotions in a healthy and helpful way while also accessing the wisdom they may have to show you.

Emotions as signposts

Emotions are an energy within us that hold information – about our needs, our values and our wellbeing and what is ok and not ok for us.

These feelings push up to the surface for expression and to signpost – that is to tell us – where we may have unmet needs, need to put up boundaries or make adjustments in our behaviour. Some of our feelings stem from hard-wired survival patterns – biological forces that have evolved to keep us safe from harm and should not be ignored.

When we try to stem the flow of emotions because they are too uncomfortable, our minds and bodies still try to get the messages they hold through to us and may resort to alternative tactics, like mental and physical illness or amplified reactivity.

Many people block their emotions or fight against them with no awareness that this is happening. That’s why it’s so important to find a healthy way to relate to difficult emotions as they arise. Once we learn to acknowledge and listen to emotions, we can unwind inner tension, restore inner balance and regulating emotions in a healthier way.

I feel. I need. I will. A 3-step process for listening to your emotions

When we are in the throes of a painful or difficult emotion we need a simple, practical and quick method to diffuse unhelpful responses and help us deal with the emotions in a more empowering and skillful way.

When you feel a difficult emotion, You’re going to finish three sentences (you can do this practice out loud, mentally or with a pen and paper. Whichever works best for you).

First one is “I feel…”

Second one is “I need…”

And third is “I will….”

Step 1. I feel

“I feel” is where you name the emotion – a simple way of acknowledging it (instead of struggling with it or suppressing it). So here for instance, you might say to yourself, “I feel sadness.” Acknowledging the emotion helps us to unhook from it and get a little bit of mental space. Research shows that mentally naming an emotion in this way can reduce the intensity of an emotion by as much as 50%.

Step 2. I need

“I need” – here you explore what a potential unmet need might be in this moment.

So if the emotion was loneliness for instance. Maybe as you consider why you are lonely, you realise you have not got enough quality time with loved ones in your life. Maybe you would say to yourself, “I need some more connection in my life.”

To give another example, if you are feeling guilt. You may consider why you feel that way and reflect and realise that it’s because you had an argument with someone and you said something you wish you hadn’t. So, you might say to yourself, “I need to make amends.”

Or maybe you feel anger because your boss gave you extra work to do when you’re already overloaded. You might say to yourself, “I need to speak up and put better boundaries in place with my boss so I don’t get burnt out.”

Step 3. I will

“I will” gets you thinking about an action step you can take to help yourself get your needs met.

So in the aforementioned case of feeling lonely and needing more connection, in this step you might say to yourself, “I will call my friends tonight and ask them over for dinner.”

In the case of regret and the need to make amends, you might say to yourself here, “I will go to this person tomorrow, apologise and aim to communicate better from now on.”

And in the case of the anger and the need to put better boundaries in place, in this step you may say something like, “I will say no to my boss the next time she asks me to do more than I can realistically handle and explain to her that I don’t wish to work overtime as it is causing me stress.”

Your mental strength practice for this week

For the next week ahead see if you can give this practice a try a couple of times and see how it feels for you. The next time you feel a difficult emotion, use the three steps “I feel, I need, I will.”

When we listen to and respond to our emotions like this, they not only are regulated and expressed in a more healthy way, but they can also become our teachers and guides. We can use them to help us get clear on how to meet our own needs, follow our values and live in ways that help us stay happy, healthy and strong.

As always, thank you for your practice and your presence here.

Want to dive deeper into becoming mentally stronger? 

I have so many great resources to give you the support to do that.

Why not try my free 5-day Mental Strength Challenge? You can start it right away, and it’s designed to give you quick wins in your mental strength, wellbeing, happiness, and resilience.  

If you want access to ongoing tools to build your mental strength and a community to support you, join us in the Mental Strength School. For a dollar a day you can take care of your mental wellbeing once and for all with carefully crafted, cutting-edge and evidence-based tools to transform your mind for the better.

Read more from Melli on this topic

• How to Deal with Negative Emotions
• Why Your Emotions are Your Enemies, Not Your Allies
• In Your Darkest Hour, Remember This
• How to Use Mindfulness to Work with Negative Emotions
• Letting Your Triggers Become Your Teachers
• The One Distinction That Changes Everything
• How to Become Non-Reactive
• Healthy Anger vs Toxic Anger

The post How to listen to your emotions (and why it matters) appeared first on Melli O'Brien.

Often we struggle against the discomfort we feel. We might try to push the pain away, block it out, numb it or distract from it. Other times, the feelings consume us, and we sink into the quicksand of overwhelm.

Over a decade of psychological research suggests that none of the above strategies for dealing with emotional pain are helpful or healthy and in fact, they tend to only amplify our distress and can even lead to mental illness over time.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Press play on the podcast, or keep reading below, where I am sharing a really powerful, evidence-based tool that will help you find strength, ease and relief in your darkest moments. 

In your darkest hour, go gently

Rather than shutting down or being locked in battle with ourselves when we’re hurting, what is much more helpful is to give ourselves the gift of self-compassion. Self-compassion engages our innate emotional intelligence through self-kindness and mindful awareness.

Through her research, Professor Kristen Neff has shown that when we practice self-compassion, our body’s threat response is down-regulated. We experience the release of oxytocin and endorphins, which reduces stress and increases feelings of safety and soothing.

In this calmer physiological and mental state, we’re able to become less emotionally reactive, we find greater mental clarity and are better able to make more skilful choices about our next best steps to support ourselves through hard times.

Research also suggests that people who cultivate compassion for themselves during difficult times have greater resilience to cope with stressful life events. They bounce back faster and experience greater life satisfaction over the long term and experience less anxiety and depression.

 So it’s important to remember that in our darkest moments, this is when we need acceptance, kindness and gentleness towards ourselves the most.

The self-compassion break for times of pain and distress

Here’s a practice to guide you through your darkest times with compassion, mindfulness and gentleness. It was created by Dr Kristen Neff and it’s called the self-compassion break. I want to walk you through the steps in the form of a mini-meditation here, so you can give it a try. You can also just hit play on the guided meditation below and I will guide you through, step-by-step.

Start by bringing to mind a situation in your life that is challenging, painful or causing you distress.

Tune into your body and see if you can locate where you feel the physical sensations of the emotion in your body. Then…

Step 1. 

Bring mindful acceptance to what is happening. By doing this we can begin to let go of hardening against, and mental struggle with, what is happening. 

So step one is to say to yourself either out loud or mentally:

“This is a moment of suffering” or, “Ouch” or, “This hurts.”

Step 2.

This is about realising our common humanity and normalising the experience of having difficult feelings (we all do sometimes). There is no need for us to feel so alone in our experience or feel guilty or ashamed of what is a normal part of being human.

In this step say to yourself either out loud or mentally:

“Suffering is a part of life. I am not alone in this.”

Step 3.

This step is about offering yourself compassion and soothing. This is a difficult moment, so here we bring kindness into the midst of our pain. You might like to place your hands over your heart as a gesture of self-compassion, or if there is another gesture that feels right for you, do that instead. 

Then say to yourself the third phrase:

“May I be kind to myself.”

Step 4.

This is an optional extra step. If it feels right, you might also ask yourself what you need right now or what action you might take that would feel nourishing and helpful for you. 

An action step such as such as:

Taking a warm bath, going for a walk in nature, meditating, calling a friend for support and so on.

You can repeat these steps, saying the phrases as many times as you need for them to really be felt more deeply by you.

So in your darkest hour and in your moments of pain, see if you can remember to give yourself the gift of self-compassion. By doing so, you can find connection, softness and soothing when you are hurting. You can bring kindness to yourself when you need it the most.

This week’s mental strength practice

For the week ahead I invite you to try this supportive practice in any difficult moment – large or small. Remember, you can look at the steps outlined above, or you can also use the meditation above.

I hope this brings you soothing and strength when you need it the most. 

Want to dive deeper into becoming mentally stronger? 

I have so many great resources to give you the support to do that.

Why not try my free 5-day Mental Strength Challenge? You can start it right away, and it’s designed to give you quick wins in your mental strength, wellbeing, happiness, and resilience.  

If you want access to ongoing tools to build your mental strength and a community to support you, join us in the Mental Strength School. For a dollar a day you can take care of your mental wellbeing once and for all with carefully crafted, cutting-edge and evidence-based tools to transform your mind for the better.

The post In your darkest hour, remember this appeared first on Melli O'Brien.

So if envy is the thief of happiness, what can we do to avoid its negative impacts in our lives? Press play on my latest podcast, or keep reading, to find out more about the cause of envy and the ways to transform it. I’ll give you some science-backed practices that will help retrain your mind to operate in ways that grow rather than diminish your mental strength and help you take back your happiness.

Living in the age of envy

So they say we’re living in the AGE of envy. Human beings have, of course, always felt envy. But now social media has created a world in which everyone seems to be happy, beautiful and living and flaunting their best life. And just to add to it, the images are often filtered, polished, and airbrushed.

We scroll through all these images of people smiling and posing. Showing off their new kitchen, their perfect holiday, their sculpted bodies, their adorable children and their great career wins. And what we tend to do is compare ourselves to these images of perfection and end up feeling like we’re falling short.

So what is envy exactly? It’s a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck. In other words, you see what someone else had and you not only wish you had it, but you resent them for having it.

Ethan Kross, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who studies the impact of social media on our wellbeing says, “envy is being taken to an extreme” on platforms like Facebook.

When we are constantly scrolling through images of these photoshopped lives, he says, “it exerts a toll on us the likes of which we have never experienced in the history of our species.”

Why we get caught in the grip of envy

The reason we tend to be so quick to compare ourselves to others is because of the way our minds have evolved. Back in caveman days, survival meant staying part of the group. Human beings didn’t last long by ourselves. If we were kicked out of the group, it wouldn’t be long before a predator, a warring tribe, illness or injury could take us down. So our survival depended on having the approval of the rest of the tribe. For this reason, our minds adapted to constantly check “Am I fitting in? Am I special? Am I doing anything that could get me rejected? Am I contributing enough? Am I attractive enough? Am I good enough?”

And it would constantly compare us to others to see if we are getting approval and acceptance, therefore able to stay in the tribe.

So we have this habit of constant comparison and approval-seeking deep in our primal conditioning. You’ve probably experienced how painful envy can be first hand, right? And how much it affects your mental well-being. Your feelings of envy don’t necessarily diminish the happiness of those you are envious of, but they do diminish your own peace of mind.

And what makes envy even harder, is that we don’t like to admit it or talk about it. It’s often a very private emotion. Sometimes we don’t even admit envy to ourselves. We’re ashamed to be feeling it.

Envy can take many forms:

• Competitiveness
• Criticism and put downs of other success
• Resentment
• Insecurity,
• Feelings of unworthiness, or
• Feelings of ill-will towards another person

It is also strongly correlated with depression. Numerous studies have shown strong links between envy and depression.

Two science-backed ways to take back our happiness

So what can we do to counter feelings of envy to protect our mental wellbeing and promote greater mental strength? Here are two profoundly helpful tips.

1. Reduce your exposure to envy

Reduce or limit your exposure to environments, habits and media that stoke the fires of envy within you. That may mean limiting your exposure to social media or to certain places, peer groups or other factors. That can be helpful, especially while you’re training in this new habit.

2. Practice sympathetic joy

Buddhism offers us a practice to totally retrain the habit of envy within us. It’s called the practice of  sympathetic joy.  Here’s how you do it.

1. Every time you feel envy, first take a breath and gently bring the focus to the sensation of envy in your body and name it mentally, “Envy is here.” Give yourself some compassion. This mental labelling of an emotion allows us to step back from it, unhook from it. That way, the emotion no longer has a grip on us. It also gives us the space to make a new choice about how we want to be in that moment.
2. Switch your focus from the envy of the other person to happiness and appreciation for this person’s good fortune. Mentally wish them well. Explore whether it is true that deep down you really do want others to be happy? And if that is the case then take a few moments to connect with that truth within you. Take a moment to be happy for them. Enjoy how nice it is to see someone doing well, happy, healthy (rather than in pain, fear or stress).
3. Finally, take a moment to reflect on all the good fortune you already have in your life – and to feel gratitude for it. Food in the cupboard, a person who cares for you, water in the taps, roof over your head, fun times you have had, wins you’ve experienced, success and love in your own life.

In this way you will find yourself filled with a sense of abundance and happiness for both yourself and them. Instead of laying down neural pathways of lack, resentment and hostility, you rewire new patterns in. You lay down new empowering and uplifting pathways of feeling abundant, feeling grateful, feeling connected and feeling joy.

Your mental strength practice this week

So this is your mental strength practice for this week, transform your moments of envy into moments of strength, love and happiness. The next time you find yourself caught in envy see if you can acknowledge it. And then, shift your focus to being happy for the abundance and beauty not only in their life, but in your life too.

 I hope you find this helpful. Wishing you a wonderful week. As always, thank you for your practice.

Want to dive deeper into becoming mentally stronger? I have so many great resources to give you the support to do that. 

Why not try my free 5-day Mental Strength Challenge? You can start it right away, and it’s designed to give you quick wins in your mental strength, wellbeing, happiness, and resilience.  

To take your mental strength to the next level and arm yourself with powerful tools that will last a lifetime, join me in my Headstrong program. It’s my 8-week intensive mental strength program. Headstrong offers the best of everything I’ve learnt in over two decades of mental strength training and teaching. It’s designed to get rapid transformational results and arm you with powerful tools and skills that will last a lifetime. This program will help you not only survive but thrive – even in tough times.

The post Envy, the Thief of Happiness appeared first on Melli O'Brien.

Perfectionists set unrealistically high expectations. They demand near flawlessness from themselves and others, are overly critical of mistakes and quick to find fault. While having high standards for your life can be healthy, perfectionism is driven by a judgemental and critical pattern of thinking that sends us on a fast track to unhappiness and disconnection.

Hit play on my latest podcast, or keep reading below, to find out more about perfectionism, why it is the killer of unconditional love, and how we can shift to practising unconditional acceptance, a more helpful and skilful state of mind.

Life through the lens of perfectionism

Perfectionism is the destroyer of love. Now, you might think that’s a pretty strong statement! But let’s explore this idea a little more.

When we are in pursuit of perfection – whatever our idea of that is – what we are usually doing is we’re looking at something or someone through the lens of a comparing mind, a critical mind or a judgemental mind. We are focusing on what’s wrong, what’s lacking, what’s not ok with them yet.

In other words, we do not accept them as they are.

So, we might look at someone, for instance, but then we have this idea of how we think they should be. So instead of just accepting them as they are, we compare them to our idea of how they should be better, how they should do things differently, how they have these things about them we don’t like, how they have these imperfections.

And in that moment that we do that, there’s a little bit of inner tension created between you. A little closing down or walling off. Often even a little hostility comes in. We don’t accept and love them just as they are. We want to change or fix them, or get them to do what we want.

We may do this with our loved ones, our co-workers and even strangers we barely know.

We do this kind of thing to ourselves too, right? We have these kinds of mental measuring sticks where we compare ourselves and judge where we are on the scale. We measure where we are on the scale of looks, money, success and we try to edge our way closer. And if we are not at the top end of the stick, we conclude mentally that we are not worthy, not ok as we are. We slip into feelings of unworthiness and sadness. Or we push our minds and bodies to their limits trying to measure up and ‘make it’.

Adopting unconditional acceptance

When we are overlaying the perfectionistic comparing and critical mind onto our view of ourselves, each other, and life, we will always see things as less than, not good enough or in need of fixing or changing. No matter what we or others ever do, get, have or achieve we will again overlay the same mindset, therefore never allowing unconditional acceptance in the door.

And then we’ll never see the perfection that is actually always there, right in front of our eyes.

What do I mean by ‘the perfection right in front of our eyes’? Well, there is another way of looking at things. A mindset that is free of comparison or judgement that might see everything as already ok just as it is. Even with all the cracks, flaws and apparent imperfections. In that case we would practice accepting and appreciating things as they are. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong and needs changing, we would focus on letting things be as they are, and loving them just as they are. This is a mindset of unconditional acceptance.

What follows unconditional acceptance of course, is love.

In fact, the Dalai Lama when asked once what is love, simply replied “‘What is love? Love is the absence of judgement.” And this rings true to me. When someone looks at us with total acceptance, and without judgement we feel connected, seen and safe. When we practice unconditional acceptance with ourselves we feel worthy, whole and confident.

So, the truth is we’re not really seeing things clearly when looking through the eyes of perfectionism. We’re not seeing the other person or ourselves as we truly are in that moment. And we will always feel tension, loss of connection and loss of love.

Your mental strength practice this week

So, for just one week I invite you to try out being an ‘imperfectionist’ instead. As best you can, let go of the idea of perfectionism and deliberately switch your mental focus to unconditional acceptance and appreciation instead.

See if you can soften the mental habits of comparison and judgement. Every time you find yourself judging, criticising or fault-finding in your mind, switch your focus to loving and accepting people (yourself included) just the way they/you are.

If we can let go of the idea of perfection, then we can make more space in our lives for authentic, wholehearted connection and love.

So that’s this week’s mental strength practice. Giving yourself and others what we all want most in this life – unconditional acceptance and love.

Want to dive deeper into becoming mentally stronger? I have so many great resources to give you the support to do that.

Why not try my free 5-day Mental Strength Challenge? You can start it right away, and it’s designed to give you quick wins in your mental strength, wellbeing, happiness, and resilience. 

If you’d like to take control of your mental fitness once and for all, the Mental Strength School offers proven, practical and high quality mental strength training that’s perfect to fit into a busy life. For a fraction of the cost of a gym membership, you can keep your mind strong which means improved mood, more resilience in hard times, better performance and focus, and enhanced relationships. There’s no other platform like this in the world.

The post Perfectionism is the Destroyer of Love appeared first on Melli O'Brien.

We make a lot of decisions every day and these decisions are what determine the direction and quality of our lives. Some are little. Some are completely life-altering. So how do we let go of mental clutter, uncertainty and confusion and make those decisions in the best way possible? My favourite technique is through using the head-heart-gut check-in. A powerful mental strength tool for making decisions.

The head-heart-gut check-in helps you tap into the innate, whole-body intelligence that lies within us all. Accessing our intuition, our wisdom and our intellectual intelligence, it helps us make choices from a place of certainty, clarity and awareness.

So, press play on the podcast, or keep reading below, to learn this technique, as well as a bit of the science behind why it’s so effective. Use it on the go in your life to help you make both big and little decisions in the most effective way possible.

We have three brains – head, heart, gut

Did you know you have one hundred million neurons (also called nerve cells or brain cells) in your intestines? The gut is now being referred to by many scientists as the gut-brain. Your heart, in addition to its other functions, also acts as a heart-brain. It’s made up of about 40,000 neurons, all of which can sense, feel, learn and remember.

Yep, that’s right. We have three brains communicating together at any one point in time. The more official names are:

1. Cephalic brain (head)
2. Cardiac brain (heart)
3. Enteric brain (gut)

Each organ has complex neural-networks and is able to store and process information, and each has the capacity for neuroplasticity. 

Many ancient wisdom teachings have put great emphasis on checking into one’s own innate intelligence, speaking about ‘following the wisdom of the heart’ and honoring and listening to ‘gut feelings’.  In recent years, technology and neuroscience have confirmed that these teachings were correct. So we now know for sure… our bodies have not one, but three brains. Each of which have different ways of ‘knowing’.

Here is how you can use the intelligence, wisdom and intuition of your three brains to make better decisions. It’s a mini meditation practice called the head-heart-gut check in.

How to practice the head-heart-gut check in

Read the steps below, and save this infographic to use later.

You can also follow along  using the meditation supplied below. Any time you’re at a decision point you can use this mini-meditation to respond (and not react) to what is arising with wisdom and intelligence, making more mindful choices leading to a fuller, happier, more authentic life.

The head-heart-gut check in: 5 easy steps

Step 1: Take three deep breaths. Take three deep slow conscious breaths as a way of gathering your awareness to the present moment.

Step 2: Bring your awareness to your head. With your awareness in the head, acknowledge what kind of thoughts are present in relation to the current situation.

Step 3: Drop awareness down to the heart. Place a hand over the heart and take a moment to attend to what values you have in this situation, what you care about and what your deepest intention is.

Step 4: Drop awareness down to the gut. Place a hand over the abdomen. Tune into any hunches, intuitions or emotions that are present in relation to the current situation.

Step 5: Collect all this information. Take one deep slow conscious breath in and out as you have a sense of collecting all this information from the body and mind. Then mentally ask yourself this question, “What shall I do now?” Listen for the answer.

Maybe you’ve got an insight – that’s really helpful, but don’t worry if you don’t get a clear answer right away. You can repeat this practice at any time.

Once you’re familiar with the steps, the Head-Heart-Gut Check In meditation can be done in as little as 30 seconds when you need to make a quick decision, or you can do a longer version that takes up to five minutes when you have more time and perhaps are facing hard choices. We often rely way too much on spinning things around in our heads and ignoring the other domains of our being. The domains of wisdom, and our deepest and most dearly held values. By using this practice in your moments of decision, you’ll be able to make more integrated, empowered, and wise choices. 

May this practice be an ally in times when you need it the most. It certainly has been for me.

The Head-Heart-Gut Check In Mini Meditation

You may also listen to the head-heart-gut check in meditation by clicking on the video below.

Your Mental Strength Practice for this week

So this week, your mental strength practice is to try to use the head-heart-gut check at least once. It can be a small decision or a big one. Just try to get familiar with it and see what effect it has on you. See if it’s helpful and if it is – keep it in your mental strength toolkit going forward in your life. 

Want to dive deeper into becoming mentally stronger? I have so many great resources to give you the support to do that. 

Why not try my free 5-day Mental Strength Challenge? You can start it right away, and it’s designed to give you quick wins in your mental strength, wellbeing, happiness, and resilience.  

To take your mental strength to the next level and arm yourself with powerful tools that will last a lifetime, join me in my Headstrong program. It’s my 8-week intensive mental strength program. Headstrong offers the best of everything I’ve learnt in over two decades of mental strength training and teaching. It’s designed to get rapid transformational results and arm you with powerful tools and skills that will last a lifetime. This program will help you not only survive but thrive – even in tough times.

References:

Hadzhazy, A. (2010, February 12). Think Twice: How the Gut’s “Second Brain” Influences Mood and Well-Being. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/

Moore, N. (2016, December 1). You Have 3 Physical Brains! Head, Heart and Gut. Retrieved from http://www.mindsetcomms.co.uk/head-heart-gut-brains-three-physical-brains/

Rajvanshi, A. (2011, May). The Three Minds of the Body Brain, heart and gut. Retrieved from http://www.nariphaltan.org/gut.pdf

Rozman, D. (2013 February 11). Let Your Heart Talk To Your Brain. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heartmath-llc/heart-wisdom_b_2615857.html

Sonnenburg, J. and Sonnenburg, E. (2015, May 1). Hut Feelings – the “Second Brain” In Our Gastrointestinal Systems (Excerpt). Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-feelings-the-second-brain-in-our-gastrointestinal-systems-excerpt/

Soosalu, G. and Oka, M. (2012), Neuroscience and the Three Brains of Leadership. Retrieved from http://www.mbraining.com/mbit-and-leadership

The post The Head-Heart-Gut Check In: A Mini-Meditation for Making Wise Choices appeared first on Melli O'Brien.

Even if we’re not aware of it, this inner voice has so much power to impact the way we feel about ourselves, our relationships, and our lives. It can crush our self-esteem, plague us with self-doubt and cause us much stress and anxiety.

The good news is, we can unwind all that inner tension, struggle and suffering using a simple, evidence-based tool that has the power to profoundly change things for the better and improve your mental strength.

Hit play on the podcast, or keep reading, to find out how to tame your inner critic through developing greater self-compassion. A life-changing skill for anyone and a key component of mental strength.

The transformative power of self-compassion

When we train in self-compassion it can be deeply transforming. Here’s an analogy for this…

Imagine living in a house with someone who was constantly following you around the home criticising, berating and judging you. You can imagine the energy of that house becoming quite tense, uneasy and demoralising.  

Well, it has been said that our true home is our mind because although we can leave our houses, we carry our minds with us wherever we go. As much as we may try to escape it, numb it, or struggle with it, the mind is always with us. 

Many of us are living with constant feelings of unworthiness, stress and inner struggle because our inner voice is harsh and mean. But if we train in bringing a friendly attitude towards ourselves, we can change our inner world into a place of ease, rest and kindness. 

To continue the analogy, imagine your mind could become like a house with a warm crackling fire and a loving and supportive friend to live with. Someone who speaks to you with respect and kindness, who is always there for you when you are down. This home is a place where you can relax, gain strength and feel love.

So how can we change things?

How to tame your inner critic using self-compassion

The way that we often speak inside our own heads can have a harsh or cold tone to it, especially if something has gone wrong or we made a mistake. 

So I invite you to try practising self-compassion in the way you speak to yourself this week. Start deliberately practising self-talk that sounds warm, friendly and kind. Let your inner voice take on the tone of a supportive friend or coach.

If you catch the inner voice sounding harsh, take a pause. Maybe take a deep breath and then change the tone back to warm and kind. Say kind and encouraging things to yourself like, “Good on you for giving that a go honey.” Or, “That was a very kind/honest/good thing you did mate.”, or “Hey, you really gave that your best shot.”

If you don’t find terms of endearment like ‘honey’ or ‘mate’ useful, then of course just drop them. You can experiment with this and find the way that feels right for you.

When you’re having a hard time, try using the same tone of voice that you would use to speak to a loved one who is hurting. Say soothing words to yourself. Things like, “It’s ok, everyone makes mistakes sometimes. You’re human. ” Or, “Take it easy darling.”, or “Oh this is a tricky moment. May I be kind to myself in this tough time.” It might feel awkward at first to speak to yourself this way but if you think about it, it’s even stranger to be verbally abusive or mean to yourself. You’d probably never talk to a friend like that. 

So this week’s mental strength practice is to  focus on befriending yourself instead of berating yourself and see what the effects of the practice are for you – how they affect your state of mind, your quality of life and your ability to be more effective and engaged in your life.

The link between self-compassion and success

After working with many people over the years I know that a common concern is that if you are kinder to yourself, and you stop being harsh and cracking the whip on yourself, you are going to lose your edge, get soft or stop trying to improve. So let’s address this by looking at the research.

Research compellingly shows that there is a strong correlation between the skill of self-compassion and success.  Recently I did a podcast about the link between self-compassion and success (June 20, 2023). I explain (and share the research) there, that even though that voice in your head may try to convince you that you need to be nasty to yourself, there really is no evidence to support that. In fact, there is a huge body of research that shows that the opposite is true. People who are kind to themselves achieve goals more effectively, have more grit, are more resilient in the face of challenges and bounce back faster from adversity.

Through cultivating this self-compassion we not only feel more at ease and calm, but also more motivation and vitality within ourselves. And of course, when you are kind to yourself that will ripple out and be a gift to everyone you know and everyone you meet.

Your mental strength invitation this week

So that’s the invitation for your mental strength practice for the week ahead. Every time you hear that voice of the inner critic pipe up, take a deep breath and then change the tone back to warm and kind. Say kind and encouraging things to yourself. In this way, with repeated practice, you will tame the inner critic and lay down new neural pathways for lasting inner peace and confidence.

If you’re finding these practices beneficial to your life, and you’re ready to take your mental strength to the next level join me in Headstrong. It’s my 8-week intensive mental strength program offering the best of everything I’ve learned in over two decades of mental strength training and teaching. It’s designed to get rapid transformational results and arm you with powerful tools and skills that will last a lifetime.

The post How to Tame Your Inner Critic appeared first on Melli O'Brien.

For many of us, that voice inside can become our own worst enemy. It ramps up our stress and anxiety, crushes our self-esteem and pulls us into dark moods and reactivity. When we walk through life believing everything our mind says, we can easily find ourselves stuck in a cycle of suffering, stress and disempowerment. A cycle that inhibits us from living our lives fully, and being the person we want to be.

So how do we break free from that, when our inner voice is literally following us everywhere we go?

Through the practice of ‘unsubscribing’ from our thoughts. Using this simple practice, we can become better at regulating unhelpful or negative thoughts and finding more calm, clarity and inner strength.

Hit play on the podcast, or keep reading, to learn how to use this simple practice in your everyday life. It has been one of the most life-changing processes for both me and my students, and I’m confident if you give it a try in the week ahead, you’ll see a noticeable difference in your freedom and peace of mind.

Why our negative thoughts stick: Cognitive fusion

Now we know with email or social media, if we find some of the content coming through unhelpful, we can hit the unfollow or unsubscribe button.  But the original meaning of the word ‘subscribe’ means to ‘express or feel agreement with something’, so therefore to unsubscribe from something means to not express or feel in agreement with something.

The reason we often get caught up in unhelpful thoughts is because we subscribe to them. We agree with them and take them seriously. We believe them.

The psychological term for this is cognitive fusion.

Cognitive fusion is unhelpful because when fused with our thoughts, it means we:

• Become emotionally reactive to our thoughts
• Mistake our thoughts for reality. We think they are the ‘truth’
• Take our thoughts very seriously
• Obey our thoughts. Automatically playing them out

Unsubscribing from our thoughts with cognitive defusion

Cognitive defusion is where we can unhook from thoughts. In this process, we don’t automatically believe thoughts – we see them as bits of language going through the mind. We only take them on if they are useful or helpful. We don’t automatically play them out. When practising cognitive defusion we:

• Don’t automatically obey thoughts
• Don’t emotionally react to them – because they are just bits of language go through our minds
• See the difference between thoughts and reality

Here’s an example to help illustrate the difference between the fusion and defusion. Imagine you wake up one day. You look outside your window and see that it’s cloudy and raining. Let’s say in that moment a thought pops into your head that says, “What a dreadful day.” Now is it really true that it is a ‘dreadful’ day? No, of course it isn’t! It’s simply raining. 

So, what happens if we subscribe – that is, become fused – with the thought that it is a dreadful day? Well, we’ll probably have a dreadful day, won’t we! If you get fused to a thought like that, you become emotionally reactive to the thought so you start to feel low mood, feelings like grumpiness, bitterness or resentment, and you truly believe it’s a dreadful day. So you play it out, you walk slumped over to work, you complain to the people at work and on public transport. You don’t recognise that it’s just a rainy day. You totally buy into the belief that it’s dreadful, so you experience a horrible, miserable, dreadful day.

But what happens if instead of buying into the thought of “What a dreadful day” when it arises, we simply observe it as a mental event? This is cognitive defusion. So there you are in your bed seeing the rain and clouds, then you watch the “dreadful day” thought arise and then naturally fall away. And since you don’t attach to it, take it seriously or believe it, it generates no negativity and passes by easily without affecting your perception, mood or state of being.

And you’re left there free to listen to the pitter patter of rain on the roof, cosy in your bed enjoying the first moments of morning.

The practice of thanking your mind

So here’s a short practice to help you unsubscribe from unhelpful thought processes. It takes the sting and the power out of them. It helps you defuse from them so they no longer throw you around, draw you in and drag you down. It’s a practice from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy called ‘thanking your mind’.

Whenever you find your mind throwing up unhelpful, mean or negative thoughts – no matter how compelling, dramatic or urgent they seem – just with an attitude of warmth, playfulness and even humour you simply reply mentally to yourself:

“Thanks, mind. Thanks for sharing.”

If your mind says, “You’re such an idiot.” You mentally reply, “Thanks, mind. Thanks for sharing.”

If your mind says “What will happen if no one looks after me when I’m old. It would be horrible.” You reply, “Thanks, mind.”

If it says “This stupid ‘thanking the mind thing’ doesn’t change the fact that your life sucks, you’re kidding yourself!”, you simply say, “Thanks, mind!”.

Your mental strength invitation this week

With this simple practice you are changing your relationship with thoughts in a powerful way. You’re not trying to get rid of the thoughts, push them away or fighting with them (these strategies are ineffective and only amplify and strengthen negative thoughts).

Instead you are acknowledging that these are simply thoughts, not reality, and are opening up more mental space to step back from the thought so it no longer has any grip or hold over you. Research shows that cognitive defusion is a much more adaptive, effective and helpful way to deal with unwanted thoughts

I invite you to take this practice with you into the week ahead, and any time you find you’re getting caught in unhelpful thoughts. Have a play around with it. Remember to do it with warmth and humour.

No matter what your mind says to you, no matter how serious it claims to be, see if you can have a sense of smiling at the mind and just mentally say “Thanks, mind!” And then change the focus of your attention to something more nourishing. That might be a simple refocus of attention to what you are doing in the present moment. Tasting tea, typing on a computer, driving a car or talking to another person. Or it might be changing your thoughts in a different direction, such as gratitude, self-compassion or more empowering thinking styles.

Each time you do this practice you build your capacity to unhook from unhelpful thoughts and bring more lightness, ease, and calm into your days. I hope this is helpful for you.

Thank you for being here and practising becoming mentally stronger. It really is a gift you give, not only to yourself but to everyone you know, everyone you meet, and ultimately, contributes to a happier, more peaceful and more enlightened world.

Are you finding these practices valuable?

If you’d like some more support in becoming mentally stronger, come and check out the coaching and training options I offer. The Mental Strength School offers proven, practical and high quality mental strength training that’s perfect to fit into a busy life. It’s a great place to start.

Or if you’re ready to radically transform your mental strength over 8 weeks of bootcamp style training, join me in Headstrong. It’s my 8-week intensive mental strength program. Headstrong offers the best of everything I’ve learned in over two decades of mental strength training and teaching.

The post How to Unsubscribe from Unhelpful Thoughts appeared first on Melli O'Brien.