It all starts with 'I' - 10 attitudes that assist inspired and balanced thinking

If you are not having inspired and balanced thinking  - you are more than likely feeling stressed or out of balance in either relationships, career or health and probably being run by your emotions, feeling ungrounded and reactive in nature. Does this sound familiar? 

I know that it is possible to brush it off/cover it up, say ‘I’m fine!’ but this is about listening to the signs and symptoms of your body and adopting attitudes that create poise and power in your life. 

Here are Ten ‘I’s to assist having inspired and balanced thinking:

1) Introduction:

Introduce your self to new things, people and ideas.  We are ‘here’ to grow, and fear lurks where we lose our nerve. When we stay in our comfort zone with everything known and cosy around us, the world can seem increasingly alien, challenging and fearful. You don’t need to be radically changing all the time but have an open mind and an open heart. Trust. Develop a lifelong learner attitude. ‘Stretch your Zone’.

2) Intensity moderation: 

Listen to the intensity of your reactions to situations; the bigger the button pressed - the more baggage behind it, the more your values have been challenged. So what self- knowledge can you get? If you dig deeper, what is the issue behind the intensity that is wanting to be heard? 

A fear of what? Once you can name it you can deal with it and your reactions will be less intense.

3) Instinct and Intuition:

Instinct and intuition are close brothers, perhaps differentiated by action and reflection. 

Following your instinct is tapping into your animal brain. It is like a bloodhound on the scent of a fox, check into your gut feeling - does this feel like the right direction? Instinct is something primal – bodily, emotional – your gut is very responsive to your emotional state – checking in with it is another gauge to what feels right for you. 

Intuition comes when you have time to ponder a situation or consider a choice and you listen to this, it is asking your head (and your heart) for an answer, in its collected wisdom.

 4) Inspiration:

Inspiration is foundational to empowerment. The difference between being motivated and inspired is that to be motivated means you are moved to do something from outside of you, whereas inspiration comes from within: ‘in spirit’. It is aligned to your soul and your truth. Listen to it – it is linked to your ‘mission’ on this planet  - when your heart sings and you have that inspired feeling it is your soul resonating with its purpose. Inspired moments are a guide to what’s truly important to you. It taps into your connection beyond you …your soul’s opinion.

5) Imagination:

Imagination is the key to your goals and the shadow of your fears. On the one hand, it is so important to stretch beyond your immediate grasp and to go for the level that you can only imagine. Used as a tool for creation, it is a powerful asset. Your imagination taps into your subconscious and is able to play without the conscious mind-police monitoring your choices saying: “It will never work”... However, when you are feeling disempowered or vulnerable the same imagination fuels your fears and creates scenarios that can mean the end of your relationship, career or wellbeing. There is a saying: ‘what you think about you bring about’ whether it is real or not. If you allow your imagination free rein when you feel paranoid, for example: your partner being unfaithful or having symptoms of illness…the chances are, you will manifest those situations. Your imagination has power - use its counsel wisely.

6) Identification:

Identifying ourselves is a life long quest to answer the question ‘Who am I?’ It is a fluctuating, ever-transforming answer depending on whom you are with and what you are doing and experiencing. A key is not to identify yourself to a label from your past e.g. divorcee, abused, depressive so that your past continues to be your identity today, but to use it to see all the skills, support, benefits and opportunities that have come your way, as a result of that experience, making you the person that you are today. Its role is to inform your current identity so you can be authentically you.  You are not your past label. In fact you are not any label. Use a label to learn about yourself, then transcend it!

7) Imitation:

Getting from where you are to where you would love to be sometimes seems beyond possibility. You see others doing and achieving in fields you would like to be in, but you can’t see yourself there. 

One attitude that can shift this is to imitate their successful behaviours and actions. Look at what is making them get results and have flow, and mirror that in your own life. This is what children do when learning to speak, they watch intently and imitate until they have it down.  Yes, there is an initial period that it feels alien, but the more that you take that action the more it becomes natural to you.   You do not need to start from scratch but ‘stand on the shoulders of Giants’.

8) Integration:  

When we try to integrate with other people we have a ‘sifting’ process that defines ourselves against them - we observe: Where are we different and where are we the same?

We are drawn towards people when we see things that we have in common.  We want to be distant from those who are different from us. All well and good, in a social situation where we can choose to follow-up a connection or not – but tricky in the workplace, if this very different person is your boss, or future client. A key skill to integrate well with a large range of people, especially if the initial instinct is to draw away - is to own the trait you see in them. If you see them as arrogant – where have you been arrogant? Perhaps not in in the same way as them, but in your way, about things that are important to you. Find enough examples till you can say ‘I am also arrogant’. 

Finding where you are the same, not different, humbly opens communication.

9) Intelligence:

Intelligence in this modern World is a great tool to point at others with – to judge people by…we measure people’s intelligence according to their responses to our questions, their behaviour, their actions – we are quick to judge if someone is above, below or the same as us. 

This links into belonging and feeling like you are one of the herd…but there is more to it than that. Howard Gardner suggested in the 1980s there are multiple intelligences …musical, kinaesthetic, intrapersonal and interpersonal mathematical, linguistic, and more. Whilst someone might not be intelligent in our reckoning - they are, in fact, exceptionally intelligent in another arena – where we might be weak. This variety of intelligence bases means that we all lean uniquely to different interests and ways of approaching problems, so your original judgement of another might be based only on that they are not like you! They are intelligent in a different form. Understanding this allows you to be more accepting of others.

Being intelligent is being wise through using the unique gifts YOU have been given.

10) Investment:

Invest in YOU…! You are your greatest asset! Once, I was talking to a financial advisor about investing a relatively small amount of money in the markets, in order to make some more money, which in my mind at the time, was the route to choice and freedom…Once he listened to the junction that I was at in my life, his advice was to take that money and invest it in ME. Give myself time and space – a kind of sabbatical - to find out my true path, get off the treadmill long enough to have clarity about what I wanted. I did this, and the course of my life changed dramatically to be more aligned with ‘me’. 

One of the stumbling blocks we come across is a feeling that we are not worthy of that investment – it is ok to spend money on others, house improvement, a car and so on, but if we spend money on ourselves, it is seen as indulgent or somehow selfish. The irony of this is that: if we are not being authentic in our lives, then the money spent on everything else is ‘hollow’, to appear to have the life we want. 

Whether it is a dvd, a book, a course, coaching, retreat or adventure  - if it speaks to you – raises your curiosity, make the investment… the self-knowledge gained will be priceless.

Author: Tania Tuck is an Emotional Wellness Specialist, Teacher, Learning Innovator