Leave yourselves alone!

“I shouldn’t have eaten that cake”, “I have a big butt”, “I can’t do it” etc.

Oh, and what's more, I'm already tight with finances, even though we're only halfway through the month.

Oh and I still have to do this, finish that before the weekend.

And this damn boss who is constantly on my back, adding files to my load. As luck would have it, just when I'm ready to leave on a Friday evening...

Phew, the weekend at last! Oh no… I can’t escape Sunday dinner at Grandma Huguette’s. And prepare myself for her same old refrain: "And you, my dear, do you still have no one your age? And children? You should think about it soon before it's too late, you're not young anymore... Otherwise you'll regret it." Blah blah blah…

But according to what standards, damn it!?

STOOOOOPPPP!!!

We stop and take a deep breath.

Yes I know that we live in a world easily dictated by this permanent FOMO. Which makes you forget to stop in this race of life rhythmed by the metro work sleep. With this quest for performance to exist (see my blog post for more on the topic: Are you suffering from FOMO?)

And yet life is a cycle, it is normal that there are times of pause.

Be kind to yourself. This may seem like a corny phrase, but it all starts there.

Because in the end, we don't care about the cause of this lack of kindness towards yourself, now it's about changing the situation.

It won't happen overnight, but here are some keys to counteracting your mental load.

5 KEYS TO RELIEVE YOUR MENTAL LOAD

• Stop wanting to be perfect & wanting to get everything at all costs

First of all, stop feeling guilty right away. Nobody is perfect or has a perfect life, even if social media tends to make you believe otherwise.

We can never repeat it enough: "Whatever you resist, persists."

Otherwise it's the snake biting its own tail.

The more we want to let go, the less we succeed.

It's kind of like the picture, you know, where you're asked not to think about an elephant, and what happens? BAM, spot on, that's all you can think about.

Try through practice to learn to stop trying to control everything and let go.

• Stop comparing yourself

Stop following the movement, the trend of the moment like sheep, often for fear of being excluded, rejected.

Being kind to others is noble, but be kind to yourself first and foremost.

And yes, for example, some people have a series of projects (children, marriage, etc.) just as I have a series of jobs.

So what?

So yes, of course meetings are less frequent, the rhythms of life are now different and must be adapted to keep relationships intact over time.

But that doesn't stop me from always being there and happy for them. Always able to experience moments of lightness together.

Or even currently, I am between two contracts. But I also take the time to sit down and see what I want to do, where I want to go rather than rushing headlong into the first job that comes along because you have to work.

To end up finding a job that won't really fulfill me or that won't pay me what I'm worth, and that I'll want to leave in a month.

No desire for this autopilot lifestyle.

I know what drives me, where I want to go and nothing and no one will take my project away from my head.

It gives me time to think about other directions I would like to take in my life.

Unemployment gives me the opportunity to cover my back while I bounce back. Whereas before I would have quickly felt guilty about living on this aid, now I can tell myself that there is nothing shameful about going through this phase. And that this money is mine after all, I worked to be entitled to it. This is a phase that should not last in time and I am totally aligned with that.

• Write down your thoughts

We're talking about writing down your thoughts from the most trivial to your deepest reflections.

But express them rather than keeping it all inside and exploding into the open at the wrong time.

Writing is well recognized as an excellent outlet. Jonathan Lehmann in his “Happiness Cheat Sheets” talk about mental trash being dumped. I find this metaphor a faithful representation of what this exercise is.

So, give yourself the right to live and give free rein to your emotions, to express them especially the most negative ones. It's healthy.

And if you still have trouble channeling your emotions on a daily basis, personally CBD oil has helped me a lot. So stuck in a difficult period of frustration and discontinuous yoyo of my emotions. (I tell you about it in this article: I tested….CBD oil)

• Accept failure

Failure is often seen as something negative, but it is actually beneficial.

Indeed, it allows you to get closer to where you need to be. It can be hard for many to see the positive in failing. And yet the number of examples in this sense prove it to us.

Let's take Edison, for example, who filed 1,093 patents throughout his life in the process of creating the light bulb. It took all these failures to arrive at this major invention.

Or even more current, I refer you to concrete testimonies from various public figures on the microphone of Pauline Grisoni's podcast, "The Lesson".

Failure is inevitable and inevitable. And even if you don't achieve what you're looking for right away, keep in mind that you're doing your best no matter what.

• "So what?"

Finally, a useful little exercise that can help demystify your limiting beliefs and bring your deepest fears to the fore. Follow through with your reasoning with the question “So what?” or “What if?”

Let's take a concrete case. A person thinks: " If I refuse to lend him my car, he will think I am selfish.

"So what? He's going to talk to X about it."

"So what? Neither X nor he will ask me anything more."

"So what? They won't call me anymore."

"So what? I won't see them anymore."

“So what? I’ll feel alone and rejected.” 

"So what? So what, I don't want to." …

Through this journey, you will often discover the fear and anxiety that is really hidden behind your thoughts. Where does this constant stress come from, for example, or these surges of emotion in particular contexts?

To learn more about this subject, I invite you to read the book by Fabrice Midal "Get the hell out of here and start living" which deals with this subject in depth.

Or even to the "Carefree Notebooks" by Alexandre Jollien, who evokes the "Couldn't Care Less" (CCL) or simply the fact of "don't give a damn".

So, are you ready to finally get some peace?