A Simple Practice for Letting Go of Your Negative Thoughts & Feelings
What negative feelings are you experiencing in your life right now? Are you feeling stressed? anxious? overwhelmed? angry? frustrated? self-conscious? self-doubt? fear?
What if I told you there is a way for you to let go of that feeling and live more freely?
In this episode of Embrace Your Real, I share a super simple 5-minute practice that will help you let go of the negative feelings or thought patterns dominating your life and finally live with greater peace, confidence, and happiness.
Give this practice a try and let me know what you think over on the ‘gram at @juliealedbetter.
If you loved this episode, I know you will also love...
Episode 6: How to Take Control of Your Day and Live a More Positive Life
I discuss how experiencing negative feelings is a choice and that there is another choice available to you. It all depends on whether you allow your day to control you, or if you decide to control your day. I believe this mindset is a great compliment to the practice shared in this episode. Combine the two and you will without a doubt live a much more positive life!
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace your real, let's get it, let's go.
Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast. I am so grateful that you are spending some time with me today. I want to ask you a question. What are some negative feelings that you are experiencing in your life right now? Are you feeling stressed? Are you anxious? Maybe you're overwhelmed or angry or frustrated. Maybe you're self-conscious. You have a lot of self-doubt or fear. I want you to pick one negative feeling that is dominating all of your other feelings, and that is holding you back from the peace, happiness, and whatever other feelings you actually want to be feeling.
Now, this could come supernatural and you could immediately identify what it is, or you might need to take a few moments and sit with that thought and ask yourself, "What is that feeling that is stealing all of my energy?" So take a moment. Think about it. I'm guessing for many of you, that feeling is so strong that you don't even need a moment to think because it's overtaking so much of your thoughts. You know you feel stressed or anxious whenever you even think about it.
I completely identify with this. I struggle so much with overthinking and I get so paralyzed in making decisions because to be 100 with you, I strive for perfection in my work. I strive for perfection in the things that I put out into this world. I know you're listening to the Embrace Your Real podcast which is why I'm going to be a 100 with you because I struggle with this so much.
I struggle with anxiousness and feeling overwhelmed and self doubt. I struggle with all of those things. Unfortunately, this exact feeling, try to hold me back from exploring so many new avenues in my life. It even tried to hold me back from launching this podcast.
So on today's episode, I'm going to share with you how we can begin to release ourselves from these negative feelings that we're actually feeling. Before I do, you know I have to share the review of the day. Joe [inaudible 00:02:35] 14 says, so inspirational ever since I've started listening to this podcast. After my sister recommended it to me, I've had such a better outlook on my body, my eating habits, and my life overall.
Struggling with failure and perfectionism has always been something that I've dealt with, and Julie gives the best tips and tools to build my strength, confidence as a woman. Julie, you are a blessing. Seriously, these reviews fill cup and they help inspire me to continue to show up and share more and more with you each week. Thank you so much for these super kind words.
You really have no idea how much this means to me and what a blessing it is to be able to connect with you guys and to hear feedback like this. If you haven't already rated and reviewed the podcast, all you got to do is press pause, scroll all the way down if you're listening on Apple podcast, rate and review it. It takes less than 60 seconds, but it really does help the message of Embrace Your Real.
Get out into this world. Back to the episode. Again, I want to share a simple practice that will help you let go of this negative feeling or these thoughts of anxiousness or self doubt or fear that is dictating your life. Now, this practice is actually a form of meditation. Although I don't want to call it that because I know the word meditation can scare a lot of people away, but I promise it's not scary.
It's extremely simple to do it. So here we go. I want you to find a comfortable position where you feel like you can completely relax. For me, I like to sit on the floor. I also like to sit on my bed and close my door so that I don't have distractions.
For you, this could be a closet. It could be something or somewhere in your house, outside on a deck where you prefer to sit in a chair or maybe lay down. You don't really need to get too technical with it. It's just important that you feel really comfortable and that your distraction-free. Next, I want you to close your eyes and take a few slow, deep, breaths. How slow can you breathe in? How slow can you breathe out?
After repeating this for a few breaths, you're going to feel more and more focused and more relaxed. Then I want you to bring to mind the negative feelings that you want to get rid of. So really have that self doubt, that fear, that anxiety, the frustration, all of those feelings. I want you to pick one.
Now on your next inhale, I want you to visualize yourself actually taking that thought and feeling in acknowledging what you're feeling and then exhale and visualize yourself breathing that feeling out and letting it go completely releasing it from your mind and body. You're breathing in. You're identifying the self doubt that is consuming your mind. You're acknowledging that that is a feeling that you have that's consuming so much of your energy, and then you're visualizing yourself exhaling that self doubt completely releasing it from your mind body.
Now, I want you to simply repeat that. Inhale. I acknowledge my stress. Exhale. I release my stress, or inhale, I acknowledge my doubt. Exhale. I release my doubt, or inhale. I acknowledge my insecurities. Exhale, I release my insecurities. You can even say those words to yourself out loud. Inhaling, you're acknowledging the anxiety that you're feeling about a specific thing. Exhaling, you're releasing that anxiety that you're feeling about a specific thing from your mind and body.
It's important for us to acknowledge what we're feeling because I believe we cannot let go of anything until we're aware of it and actually paying attention to it. The more we pay attention to it and even embrace it, the less control it will actually have over us. I want you to be intentional with your exhale. Make sure you are exhaling all of the air completely out. Truly feeling like you are visualizing yourself letting it go, letting that negative feeling completely out of your mind and body. When I do this, my inhale is a deep inhale.
I know that may sound weird when you're listening to this, but truly, truly just giving it your all with that exhale because you are letting that thought out of your mind and body. You can set a timer and do this for a minute, two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, however long you see fit. You can start with one minute and then each week at a minute, or build up to five minutes.
Find what's realistic for you and find what you can actually stay consistent with. You can also practice this while you're driving with your eyes open, of course, or while you're going for a walk or even folding laundry. This practice works so well. If you feel nervous, maybe you're nervous about an interview, you're nervous about a speech you need to give, or meeting with your boss, or a difficult conversation with a loved one. Whatever it may be, it really does help you to instantly feel calm, collected, and in control.
Again, find a comfortable position, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, bring to mind your negative feeling, inhale and acknowledge that feeling, exhale and release and let that feeling go of your mind and your body and repeat. Super simple, but also really effective. If you loved this episode, I know you also love episode six, how to take control of your day and live a more positive life.
In this episode, I discussed how experiencing negative feelings like stress or anxiety, overwhelm, anger, or whatever it may be is a choice, but that there's also another choice available to you. It all depends on whether you allow your day to control you or you decide to control your day. I truly believe that this is a great compliment to the meditation that I shared with you combine two, and you will without a doubt live a much more positive life feeling in control of your feelings and also acknowledging the things that may be weighing you down.
I've linked that episode in the show notes, so be sure to go give that a listen if you haven't already. If you have someone in your life, especially with all of the things going on right now in this world that you feel like this practice, this bonus episode would help, I just ask that you share this out to three people in your life. It could be a coworker, a sister, a friend, anyone that you feel like would benefit from this. All you got to do if you're listening on Spotify or Apple podcasts, if you look at the screen on your phone that you're listening on the device, you'll see three dots, whether it's in the top or bottom of the screen, click on that you'll be able to copy the link shared out on your Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, or even in a text message.
I just challenge you to share this with three people because this simple exercise is so effective and can truly change the outlook of your day and overall the productivity of your life. I love you so much. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's bonus episode, and I'll talk to you guys in the next one.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the Gram, be sure to do so, Juliealedbetter. Yes, it's with "a" in the middle. For that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips, and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check.
The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface, so go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.