Almost everyone has things in their life that weigh them down and prevent them from moving up, loving themselves and life as it should be loved
You won’t be getting hollow bones any time soon, but taking a load off your mind can have a similar effect
Here are 17 things that might weigh you down in life:
1 Your usual way of thinking When you’re stuck in an endless cycle and you know you’re stuck, the first thing to do is stop and examine your thought processes
You may not even know that you are able to observe your thoughts almost from a third person perspective, but with practice you will be able to
Understanding how you think and why you think the way you think is the first step to changing your life
2 Your reality and perspective on life The way we think leads to the things we think about, what we believe, and how we view the world and life itself
The way you see the world will differ (slightly or greatly) from that of your neighbor
We have all learned different life lessons in different ways and developed our own theories about why and how life works the way it does
While the lesson should never be forgotten, failure itself cannot weigh you down
Failures weigh heavily, while lessons learned lift you up
It’s all a matter of perspective
Believe me when I tell you I know very well how difficult this can be
But if you don’t let go of them, they’ll burden your mind forever—a kind of self-inflicted torture we’re happy to indulge in at the same time
6 Those habits that you hate but are hard to break Many people have at least one habit that we dislike but find it difficult to break
If you want to lighten your load and change your life for the better, you must first break these types of habits
7 These habits you love but know they’re not good for you These are even harder to get rid of as they bring you joy
8 This job that makes you never wake up I’m not sure if a job like this is a necessary part of life – because it might be – but most of us find ourselves sooner or later
Hopefully you’ll accept how much you loathe it as soon as possible and type in your resignation before you move on to something that puts a smile on your face
9 All those people who bring negativity into your life Sometimes it seems like the world is after you and is doing its best to bring you down
The truth is that some people probably are, while most just spit out negativity because they feel like it
If you know they don’t add to your life, just take away from it, then do yourself a favor and stop wearing them
your unhealthy lifestyle If you have an unhealthy lifestyle and you know you have an unhealthy lifestyle, why choose to continue living that way?
Or you can just decide that you don’t want to do any
The need to be constantly on the move, constantly doing something There are many ways to define life, but being constantly active and constantly filling the day with tasks is not one of them
They process information that is basically worthless – it costs time, energy and storage space
Avoid information overload and you will literally feel lighter
Believing that stress is a bad thing Stress is like an alarm system
I know this may sound impossible, but our brains are so incredibly powerful that simply believing something is bad for us can become bad for us
Use stress to your advantage and stop letting it weigh you down
You can change what you don’t like about yourself – but that doesn’t mean that you have to or want to change it
Most people I know carry extra weight – and I’m not talking about gaining a few pounds
We carry it everywhere – like a backpack full of rocks – and it weighs on us
While these are wonderful things to work toward, wanting to be more can easily lead to not being enough now
That way, every wish to be more than what I currently am means a few more bricks in my backpack
An extra load to lug around on my back, making life a little more difficult
For me it’s expectations, but our habits can also weigh on us
Beliefs like “good things don’t happen to people like me” or “I’m just not lucky in love”
What if you’re feeling a little down? it could be worse
Or maybe you think backpacks and rocks go hand-in-hand with responsibility
You can certainly go about your life with your backpack packed
When we carry a little extra weight but are still functional, we become complacent, content, or “good” We get used to the extra weight, we tell ourselves it’s part of life, and we stop noticing it
But make no mistake: examine it or not, it’s there, on your back, making everything you do more difficult
Making life less fun and less joyful than it should be
The weight of these stones distinguishes children from adults
They struggle under the weight of their invisible backpacks
How they sometimes trudge to work, trudge through the grocery store, sneak into the gym like they’re literally trudging through life?
The weight of those rocks (yes, the ones you think are “part of life”) transformed your laughter from the deep, loud belly laugh you had as a kid to the chest-pushed, flat copycat version, that you often hear from overworked adults
The weight of those harmless, “it could be worse” stones are also what’s keeping you up at night
That caused you to miss the subtle change in the air between September and October and the way your dog gets so excited when you enter the room
For me, my bricks are responsible for booting up the laptop first thing in the morning when there’s so much to love in the raw, unwritten morning routine with my family
My rocks cause me to feel stress where none is and make decisions that feel like self-betrayal
I can’t say for sure – and I really hope I’m wrong – but there’s a good chance you’re carrying a backpack with at least a few unnecessary rocks in it
Step One: Open the backpack and take a good look at what’s inside
What specific judgments, limiting beliefs, painful memories, uncontrolled thoughts, harmful habits, or denied emotions are in your backpack?
Throw your backpack on the ground like a bag of Halloween candy
Sort them out just like you would your trick-or-treating loot
Just as you make separate piles for the chocolate, gum, quarters, stuff you want to trade, and stuff you just want to throw away, so do your bricks
Your Good People Do X Bricks?
The Must-Work-My-Way-To-The-Top-Of-The-Company bricks?
Your I-am-unlovable stones – maybe they’ll go into a pile of their own, a pile you don’t want to touch just yet
Taking stock of what’s in your backpack is a big step
Sometimes it helps to know what’s inside
Start by opening the backpack and taking a good look inside
Step two: release the stones you can release now
Since opening, dumping and searching through my own backpack, I’ve been able to let go of quite a few rocks
As heavy as they once were, they are long gone
You don’t bother me at all today
There are other building blocks that I am fully aware of but still carry with me from time to time
Building blocks like good-moms-love-playing-with-their-kids and time-for-my-hobbies-takes-away-from-my-family
I know those stones are still in there
I acknowledge them when I feel them weighing me down and trust that my awareness is sufficient for the moment
I’m sure there are more stones weighing on me that I haven’t uncovered yet
I don’t know anyone with perfect brick consciousness
As long as I do my part by staying conscious, I become aware of these building blocks when I am meant to
Step Three: Remember the stones are not real
Those rocks in your backpack aren’t real
This might feel like a moot point because they feel real
Like all thoughts, they come and go, wax and wane, feel consuming and then disappear from your mind just as quickly as they came in
As your thinking changes – which it always does over time – the weight of the pack changes
As you see things in a new way, or you have an insight or a new awareness, you may find that what feels like heavy bricks is actually more like foam bricks
Or like imaginary stones
So if you are feeling particularly burdened, take off the backpack and throw it away
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She is also the creator of The Little School of Big Change, an online school that helps people find lasting freedom from habits and fears
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