The Grounded Tree

It’s time to close this chapter!

I’ve taken the executive decision to close this chapter of The Grounded Tree. I have been very quiet for over a year as I feel less energised to write and share my insight, on top of experiencing the ever lasting unknown of the pandemic. I would like to say thank you to everyone who has supported me via reading the blog posts, commenting and sharing throughout the years, also to the people who continue to support me online and offline. I wont be posting any more content but I will leave this space open for anyone who wants to browse old posts. Who knows I might decide to come back in the future, but for now I will be filling up my cup elsewhere.

It’s not a goodbye, it’s a see you later 👋🏾

Lia

How to Identify your triggers

It’s easy to understand your reaction but harder to identify where your reaction is triggered from. We take a look into how we can understand our triggers more.

We have a trigger whether something small or big, whether from childhood or adulthood. We all have something that brings up emotions we don’t like to identify with.

When we’re triggered it can show up as

Past traumas
Rejection
Fear
Abandonment
Grief
Anger
Sadness
Hurt
Unworthiness
Unloved
Defensive

Sometimes we can get triggered from an experience and don’t know why we’ve reacted in a way we did.

Sitting in the uncomfortable can lead to vulnerability that you don’t want to face or relive. However, delving into the feeling can help you feel more in control of your feelings.

How to Identify your triggers:

When a triggering thought or emotion comes up, ask yourself where is this coming from? Is it your ego convincing you that it’s true or is there factual evidence that show you otherwise. We can get caught up in the narrative the experience from our past is a belief system that is factual true. What we forget in the moment is that those so called belief systems have stemmed from heighten emotion and overthinking which causes an illusion to how we perceive things.

Once identifying the triggers, you can start the process of changing the way you view your triggers.

Allow yourself to feel- Allow yourself to feel all the emotions without attaching the old story to it. You can do this by watching the thought but not engaging with it, as once you give in to the thought, you’ll start to attract like minded thoughts(your past) and create a scenario that is not true.

Compassion(speak kindly)- We can be mean to ourselves and speak in a way we would never speak to our friends and family. When you hear yourself judging your experience or emotion, remember to speak to kindly to yourself like how you would speak to a loved one. It easier to have compassion and give advice to a friend because there’s not attached emotion on our side, try to experiment without attaching your emotions to your experience and see how differently you speak to yourself.

Rewrite the narrative- Yes, the experiences in the past have made you feel X,Y and Z but not every person or thing is out there to hurt you. Changing the way you speak about your thoughts, emotions and past experience allows you to welcome more intimacy within your life, allowing the people who respect and value you to enter your safe space.

Feeling lost can be a good thing

Being lost is the journey to being found. Find out how the unknown can be a push in the right direction.

Have you ever felt or currently feeling lost in what direction to take next?
Do you feel like you’re stuck in life?

If you answered yes to the above questions then you are not alone. During our lives, we have all felt lost in where we are heading next, especially during this pandemic where our lives have been turned upside down and we had to make major adjustments.
Maybe you’re in need of a career change after reflecting on your current job or the life your live needs a change.
Whatever your situation is, feeling lost can surprisingly be a good thing?

I know, I know, it sounds ludicrous but hear me out! Going through this turbulence of emotions actually gives us clarity in what we want and what we don’t want.

I heard this analogy recently and it solidified the epitome of feeling lost. I will paraphrase the saying but it went along the lines of ‘’ When you’re driving in a car and you are using a satnav and then you take a turn too early or too late, the satnav is always there to reroute you in the right direction for you to reach your destination.’’
In other words, no matter where you are in life, career, or relationships and whoever you believe in whether it’s your higher self, God, or higher source, they will always direct you to your end goal, even if you do take a few turns here and there.

Signs of Codependency

We find out what is co-dependency and the early signs of codependency

What is co-dependency?

Codependency is heavily relying on something or someone to aid a persons emotional needs and boost their self esteem.

The origin of the term codependency was coined in the 1980s and was referred to substance abuse within individuals. Since the 80’s the term has been used frequently in response to wellbeing, mental health, and domestic violence.

Codependency looks like attaching yourself to someone you love and when you’re not around them, you feel sad, lonely or you feel like someone has taken away your joy.

Basic human instincts are to be loved and to be cared for and we can all agree when we feel loved, we feel happier in our relationships and it creates a stronger bond.

When it can turn unhealthy is when an individual’s mood is impacted by someone not being in the space and their life depends on that person. The extreme end of codependency can detrimental to not only the individual’s mental health but the recipient too.

Codependency can be subtle but through continual self-development of unlearning this habit, therapy, and journaling. A person can find themselves becoming less dependant and standing in their power.

The signs of codependency:

Finding it hard to say no
Putting others needs before yours
Not establishing your boundaries
Breaking your boundaries
You feel you have to ‘fix’ people
Being dependant on others in fear of abandonment

How To Be Friends With Your Fear

Learning how to see your fear as an ally and not your enemy.

Fear is that one word we can hear and the hairs on the back of our necks stand up. Fear is the feeling or thoughts that stop you from pursuing a goal, based on the idea it might go wrong. The fear response is located in the area of our brain called the amygdala, the amygdala stores every experience that has made you scared or happy. When we want to do something new, our amygdala compartmentalise whether the new decision is good or bad. The brain equates good with safety and familiarity and bad with danger and vulnerability; based on this information it can be determined what we do next.

We might not be able to overcome our fear because believe it or not, it is there to protect us but we can befriend it.

Seeing your fear as an ally rather than an enemy is one way of befriending your fear. Speak to your fear as you would to a friend or a family member. When you start to be governed by your fear, use the following phrase ‘Thank you for your protection but, I would like to take on this challenge”, this phrase allows you to acknowledge and thank the amygdala for its protection but understands to grow you need to step out your comfort zone.

One way we can feel the fear and do it anyway is by starting small. Start by doing small tasks that take you out your comfort zone for example, if you have a fear around speaking to someone new without stumbling over your words, why not practise in the mirror what you would like to say during the conversation, allowing you to feel confident and at ease when it comes to the real thing.

For many cities and towns across the world lockdown has been gradually lifting since COVID-19 and this announcement can cause anxiety around adjusting to the new way of living. If you are feeling fearful about going outside, a way to combat this feeling is by going somewhere in your local area. You might be flooded with lots of thoughts but remember to use the phrase ”Thank you for your protection but, I would like to take on this challenge” and acknowledge your achievement with confidence. By feeling good you will start to be more inclined to do other activities with more confidence and less fear.

Live everyday with gratitude X

4 SIGNS YOU’RE SELF SABOTAGING

4 signs you’re self sabotaging and their solutions.

We all dream about being successful and for many of us this is something we are working on but, there is this one thing that keeps stopping us and that is ourselves. Self-sabotage is the act of stopping one’s self from achieving our goals and dreams. Here are some ways that self-sabotage is contributing to your life.

1.Comparison- You compare yourself to others and their achievements and question your ability to being ‘not good enough’.

2. Procrastination- When a deadline is near you tend to procrastinate; you distract yourself from what you need to do by doing unnecessary activities that don’t contribute to what you need to focus on. And when you try to go back into the routine you find it hard to keep up motivation.

3. Negative self-talk- This coincides with procrastination, when you’re putting something off, it can start to be governed by your fear and your ego ( that annoying voice that tells you we can’t do anything), when you hear your ego talking, you can feel disheartened and feed into the negative self-thought that ‘you’re not good enough’ or you’re not like that person who’s thriving.

4. You’re focusing on the problem and not the solution- When a problem occurs, all 3 previous signs play a massive role in your self-sabotage. You start to immerse yourself in what is wrong and let the emotions take over. It can lead to not thinking logically about the solution that can help you get out of this problem and this feeling.

Can you identify with one of these signs?……

Now that you’ve identified with one or more signs what ways can you combat this? Let’s see how we can create a solution.

Solutions to these signs can look like:

1. Focus- Focusing on your journey and the achievements you have made during your lifetime. Celebrating how far you have come can help boost your self-confidence to achieve more.

2. Weed out what is not necessary- Nowadays it’s quite easy to get yourself distract through your phone, tv, conversations, and many other things. To counteract procrastination. Why not remove any unnecessary devices out of your space or if you’re getting distracted by someone you can politely request that you would like 30 minutes to yourself without being distracted.

3. Change your tune-It’s easy to listen and get consumed by your negative thoughts when it’s running at 100 mph and your ego starts to project their fears on to you and, it’s also scary the thought of failure as no one likes to feel that way, but, by changing the way you speak to yourself and/or of situations can present a different outcome. Wouldn’t you rather say ‘I’m glad I took the risk and did that’, instead of ‘I wish I did that’.

4. Solution >Problem-A great way to overcome a problem is to remove yourself and look at it from a Birdseye view. Remove the ‘I’ statement and see what can be done to change this problem into a solution.

”Self-sabotage kills more dreams than failure ever will”– The Grounded Tree

How To Create Healthy Boundaries

Creating healthy boundaries is the key to contributing to our self care. Understand what it means to create boundaries and how to implement them.

Boundaries can take place in many forms and they don’t always have to be boundaries on another person, it can also be applied to self boundaries. Personal boundaries are essentially put in place to create healthy ways of navigating and communicating with others or yourself. It sets a tone of what you will tolerate and self-compassion for one’s self through acknowledgement and being respected. When we hear the word boundaries we often think something along the lines of separation, division or limits and when expressing our thoughts to someone they could perceive it as not wanting to speak to them as much. However, that should not stop a person from creating healthy steps to maintain their wellbeing
Implementing boundaries with people who you already have a relationship with can feel very awkward or feel like you are creating a divide but, in any relationship expressing yourself is a great way to understand another person’s needs and also will benefit your wellbeing in the long run. Boundaries can be formed in friendships, relationships, at work, with yourself and many more.

Let us get into the benefits of why we should create healthy boundaries.

Creating boundaries removes the anxiety and stress of experiencing things that do not contribute to your mental health and well being: Ever experienced being invited out somewhere and feeling obligated to go and once you arrive at the destination, all you want to do is leave but you are rooted to the ground, swarmed with thoughts like a bee’s nest and overthinking what people would say if you left the event, resulting in you having a mini anxiety attack. All of this could be avoided if you set healthy boundaries for yourself and ask yourself if this is truly something you want to attend.

Healthy boundaries allow you to successfully communicate your wants and needs without disregarding your feelings:
We often ignore our feelings to please others but, it is we who feel it in the end. Not validating your feelings can lead to burn out.

Boundaries can be flexible:
They don’t have to be strict, ridged instruction that can not be moved. The fluidity of boundaries allows you to communicate and check with the other person.

Boundaries are the psychological self-care that we don’t see but feel

Boundaries develop a healthy respect for one self

Examples of healthy boundaries:

Limiting your consumption use on social media or technology
Keeping away from people who don’t contribute to your mental health
Having self-compassion for yourself
Validating your feelings and response to situation
Saying no without feeling guilt
Physically removing yourself from places that make your anxiety rise
Not sacrificing your plans or goals to please others

Live everyday with gratitude X

The One Advice You Need To Hear

The one advice you need to hear!

On this blog, I specialise in talking about wellness and continual self-development and I stand by the statements ‘ Self-development is key to uncovering and discovering old and new things about yourself’ and it’s a great experience to undergo. However, if this search turns from being healthy to an unhealthy constant search of finding one’s self, it can end up with someone being exhausted and burnt out.

When we are in a constant battle of over analysing every situation we remove our true self from the experience because we are constantly searching for something that doesn’t need to be altered.

I often see people beat themselves up about habits they want to form but, I am reminding you that you are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously. What doesn’t help is when you start to blur the lines between developing healthy habits on a self-development journey and an unhealthy habit of searching for something that’s not there.

You wouldn’t dismantle a fully working, functional pen so why do the same to yourself?

Live everyday with gratitude X

How To Use Your Phone Intentionally

Learning how to use your phone with purpose

We are in a digital era where technology is rapidly moving forward and new social apps keep popping up everywhere. We enter the rabbit hole of aimlessly scrolling through these apps, constantly updating ourselves with the latest news and sharing information with the world to get a response. We are inundated with a unanimous amount of information about the harm our phones are doing to us.

So what can we do to change this worldwide discussion on the negativities about our phones?

It all lies in the intent of using the phone.

The producers of technology thrive from our constant use of technology, have you ever noticed whenever you get a message your phone brightly lights up or when you get a notification the sounds or vibrations lasted a bit longer than usual? Theses are all savvy techniques to keep up connected to our phones and they’ve been planted so in-depth within us, it’s automatic reaction to grab it.

We all fall into this trap including myself. I have a love-hate relationship with my phone because on numerous occasions( too many that I want to admit) I will be using my phone for a particular reason and then all of a sudden my finger has exited out of the thing I was intended to be using and automatically, I unconsciously head over the social apps where I spend an endless amount of hours scrolling through, trying to get to the end of the page; which you’re not able to because the creators want you to keep scrolling. In the end, I feel unproductive and wasted an insane amount of time.

So how do we intentionally use our phone? Here are some daily habits you can do to intentionally use your phone:

Having a habit tracker will enable you to keep a record on how productive and intentional you are doing with your task- I use an app called Habit that sends reminders on healthy habits you would like to form. As you tick off the habit for the day, the percentage goes up and before you realise it will be 100% and you’ve formed a long term healthy habit.

Having a set timer or blocker that helps you stay off your phone can boost your productivity and not heavily rely on your phone for social use.

Don’t use your phone before you go to bed- You will often find yourself not being able to sleep from the brightly lit screen.

Only use your phone for what you need to do!

Create a phone-free zone

Turn your phone upside down, this will help from constantly picking up your phone when a notification arrives.

What are your top tips for using your phone intentionally?

Live everyday with gratitude X

How To Become A Superhero

Ever had a thought that you weren’t good enough and then the next minute you’re spiralling down a rabbit hole of self-doubt and insecurities. Going down that hole can be discouraging as it starts to affect our self-esteem and confidence.
I watched a TedTalk that spoke about How to be more powerful than you can ever imagine and it made me understand that we have a bad habit of lacking empathy and compassion for ourselves; we would never speak to our friends or family the way we speak to ourselves so why do we think it’s acceptable to speak to ourselves this way.
When we change our pattern and show the compassion and empathy that we freely give to others, we rise to the challenge that is set to discourage us and in that process, we transform into the superhero that we know is inside us.

The superhero in us aids our inner strength and we start to discover how powerful we truly are. What would you do if you had your superhero outfit on…What are the things you would accomplish? It’s a bit like an alter ego; an extension of yourself or a journey to who you are becoming. Before you know it your superhero outfit will be so embedded in you, you won’t even flinch whenever a thought pattern or feeling of low vibration hits because you’ll see it as a challenge to succeed.

I will leave you with this powerful quote ‘’In rising to our challenges, we find our superhero’’.

Find your inner strength…Find your superhero

Live a harmonious life X