Reader response from her question after reading my answer. this reader question, Asking for a little more clarity:
“I do understand what you are saying, but how can I get happy if this makes me feel so bad like i can’t go on. I can’t not obsess because it’s what I want.
Yes it does feel like that is what is happening. I feel unhappy about my job life home everything. but I thought that thoughts make things. So if I concentrate my thoughts on just the happy ending and happy feeling of being in love happy in a job and traveling will it happen? How can I make myself happy, when I’m really not.”
~Female UK
It starts with baby steps. It starts with you sitting down and making a huge detailed list of what YOU REALLY REALLY want in life. Leave him totally off your list, because he is too specific, too limiting to your dreams. Your real dream is to be madly in love and happy right?? So open your mind up to the idea that maybe there are other ways to get to that goal.
Then go find pictures that represent every item on your list. Google Images is perfect for this, there are images for every phrase you can imagine. Print them and put your board up. Put it someplace where you see it all day every day. Then follow the steps in “Change the voices in your head” and “Belief 101“. At first all you need to do is put the board up, and kill the voices. Change the subject on your brain every time you think about him or negative thoughts.
That’s it.
Those 2 things are your fist assignment.
Then slowly remind yourself of the steps to believe. But just remember this is going to be a long journey. You have given this all your mind-space for so long, it’s going to take a while to retrain your brain.
It’s like if you eat cake every single day, all day long, what would happen? You’d gain 75 lbs!! Once you got fed up ENOUGH, and sick ENOUGH of looking at your reflection in the mirror, you’d need to make a conscious decision to do something about it, right? But WHAT would you need to do?? How do you get started once you’ve gotten yourself this far gone?
- Step 1. STOP EATING CAKE! Aka: knock it off! Decide to make a change.
- Step 2. Start walking (NOT RUNNING). Just get off the couch and walk, a little every single day. Make that commitment and do it. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Aka: put up your Vision Board, look at it and focus on the big picture goals you have for yourself. Let those pictures spark your imagination, and give you hope).
- Step 3. START eating non-cake, aka healthy food. Feed and nourish your body the RIGHT way. Aka: start telling yourself all the mantra’s and Affirmations you have that build your self-esteem and replenish your spirit. You won’t believe them at first, and that’s just fine, keep telling yourself all that stuff all day long anyway, eventually you will).
- Step 4. Be patient and consistent. Never give up.
- Step 5. Watch the weight start to come off over time. It will not happen over-night. Weight is the perfect example here for you, because your situation is MENTAL weight. What I’m outlining here, is a step-by-step guide to REMOVE that mental weight. To give you YOUR life back! It takes time, hard work and dedication to get results. But the good news is EVERYONE who does this loses weight!! Right? So you will get there too. If you do this, and take it seriously you will be free of this mental chain around your neck that is tying you to an anchor at the bottom of the sea, begging you to drowned. But you are bigger, smarter and stronger then it. Now you know how to break free. You just have to WANT IT. I mean want it like your life is dependent on it! If you were really drowning your survival instincts would take over your body and force you to fight it, right? Force you to do anything in your power to swim to the top. Take this just as seriously.
- Step 5. Run a Marathon! Dream big! Now that you have a nice lean new body, you will feel inspired to dream bigger than you ever thought possible before. Now you are free to dream big. Your self confidence is restored, you are happy, you are in the phase where believing is just like breathing. It’s all getting easy now. You are seeing your goals realized. Aka: Now you’re ready for the universe to bring you the love of your life.
This process will take time. I can’t emphasis this enough. You are rebuilding yourself apart from him, and literately deciding who YOU want to be. You are then going out and making that a reality. That is a lot of power that you have. That means if you set your mind to it, you WILL achieve it.
I hope this helped make things just a little more clear for you. Remember no one is responsible for your happiness or unhappiness but you. Even if you had him you would not be happy. Because what you need to do to find true happiness is, address the things in your life that will bring YOU peace and joy in your own heart independent of him. You had him once, and it in the end didn’t bring you happiness. You admittedly self-destructed it and drove him away. The universe won’t bring you another one until you address those issues that wont recreate the same problem the next time.
Don’t let this discourage you. Let it empower you! Now you know how to address it and fix it for good. Life is all about lessons, and learning from each experience, and growing from them. Becoming a better person from the lessons we learn. Take the lesson from this and use it to become a force to be reckoned with.
You got this girl. Keep me posted on your journey. I want to read your success story in a year! I’ll post it here 🙂
P.S. sorry for the formatting and highlighting in this post, I cant seem to change it to save my life! 🙁
Sarah Centrella is the author of the book Hustle Believe Receive which teaches you how to apply the #HBRMethod to change your life and live your dream.
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Author | Life Coach | Motivational Speaker and single mama. I'm a chick on a mission to prove anything is possible for ANYONE. My story featured in the New York Times, Steve Harvey Show and NBC.
Absolutely loved this!! I want it I want it I want it, I am going to do what you have suggested.wish I could print it and carry it with me.
Luanne
Awe Luanne, I’m really glad it resonated with you. Some times the hardest most obvious advise is what we need to hear the most. I certainly know it’s true for me. Some times we just need to be reminded of a little common sense if we can step away from the emotion for a minute.
Actually I have never been a heavy eater and no stresses were cured by food in my case…But when my husband left me, I started noticing my desire to eat fr reducing the depression…Girls, listen to Sarah! It’s quite a bad idea! Thank you for the article, it really looks quite reasonable)
Wow, I felt as though you were speaking directly to ME in this post Sarah… the paragraph where you speak about self destructing and driving him away and the universe not bringing him or anyone into your life for that matter until you address your issues…. so true, I am finally realizing it is so very true… my mind is finally open and I have been working on ME, losing my weight and making ME happy so I can love myself which will enable me to better love someone else. I have to read The Secret as well, I know you had a link on here for it, I’ve owned that book for probably 2 or so years now and have yet to read it. It’s time. It is definitely time, because I am already starting to feel self worth rather than worth-less after losing some weight and working out daily for the last month. It’s like a bad situation had to happen in order for me to finally open my eyes and realize I Can Do It and I Need To Do It, no other choice. It was too easy to lose the control and be comfortable on a couch, yet in a major funk for a couple of years that I couldnt seem to get out of… well I am finally out of it and I am going to follow your challenge starting with a vision board. I know the part about believing seems to “scare” me the most so to speak, but I know anythings possible if you believe, so I will work to get there (starting with changing my negative thoughts and mind…which I’ve already begun to)… I can’t wait to see where I am at this time next year or even 6 months from now. Thank you Sarah, so much. Again, I am so glad to have stumbled across your page =) Lori F.
Yay Lori, so happy that you are going to take the challenge!!! Creating a vision board is the thing that really changed my life. It gave me hope, it allowed me to dream and is the thing that has taught me how to live my best life. I’m so glad your on your way too~! There are lot’s of tips on here for how to deal with the things that want to try and get in your way and keep you from turning your life around, so feel free to ask for support whenever you need it, I’m happy to help 🙂 get it girl!
Sarah, where have you been all my life?! I wish I had read this post/blog ten years ago.
awe thank you so much Rachel!!!! so happy it’s resonating with you 🙂
Thank you Sarah, the universe must have let me stumble across this today as I could really use this step by step guidance today. I need it both mentally and literally as cake is where I get my comfort. Will print this out and take it step by step.