Monday, May 21, 2012

Feeling Unworthy Creates Procrastination

Just now I was reading in You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay and wanted to share an especially applicable paragraph, as least applicable to me in my life right now as I am writing my thesis and creating my abundant future. I've been noticing patterns of self-sabotage as I work on my thesis and as I get closer to achieving the things I want the most in life. So I thought I'd share this insight, since you may be noticing similar patterns happening in your own life:

If one of my inner belief systems or thought patterns is, "I am unworthy," then one of my outer effects will probably be procrastination. After all, procrastination is one way to keep us from getting where we say we want to go. Most people who procrastinate will spend a lot of time and energy berating themselves for procrastinating. They will call themselves lazy and generally will make themselves out to feel they are "bad persons." (pp.76–77)

Thanks, Louise Hay, for helping put the pieces together for me. It's time to be more gentle with myself when I procrastinate, and it's time to go a little deeper to get to the root of feeling unworthy and release all those false beliefs that are keeping me down.

Most of these negative feelings that we pattern our life after come from experiences we had before the age of 7. So be kind to yourself (I'm mostly talking to myself here), and see yourself as a little child who is feeling afraid or unworthy or unloved. It's a good reminder to me to be a little more kind to and patient with myself. Here's to loving ourselves more!
Source: data.whicdn.com


2 comments:

Johnny 5 said...

This is good advice. To keep it going, I have noticed it helps to write down what your negative thoughts are and write down responses. This is Cognitive Therapy 101 and it can work to get you back on track. I am trying to apply it myself in my PhD work. Good luck to all the procrastinators!

Please Pass the Green said...

This is good stuff, John. I want to hear more.

I actually do something very similar, so let me know if there's more to it from what you've learned. I write down all my negative thoughts in a little black notebook to get them out of my head, and then I write down the antitheses in a cute little notebook with flowers on it. (You don't have to use a notebook with flowers on it, but basically whatever makes you happy.) I write 3 positive "I am" statements for every negative thought.

Thanks for taking this deeper, John!