Attaining inner peace is perhaps one of life’s greatest challenges.
As social creatures, we depend on others to survive and live a meaningful life, but the stresses of daily life quickly add up and can cause some of these relationships to become toxic.
Just like a battery needs to be recharged, everybody needs a bit of time alone to replenish their energy and stay peaceful. Although it’s tempting to drown your sorrows by serving others, you must always take care of yourself first.
If you feel exhausted and you don’t know where to turn, Watch out for these signs: You may be in desperate need of some tender love and care.
1. Forgetting to Accept Yourself
Because of outside pressure and expectation, it can be challenging to feel confident in your own skin. And trying to change who you are doesn’t improve your happiness or guarantee that you’ll be accepted.
Rather than changing how you act, think, and feel, embrace yourself and discover what you have to offer to yourself and to the world. Take time to reconnect with yourself and see where it takes you.
2. Lacking Self-Compassion
When you are often criticized, you may have taken a habit of being overly self-critical. By continuously trying to control your every move and thought, you’re seriously neglecting yourself and multiplying your stress levels.
The best way to improve your mental health and increase your optimism is to start treating yourself as you would a close friend. Accept your flaws and remind yourself that mistakes are part of your journey.
3. Not Acknowledging Your Needs
Sometimes, being enthusiastic about helping others is a way to avoid taking care your own needs. Just like our your physical need for food, water, and sleep, your well-being requires constant self-love and acceptance, as well as a strong sense of purpose.
Listening to your needs and making sure to fulfill them will help improve your outlook on life and trickle down to improve your emotional and physical health.
4. Being Disconnected with Your Thoughts
When you’re not actively focusing on something, your thoughts can quickly flow in every direction and leave you feeling overwhelmed. Although the human mind may seem to have a mind of its own, thinking patterns can be altered through repetition. That is to say that thoughts naturally follow a repetitive cycle, meaning that the more you consciously think positive thoughts, the more likely they are to reappear throughout the day.
Negative thoughts are repetitive too, so it’s important to recognize them when they occur and actively replace them with positive thoughts. Your thoughts affect your perception, so nurture them and make adjustments when necessary.
5. Not connecting with your beliefs
Everybody has guiding principles that help them navigate through challenges and build their future. Getting in touch with your core beliefs is part of the path towards living a meaningful life and staying grounded.
Embrace your beliefs in their truest, purest form and do not trade them for anything or anyone. Simply recognize their existence and let them be your guiding light.
6. Misunderstanding Your Intentions
With every word you speak and every action you control, ask yourself: What is my intention? Sometimes, we may do something we may do things for ourselves thinking that we are kind, but these actions bring us further away from our dreams and goals.
Of course, intentions and dreams are constantly changing and it’s easy to lose touch with the effect that each small action has in your long-term success. Every day, you are creating your destiny. Check in with yourself every once in a while and make sure that your desires and actions line up.
7. Being Disconnected from Your Expectations
Do you find yourself often feeling disappointed? Do you feel like your life has become lackluster? Perhaps you’re setting your expectations too high. Instead of driving you forward, unrealistic expectations only leave you feeling disappointed.
While it is important to have goals and to stay motivated, you also have to be ready to accept failures and move on. Keep your confidence and drive, just shed the extra pressure of expectations.
8. Neglecting Self-kindness
It’s easy to be kind and generous to your loved ones, but it’s also easy to forget to do the same to yourself. Just like you accept and support your friends, stay kind and supportive towards your heart and mind.
Forgive your shortcomings, love yourself, and have mercy. The more you fill your cup, the more kindness and love you’ll have to give to others.
9. Abandoning Wants and Desires
Being disciplined has its advantages but it can also bring you further from your wants and needs. Sometimes you have to be a little selfish and prioritize the things that will help you grow and move forward.
Although you may have to make some compromises and adjust your timeline, keep your aspirations close to your heart and give them the time of day.
10. Not Being Self-Aware
One of the greatest gifts of humanity is the ability to be aware of our thoughts and actions and to consciously change our lives. It’s so natural to us that we often forget that our behavior not only affects ourselves but also the people and environment around us.
When you’re hurt of stressed, take a good hard look at yourself and seek to understand whether you’re hurting or helping yourself and others. If you’re in a rough period of life, do this exercise every morning to refocus your energy and readjust your path.