Aaron Croom

Welcome to March!

As we head in to this new month, I’m checking in: How are you doing? What choices are you making to improve your life? What do you notice about your own progress?

I know at times I cover some sensitive topics that may elicit unpleasant feelings, but I’m proud of you for sticking with it and facing those feelings. My hope is that each week, you are able to find guidance through my blog, and that it helps you live a life you love.

Last week I talked about self- affirmations: this week, I just want to ask you a couple questions. They are: How do you talk to yourself? What kind of things do you say to yourself? Do talk to yourself in a mean voice? Or do you talk to yourself in a kind, gentle, and supportive voice?

This action step:

This week, notice how you talk to yourself, and next week I will cover a strategy that can help you be more effective in how you address yourself in difficult situations.

I’d love for you to respond on my facebook group if you feel comfortable!!

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know.  Feel free to share my series with your friends or colleagues as well!

To A Life You Love,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg

Self Affirmation is a tested way of helping you build emotional and mental toughness, while helping ease anxiety.

Have you ever considered that self-affirmations could actually make a difference in easing anxiety, given the tremendous amount of confusion and controversy about them? Affirmations are the positive self-statements (e.g., “I am beautiful,” “I am well liked and well respected,” “I am fit and in excellent health”) that have often been derided as silly and useless.

Yet, some psychologists believe, affirmations act as a buffer or cushion against outside threats.

Affirmations are more helpful when you are able to see yourself as a multidimensional human being with several aspects to your identity. If you use them already, science stands behind you. What psychologists have found, are that affirmations can help you broaden your view of yourself, defuse criticism, and stand up to what you perceive as dangerous. If you use them already, science stands behind you.

If you have never tried using them because it seemed foolish to do so, know that they can help expand your emotional and cognitive flexibility so you can more successfully persevere and handle life challenges.

Saying “I am capable and resourceful” is one example of an affirmation you can use to mitigate your anxiety. It may seem basic to say those words, yet that statement conveys strength and confidence and saying it really can make a difference in how you experience yourself. Countless individuals have greatly benefited from consistent practice in using this one phrase.

Try it for a few seconds right now. And with each new or difficult situation you encounter, keep reminding yourself of your ability to be capable and resourceful. Keep rehearsing this phrase over and over in your mind.

“I am capable and resourceful”

This weeks question:

Grab your phone or a note-pad and write a reminder for yourself: “With each new situation I encounter, I know that I am capable, and I am resourceful”. Everyday over the next week, at least once, remind yourself of this statement.

I’d love for you to respond on my facebook group if you feel comfortable!!

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know.  Feel free to share my series with your friends or colleagues as well!

To A Life You Love,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg

How do I stop doubting myself, and work on my inner emotional strength?

How does resourcefulness effect your ability to handle anxiety? And when you do experience moments of anxiety, how can you help yourself to feel capable in those moments, and how can you build emotional strength? These are the questions I would like you to ask yourself.

If you tend to experience a lot of anxiety, it may mean that you have a hard time managing the eight unpleasant feelings. If you don’t let yourself deal with your unpleasant feelings or you don’t manage your feelings well, then, generally speaking, you won’t believe you’re fully capable of handling whatever life throws at you.

It’s unlikely you’ll feel resourceful, either. Resourcefulness involves feeling vulnerable, and vulnerability enables you to acknowledge your needs and limitations, reach out to others, and ask for help.

In this way, anxiety can seem almost circular. Difficulty handling the eight unpleasant feelings leads to feeling less capable, and the less capable you feel, the more anxious you become, which makes it even harder to handle the difficult feelings.

Another way to look at anxiety is to consider:

Anxiety is doubt in your capacity to be capable and resourceful.

If you feel capable – meaning you can experience and move through the 8 difficult feelings – then there are fewer reasons to feel anxious, because you already know you can handle the feelings that result from things not working out the way you want. Let’s not let your anxieties make you doubt your own emotional strength.

This weeks question:

How can you be more capable in your day-to-day interactions? What steps can you take to feel capable when dealing with moments of anxiousness?

I’d love for you to respond on my facebook group if you feel comfortable!!

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know.  Feel free to share my series with your friends or colleagues as well!

To A Life You Love,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg

How can I prepare myself to better handle my anxiety?

If you were able to read my last blog post, we went over the Rosenberg Anxiety Reset™, and before we jump in to this next week, I want you to take a moment and go over how using this technique helped you. If you weren’t able to go over last weeks blog, I would encourage you to do so! The methods you learn will be carried into this week in regards to how we approach your anxieties, and how you can use this reset method to change the way you treat your anxiety.

There are a number of questions people ask themselves that provoke feelings of anxiety. I think of them as the “Can I? Do I? Will I? Am I?” questions:

– “Can I really pull this off?”
– “Can I achieve what I want to achieve?”
– “Do I have what it takes to succeed?”
– “Will I be able to deliver a good presentation?”
– “Will I do a good job?”
– “Will I be well liked?”
– “Am I going to be able to complete this project?”
– “Am I okay?”

When you prime your brain with questions, your brain naturally does its best to answer.

What’s important for you to know is that these types of questions foster and increase doubt, and doubt, in turn, increases the experience of anxiety. Doubt leads to a loss of personal power, a lack of a sense of resourcefulness, and less confidence.

The strategy for addressing these anxiety-maintaining questions is to turn them into statements instead. Make declarative sentences simply by switching the order of your words:

– “Can I?” becomes “I can.”
– “Do I?” becomes “I do.”
– “Will I?” becomes “I will.”
– “Am I?” becomes “I am.”

For instance, rather than asking “Will I do a good job?” turn that question into a statement and say to yourself: “I will do a good job.” And if you ask a variation like “How will I…,” change that question into a statement like “I will find a way to…”

Don’t let your anxiety define how you go through life. You deserve to live the life you love, and by changing the language that you use when dealing with anxiety, you can prepare yourself to better handle these kind of challenges.

This weeks action step:

At least twice over the next couple days, I want you to look in the mirror and practice these statements. Tell yourself “I can, I do, I will, I am”.

I’d love for you to respond on my facebook group if you feel comfortable!!

Join my group on Facebook LOVE MY LIFE and let me know.  Feel free to share my series with your friends or colleagues as well!

To A Life You Love,

Dr. Joan Rosenberg