My Gremlins

I have to admit I have been quiet the last couple of weeks and it's because I've been struggling with my gremlins. The quiet voices in my head which say things like 'I'm not good enough, no-one wants to read this, I'm not smart enough, this is a bad idea etc'. These gremlins have been coming out good and strong in all directions of my life over the last few weeks causing me to feel anxious continuously, get frustrated, feel trapped, paralysed in taking action, eat badly, have very strange dreams and skip my morning gym sessions.

I'll start off with work as this seems to (as usual) be a big part of it for me. Except for the fact that I know my life's purpose is not making profit in the current industry I work in, I have been struggling with the new structure they have created, the conflicting messages from leadership and the behaviours they show which eventually cascade down. I understand why they take some of the actions they do but it feels out of line with my integrity and natural self. My Corporate gratitude list hasn't been working, it feels exhausting to put into practice.

Now, before we jump to 'why don't you just quit if it's causing you so much grief' - believe me, I have wanted to many many times, especially with the attractiveness of 2 weeks notice in the US vs 3 months in the UK. However one big reason - I am here on a visa and I would be forced to leave my fiancé! and two - if I quit, I need to have an idea of what I would do next. Ironically, I have had some of the biggest breakthroughs in self discovery by not quitting and sticking this out. Hence setting up this experiment and THE EXIT PLAN! More to come on that.

I decided to dig a bit deeper as to what causes me to feel so frustrated at times in the office and I did recognise that some of it is down to my own limiting beliefs. These are beliefs that we've built up over time base on our past experiences. E.g someone's said 'you look ugly in that or yellow doesn't suit you, you need to try harder, you're not good enough' etc.

Here are some of the personal breakthroughs I've had:

- I was given a new expanded role - awesome. Then realised that although it says that on paper, in action it's been carved out into pieces and handed out to other people.

Limiting belief #1 - 'I'm not good enough to do this role on my own'. Nobody has said that to me, why do I think it?

Limiting belief #2 - 'I'm not needed here, the others are' - I instantly want to escape when I get this feeling of unwanted and try and look for where I am needed taking my focus away from the bigger picture.

- I know my priority right now is to formulate my exit plan, come home and spend time with my fiancé or on things that I enjoy that's not work but I stay late at the office which spirals into self hate when I get home, bad eating and staying up late to try and get more of an evening in. Why do I stay late?

Limiting belief #3 - I need to complete the tasks to show I am of value, committed and not lazy. Why am I worried about others thinking any of this for me?! Is it just the high standards i have set for myself?

I have noticed my biggest insecurities lie in wanting to be needed, valued and reassured I'm doing a good job and I constantly seek signals to re-iterate this and vice versa, signals to show the opposite. I don't think these needs are unique to me, it's part of our natural human selves. However, these limiting beliefs are self sabotaging. They don't help me and they don't help others around me either so it's so important we recognise them.

A talk by Michael Singer really helped me on this this week. His advice was to hear these crazy thoughts in our head, to be aware of them and to take a step back from them and mostly not to take any action at all.

What we should be doing is providing ourselves that self-love, self-value and self-respect. Not looking for it from other people. This takes our focus away from being our trueselves and sets us into action on things that potentially don't even need action.

Now I have recognised this I can claim the power back from my gremlins and wave goodbye at them as they come past me tomorrow and the next day and the days to come.