Mentally Strong Habits: Thought For The Day #56💭✍

in #steem6 years ago

They Don’t Give Away Their Power

‘When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness’.(Dale Carnegie)

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Empowering Other People To Have Power Over You

Giving other people the power to control how you think, feel, and behave makes it impossible to be mentally strong. Do any of these sounds familiar:

  1. You feel deeply offended by any criticisms or negative feedback you receive, regardless of the source.
  2. Other people have the ability to make you feel so angry that you say and do things you later regret.
  3. You’ve changed your goals based on what other people have told you what you should be doing with your life.
  4. Your day depends on how others behave.
  5. When people try to guilt you into doing something, you reluctantly do it, even if you don’t want to.
  6. You work hard so others see you in a positive light, as much of your self-worth depends on how others perceive you.
  7. You complain about people and circumstances.
  8. Complain about what ‘you have to do’ in life.
  9. You go to great lengths to avoid uncomfortable emotions, such as embarrassment or sadness.
  10. You have difficulty setting boundaries, but then feel resentful toward people who take up your time and energy.
  11. You hold a grudge when someone offends you.

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Anytime you don’t set healthy emotional and physical boundaries for yourself, you risk giving away your power to other people. Perhaps you don’t dare say no when your neighbour asks for a favour. Or making you dread receiving a phone call from a friend who constantly complains, but you continue to pick up the phone. Anytime you say yes to something to don’t want to do, you give away your power. If you don’t make any attempts to get your needs met, you’ll give people permission to take things away from you.

Problems with giving away your power:

  1. You depend on others to regulate your feelings: emotions depend on the circumstances of life.
  2. Others define your self-worth: if you let others define your worth you will never feel worthy enough. You will only be as good as someone else’s opinion. Be as good as yours.
  3. Leads to helplessness.
  4. Become a victim. Be a passenger instead of the driver in your life.
  5. Highly sensitive to criticism: other people’s words have more power than they deserve.
  6. Lose sight of your goals: other people will be able to have influence over what you want thus not having full control in your life.
  7. Ruins relationships: if you don’t speak up when people hurt your feeling and allow them to infringe on your life, you will grow resentful towards them.

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Without confidence in who you are, your entire self-worth may depend on how others feel about you. what if you offend people? What if they don’t like you anymore? If you chose to put up healthy boundaries, you may receive some backlash. But if you can have a strong enough sense of self-worth, you’ll learn that you can tolerate the repercussions.
Choosing to forgive someone who has hurt you, either emotionally, or physically, doesn’t mean that you have to excuse the other person’s behavior, but letting go of your anger frees you to focus your energy on a more worthwhile cause.
Each second you spend complaining about a boss or how bad your mother-in-law is, you give them more power over you. stop giving these people time and energy if you don’t want them to play a big role in your life.

Reframe Your Language

‘My boyfriend left me because I’m not good enough’. Are you really not good enough or is this just one person’s opinion. Just because one person thinks something doesn’t mean that it is true. Don’t let them have power over who you are.
‘My mum makes me feel bad about myself because she is always so critical of me’. As an adult, are you obligated to listen to your mother make critical statements about you over and over? Just because she makes comments you don’t like, does it really have to lower your self-esteem?

Keep Your Cool

Every time you lose you cool, you give that person your power. Here are some strategies you help keep calm when you are tempted to react negatively:

  1. Take deep breaths: helps with relaxing, decreasing physiological response and thus emotional response.
  2. Excuse yourself from the situation: being more emotional will make you less rational and emotions may take over.
  3. Take your mind off it for a bit, exercise. And then approach the situation rationally instead of from an emotional frame.

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Evaluate Feedback Critically

Angry people may choose to offer harsh criticism quit regularly just because it relieves their stress. Or individuals with low self-esteem may feel better about themselves only when they put other people down. Some people really do just talk out of their arse as well.

Ask yourself:

  1. What evidence is there that this is true?
  2. What evidence is that that this is not true?
  3. Why might this person be giving my this feedback? People may see you work on Monday mornings when you're not most productive for example. Not an accurate sample.
  4. Do I want to change my behaviour? Remember you are in control of the change you want to make, not someone else.

Simply reminding yourself that you have a choice in everything you do, think and feel can be very freeing. If you’ve spent most of your life feeling like a victim of your circumstances, it takes hard work the recognise that you have the power to create the kind of life you want to live.

When no one has power over you, you will feel a sense of empowerment and thus mentally strong:

  1. Make choices that are best for you.
  2. Make yourself accountable for your progress.
  3. Wont be affected by peer pressure and/or guilt trips.
  4. More autonomy in what you do in your life, reducing helplessness and depression.

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Thank you very much for reading today's Thought For The Day. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, I'm eager to hear!

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@Luppers

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If we stay cool, we're the winner!

27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Great passages, from the Bible I assume? It's so clear and in black and white there yet this is so difficult to do. What is your biggest takeaway from this passage?

Thank you for the kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on my posts again in the future, I am eager to hear what you have to say and will also give you another generous upvote!

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Yeah they're from the Bible.

The passages have many points there.
They're difficult to follow but its possible.
The saints and holy men had followed these passages.

Let's just get one passage:
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?
This passage is quite clear that we have to love those who can't love us in order for us to have credits right?
Who are these people? They are our enemies who can't love us.

Another passage:
"And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you?"
Its very obvious that we have to give and share and help those who can't give, share or help us.
Who are these people? They are the least, unfortunate and the poorest among the poor.

Most people today are working hard to have rewards in return and this is normal and natural for us.
But if we think deeply, there are actually no credits that we gain because we already been rewarded with what we do.
So our purpose and goal is only in the satisfaction of ourselves and of this world.
We don't actually see beyond that.
We don't see things beyond our imagination and limitation.

Amazing, and yes I agree we don't see beyond our limitations. That's why it's good to open our limitations and hang around people who think bigger than us!

Thank you for the kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on my posts again in the future, I am eager to hear what you have to say and will also give you another generous upvote!

Upvoted 70%!!

A mentally strong person accepts all responsibility for past behavior and is willing to learn from mistakes.
redeem your post

Yes. Responsibility is huge because blame means that we don't take control and therefore can't move on!

Thanks for the resteem!

Thank you for the kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on my posts again in the future, I am eager to hear what you have to say and will also give you another generous upvote!

Upvoted 40%!!

Another great piece @luppers. As they say “Giving other people power over your emotion puts you in their prison.” Re-steemed this post.

Thank you. That's another great quotation from you!

Thanks for the resteem!

Thank you for the kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on my posts again in the future, I am eager to hear what you have to say and will also give you another generous upvote!

Upvoted 40%!!

keep strong in mentally is very difficult in some crisis moments.
But who can control pressure and make sure he never ever failed then he or she will be dominated in life.resteem it

Yes, it is a difficult skill which isn't spoken about and shared.

Thank you for the resteem!!

Thank you for the kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on my posts again in the future, I am eager to hear what you have to say and will also give you another generous upvote!

Upvoted 40%!!

@luppers, Having control and losing control both are easy but at the same time it's really heavy subject without any Doubt. There is one more thing which we should understand and that is, whatever situation we are facing we welcomed it at first place because we are Free Beings and we hold Free Will but there are many forces which effects our choices. And choices are the game changer means, your choices will decide you will control your life or you will lose your control towards your life due to allowing negative emotions. Stay blessed.

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Yes, that is true. Yes, we always have a choice in everything we do, this is such a hard concept to understand but something to really grasp.

Thank you for the kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on my posts again in the future, I am eager to hear what you have to say and will also give you another generous upvote!

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Life is difficult to grasp to utmost levels but we have to grasp it for sure. Thank you and blessings of light is with you.

everyone need to strong in mentally for better life
this is first time i see such a motivated article here in steemit.
i resteem your post .thank you for your good work.

I am glad that this article is motivating for you! Check in more in the future for more motivation!

Thanks for the resteem!

Thank you for the kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on my posts again in the future, I am eager to hear what you have to say and will also give you another generous upvote!

Upvoted 40%!!

mental power is essential for strong mentality
we should try your formula
thank you .i am also resteem this valuable post.

These ideas are from Amy Morin's book, feel free to check it out if you have the time.

Thanks for the resteem!

Thank you for the kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on my posts again in the future, I am eager to hear what you have to say and will also give you another generous upvote!

Upvoted 40%!!

You should ignore some criticisms that are aimed at destroying you
And learn from constructive criticism
Thanks for the topic

Yes, especially in this digital age with all of the 'keyboard warriors'.

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This is one of the most productive post i've read this month. God bless you for the great post @luppers

Fantastic, I'm glad that my content is providing some value to you. Plenty more to come in the future!

Thank you for the kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on my posts again in the future, I am eager to hear what you have to say and will also give you another generous upvote!

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@luppers
It takes a lots of discipline to be mentally strong. "Restemeed this post.

Thanks for the resteem!

Thank you for the kind words! Please feel free to share your thoughts on my posts again in the future, I am eager to hear what you have to say and will also give you another generous upvote!

Upvoted 30%!!