Shift & Reset: Break your funk with RE-Experiencing!

Over the last week or so, I’ve been hearing a lot of the same emotional stressors from my Leaders stemming from the currently holding pattern we are in.

Are you:

Finding you’re a little more easily annoyed?

More difficulty in focusing?

Uberly sensitive to movies? Conversations? Bouts of tear shedding?

Extreme procrastination?

Higher levels of anxiety? Fear? Sadness?

I hear you! Here's why you might feel this way:

Over the last week or so, I’ve been hearing a lot of the same emotional stress stemming from the holding pattern we are currently in.

Finding you’re a little more easily annoyed?

More difficulty in focusing?

Uberly sensitive to movies? Conversations? Bouts of tear shedding?

Higher levels of anxiety? Fear? Sadness?

I hear you!

One of the annoying characteristics of the mind is that it gets used to things. Your brain adapts to the consistency of its habitual nature making certain things you used to find enjoyable, now annoying or dissatisfying because you’re constantly experiencing them.

Your reference points (things you’re consistently seeing, hearing, doing, etc.) have remained mostly the same over this quarantine making it very difficult for you to ‘enjoy’ something that is new or fresh. For an example, what would you give to go to a restaurant right now? Watch a live sports game? Etc. This small shift would break the cycle of your brains adaptation making you feel less restricted and the normal things that you used to ‘want’ to do, like play hooky 😅, would feel exciting or needed. When you play hooky, your mind doesn’t have a chance to get used to the R&R therefore, it’s a nice break and feels great!

Another psychological bais that you may be experiencing is this tricky thing called Focalism, a tendency to think about one specific event (being stuck inside during quarantine, no freedom to do what you really what, etc.) without reference to any of the goodness that you are being surrounded in. When focusing on this one event or situation with a much more specified lens or perspective, your may find yourself in constant reel of limiting thoughts around this specific thing. "This is the cause of all my.... Because of this, I will never get to... The only thing that matters in this world is...

SO, how do you break out of this adaption to experience an elevated shift in your day?

Try this exercise: Re-Experience

What you'll need:

• Pen
• A 'feel good' notebook
• A tune from my Spotify playlist, which you can find here (instrumental works best!)
• Find a spot maybe outside on your porch or in a comfortable space in your home where you are free from distractions for about 8-10 minutes.

 Re-Experience Exercise

• Think back on a time/experience that you had that was TRULY AMAZING! (first date, wedding, child birth, school, friendships, trips, etc.) Select one of the most AMAZING and/or impactful experiences.
• Take about 8-10 minutes to write about this specific one experience.
  • What was it?
  • What did the day/experience look like?
  • How did it feel?
  • Was there a certain smell in the air?
  • What made it so awesome?
  • What were the funny parts of the experience?
  • Who was present and what about their presence elevated the experience?

The idea here is to connect to an AMAZING moment in time that once elevated your level of happiness and bring it back to re-experience to break out of that hedonic adaption, one of the annoying features of the mind!

Don't have an experience you wish to recall? Totally fine- create one! You have to be dying to go somewhere? Create an experience to look forward to utilizing the same protocol as above.

If someone else was included in your re-experience, perhaps they too would love a Shift in mindset today. Reflect on the fun, joyous, exciting time together!

Enjoy!

Learn more about your BIG SHIFT Here

Connect with me:

Instagram: @lady__hammer @thesayge

Email: [email protected]