An article I was reading in Prevention Magazine recently highlighted that all too often we easily focus on the bits of our appearance we don’t like – till that is all we see. Then we lose confidence and want to hide. Well, let me tell you how you can shift your focus and gain a new resourceful perspective?

View Of Self
The article suggested “step back” from looking in the mirror close up. Do it. When you step back you get a different perspective, you see the whole.

A close up view, of course, only lets you see bits, various parts, of your face for instance. So you see lines, sags, and skin tone. When you step back you see face proportions, sparkling eyes, nicely shaped brows, great cheeks, strong jaw, shapely lips etc.

Close up you use left brain’s speciality for detail. Step back and right brain’s bigger picture specialty comes into play more. Now you get some perspective on your self-criticism.

This is much kinder to your psyche and is much closer to the reality that others see. You are not bits or parts. You are a whole being and no one part is the only part that matters. A confident, animated, and interested face and expression is always a winner, especially when you focus on discovering something special about the person you are looking at – and in the mirror that person is you.

APPLY THIS USEFUL & EFFECTIVE STRATEGY

See the Stressor
This strategy works well when you have a “picture” of a stressful situation, issue or person.

Evaluate the Effect
Note where you represent the problem to yourself when thinking about it. Does your mind’s eye see the picture close up? to your left? to your right?

Note how you feel when looking at the upsetting picture or scene. Where is the discomfort or stress registered in your body? Do you breathe shallowly? Is your chest or throat tight? Does your tummy churn? Do you get pain in the body or tension in your neck? Check your jaw for tension, and also your arms, hands, throat, chest, tummy, legs, toes.

Now mentally push your mind’s stress provoking image further away from you, out into the distance, an arms length, bit further. How do you feel now?

Bring the image close in again. Check the impact on body sensations and tension level. Note the differences.
Again push the image further away, check impact. Is it less stressful out there? If your breathing is more relaxed and body tension less, that’s good feedback from your body.

Push the picture further back still, till the image is very small and there is no tension or very little in your body. Leave the image there for now.

Connect With Your Resources
Now is the time to consider how you really want to feel in the situation or with that person.

Do you want to feel calm, clear headed, resourceful, focused, confident, present, relaxed, prepared, whatever?

Recall a time when you were experiencing all of that.
If you can’t recall a time create a picture of you with those attributes. Use someone you know with those attributes as a role model, put yourself in their shoes to feel what it is like to have those attributes.

Colour the picture with a positive colour, for you, bright yellow, soft pink, beautiful purple or vibrant red, whatever makes you feel the attributes more vividly and connects with the resources within.

Bring this resourceful picture close in until you, the colour, and the resourceful picture are one. Breathe in the colour and scene. Feel the impact on yourself. Enjoy the feel. It’s inside you and right through you now. The colour glows all round you.

Now look out and bring in the previously stressful scene and check the impact. Bring it in closer slowly and monitor its impact. At any time you can stop the picture where it is and draw breath, and breathe out the resourceful colour all round you again. Continue to bring in the picture till you feel your resourceful self, calm, relaxed, confident, totally present, prepared for whatever.

Holding your resourceful state is the secret. It has more energy than the issue or problem and allows you to apply your creative problem solving ability to handle the issue productively.

When your resources are bigger and stronger than the problem there is no problem. It’s just something to sort out and move on.

Keep It Happening
Remind yourself of the resourceful colour whenever you need as you breathe in and shift your focus.

Cheers
Anna