A Better Way To Gratitude, Emotional Work, and Forget and Erase Everything That Led You To Disease
My Personal Insights, April 2023
Hi everyone!
It’s been a while since I last published a new and fresh newsletter, let alone my personal insight from my health and life exploration and journey - the last one was in February.
"My Personal Insights" is a place where I'm sharing my recent insights and reflections about life, nutrition, wellness, well-being, and my burnout journey.
My goal with this section of the Conquering Burnout Newsletter is to share valuable information and insights that I found useful that might help you in your own life and your own burnout journey.
Here we go: here are my three personal insights from April.
A Better Way To Gratitude
Since you’re subscribed to my newsletter, chances are that you’re into personal development and interested in wellness, well-being, and healthy living - and because of that you probably know about the importance and benefits of gratitude.
Expressing gratitude is associated with a host of mental and physical benefits. Studies have shown that feeling thankful can improve sleep, mood, and immunity. Gratitude can decrease depression, anxiety, difficulties with chronic pain, and risk of disease.
Because of that, experts can gratitude the “magic pill” for health and well-being.
There are a lot of ways to practice gratitude, to be and feel grateful: journaling, expressing gratitude out loud, expressing it to others, etc.
I’ve known about the benefits of gratitude and tried to practice it regularly for years, but I’ve always struggled with it - especially when I wasn’t feeling my best. How can I be grateful if I’m struggling physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually? Sure, I did my best to change my mental and emotional state by noticing and being grateful for small things in life, it worked a bit but it also felt a bit forced and ungenuine.
However, recently I found new ways to practice gratitude and I find them very helpful!
I’ve been watching a lot of content from Alex Hormozi and I love it: I love his energy, how he delivers the message, and his practicality: just helpful and practical stuff, no unnecessary baggage, fooling around, and bullsh*t.
I came across an Instagram Reel and TikTok video where he shared his way of practicing gratitude - 2 different but very similar ways.
The first one is Imagining that what you’re doing is the last time you’re doing it.
As Alex says, if you know that what you’re doing is the last time you’re doing it, you will probably appreciate it more. If you appreciate them for that, they taste a bit sweeter and you’ll be more grateful for them.
The second way of practicing gratitude is “Gratitude from your 85-year-old self”.
Alex says: “Imagine you’re 85-year-old self like you’re really old and that you woke up today in your body as it currently is. All of a sudden my morning coffee becomes this reliving of a moment that I have when I’m 85 years old.”
I tried them both and they’re very helpful! They make me stop, reflect upon my present and current life, and create a sense of genuine gratitude in me.
So, if you’re struggling with gratitude - as Alex Hormozi or myself do - or you’re trying new ways to improve your general health and well-being, I would highly recommend trying them out!
The Importance of Emotional Work
Over the past half a year, I’ve been doing a ton of emotional work.
Over this time, I’ve seen how things have been cleaning up inside of me: because of past feelings, emotions, and traumas that we haven’t processed - be it because we didn’t know how, maybe because we didn’t want to, or because we couldn’t - are stored in the body and negatively affect and interfere in our normal functioning.
Pain, fatigue, discomfort, mental health problems, and burnout symptoms can be the result of accumulated things - especially emotional stuff.
What’s been helping me the most is the “Emotional Releases” that I’ve written about before here in my newsletter.
Emotional release is basically using different tools to process and let out stored and accumulated emotions - you can read more about them in the article below:
The key to do this emotional work - for me at least - is to do it regularly: there are two reasons for that.
First, you don’t want to wait until your “Emotional Tank” is full to empty it and release what’s been accumulating.
You can do it this way, but it’s going to be painful.
Often the release and detox of accumulated emotions can have some negative consequences: Emotions can have the same flavor on the way out as it does on their way in.
Emotional detox symptoms can include:
stress response,
fatigue and exhaustion,
bodily aches and pains,
nausea.
brain fog,
vivid dreams and nightmares,
urge to change your life radically,
sadness, anger, resentment, insecurity, anxiety, depression, need to cry or scream, and other unpleasant emotions.
The longer you keep something inside of you, the more it will grow in size and the more painful it will be once it comes out. That’s why it’s important to do emotional work regularly: for me, this means having at least one bigger emotional release every week.
The second reason for regular emotional work - at least for me - is because of the “Emotional Weight” that I’ve developed over my life.
It’s as if you’re overweight: you’ve put on weight slowly, kilo by kilo, pound by pound, over the course of several years or decades, and because of that you won’t lose that extra weight overnight. You need to commit to doing the daily work: daily healthy diet, daily exercise, sleep, and supplement routine, etc.
It’s the same with emotional weight.
If you’ve never been taught about emotions, emotional work, and emotional intelligence, if you kept feelings and emotions for yourself, never share them, expressed them, or processed them, you’ve accumulated and gained a lot of emotional weight.
Now that is weighing upon you and giving you all sorts of problems, so to lose that emotional weight, you need to commit to daily emotional work.
I can tell you from my own experience that emotional and inner personal work is not easy: it’s hard work, and it requires a lot of time, dedication, and energy - but it’s worth it!
The more emotional work you’ll do, the less tension in your body you’ll have, the less stress you’ll feel, you’ll handle external stimuli and negative emotions better, your digestion will improve, the anxiety and depression will lift up, you’ll be happier, in a better mood and you’ll feel a sense of lightness and positivity.
Forget and erase everything that led you to disease
Recently I learned about an inspiring story from a girl from my hometown who fully cured herself and reverse Multiple Sclerosis (MS) naturally without medications.
When I first heard of her story I was amazed: What was her secret?
It turned out that she forgot and erased everything that led her to disease.
At her lowest point, being in a wheelchair, being unable to walk and do anything, she decided that she would start living differently: that she will forget and erase everything that didn’t serve her and potentially brought her to disease: her mindset, her patterns - conscious, unconscious and subconscious - her beliefs, lifestyle, etc.
It made me think right away about burnout: I always emphasize that burnout is a blessing and a teacher because it gives us an opportunity to reinvent our lives and to start living differently.
Like Albert Einstein once said:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
The patterns that brought you to disease and problems won’t get you out of them: you have to radically change how you live and operate.
So remember: In order to heal, forget and erase everything before the disease, everything that led you to the disease, and start living differently.
That’s it for this edition of “My Personal Insights”.If enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful, please share it with someone who might benefit from it.
Also, consider subscribing and supporting my newsletter if you haven’t already!
Being “emotionally overweight,” or even emotionally obese is certainly an interesting topic. An invisible weight pressing on us subconsciously. Fascinating piece!