Transcription
Hi everyone, and welcome back to another podcast episode. My name is Alicia Goen, the host of the Glow Up Secrets podcast, where I help you expand your mind and become more self-aware so that you can glow up into the best version of yourself.
Hello and happy Sunday, if you're listening on a Sunday. Before we get into it, I just want to let you guys know that our membership, the Inner Circle, is now open. There are so many of you guys already who have joined. Our first live will be on Tuesday, mainly because it is a long weekend, the Easter long weekend. And so I figured Tuesday would probably be the best time to start. We're going to be talking about "Stop Overthinking and Start Doing" because I feel like a lot of us are in that era thinking about, okay, it's a new month, April. We have goals to hit. We want to become the best versions of ourselves, but we're overthinking. We're not taking action towards things. So that's going to be the theme. I asked you guys on the Discord, if you're in the membership, you will have access to the Discord, what advice you need on that, sharing what you're going through currently and the ways that you're not taking action. So, I'm going to answer those questions as well on the live. And it's going to be good. I can't wait. I'm super excited to have a space where we can show up even more than just the podcast and really talk and work on ourselves. We're going to be doing all different types of topics. So if you're interested, you can join beside the subscribe button on YouTube, or if you're listening on audio, you can just click the link in the description and you can join.
So for today's episode, I want to talk about essentially three steps to getting out of a negative headspace. So, if you have been in a negative headspace, you had a day or two or a week or whatever, and you're just lacking the positivity, you're lacking feeling good. Maybe something happened in your life, you got rejected from something, you just had a really off day. Like for me, we got rejected from another place. Love that for us. Not really, but that's okay. It is what it is. Rejection is redirection. We literally talked about this last week. But I also just had a weird off day yesterday, and I didn't spiral because I went through these three steps and I'm feeling a lot better. And I figured, let's talk about this. If you just need to pick yourself back up, you need to change your energy. You know, you don't want to be feeling how you're feeling and you need a little bit of a pick-me-up. Now, obviously, take this or leave this, right? You might be going through a season where genuinely, like your hard day is not going to change in just one day. And that's totally fine. Like I think about when I lost my mom, when I was going through a flare-up, when I was going through just really hard times, like sometimes these tips, it's not that they won't apply, but life can be very difficult. So, I get that. But if you're just, you know, having one of those days and you want to pick yourself back up, then hopefully this will help.
So, the first thing that I need you to do if you are feeling low, you're feeling like today is just not your day, is to actually feel it. Let yourself have the day. And maybe it can't actually be the day. Maybe it's just a moment in time. Maybe it's just a few hours. Or maybe it just has to be two days. Whatever it is, I think there's something very important about you actually allowing yourself to feel it. Now, feel it with boundaries, of course. The other day, when we did get rejected from a place, I knew the mindset that I wanted to hold, which was rejection is redirection and there's going to be something bigger and better and whatever, whatever. We literally talked about this like I said last week, but there was such a huge part of me that did feel disappointed and sad, and my mind, or at least that part of me, kind of overrode the positivity and really went into that, quote unquote, victim mentality. And a part of me was like, I shouldn't be feeling like this. Like, I shouldn't be playing the victim. Like, stop playing the victim. Like, I remember I was going on a walk and I was just, like, witnessing my thoughts and I was getting frustrated because I was feeling low and I was like, "Wait, girl, listen. Allow yourself to feel disappointed. Allow yourself to feel heartbroken. Allow yourself to wallow and be in that little pity party for a second. That's actually okay." Like, just let yourself because honestly, your mind's probably going to override the positivity anyways. So you're just at this point fighting the reality of what is right now. So, you might as well just, like, let yourself feel. But also know, or at least tell yourself, that you're going to get yourself out of this. And that's how I like to approach most things when I'm having, like, a bad day. Even like yesterday, I woke up and I was going to, well, I was planning on filming, and I went to the gym and I did all the things I needed to do, but there was something in me that just, like, my mood was like super low that I just could not get myself to record. And instead of fighting that, I was just kind of like, "Girl, don't let this be bigger than it needs to be. Accept your defeat in a way and just start tomorrow." Like, do it tomorrow. I know sometimes in your life you might actually have to do the thing, right? It literally just depends. But I think if you can take a little bit of that pressure off of yourself to feel anything other than what you're feeling, it can definitely help.
But how I like to look at it is, okay, you know what? I'm going to give myself kind of, kind of, kind of a timeline. And again, right? Like I said, you got to take this sometimes with a grain of salt because I think about, like, my grieving process. I'm not going to tell myself, "Okay, tomorrow you're just going to get back on the horse, girl." It's like, no, that's not how it's going to be in life. But there are so many other instances in life where you can be like, "You know what? All right, I'm going to give myself the rest of the day and I'm going to feel like, and I'm just going to allow myself to be in this day that it's bad, but you know what? Tomorrow is going to be a new day and tomorrow I'm going to pick myself back up." And that is honestly what you need to do. And that leads me into step two, which is you need to pick a lens in which you are going to view not only your circumstance, but the world when you are done having your day. And that is what I did honestly last night when I was thinking about this into today. I looked at life and I said, "Okay, I have a choice right now. I can move and look through the world through the victim mentality or I can look and move through the world through the victor mentality." And although yes, I allowed myself to be in that victim mentality because it was true. You know, technically I was a victim. You know, we are always victims of our circumstances in some sense. But what I want to do with my life is feel better. Of course, I don't want to feel like, feel like rejected, feel like the world's against me. But it's going to be up to me to choose a new way of moving through life. And I'm going to choose to look through the lens of a victor.
Now, let me quickly just explain victim mentality versus victor mentality. I'm sure a lot of you guys already know. The victim mentality goes like this: something doesn't work out and your mind turns into a story about your whole life. It goes from "this didn't work out" to "nothing ever works out for me. Why does this always happen to me?" Right? It goes from taking this one isolated situation and making it your entirety of your life. Instead of it just being a bad day, now it's a bad life. And I don't want to move through life thinking like that. And then we have the victor mentality, which is something doesn't work out and you still feel it, but you don't let it define everything. It becomes, "Okay, this didn't work out, but something else will. I'm going to figure it out and keep moving." So you let it be the day, but you don't let it be your life.
There's two ways that you can access the victor mentality more. And one way is through gratitude, and the other is through consistent affirmations. And I think this is really good to do when you are feeling super low. We are not spiritually bypassing. We are not diving into toxic positivity and not allowing ourselves to feel our feelings. I literally just said, yes, step one is feeling your feelings, right? But it is important for you to bring your focus to all of the things that are going right in your life. Now, personally for me, I believe that God is really showing me that I have so many things to be grateful for and how my life is safe and abundant. Even when I do feel like things are going sideways, things feel like in the form of actual people coming into my life and sharing their life experiences and making my mind open to the, the idea that like, "Oh my gosh, I actually have it a lot easier than other people." And I want to be careful with saying this because I have been in the mindset of sometimes it's like not good to tell yourself like, "Oh, like people have it harder" because then it kind of downplays your situation and like your situation is real and your feelings are real. But if you do want to step into that victor mentality, you do have to see how good you do have it. And listen, my experience and my life might be different than yours. Everyone's life is different, but I urge you to really see your life for what it is and how safe you are. You know, how protected you are, how much support you actually do have, all the things that are going right in your life. And yes, things might be bad and confusing and things might be messy, but there probably is a lot of good things going on in your life.
And like I said, in my life, like the other day, I went to the park and I was bringing Theo out, and there was this lady and she was clearly in a really hard situation. Like, genuinely, I think her situation was hell on earth. And I'm not saying that from like a judgmental place, but she was like, kind of like trauma dumping on me. And maybe she just needed to. And God was like, "You know what? You just got to let this girl say what she needs to say, and you got to give her a little bit of advice." But her life was insanely crazy, and it really made me think when I walked away from that situation like, "Wow, do I ever have a blessed life." So if you struggle with even being grateful for some of the things in your life, like actually doing a gratitude practice, which can be such a good practice to do when you are resetting yourself. Ask God, ask the universe. Just go outside and just, like, ask to be shown the reality of what is going on in this world, and you will be shown. If you open up your eyes and you start looking, you will find so much hardship in this world, and it will make you second-guess your bad day. It genuinely will.
And even when I was shown that situation from that lady's experience, I remember, of course, like that was making me think about my own life circumstance and hers. And then I was like driving somewhere. I think I was in an Uber or something, and it was a really cold day, and I just, I saw the homeless people outside and I was like, "Wow, I'm just so blessed that I'm freezing in this car right now because it's so cold. I just got into this Uber, yet there's somebody outside having to actually sit in this cold." Like, I am so blessed. I am so grateful. I have so much to be happy about, be grateful about. And my boyfriend likes to remind me of this a lot. He is a very positive person. He's very grateful for a lot of things. And sometimes I think that you need other people to kind of show you that. Sometimes you can get in your own head. You can get into your own little negative space. And again, this is not to get down on yourself because you know you're not being grateful or get mad at yourself for, like, you know, having a bad day. Like I have been saying, and I will continue to say, but it is very helpful, and not from a place of capitalizing almost off of like other people's suffering by being like, "Oh, well, sucks for them. Yeah, I have a great life." And like going about your day. I don't want you to see it like that, and that's not how I see it either. But there was genuinely something that I, I felt for that lady. Like, I genuinely felt so sad for her, and of course did my best to help her. And every time I see those things as well, when I see, okay, like I actually have things going well in my life, it always makes me think, okay, how can I be a better person? Not even just for my life, right? To use that experience, seeing someone else's experience, and just so like I can just feel better about my life, but genuinely, yes, I'm feeling better about my life, but also how can I do better in this world because of what I am seeing outside? So that's a little bit like of a tangent when it comes to gratitude, but I do think that gratitude can unlock that victor mentality in a way.
And also affirmations. And this is huge. I think it's coming up for a lot of people, even to myself, and that's we're definitely going to be talking about that in the membership in terms of like the "start doing instead of just overthinking all the time." We have to be really aware of the thoughts that we think, but also the things that we say to ourselves. Bringing it back to, "it's not a bad life, it's just a bad day." Those are very important affirmations that you need to tell yourself when you are feeling down, when you are feeling negative, and you want to get out of that cycle. And again, my boyfriend is, I think he really has trained me to verbally say these things out loud to the point where I do that now. But thinking about your bad day, you know, "Okay, I'm having a bad day. I'm feeling it." But saying out loud to yourself, "I am going to feel better tomorrow. It is going to turn around. I am going to pick myself back up. It is not a bad life. It is just a bad day." Actually saying those things out loud will take you a very far way. Because if not, guess what your internal dialogue is? "I'm never going to get out. This really sucks. The rejection is going to continue happening. Like, there's going to be no new places." I'm thinking about, like, my condo situation, whatever, whatever. You're going to continue to seek evidence to prove yourself right about your mindset, about the beliefs that you hold in your head. You're constantly searching for things to confirm whatever you are currently thinking and believing about yourself in the world. So, you want to start thinking better thoughts so that you can start finding evidence to prove yourself right about the good thoughts, right?
So, even this morning, I woke up and naturally I did have those thoughts that I had yesterday about, like, the bad day. But you know what? I said out loud, "Today is going to be better than it was yesterday. It just is." And then when my boyfriend woke up, I said, "I'm going to have a better day today." And he's like, "Yes, you are." And even when he, like, asked me this morning when I went on my walk, my little, like, mental health, like, reset walk that I had, he asked me how my walk was. And at first I kind of wanted to be like, "Oh, like, it was okay." Or like, you know, like, I'm not feeling that much of a change in how I'm feeling. But I said, "No, actually, it was great." Because it was great. The fact that I could wake up this morning and feel okay, you know, like, at least I'm not, you know, on the streets or whatever the heck it is. I have the ability to wake up. I went outside. I walked Theo. I went by the water, which is just so beautiful. I'm so blessed to be able to walk to the water. It was a decent day out in terms of weather. And I was able to just go walk and just, like, be with the birds and be with nature. And I ended up getting myself a latte and a croissant. My, the ability to be able to even do that. That is an amazing day. That is a beautiful day. And I'm trying my best to remind myself that we are going to focus on this because this is what matters. And although yes, maybe I have that low mood still, or, you know, I'm still feeling a little bit grogginess from the day before, or maybe my life hasn't completely changed. That's okay. I'm going to acknowledge that that is a thing. But I'm going to focus my attention on the things that are going well. But you have to verbally say these things. You have to affirm to yourself that things are okay. Things are going to be okay. Even if they're messy or confusing right now, things will be okay.
And I found a Pinterest quote. I actually think I read this to you guys. I don't know if it was like a long time ago or in a community post, but it's great. So, I'm going to read it. And it says, "My season to be a victim is over. I did my time. I've put myself through enough pain. I've woken up countless times in the victim mindset, relinquishing my peace and my power day after day after day. I'm done. I've graduated. Nothing left to do now but to be the victor."
Now, after deciding that you are going to be the victor, you're going to have more of that positive reframe and mindset. You are focusing on gratitude. Whether you're having a journal practice or you're just genuinely going outside, taking a walk and being like, "Actually, I have so much to be grateful for." The third step really is to take a moment in time, morning, the day, whatever it is, however much time you have, and however you want to do it, to actually reset in a way that feels good. Because when I think about the victor, the victor feels good. The victor feels empowered. The victor feels positive and even excited for life. And I think that that is what we're also wanting to feel, right? Instead of feeling like crap, we're wanting to feel more positive. You know, we're kind of like chasing, like, "How do I feel better again?" And that is what I did this morning. Like I said, I woke up and I was like, "Today is going to be a good day." Like, I literally don't even care if it's going to be crap or not. You know, whatever happens during the day, today is going to be a good day. And I was like, "All right, usually I wake up in the morning and I make my typical breakfast and I'll, like, journal or listen to a podcast or whatever, and then I'll go for a walk. But I told myself this day that it can be kind of like a fun day, like a fun reset day because I want to do something that makes me feel happy because that's going to allow me to step more into that victor instead of the negativity." And I think that's important when you are not feeling good is to almost, like, treat yourself. Let yourself have a good day instead of, like, forcing yourself into some, like, disciplined, like, weird, I don't know, routine or something that doesn't feel good because I feel like that's going to just be harder for you to feel better about your day.
And for me, I went for my walk, which I always do, but I knew that was going to make me feel really good. So, I actually just skipped breakfast cuz I wasn't really that hungry. Skipped it. I just got up out of my bed, took the oat for a walk down by the water. I knew that was going to be super healing for me. And I was like, "You know what? I'm going to treat myself to getting a latte and a croissant." And I'm not going to feel bad about it. Not like I should. Like, why would I feel bad about it? Maybe just for, like, my mind, I'm like super routine-oriented, and if I go off my routine sometimes, in my head, I'm like, "Oh, no. It's like not good to go off your routine." It's like, "No, go off your routine if you have to. Go buy yourself a latte. Go make yourself a little bit of a latte. Go make yourself a matcha at home. Go get yourself a matcha. Go talk to a friend. Go change up your workout. Go, I don't know." I was going to say buy yourself. You don't have to buy yourself anything. Go listen to your favorite YouTuber. I was watching Brenda's um videos this morning, and it made me feel like just excited for life again. I was watching her solo Bali trip, and I'm like, "Girl, I need to go to Bali. Like, I need to go to Bali." Whatever. Go on Pinterest. I'm trying to think of what else. Whatever makes you happy. Literally, whatever makes you happy. If that even means taking a break from the thing that is stressing you out, do that. Right? Maybe it's just, like, boundaries with something. Just dropping the conversation for a second. Dropping the project that you're stressing about for a second, right? Like, maybe if you're stressing about something to do with, like, work or school-related. Again, I know it can be like time-sensitive. You might actually have to go to work or, you know, do the assignment, but maybe taking a little bit of a a break and ease, like giving yourself an easy day with things and telling yourself, "I'll get back on it tomorrow." I feel like that is so helpful instead of forcing ourselves into being productive again or being happy again. Like, don't force yourself into feeling happy about a situation that is clearly making you unhappy. Instead, take your focus and your energy off of that thing for a second and allow yourself a little peace and quiet. Do something that feeds your soul. There's got to be something, but it's probably not the thing that you're trying to force yourself to do. You're probably trying to force yourself to feel happy about that thing. Maybe you just leave that thing for a second.
And like I said, go for a mental health walk. Like, literally this morning, it wasn't my typical morning walk. I named it my "mental health reset walk." I said, "We are going to go for a walk this morning, Alicia, and we are going to cleanse our energy and we're going to have a better day." And that's just what it's going to be. And we are not going to sit in the victim mentality because life is too short and too beautiful to do that. And it's okay that you had that bad day. It's okay that you feel those feelings. It's okay that even if your, like, energy doesn't change completely today. But we are going to pick ourselves back up because you know what? I would rather feel better than feel worse today, genuinely.
And I'm going to read one. And I was going to say one last, but I actually have something else to read, but another Pinterest quote that says, "I call my power back to me. I call my energy back to me. I call my magic back to me. I am cleansed and disconnected from anything that may drain me. I am shielded from any energy that does not serve me. I am safe. I am protected. I am whole." And so it is.
And this morning when I came back from my walk, I sat down and I did a nice journal session. And I basically journaled just like that. I said, "I am feeling much better today. I am grateful for this, that, and the third. I am excited for all of these new things. My life is blessed in so many ways. I am feeling better. I spent time really cleansing my mind, cleansing my energy." So maybe that's something that you can do as well. Maybe it's tonight, maybe it's in the morning, midday. You can always reset your energy. Sometimes when I feel the pent-up energy and stress in my life, I will emotionally release by actually letting out all of my feelings. Like I said, step one, and that is something that we do in my guided journal series, which if you want to get access to that, the link is always in the description. But then also what I like to do is reset my viewpoint on situations, which is technically the loving voice, which is the last practice in the journal series. And that is really just telling myself, "Today is good. Things are great. Things are working out exactly the way they need to." And I'm not trying to, I don't know what the word is, but I guess gaslight. I'm not trying to gaslight myself and tell myself affirmations that are not true. Don't do that. Okay? So if you are having a bad day and things are feeling just not the best, you don't have to force yourself into believing that, like, everything's working out when it clearly is not. But you could be like, "Okay, everything is a mess and I don't know when things are going to get better, but things will get a little bit better if I choose to focus on the positive or something like that." Like, you don't have to go to this extreme. Use a bridging affirmation. Instead of being like, "Oh, I'm gonna make a million dollars tomorrow," which obviously, like, that probably might not happen and you're not going to believe it anyways. You could be like, "There's going to be something that happens tomorrow that's going to have a shift in my perspective, or somebody's going to call me, or I'm going to be able to find somebody or talk to somebody or have this conversation or that thing, or there's a million ways things can work out that will lead me one step closer to my end goal, which is something like, you know, I need access to money or access to resources or access to just, like, a better mindset, something like that." That is so incredibly huge. You got to pick yourself back up.
Now, I saw Marianne Williamson. You guys know I love her. I honestly love her. She's so good. She, I'm looking at my book. I was going to say bookcase, but a shelf with a few books. And I have a book called "Return to Love" from her and also "The Mystic Jesus." I would highly, highly recommend both of those books. And also to go search her up on YouTube and watch, like, every podcast interview that she's been on because she's just so good. And even follow her on Instagram. She talks a lot about, like, political stuff too, but she also talks about spirituality as well. So anyways, she posted on Instagram the other day the deeper meaning of Easter and why it matters, which is kind of very relevant because it is Easter long weekend as well. And so it says, "Easter is not just a story about what happened once to one man. It's a story about what happens to all of us over and over. Crucifixion is what happens when fear casts out love, when judgment casts out compassion, when attack casts out understanding. It's the moment we forget who we are. Do we identify with the wound or with its healing? Do we have faith in the power of a problem or faith in the power of its solution? Are we willing, even a little, to see things differently? The question is not what happens to us. The question is who we choose to be in the space of what happens. Resurrection does not invalidate our pain, but it validates our capacity to move beyond it. It's the power of love to heal what's been broken. Resurrection is a choice. It's a return of the right mind."
And resurrection means basically coming back. Obviously, not from the actual dead the way that Jesus did in that whole story. We're not saying that that's exactly a situation that we're talking about right now, but it's the spiritual idea of we can come back from something. Okay? You had a bad day. You had a bad year. I think about my past year was like not a good year for me. It really was not a good year for me. But I always reminded myself, "I can come back from this." I might, quote unquote, spiritually die a little bit, and I did. I think a part of my soul died when my mom did, but I knew, and I didn't know when, but I knew that I was going to be able to come back from this. And I, I thought that that really resonated because she was even saying, like, "Are we identifying with the problem or are we identifying with the solution?" Right? The problem that we're identifying with, that's more of that victim mentality. The victor mentality is more, "How are we going to identify with the solution?" What is the solution? And sometimes we don't know what the solution is. But the first step is honestly being like, "You know what? I'm done with the problem. I'm going to focus on the things that are working well in my life. I'm going to do something today, one little baby thing that's going to make me an inch happier than I was before." And I'm gonna keep it pushing. You are built for this. You can do this, and you will do this. And I think if you affirm to yourself and you keep reminding yourself of this, you will get out of things quicker. Life, it will not even, like, I hate to say require, but life requires, I guess, sometimes where where you go into the negative. And that's actually how we learn how to navigate through life and say, "You know what? No, I don't want this life. I don't want this. I want this." I think about relationships. I went through not the best relationships in order for me to figure out what exactly I do want and what I'm deserving of and what I will no longer accept in my life. And even your bad days will show you what's not working in your life. Maybe it is something that you can't control, but maybe also it is. And maybe it requires you to set more boundaries for you to do different things in your life, for you to set forth on a new path. So look at it like that. Look at it as information, but also just look at it as it's just a bad day. It's not a bad life, and you can pick yourself back up. And hopefully this episode helped a little bit if you were struggling to do so.
So if nothing else, go do one thing today that makes you feel happy. Just let it go. There are so many things that are going horrible in this world that I think that we can find one thing that is going right in our lives right now and to be grateful for that and use that to not only get yourself out of this bad energy that you're in, but also to become a better person. Because when you step up into your light and when you become a more powerful spiritual being in your life, you're going to shine light on other people and you're going to help other people. Whether it's just your energy is changed and now you go into work and you're feeling a little bit more grateful than you were before, or a little bit happier than you were yesterday, or, you know, you allowed yourself to have a little bit of a reset day and now you have all these new ideas or positive energy that you can bring to your family, your friends, your whatever.
So, I'm going to go because my camera is going to die. I hope today's episode helped. Please don't forget all the details and everything for the membership and also my guided series will be down below. I will see you guys on live on Tuesday, and if you're not in the membership, I will see you next Sunday. Bye.