The toxic mix of anxiety, overwhelm, and feeling totally out of control?

How do you react? I can find it very hard at times when I am feeling tired and stretched to react in a way I am proud of. I then reflect on the situation and feel awful knowing I could have done better and then enter into the vulnerability of hard negative self-talk.

When I am in a place of reflection, I find it very helpful to think about the concept of ego states. Inside every one of us lives a handful of different v "selves" — psychologist Eric Berne called them ego states, and they show up as three broad voices: the Parent, the Adult, and the Child. The Parent carries the rules, judgements, and shoulds we absorbed from authority figures growing up; the Child holds our raw emotions, creativity, and old reactive patterns; and the Adult is the grounded, present-moment part of us that can observe both, weigh the situation, and choose a response rather than default to a reflex.

To observe which ego state I am acting in and being able to acknowledge and adjust to be more Adult can often catch me in the moment and help me to take a breath and respond and not react, but also think about what is going on for me? Why am I feeling like this? What is my body telling me? What am I able to do in terms of self-care and self-love to support me to feel more present and Adult consistently? I am interested to know what comes up for you when you think of this?

Thinking back to any confrontation you have experienced over the last months. Which ego state were you operating in and was there anything you could have adjusted to feel more proud of yourself in the moment? We can’t undo the past, but we can use it to learn from and teach ourselves not to make the same mistake again. If AI can do it, so can we.

For me, coaching is all about striving to better yourself. Whether it’s to feel happier, more confident, clearer about who you are and what you want from life and your future. Each person that comes to me is striving to do better and live a life they truly enjoy. To acknowledge what has led us to the moment we are in and what we have overcome to get there is so important for us, so that we believe what we are able to achieve in the future.

All you need to do is make a commitment to yourself to create the transformation.