Tag Archives: Overcoming worry

How to Throw a Raging Pity Party Then Get on With Your Life

Posted on by under Belief System, Mindset, Recovery

Who doesn’t love a good party?

Especially one that has tons of people having a good time. But what about the party in our heads? You know, the ones with tons of unwelcome and uninvited guests—party crashers—AKA — Mr. Doubt and Ms. Insecurity. The worrier, the complainer, Mr. and Mrs. Guilt, and of course, their twin daughters, Shame-la and Shy-la.

Some of these uninvited guests party in our heads all day long throwing down bass-thumping beats louder than a step kids 12″ woofers on a Friday night.

Some of our uninvited guests’ party in our heads all day long throwing down bass-thumping beats louder than a step kids 12″ woofers on a Friday night. Others become squatters trying to steal our peace by never leaving. They are out of control and have turned our ideal vision of a quiet night at home into a nightmare.

How do we turn off the voices? How do we make them leave? Pull the covers over our ears? Call the cops?

How did they even get here?

Well, there’s part of the problem. Like the folklore of vampire movies, once we invite them in we indirectly and unwittingly give them permission to wreak havoc in our lives. To suck the life out of any dreams or visions we have. They are not there to build you up or encourage you to try harder. They are there to destroy you. To make you their bitch.

These voices and we all have many, are there to keep us stuck. In a pot of self-pity, worry, and low self-esteem. Their number one job is like that of the other crabs in the pot — to pull us back in, possibly costing us a claw or a leg as we struggle to break free.

It’s our own fault. After all, we smelled the bait and fell for the trap. The lure of ease and comfort to satisfy our hunger was tantalizing enough for us to slither through the small opening to feast on what we thought would be a good meal. Only one problem, before we knew it we were trapped. In the crab pot of our own mind. God forbid the other crabs should let anyone escape the confines of their self-imposed prison.

What do we do to break free? Can we call 911 and say we are trapped and need help? That’s one way, but I doubt that you could get cell service where you are—lost in a desert of self-imposed fear.

Another option is to fight and claw and try to sweep away these voices that say you aren’t good enough, that you will never amount to anything that you are not smart. You are fat and ugly or stupid and you never should have done that. Whatever that is.

You know. And you worry that others will find out who you are, nothing but a poser, an imposter living in a crowded house of negativity. Like bosses or mates or parents, the voices are haunting and continue to criticize you as they have most of your life.

Then there are your own voices. The ones you hear and see when you look in the mirror every morning. The ones you wish were different but you are not yet courageous enough to change the reflection, the perspective. So you linger awhile longer groveling in self-pity. Some of us even turn up the volume and listen louder.

No matter how many times you have tried to overcome these ill feelings and unwelcome joy parasites, they keep coming back and now they won’t leave. So, what do you do?

If you can’t beat them, join them.

If you can’t beat them, join them. Get into the muck with them and roll around like a happy pig in shit.

Feel all the angst and hurt and anger that you have been stuffing for years. Kick and cry and scream and shout. Experience your feelings as deeply as you can. Let them all out.

What? Are you serious? That’s fn crazy talk. 

Yes, it is and so are the lies you keep telling yourself and listening to as you have for years.

Yes, throw yourself a pity party. Drink deeply from the goblet of lies and guilt and shame, that tells you you are a piece of shit.

Yes, throw yourself a pity party. Drink deeply from the goblet of lies and guilt and shame, that tells you you are a piece of shit.

Know what it’s like. Embrace the disgust you feel about yourself and your decisions and think of all the reasons why it’s true. All of it. Own your thoughts and feelings. Fondle them. Curl up in a ball and cuddle them. After all, you know them better than anyone. They are your friends in the sense that they have provided you temporary comfort and relief just like the half pint of chunky monkey or a shot of tequila when you feel down. They know their role and take it seriously, but there will come a time, just as with a toddler’s binky, that you need to let them go. Sayonara. Hasta La Vista, and unlike Arnie- do not let them get the last words in: “I’ll be back.”

No torch them send them into the black hole of space like the alien invaders they are. Torch those Mfers!

Just not yet. You need to make sure they didn’t lay eggs.

Even when you think you are done feeling all the crap you can, think harder. Look into every nook and cranny searching for all the bad things you think and feel and say about yourself and own them. Play with them one last time, then say goodbye and let them go.

By the time you have exhausted everything that you do not like about yourself, you will have nothing left to tear you down, unless you choose to.

Treat them like you would a telemarketer or door-to-door evangelist — Thank you. Not interested.

Or until the next fearful moment approaches that you are not courageous enough to face it and instead deny its existence or run from it or procrastinate doing anything to stop it dead in its tracks.

Most of all as these events happen do not invite them in to visit. Treat them like you would a telemarketer or door-to-door evangelist — Thank you. Not interested. Hang up the phone and close the door on them. Better yet, don’t answer it in the first place.

How hard is that?

once you embrace your shortcomings and stop denying their existence, they lose their power over you.

It sounds super easy and even crazy but believe it or not, once you embrace your shortcomings and stop denying their existence, they lose their power over you.

So throw the biggest, baddest, pity party you can imagine, and then clean up the mess and get on with your life. Call it a retirement party or going away party or a celebration life. Whatever you decide, don’t let the voices own you.

If you would like to learn more about specific steps to move past these self-defeating and deprecating thoughts you have look me up.

 * Note I am not a psychologist and all of the advice in this post is based on shit I have done when I feel down. 

If you are deeply depressed seek professional help. This is in no way meant to minimize your pain or resolve it if you need medical and professional attention. 

For all the rest of us, give it a shot. The cathartic process of owning our shortcomings definitely weakens the grip they have on us.

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Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash



Posted on by under Belief, Courage, Inspiration, Mindset, Overcoming worry, Personal Growth, Self-Confidence

Fact: 85% of Us Suffer From Low Self-Esteem

Several studies indicate that 85% of Americans suffer from low self-esteem. That’s a huge problem. Unless you are part of the top 15% of self-actualized individuals living in a perpetual state of bliss, enlightenment, or Nirvana, there is a high probability that you, like me, suffer from occasional bouts of low self-worth or have your confidence shaken from time to time. Our confidence and self-esteem problems will not go away on their own. To successfully combat our low self-esteem, we have to not only get honest about what our problems are but may need counsel to guide us through the gnarled mess in our minds.

A Simple Science-Based and Empirically-Tested Solution for Improving our Self-Esteem

While there are many solutions for overcoming low self-esteem, one is closer than you think. Both the problem and solution can be found in one word—belief. According to Stephen Campbell and other neuroscientists, the inner critics in our heads lack discernment between fact or fiction. The brain, according to Campbell, “…believes EVERYTHING we tell it, without question, no arguments.”

This is important to understand because it validates the tired cliché, “Garbage in. Garbage out.”

Unfortunately, many of our beliefs are false. They are lies we’ve held for years, perhaps initiated by criticism from parents, bosses, teachers, or other life influences. Because our brains don’t know what to believe, the critical voices are reinforced by our negative self-talk, especially in areas related to our self-esteem and self-confidence.

This is not healthy. To the extent that we give them power over our lives, the critics in our minds are toxic.

I explore this further in the chapter about belief in my upcoming release of Ten Seconds of Boldness, The Essential Guide to Solving Problems and Building Self-Confidence.

For now, here’s some great news:

You can change if you somehow find enough courage to do so.

You may be thinking, That’s great. Tell me something I don’t already know.

How do I find courage? Good question, but a better question we must ask ourselves is why?

What does that mean and how is it related to self-confidence? It means everything.

It’s no secret that when we not only change the way we think but what we choose to believe, our world changes. Our perspective shifts as we replace outdated beliefs about ourselves with new ones.

And, according to neuroscience, everything we believe is tied to patterns we have created in our minds, to what we chose to believe.

Neuroscience expert Steven Campbell explains further:

One of the most exciting discoveries in the neurosciences is how our brain is continually creating patterns, based on what we learn during the day. It creates these patterns at night when we are asleep. And the number of patterns it creates is beyond imagination.

The latest research estimates that our brain has about eighty-three billion neurons, and each of these neurons are connected to an average of 10,000 neurons. That’s not a multiple; that’s a power! In other words, the connections, which determine the number of patterns the human brain can carry is eighty-three billion times eighty-three million, 10,000 times. It is no wonder that the scientific community agrees that the human brain is the most complex organism in the universe.

While the brain is incredibly complex, when it comes to learning new things, simple is always better. The problem, as Stephen points out, is that our brain never sleeps; it doesn’t know what is helpful or detrimental to your self-esteem. As a result, the thoughts and feelings we have throughout the day, good or bad, are on a perpetual quest to connect to similar thoughts, beliefs, or feelings in our brain. This further reinforces existing beliefs, good or bad, thereby creating patterns that will continue until challenged.

In my case, low self-esteem and self-confidence have manifested themselves in a myriad of negative thought patterns, beliefs, or emotions in my life. Here are a few examples, which are variations of thinking and behavior rooted in fear:

  • Jealousy
  • Resentment
  • Anger
  • Pride
  • Ego
  • Blame
  • Guilt
  • Shame
  • Micro-Management
  • Control
  • Fear of Failure
  • Fear of Making a Mistake
  • Fear of Being Wrong
  • Fear of the Unknown
  • Fear of Rejection
  • Fear of Abandonment
  • Fear of Public Speaking
  • Fear of Confrontation
  • Fear of Success
  • Fear of Death
  • Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

If you relate to any of these fears, I encourage you to read Ten Seconds of Boldness. It could be the missing link to moving you from where you are to where you want to be.

Learn more at shawnlangwell.com

Do you occasionally suffer from What-if Syndrome?

Posted on by under 12 Steps, Courage, Faith, Higher power, Overcoming worry, Personal Growth, Recovery, Self awareness, Surrender, Vulnerability, Willingness

What-if syndrome is that gnawing, nagging, often unnecessary feeling that, if left to run wild, can turn into a raging torrent of fear paralyzing us from action. If we’re honest with ourselves, we have all experienced it at some point.

For me, it usually comes up around money issues. What if I don’t close that deal? What If I don’t make that goal? Then what?  Will I have more money than month? How will I pay the mortgage? The car payment? The credit card bill?

Deeper than that though, what-if syndrome may lead to feelings of inadequacy that cause us to doubt and question our worth— Will I fail? Am I good enough? Or feelings of pride— What will others think if I don’t get my kids new clothes for this school year? How will my kids feel if they have to go to a different school?

 In a word, what-if syndrome is worry. At its root, worry is a form of fear tied to our belief system and lack of trust.

Peanuts

I have lived through my share of worry over the years and have pushed through it with faith and effort to keep it at bay. It was not easy, but when it came to my addiction to drugs and alcohol, it was a matter of life and death to overcome it. I had a big enough reason why to motivate me to do something about it.

Like many things in life, it takes diligence and practice to:

a) Recognize worry or a problem when it comes up and
b) Become willing to learn some new skills to address our problems so we don’t stay stuck in them for too long.

I’ll be honest. Right now, I am wallowing in a little self-pity. For the past two and a half years, I have been riding a high from my efforts and blessings at work. I have managed to triple the sales volume for my territory in less than three years. I have written and published a book and managed to make time to work with other recovering alcoholics as a sponsor and mentor volunteer leaders at my local church.  Life has been good.

Currently, however, I am facing a less than ideal sales month and fighting worry while also trying to find the desire to complete my next book on goal setting.  I am dealing with the very challenges I want to write about overcoming.

Is this an accident? I think not. I believe that this is a wake-up call. In a sick twisted way, I am having to practice what I want to talk about.

I am grateful that I now recognize what is going on and how I feel but that, by itself doesn’t change anything. I have to change. So what do I do?

Over the years, I have acquired tools, primarily through AA, on how to cope with and conquer worry and fear. The basics consist of three steps:

1) Identify the problem.
2) Ask for God’s help. (Surrender)
3) Pray for the willingness to allow God to help me.

The short version, which, to outsiders may sound like a cop-out is, I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let him.

But, it doesn’t stop there. I have to do my part, which usually requires work. In most cases that work includes changing my thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes about my current situation. This process takes time.  It starts with humility and honesty and taking a deep personal inventory of what is bothering me. I need to look at my part—what I can and cannot control. That is but a beginning. I don’t have the space to do a deep dive into this right now. I talk about it more in my book, Beyond Recovery A Journey of Grace, Love, and Forgiveness. And I will unpack it even more as one of the blocks in my upcoming book on goal setting. If you want immediate answers or help, there are countless coaches, mentors and counselors well qualified to help.

For now let me give you a personal example of how worry has come up in my life and how I have processed and overcame it.

In very early sobriety, my biggest worry was whether I could go twenty-four hours without a drink. I had tried on my own countless times, with no lasting success.

Then, after several months of practicing the program of AA, drinking was no longer an issue. Instead, I had to face the feelings beneath the surface that I was running away from with drugs and alcohol. Without booze or drugs, I needed to find a new set of tools in order to cope with my feelings.

I found help in the twelve steps of AA. I was willing to do whatever it took to stay sober, one-day-at-a-time and quickly realized that when I worked the steps daily, my days got better.

Yet some things continued to come up—usually feelings around scarcity. I believe these were tied to my belief about not having enough and feeling uncomfortable in my own skin as a teenager.

I was raised in a middle class family until my dad left when I was thirteen. Through my first two years of my high school I had to deal with having very little, money was tight.  I recall my freshman year wearing red Toughskin jeans and a hand-me-down shirt from my older cousin. I was mortified. I felt so out of place. All I wanted to do was belong.  

Adding  to my anxiety was the fact that I went from a small class of forty students to a high school with over twelve-hundred, I was out of my comfort zone.

My solution then was to pour myself into schoolwork and making money. I soon had a job to earn money for new shoes, pants, and shirts I liked. I received praise and recognition from teachers and peers for being smart. In other words, my entire sense of self, how I felt, was dependent on external things—money, clothes, grades, recognition.

I am now realizing how much of my identity is still attached to external factors and how much more work I still have to do to find peace within; to tap into my higher power and be willing to walk through temporary fear, worry, doubt, and insecurity.

I have a feeling that I am not alone. I am sure many of my recovery peers can relate to some of this, perhaps others as well. I know I must overcome this mental block so I may confidently speak about it in a goal-setting book. My guess is that is exactly why I am facing this right here, right now.

I have a higher power. I have faith. God has never let me down before, but I have noticed that sometimes he gives me a challenge as a wake-up call for something he wants to work on in me. So what do I do?

Experience has shown me that what I need is willingness and courage. Along with that, I need to trust that He will show me a way out—He always does, sometimes though, it takes awhile for me to see it. The other thing I need to bring to the table is vulnerability. I need to be humble enough to ask for help, from others and from God. Before any of that though, and most important, I need to know what the problem is—my negative beliefs and what I have bought into, and become willing to develop a new way of thinking to overcome them. What results is greater confidence for the next time I have to face a difficult situation. With practice, I learn to not stay in self-pity so long and more quickly focus on the solution. Sometimes though, I need to sit with it for a bit to look harder at what is beneath the surface so I can better get at the heart of the problem.

In short, I need to do the work, and leave the results up to God. That principle was taught to me in early recovery and it still holds true today. To conquer worry and fear requires faith and effort.

There is no quick fix, and it will not magically disappear. The good news is that we can overcome worry when we apply faith and effort.

Thank you for listening to what I am struggling with in this moment and how I am dealing with it. I know this too shall pass.  I know I am not alone. I hope that some of you have found this post helpful.

If you want to learn more about my story, please pick up a copy of Beyond Recovery, A Journey of Grace, Love, and Forgiveness on Amazon or at any bookstore or smashwords.

Also, if you’d like to be kept up to date on blogs, events, or one of the first to read my next book, please sign up on my email list or follow this blog.

Thank you all for being a part of this journey.

Love,

Shawn

P.S.

If any of this has hit a chord, here is a promise—one of never being let down or alone which has been around for over 2,000 years.

Over the next few days God (your higher power) is going to show you how your worry can be replaced with confidence.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.”

Matthew 6:25-32 NIV
http://bible.com/111/mat.6.25-32.niv

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Isaiah 41:10 NIV
http://bible.com/111/isa.41.10.niv