Nuggets of wisdom for life

I have read a lot of self help books over the years and have attended many conferences and seminars on personal development. Here are some of the nuggets of wisdom that I have learned along the way:

Leave it to settle and clarity will come

Sometimes we need to take a step back and let things take their course for a little while. It’s okay to allow the process of life continue. Stop fighting – let it breathe and clarity will return.

If you’re feeling burnt out, you are trying to control too much

Let go, slow down and accept you can’t control everything. Sometimes you need to have faith and trust. You can’t fix/do/be everything.

You can’t control your thoughts but you can control your focus/attention

Thoughts will come to you constantly and it is better to acknowledge they are there than to try ignore them completely. Acknowledge that you have mad, weird and intrusive thoughts but learn to let them go – don’t pay attention to them…as soon as one has passed another one will be along. Learn to focus attention on the helpful thoughts and dismiss the unhelpful thoughts. I love this analogy: you can’t stop someone knocking on your door but you can control how long you entertain them for … same as your thoughts!

No amount of self improvement can make up for a lack of self acceptance

One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is to become your number one fan. Love what nature has given you and it’s far more likely that others will love it too. Confidence is contagious. Love who you are, remind yourself of your strengths regularly. Talk positively to yourself as you would a best friend daily! You owe it to yourself to get comfy with who you are – you’d be a fool not to.

Learn to separate your conditioned self from your unconditioned self

Your unconditioned self hold the ‘true you’ – the person you were born to be. Your conditioned self is who you get moulded into being after spending time in society. Say “please”, say “thank you”, don’t do this, don’t do that..etc.. we slowly erode away our unconditioned self and if this erosion is extreme we can lose our way to finding peace of mind. Regain your unconditioned self by doing things you are naturally good at as well as things you enjoyed doing as a child. Stop people pleasing and learn to be assertive…

Your beliefs will determine your quality of life

Choose what you want to believe about the world wisely. Once we form beliefs, we look for evidence to confirm them and these views can become distorted as we exclude info to the contrary. Learn to be open minded and non judgemental. Beliefs determine our experiences of the world and alters our feelings and behaviour. Beliefs are so powerful – choose healthy balanced ones!

Live in the moment as much as possible

Ever watched your pets? They are content because they don’t spend ages worrying about things that may never happen. Learn to live in the moment. Of course – have goals and plan for the future but once that is done, get on with living in your environment NOT in your head!

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any nuggets of wisdom to add! We all need as much help as we can get 🙂

Mandy X

Author: Mandy Kloppers

Mandy is a qualified therapist who treats depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, trauma, and many other types of mental health issues. She provides online therapy around the world for those needing support and also provides relationship counselling.