Be patient with yourself cindy. It takes time to reverse the downwards spiral and get it moving up.

If you can, I would work on being “in the present” as much as you can. If you are surrounded by nature, this is a great way to start – take a moment just to notice your surroundings. Listen to the wind, the birds, the sea, whatever is just there. Allow yourself to exist simply in that moment, breathe, and fill your thoughts with the natural world around you. The wonderful thing about nature is that it is never still – there is always something to see or listen to/listen for. You will find other thoughts entering your head, and some of them may be anxious thoughts. You can allow them to come, but try just to acknowledge them, without judgement, and then let them go, while you shift your focus back to nature. The more you practise this, the easier it will become, and eventually you may find that simply the act of looking at a tree or taking a step outside has a calming effect on you.

I would also highly recommend, if you can, considering trying something like yoga or martial arts. A physical activity which takes a ‘mind, body, spirit’ approach can be hugely beneficial for helping to quiet and focus the mind, as well as giving you the physiological benefits that exercise brings (endorphins are a wonderful medicine!) I practise Goju Ryu Karate, which is a traditional (not sport) style, and I find it wonderful for creating balance and focus, and taking away anxiety and stress. After several years of training, even the act of arriving at the Dojo is enough to quiet my mind and calm me!

Wishing you well,

Liz

http://www.humannaturedevelopment.com

“I am a work in progress”- Sapna this makes me smile. A LOT. Because this is a huge affirmation, and actually something that all of us, no matter how happy we feel, should remind ourselves every day. Regarding ourselves this way makes us make effort to learn and grow and make things the best they can be at any one time. We don’t stand still or become complacent. It sounds like you are doing a great job.

One way of looking at it is to remind yourself that you are in charge of your own brain, your own thoughts, and your own actions. You actually have the power to choose what you do.

It’s easy to feel that you are powerless to resist the temptation of the client dinner, or the plate of nachos. But if you assume the role of the powerless being, then you’re removing your power to choose what you really want to do.

Try this:
Each time you’re faced with the choice of taking clients out for lunch vs saving the money towards something else you want, treat it that way. It is a choice. Stop yourself for a moment before you decide. Ask yourself, as objectively as you can, what you really want to do. If you do go ahead and have the lunch, then make sure that’s a conscious decision you’re behind 100%. Don’t feel bad about it afterwards. But if, when faced with that decision, you realise that actually, it would be great to put that money towards the thing you’re saving up for, and that would make you feel good, then make that choice instead.

Make your choices and your decisions more conscious. You have control – use it!

When you make the good choices (whatever they may be), you’ll feel great about them – and you’ll hopefully set yourself up in a positive feedback loop. You’ll remember the good feeling you had afterwards, and you’ll want to replicate that.

You aren’t a slave to these temptations.

Great Going, you are doing a fabulous job. All of the work you have done so far in becoming more positive and feeling good has not been wasted. Taking a couple of backward steps from time to time is part of the process of moving forwards. And you ARE moving forwards.

You are right to encourage yourself to see it as a process, not as a simple movement from A to B. All of the skills you have learned so far are still there, and when you find yourself back on your forwards path, you’ll find them again. Each time you take a backwards step (and it would probably be overoptimistic of me to suggest that you never will), you’ll find those tools and skills easier to access.

You’re learning new behaviours. Your old habitual behaviour may have been to respond with depressive and negative thoughts when things don’t work out. You’ve learned new behaviours, but you’re still working at making those more positive behaviours habitual. When things get tough, we tend to fall back on familiarity. Even if that familiarity is a negative pattern of behaviour. And to make things even harder, when things happen that are tough, that lowers our resistance and makes it even harder to practise these new, more positive behaviours or thought processes. Your new found skills are being tested now. It’s ok that you are finding it tough!

Don’t be discouraged. And if it’s the f-word you’re worried about (‘Failure’) then stop. You absolutely categorically have not failed. In any way.

I’ll leave you with this rather fabulous definition of an Optimist: Someone who figures that taking a step backward after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it’s more like a Cha Cha

There has already been some fantastic advice here, but I just wanted to add a couple of things from my perspective.

The way you are feeling is very, very common. You are not alone, and you are not unusual.

It’s very easy to feel that the answers to our problems should be simple: I’m not 100% happy in this job, so I’ll change to that job, which doesn’t have the disadvantages that this one has. Then I will be happy. It’s logical, isn’t it? But it’s not that simple, as you’ve discovered.

And the answer to this problem may not be simply to jump out of this job and into another, or into anything in particular, in fact – you may find yourself feeling just as dissatisfied with whatever else you do instead.

I am absolutely with Matt on this one – the more we can learn about ourselves, and learn to “stop hoping the outside will give us the peace we seek, and…cultivate it inside us” (as he so succinctly puts it!) the clearer your path will become.

My advice would be to slow down, take your time. Accept that the happiness you are looking for is not going to come from your current job, and accept that job for whatever it can be – perhaps that’s just a source of income while you go on a journey of self discovery. If you can think of your relationship with your job differently, that may allow you the space you need to work out more about where you really want to go. Focus on the time you get on your personal life instead. Do things you love outside of work, whatever they may be. Learn about yourself. Test yourself. Try new things. Learn about who you really are. When you remove the labels we give ourselves in life, the job titles – who is the person underneath?

It is surprising how enjoyable the journey itself can be.