The more time I spend on this earth, the more I realize how important taking care of my mental health is. I’ve seen the endless amount of benefits show up in my life in many different areas. Some examples include paying off tens of thousands in debt, losing 20 lbs and keeping it off, starting my dream business while being a stay at home mom. All of this to say that regardless of the challenges and struggles that have happened in my life, I’ve been able to create what I want in my life.

The different circumstances we all face are things we have zero control over. There’s so many things that happen outside of us and there’s nothing we can do about them. We cannot control the outside world, and we may sometimes drive ourselves crazy trying to do so.

Where we hold all of our power is in HOW we are going to handle the situation in front of us.

For so many years of my life I lived with a constant anxiety. Any “small” situation would cause me to do into this state of worry and anxiety. I’d usually blame whatever negative thing was going on in my life for feeling this way. I thought these were the feelings I had to feel because of whatever thing was happening in my life was the cause of it. I was basically blaming what was happening around me for the way I feeling. I had no idea that I was in charge of my feelings. (But more on that in a bit) Some of my reactions included emotionally overeating, watching endless amounts of tv, and act like a grump towards my (at the time boyfriend, now husband). All actions that resulted in a life I was not very happy with. I didn’t want to overeat and gain weight, show up like that towards my husband, but I felt like it was ok because of the things that were “happening to me.” Does this sound the least bit familiar?

Let’s fast forward to now… many, many years later after doing hundreds of hours of work on my brain. I now realize, I cannot control the things that happen outside of me. BUT (and this is a big but) what I do have control over is HOW I think and feel about those things. I am the one in charge of how I deal with those situations most of us are faced with. Switching my mindset to this way of thinking has given me all of my power back. When we limit our way of thinking we remain stuck. We lose our control over finding solutions that will benefit us and enrich our lives. Instead, we may let our negative thoughts spiral and “attract” more negativity. (Which our human brain loves to do)

So next time you find yourself in a situation you don’t find pleasant, ask yourself how you can approach and look at this situation differently, in a way that will serve you? The truth is there are an endless amount of different thoughts you can think, which means there are an endless amount of solutions as well.