How To Live With Uncertainty In A Stressed Out World

by Janelle Legge | May 10, 2022 | Anxiety

Step away from the noise. Follow your own inner directives.

Learning to live with uncertainty requires a solid sense of self where you’re able to think independently and cope with whatever life delivers. Yet when the world is in a state of flux, it can take a lot of energy and self-coherence to not get pulled along with the panicked herd.

It can take a lot of inner reserve to be able to follow your own inner-directives, do your own thinking and research – and stay grounded and calm. More than 2 years into this ongoing atmospheric uncertainty and upheaval, cultivating a solid sense of Self is one of the most worthwhile things you can do amidst all of the alarmism and anomalies. We’ve had our senses bombarded with repetitive mind-numbing scripts for over 2 years now.

So if you’re feeling energetically and emotionally scattered and drained by all of this uncertainty and flux, reconnecting with your own inner guidance system is the best way to re-charge, reinvigorate and re-empower yourself.

It requires turning down the incessant noise and distraction so you can clear out the rubbish thoughts in your head and focus on what you need to do to raise the quality of your thinking, your vibration and your overall wellbeing.

Establish daily routines so you can connect with your own inner guidance

It’s taking a holistic approach. Setting up daily routines and good self-care regimes are the starting points for this. Yoga, exercise, spending time in nature, meditation and gratitude journaling are excellent grounding activities that bring you into the present moment so you can connect with that quiet, confident voice deep inside of you. You’re then better able to become aware of the quality of your daily thinking and start replacing negative thinking spirals with thoughts that empower, uplift and support you.

Uncertainty and the unknown triggers the primitive parts of your brain that’s hard-wired to constantly scan the terrain and look for danger or unusual patterns. Learning how to live with uncertainty requires over-riding the primitive-brain’s reactive rapid fight, flight or freeze responses – or to at least be able to step back, reflect and choose to respond more constructively to whatever’s going on.

Daily meditation (even 10-15 minutes a day is powerful and life-changing), yoga and other moving meditations help build your self-reflective capabilities. They help you connect deeply with yourself, how you’re feeling within your body and create the space to become aware of the thoughts that are dominating your consciousness moment to moment.

Listen to your intuition

People-pleasing or ignoring your inner voice to go along with the crowd, or what some in the media are telling you to do – when it just doesn’t feel right for you – not only damages your instincts, it seriously messes with your self-cohesion and erodes your self-confidence and your self-respect.

That quiet voice inside of you is there for a reason. Listen to it and find the additional information you need before making important decisions that can have lasting results and consequences. Because each time you ignore your own inner-directives you dull your instincts, undermine your self confidence and become disconnected from your own power.

Commit to your self and your wellbeing now

So what’s one thing you can do to better support and nourish yourself starting today? Just pick one thing that you can do each day and build up from there.

Back yourself. Trust yourself more. You’ve got this.

*If you’re feeling anxious and ungrounded book an online therapy session to get the support you need.

Tags: Anxiety Coping Strategies, Anxiety Relief, Intuition, Living with uncertainty, Mindfulness, Mindfulness in daily life, Motivation, Present moment, Self actualizing mindsets, Self Empowerment, Self Esteem Boost

Anxiety Coping Tips: How To Step Out Of Fear And Back Into The Present Moment

by Janelle Legge | Apr 11, 2020 | Wellbeing

Becoming more self-aware, self-empowered, resilient and mindful – more conscious – often requires you to go against your fight/flight knee-jerk responses, which is hard. Particularly now when everyone around you is in panic and fear-brain mode. To help you be better equipped to do this, below are my top 5 Anxiety Coping Tips which will not only help you get more grounded and calm, they will set you up with some practical mindfulness skills that will serve you for the rest of your life.

5 ANXIETY COPING TIPS

Anxiety Coping Tip 1 –

Stop Being Glued to the TV And Get Inner Focused

If you’ve been watching too much mainstream news and find it’s starting to govern your life, it’s time to stop doing this as it’s most likely stressing you out and exhausting your nervous system. Learn the key points of what you need to know about this and what’s applicable to you and then switch off the media hype and all the noise. Mainstream media is designed to sensationalize, catastrophize and hypnotize you by amplifying all the fears, concerns and potential worst-case-scenarios playing out constantly in the back of your subconscious mind. This kind of daily mental diet is just not good for your body, your mind or your present and future life. Because fear, worry and stress all compromise the immune system, self-confidence and resilience.

Anxiety Coping Tip 2 –

Have Empathy for Yourself and Others

This current situation has triggered a roller coaster of emotions in most people which is a normal human response to such a perplexing, large-scale event. When you allow yourself and others to have normal human emotions without judgement it creates space for you to then connect in with yourself, side-step all the fear-based thinking that the atmosphere has been saturated with and sink back into the power of the present moment. You’re then far better equipped to cultivate an ‘Inner Focus’ which stops you from being tossed around inside from constantly focusing on the outer environment.

The restructuring of our time and activities because of the current situation presents a rare opportunity to have more solitude and downtime to take a break from all the external noise and often mindless, habitual busyness of daily life and shift your focus within. Because that’s when you can finally access your intuition, your power, your inspiration – and importantly find some inner peace and calm.

Going within, staying in the present and not getting constantly swept up and over-stimulated by what’s being conveyed on the tv gives you the space to also think with more objectivity and discernment. When you can disengage from the collective herd mentality, you’re better positioned to think and respond in more constructive, resilient, creative and innovative ways.

Sometimes that means just pressing the pause button until what you need to do next, what’s best for you and the people you care about, emerges from your own inner wisdom and guidance system. It’s not being constantly run and distressed by external noises and cues.

Anxiety Coping Tip 3 –

Become the Gatekeeper of the Quality of Your Thinking

You can’t be fearful, anxious and in the present moment at the same time. Eckhart Tolle

To adapt, thrive and constructively deal with whatever life’s throwing your way it’s vital to become the gatekeeper of the quality of your thinking. It’s learning how to recognize when you’ve been suddenly overtaken by debilitating, repetitive, fear-based thoughts.

Because if you don’t work at becoming more conscious, then you can’t step outside all of the constantly looping fear-based and negative thinking that’s going on inside your head.

For certain things in life, we don’t always have control over whether something will happen or not. So whenever your thinking has been hijacked by negative thoughts, you need to remind yourself that your point of power is always in the present moment – so that you don’t keep defaulting to fear-brain thinking.

You have amazing resources within you that you’re probably not even fully aware of. Perhaps you already are. But if you’re really struggling at the moment with seeing yourself in an empowered way, then this is the perfect time to start.

But to do this, you need to disengage from all the external noise and turn your focus inward.

Anxiety Coping Tip 4 –

Believe in Yourself

Believing that you’re an intelligent and capable human being who can handle whatever happens next will boost your self-confidence, self-worth and capabilities beyond what you thought was possible for you. It just takes time and practice because it’s often not easy to do straight away, particularly if you’re struggling wth low self confidence or you didn’t grow up around confident, can-do adults who modelled what self-belief looks like in real life to you.

The most potent thing you can control is your state of being and the quality of your consciousness in the present moment. Being able to master this gives you the luxury and advantage of being able to choose how you respond to things, rather than being stuck in reactive, stressed out mode.

Authentic self-belief requires becoming self-aware, which is one of the most worthwhile and life-changing decisions you’ll ever make. It just takes persistence, practice and a real desire for personal growth and all the benefits and rewards that come with this. Choosing to become more conscious will improve your personal life, relationships, coping skills and your wellbeing.

Never has there been a more perfect time to have anxiety coping tips that actually work, so that you can take advantage of this perplexing situation and connect with your heart and deeper wisdom. Something you’re only able to do by focusing inwards and adopting a calmer, more grounded and embodied stance.

Anxiety Coping Tip 5 –

Become Aware of What You’re Telling Yourself Each Day

Your reality becomes shaped by what you keep telling yourself every single day. And much of this is influenced by the quality and style of stories you absorb from the tv, news and mainstream media. Now is the time to do a self-audit and detox your mind.

Becoming more aware of the rubbish that’s floating around in your mind each day – and of the quality of information you’re regularly exposing your subconscious to – is the fastest way to disengage from fearful, anxious, distorted and sensationalized thinking that just isn’t serving you, or where you’re wanting to go in life.

It allows you to step back into the present moment which is where you’re able to access and cultivate empowering, positive, high-quality thinking that transforms your consciousness, your life and your world.

Learning how to do this consistently will not only bring you more peace and calm, it will dramatically raise the quality of your daily thinking and your present and future life.

If you’re struggling to apply these anxiety coping tips and simply can’t find relief or a sense of purpose in such turbulent and uncertain times, I’m here to support you. To find out more, click here.

If you found my Top 5 Anxiety Coping Tips useful, please share this article with someone who could benefit.

Tags: Anxiety Coping Strategies, Bestill, Coping Strategies For Feeling Overwhelmed with Life, Coronavirus, COVID 19, Fear, How to stop negative thinking, Intuition, Mindful, Mindfulness in daily life, Natural remedies for anxiety, Peace, Present moment, Self Awareness, Self Empowerment, Worry

A Quick Energetic Reboot For Busy People In A Stressed Out World

by Janelle Legge | Dec 17, 2019 | Wellbeing

It’s hard not to get drawn into everything that’s going on in the world at the moment where feelings of stress and overwhelm can become your default emotional state.

As well as depleting our energy physically, mentally and emotionally it’s also affecting how we view everything in life, including our confidence levels and optimism for the future.

If you want to regain control and manage your emotional wellbeing in an uncertain and at times highly chaotic world, then it’s important to know how to do an energetic reboot to feel grounded, more confident and centred. Start here with the energy detox and energetic reboot steps outlined in this article. Your brain, body, soul and business will thank you for it.

3 Steps For An Energetic Reboot In A Stressed Out World

1. Eliminate Your Tolerations

Take some quiet time to look at what’s going on in your life and what you’re tolerating. Do a ‘Tolerations Audit’. Make a list of all the things that are making you feel resentful, annoyed, drained and uninspired. Include clutter in your list, it’s one of the biggest energy drains of all for women in particular.

Commit to releasing everything that you’ve been tolerating in your environment, relationships and at work so that you’re not suppressing your feelings and getting drained energetically and emotionally.

If there’s something that you absolutely can’t release, then be proactive and see how you can change your attitude or approach so that it’s no longer annoying and depleting you.

2. Make Self Care A Priority

With so much uncertainty and chaos in the world, self care is NOT something to put last on your ‘To Do List’. It’s essential. Regularly take time out to nourish and restore. Whether that be spending time in nature, listening to music that relaxes you, journalling, practicing yoga or other mindfulness-based activities that help you focus on the breath and stay present in the moment.

3. Tune Into Your Body’s Wisdom

Your gut feel, intuition and feelings are powerful sources of information for letting you know when you’re on track and when you’ve gone in the wrong direction. Being aware of what you’re feeling in the moment and why is a powerful way to identify what kinds of things are draining your energy and what energizes and inspires you.

It’s about developing an ‘Inner Focus’ rather than being tossed around by constantly focusing on the outer environment. If you’re finding this a bit of a stretch, then moving forms of meditation (like tai chi and yoga) that involve your body, mind and breath are a great way to start learning how to deeply tune into what your body is trying to tell you.

The latest research in neuroscience shows that the most optimal brain states that enhance creativity, thinking breakthroughs, mental agility and resilience occur when you’re relaxed and in the present – not when you’re continuously outer focused and stressed.

Applying these steps and making them part of your daily/weekly routine will give you the energetic reboot that’s essential for coping and thriving in a stressed out world.

Tags: Body Mind And Soul, Developing Intuition, Emotional Intelligence, How to avoid adrenal burnout, Managing Change, Mindfulness in daily life, Natural remedies for anxiety, Natural remedies for stress, Self Awareness, Self-Leadership, Soul nourishment, Tolerations in your environment

Surviving The Times Of Our Lives: Life’s Valuable Lessons

by Janelle Legge | Mar 22, 2016 | Case Studies | 0 comments

The key to surviving the times of our lives is being able to learn from life’s valuable lessons. Whether it’s having to deal with life-changing events, being plunged into a dark night of the soul, or riding through those stages in life where everyone else seems to have it all together and you’re left wondering why you feel like you’ve hit an invisible brick wall. Your sense of purpose, direction and exuberance for life missing, nowhere to be seen.

These times can be painful and confusing if you don’t know how to move through them with self-awareness.

How Amber Found A New Lease On Life By Looking Inward, Not Outward
[A Case Study]

Amber* (not her real name) had a great job and was married with one child. On the outside everything looked good. She had ticked off just about every goal she’d set for herself. In her 20s she travelled the world and in her 30s met her husband and focused on building an impressive career. Amber loved being a Mum. Yet as she started to approach her late 40s, she started to feel empty inside and lonely in her marriage. Having achieved most of the things she had wanted in life, she couldn’t work out why she felt so flat. Things that used to excite and inspire her had lost their appeal. She felt directionless and nothing ever seemed to be enough.

Amber had become so fused with her negative, lacklustre feelings she couldn’t see a way forward. It felt like these feelings would last for her entire life. When you’re feeling flat, anxious or depressed your brain starts to normalise things after a while. It becomes your reality. You get stuck in a closed thinking loop.

You can’t solve a problem from your current level of awareness. You need to get fresh insights and guidance.

The Turning Point

What brought things to a head for Amber was the big gap left in her social life when some of her closest friends moved overseas. Making her more aware of how down and empty she felt. Things started to change when Amber realised she couldn’t sort this out on her own and came to see me to get some insights into what was going on and some practical strategies to fix it.

It was time for Amber to develop a more intimate relationship with herself rather than relying on excitement and other people in order to experience vitality and aliveness. Being constantly busy turned out to be a subconscious strategy for not having to deal with painful issues from her past. Always having friends around had helped fill an inner void.

The Solution

When it comes to our personal growth, at certain times in our lives we get presented with opportunities to become more self-aware. Amber chose to learn from her pain rather than have to deal with these issues further down the track. She finally understood what was making her feel unhappy and unfulfilled regardless of what she did or achieved. It was about learning to become more comfortable and relaxed inside herself by focusing inward instead of always looking outward. This included committing to self-nurturing routines. Prioritising emotional nourishment rather than constantly looking for external stimulation and distractions.

If you’ve hit a crisis point or don’t know why you’re feeling empty, hopeless or powerless inside, it’s actually an important turning point if you decide to learn from it. But when you don’t, the lessons and patterns keep turning up until you do. You’ll just keep repeating the same old patterns that everyone else can see, except you.

5 Steps To Surviving The Painful Times Of Our Lives

Acknowledge you need help and support. It’s a sign of strength, not weakness. Don’t isolate yourself.
Talk to someone to get new insights into what you’re going through and practical steps to deal with it.
Accept the choices you’ve made to date. Owning your choices will re-empower you.
Learn how to connect with your centre and be able to just sit with yourself and where you’re at in non-judgement and self-empathy.
Establish regular daily and weekly routines that nourish and support you physically, emotionally and spiritually.

We all have to deal with different stages in life. For some, the best time in life is in high school. For late bloomers, it’s breaking out of high school, academia, and stereotypes we are supposed to live up to that life really begins. Life is a series of cycles that sometimes involve unexpected twists and turns. No one escapes this. It’s part of being human. It’s about staying focused on the unique journey that you’re on and choosing to learn from life’s valuable lessons along the way. That’s what makes you stronger, wiser and more enriched inside.

_{* All identifying features have been removed from this case study.}

Tags: Empty nest syndrome, How to become more self-aware, Mental Health, Mindfulness in daily life, Practice Self Care, Psychology, Self actualization, Wellbeing

Feeling Overwhelmed With Life? 5 Ways To Turn Your Life Around [Case Study]

by Janelle Legge | Oct 23, 2015 | Anxiety | 0 comments

Feeling overwhelmed with life is a slippery slope to stress, anxiety and low self-confidence. When you just sit with stress and it doesn’t get addressed, it eventually takes its toll on your body, your physical and mental health, your love life, your family life, career, everything. And if you’re a woman starting a business on your own, feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed can be part of the deal.

An Overwhelmed Mumpreneur

This was the case for Sara* (not her real name) who came to see me for some coping strategies for ongoing feelings of overwhelm that she’d been silently struggling with on her own. Sara had been in Sydney for almost a year, having moved here with her husband and 2 children after a long term stint living overseas. They had moved several times over the last few years because of her husband’s career.

Sara’s love of travel and living in different parts of the world had now turned to debilitating feelings of stress and overwhelm around the day to day requirements of life and setting up in a new place. She was stuck in a cycle of overwhelm that she didn’t know how to get out of. Routine things like doing the school drop off were becoming harder each day. Sara would spend ages deliberating over what to wear, how she looked, and ran through endless scenarios in her head around how she imagined she was being viewed by other people. She started to avoid talking to the other Mums when she dropped her kids at school, because she felt so bad about herself.

Sara’s Problem:

Sara had put her career on hold to be a full time Mum and was now in the process of starting a business working from home. But she was increasingly feeling overwhelmed with all of the things she needed to do. She was constantly comparing herself to other women who in her eyes were more confident, attractive and accomplished. Sara was trying to be the perfect mother and wife and build a successful business. But she wasn’t getting far in her new venture because of the endless self doubt and emotional burnout that was arising from the enormous pressure she had been placing on herself in just about every area of her life.

By the time Sara came to see me her confidence and self esteem had hit an all time low. Feeling overwhelmed had become a part of her daily life.

What became immediately clear was that Sara had over time let go of all of her self-care routines.

The Crux Of The Issue: Sara had routines and schedules set up for everyone else – except for herself.

Increasingly Sara had put everyone’s needs before her own. Her entire focus was on trying to be the ultimate mother and wife – and build a successful business. Sara’s expectations around perfectionism and success were like huge weights that she was carrying around 24×7. She’d lost connection with who she was before she got married and started a family – and starting her own business was her way of starting to reconnect with other parts of herself. But Sara had forgotten all about the day to day things that nourished and fulfilled her on a more personal level.

Regular self-care had been permanently put on the backburner and when this happens over long periods of time, stress and overwhelm begin to take over.

My Solution:

To fix this, one of the first priorities was coming up with daily and weekly self-care routines to address Sara’s overwhelm and reconnect her with her centre.

5 Things You Can Do To Get Out Of Overwhelm

These are the 5 things I got Sara to implement straight away that quickly turned her life around:

1. Establish A Morning Routine

Sara had been at the beck and call of her family for years. We looked at her carving time out for herself each day and getting a morning routine in place to set the tone for the rest of the day. For Sara, this was starting her day with 30 minutes of gentle yoga stretches, followed by a short meditation to ground and connect in with her centre, and simply observe whatever thoughts and feelings arose during this time.

2. Practice Mindfulness In Daily Life

Instead of always rushing to get things done, we looked at ways Sara could use mindfulness to be more in the present moment and feel less time-pressured, instead of continually fast forwarding into the future which was totally stressing her out. This included using mindfulness techniques and slowing down when eating, drinking, walking, and driving in the car, viewing delays as opportunities to stop, breathe more deeply, and relax.

3. Exercise Regularly

Sara used to swim so she scheduled in a morning each week for doing laps in the local pool. I also encouraged Sara to go to a weekly restorative yoga class to get her out of the home, relax and be in a different space.

4. Share Your Thoughts And Feelings

When you’re feeling overwhelmed you need to get out of your head. For Sara this meant scheduling date nights with her husband (which had fallen by the wayside) and making new friends. Sara needed to connect with the people that mattered in her life on a more intimate level and talk about what was on her mind. This included taking a risk and reaching out to some of the other women she had been so busy comparing herself to. Talking about your inner most thoughts and feelings with people you trust is a powerful way to reality check your fears and doubts, get fresh perspectives, and feel more supported and connected. It’s also a great way to tap into other people’s worlds and discover that they too can feel overwhelmed and insecure.

5. Establish A Calming Evening Routine

Like lots of people trying to deal with feeling overwhelmed, Sara was sitting up late at night when everyone else had gone to bed watching crime shows, late night news and drinking wine to unwind. She was overstimulating her nervous system watching TV late at night and at the same time trying to anaesthetize all of those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that come with being overwhelmed. Which is a no-win situation. Wine regularly consumed, particularly late at night, is a depressant and disrupts the quality of your sleep. And so does spending hours zoned out in front of a computer screen or late night TV. We replaced this with a calming evening routine to prepare Sara for sleep. This included listening to relaxing music instead of watching TV and meditating for 15 minutes before going to sleep. Having a bath before bed is also good to include in your evening routine if you can as it helps you finish the day in a deeply relaxing and restorative way and prepares you for quality sleep.

The Outcome: How Sara Turned Her Life Around

Within a few weeks of following this routine, Sara noticed a huge difference. She felt more confident and optimistic about her life and was far less overwhelmed and stressed. We could then identify and address some of the core beliefs that had been driving Sara’s overwhelm.

Over the time I saw Sara, her relationship with her husband and children also improved. She was able to be more in the moment, her sense of humour returned, and she had more energy and clearer focus, because she was taking care of herself. Sara’s social life turned around too. She finally started to build new friendships and network with women who shared similar interests. Interestingly, by adding in her own routines, this gave Sara MORE time in her day for the things that really mattered. She was far more focused and productive. Sara was no longer feeling so overwhelmed by life and that she had to sort everything out on her own.

Take Away:

Adding one or all of these 5 things to your daily and weekly routine will get you out of overwhelm and change your life in positive ways too. One of my favourite reads on getting more into the present moment and out of overwhelm is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

For more hands-on practical tips to deal with overwhelm and stress:

It’s always worth the effort sorting out your overwhelm issues. The biggest turning point for anyone on the path to a bigger life and more success is asking for help and not trying to do everything on your own.

If you’re fed up with feeling paralyzed and overwhelmed and want a happier, more stress free and productive life email me at support@janellelegge.com to book an appointment.

_{*All identifying features, including names, have been changed in this case study to protect the privacy of my client.}

Tags: Coping Strategies for feeling overwhelmed, Entrepreneurship, Health and Wellness Tips, How to manage stress and anxiety, Living Well, Low Self Confidence, Mindfulness in daily life, Natural ways to have more energy, Success tips for Mumpreneurs

Welcome to a space where you can turn down the noise and distractions and become more inner and present moment focused. That’s when you’re able to more fully access and harness your authenticity, your own inner wisdom and live your best life.

Doing the journey of self discovery and investing in your self development and wellbeing changes your entire life, beyond what you ever thought was possible for you.

Janelle Legge