Pushing Off: A Short Guide to Flying

I have been through a lot of changes in the past few years.

• I parted ways with a company I had been with for 8 years;
• I started pursuing art as a career;
• I got engaged;
• I turned some of my biggest passions (like yoga), into daily practices;
• I said buh-bye to the depression, anxiety, and nightmares that had plagued me for as long as I could remember;
• I beat the daily physical pain and headaches I had had for the last 7 years;
• I started to become myself.

There were a lot of tools I used to get here, but they all served to do one huge thing: change my points of view, perceptions, and habits.

It takes a lot of practice, bravery, and commitment to change our internal selves. It’s vulnerable, scary, hard-ass work. But it also creates the most revolutionary changes in our lives.

Today, I want to share 3 important and effective mind tricks I use to make the changes I create internally, stick:

1. Don’t look back

I realized early on during this time of big change for me, that looking back was one of the biggest things that held me back in the past.

It would start with a new awareness: Something would happen to trigger a new outlook or perception in me. Something that made everything easier and lighter.

But it was so strange and new that, in a moment of insecurity and out of my love for analyzing, I would try to remember the way I used to feel in order to compare and contrast the two. Well, once you do this, you might as well call yourself Orpheus*, because bye bye new perspective.

*In the Greek myth, Orpheus was allowed to retrieve his deceased wife from the Underworld as long as he didn’t look back at her while they traveled to the Upper World. Yeah, he looked, and she disappeared forever.

2. Push Off

This is what you do when you find yourself reaching back toward old habits or emotions:

Visualize yourself standing up from a table and chair, which represent your old life, your old way of being, emotions, and points of view. You are standing because you’ve realized you no longer want to be sitting at that old table… You want to move on to something better and brighter.

But can you move forward? Can you take the first step into the unknown? Our habits and fear of the unknown keep us at the table, reaching back for it. It’s familiar. It’s safe.

But this isn’t where you want to be. There’s something out in front of you that, although unknown, is exciting and full of possibility. Plus you’re fucking miserable at that table, so you need to change something.

So, before you stay here any longer, push off. Push off from that table with all your might and hurl yourself forward into the abyss. Toward change. Toward a new you.

3. Run!

If you find yourself starting to stumble once you’re moving forward, turn that stumble into a run. Catch yourself and use the momentum to move faster and faster into the new space. To commit to yourself, to being free. Leave the old you behind, and never look back.

Do this visualization with whatever part of your life you are currently trying to change. Then, whenever you find yourself reaching back for those old stability feelings and points of view, feel the table in your mind and push off again. Keep going.

This trick has helped me to get past behavior and thought patterns that I have been battling my whole life.

Like I said, changing your beliefs, habits, and perceptions is scary. It’s uncomfortable. You have to learn how to navigate the new space, you have to redefine yourself every time (which is actually pretty fun).

My old boss once told me that if we’re not uncomfortable, we’re not growing. I think this is very true. Fear is part of the deal. You just have to want whatever you want enough to push through the pain and fear of the unknown, or nothing will ever change.

So lean in, don’t look back. And change. I dare you.

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Have you ever been in a situation where your perspective suddenly changed and it felt SO good?! If so, please tell me about it in the comments!

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Love ♥ Hugs