Yes, I’ve talked about this quote before but it’s a good one and I’m continuing the theme of making intentional choices!

In this episode, I talk about how it relates to my anxiety & panic disorder and how it can help you too.

Come and find me on Instagram @makesunshineco

Or join my new Patreon community to get bonus podcast episodes or take part in my mindset & mindfulness challenges each month.

https://www.patreon.com/Makesunshineco

 

Transcript:

Hey friends! You’re listening to This Quote Changed My Life, a podcast about intentional action. My name is Tracey, and I’m a wellness coach based in Australia. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of This Quote – episode 56 – and if you are a long time listener or you’ve just scrolled through all my episodes so far – you will probably get a sense of dejavu because YES I have done this quote before.

BUT as we are talking about making intentional choices this month in my Patreon community – I wanted to bring this quote back out so that we get a fresh hit of it, because it’s such a good one.

This episode’s quote is – May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears – and it’s from the one and only Nelson Mandela.

Have you heard of this quote before? I think a lot of us have – and it’s something that we need to keep in the forefront of any decision that we make.

I wanted to bring this quote up again and talk about how it’s helped my anxiety recently.

Anxiety is driven by fear – the fear of what we need to deal with in the future, often because of things that have happened in the past. When we are led by a fear based decision, we are playing into our anxiety. We ultimately decide that we don’t trust ourselves and that we gotta play it safe, because we’re not good enough, we don’t know enough, we won’t be able to handle it.

Does this found familiar to you? Maybe a little too real?

I think before I knew that I had an anxiety disorder – I thought I was just being rational and making grown up decisions. But nothing about anxiety is rational – it’s your mind & body on overdrive, asking you to view everything and everyone as a threat. When my anxiety and panic disorder was at it’s highest, I was running out of kindergarten meetings like I was on fire. I was not on fire.

I was making choices based on fear, out of placating my anxiety and trying to avoid feeling what I was feeling. And I fully acknowledge that while you’re having a panic attack, it’s very hard to be realistic and make realistic calm choices – that can take a lot of time, therapy, work and meds to get to that point. But I think it’s outside of those panic attacks where we make the most progress when it comes to our mental health and resilience.

For me, practicing mindfulness throughout my daily life has been more helpful than when I’m in a panic state. Bringing my awareness to my thoughts and actions, even if it’s just what I’m going to eat for lunch, or where I park my car – when you become more aware of what you’re thinking and what you’re doing – you start to build more trust in yourself, that you can do things – you can figure it out – you can try something new and you will be okay no matter what. You start making choices that reflect the kind of life you want – and in turn, you start creating the kind of life you want.

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

Have a think about the choices you’re making today – do you make choices based on what you can’t handle so you better choose the safer option? Or have you been able to make decisions because you believe that you can handle whatever comes your way? That the unknown isn’t as scary as before and now you trust yourself to figure it out?

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

I truly hope that you are thinking about the boundaries you’ve set yourself – the ones that don’t make any sense anymore – and think about whether you’re able to change it up a bit so that you give yourself the chance to see what you can do. We are often stronger and more resilient than you think – you’ve survived every single bad day you’ve had, you could do it again!

Make a choice to have the kind of life you’ve always wanted – you have to be the one that puts your foot out and start walking or running towards that goal – I believe in you and I cannot wait to hear what you’re doing!

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of This Quote Changed My Life. As always, you can find me on Instagram under @makesunshineco – if you would like to support me, you can sign up for an extra couple of podcast episodes and my monthly mindset & mindfulness challenge. I’d love to see you there!

This is the last episode for 2020 – I cannot believe the year is finally over! I will definitely see you again in a couple of weeks, so I want to wish you a happy holiday season now – and I will catch you in the new year! Let’s make 2021 awesome together! See you soon!!