S01E11 - Achieving Balance in 2023

[Ding dong]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.  Welcome to Carry On with Criselda, with service from limiting thoughts and emotions to an empowering outlook.  I will be your captain, AKA host, Criselda.

Today is going to be a beautiful sunny, muggy, or chilly day with plenty of sunshine, thunderstorms or snow flurries depending on where you are located, this fine day.  

We ask that you please fasten your headphones or earbuds to your ears at this time as this episode is about to take off.  All baggage must be stored and kept in your past as it is not conducive to this journey and your final destination.  Please turn off all devices that would interfere with your listening experience other than the device you are using to tune in to this podcast.  Negative thoughts and emotions are prohibited for the duration of this episode. 

Once we have taken off and are in the airwaves, we may experience a little turbulence from time to time.  This is normal and nothing to be alarmed at as it is just pockets of emotions fluctuating as you process information and you will most certainly gain your balance once again, confirming that you are becoming a better version of yourself.

I want to thank you once again for choosing Carry On with Criselda.  I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day.  Enjoy your journey.

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Hello and welcome back to Carry On with Criselda.  As always, I am so grateful that you have stopped by to join us today.  Depending on when you hear this, I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year.  Also, a couple of housekeeping items to mention.  I have been working on my website, carryonwithcriselda.com.  It’s like my digital home for this podcast and I am inviting you to visit.  Hopefully you will find everything in working order.  It’s like a house that goes through renovations from time to time.  Your patience is appreciated.  I would like to point you to just a couple of features.  I understand that not all podcast apps enable listeners to leave comments.  You will find a place on my website to leave comments on each of my episodes.  Just click on an episode, scroll to the bottom and voila.  Be sure to read the comment policy, also located on the website, before you comment.  You can also get to my Twitter page from the website, which is @cowc_podcast.  Final thing I want to mention about the website, there is an interesting feature located on the bottom right of the screen, no matter what page you’re on or where you scroll.  It is a red button that says, “leave a message”.  If you click on that, you can record a short message or question, which will go to my podinbox.com site, linked in the show notes, and get the chance of having your message featured on an upcoming episode.  On that site, you can also chat with me or leave a donation if you feel so inclined which will further our goal of continued episodes, bringing encouragement to yourself and others so that they too, can find the motivation they need to become better versions of themselves.  Now let’s get on with the episode.  Be sure to stay till the end for another special, lighthearted message.

Question:  On a personal, emotional level, what do you want for yourself the most in this new year?  You might say you want happiness, joy, peace, optimism, hope, gratitude or all of the above or something else.  Would you agree that in the span of our life we are constantly oscillating on a scale of emotions?  Would you agree that negative emotions are a fact of life?  When dealing with negative emotions, are you cognizant of the amount of time that you spend in that state?  And how observant are you on a given moment of where you stand on that scale, especially when you are veering off course?  What’s considered on course?  Well, that’s what we are going to get into today.

Throughout most of our lives we struggle or deal with negative emotions as far as controlling what causes them and how much time we dedicate to feeling them and feeding them. This has led me to examine negative emotions:  what causes them, how much time I spend on them, and is it even reasonable to feel them.  I think it wasn’t until my mid-thirties that I became tired, really tired of feeling out of control with how negative emotions affected my life. This prompted me to evaluate negative emotions in a new way: objectively. What does this mean?  And what was my ultimate goal?  To achieve and maintain a peaceful state of mind which meant to find my balance.

I would get in a disagreement with someone and anytime I’m in a confrontation of some sort, which I hate, I can feel my heart rate go up.  Suddenly I feel wrapped up inside myself, if that makes any sense, and my reasoning ability would become impaired.  Before I knew it, I, along with the other person, would have said so many things to where I almost wouldn’t be able to track everything that occurred.  How did I even get myself in that situation?  In other words, I would be so caught up in the moment of how I felt more than what I actually said.  And if I’m honest with myself, half of those things that I said shouldn’t have been said in the first place.  I basically operated on emotion rather than logic.  It wouldn’t be until much later that I found that most of the time I could exert control over how I reacted to causes, which meant I could control the amount of time spent experiencing negative emotions.

Another scenario would be if I became offended by something.  I didn’t like how someone said something that went against who I am or what I believe or how I think or what I opined.  And now I hold this grudge against them for not being like me, thinking like me, acting like me, etc.  How long would I hold that grudge?  How long would I allow something so insignificant or pointless to have its hold on me?  Now don’t get me wrong.  There are definitely times when it’s appropriate to be offended by someone or something in order to make significant, needed changes, especially when it has to do with the well-being of yourself, your children, your family, a group of people or someone you care deeply about.  It’s important to make sure that it’s for something that is relevant.  And know when it really isn’t.  But when it comes to something irrelevant or even petty, any differing opinions from mine should be like water off a duck’s back.  Different is not always bad.  It is just different.

Oftentimes, when someone gets easily offended by things, as in, you have to walk on eggshells around that person, it can be a sign of insecurity.  Here’s a confession and one that, if I dwell in that thought too long, still leaves a bad taste in my mouth:  I had a major case of offense as a child up to early adulthood.  I couldn’t take a joke about myself.  I couldn’t laugh at myself.  I took myself way too seriously.  And yeah, a lot of it had to do with some of the hardships that I dealt with in my past.  I did not feel good about myself.  I didn’t like who I was.  I didn’t like who I wasn’t.  I wasn’t comfortable in my skin most of the time.  I was too sensitive.  But being a sensitive soul is not a bad thing.  I still am one by heart.  Being too sensitive though, to where others need to be cautious all the time with what they say or how they say it, is in my opinion, a form of manipulation, that was important for me to get rid of.  It is my opinion that no one should be controlled like that.  Yet, I did not proactively work on raising my self-esteem.  As a child, I excuse myself because I was not emotionally aware, nor did I have the language skills to express myself.  As a young adult though, I still was not proactive in raising my self-esteem because I was too busy feeling bad about myself.  I didn’t consider that the amount of time I spent in offense kept me stuck, until my mid to late twenties.

So, for me to finally get unstuck in that area, took a harrowing process of desensitization in certain areas.  That did not leave me insensitive.  On the contrary, I am as sensitive as they come to the things that are relevant in terms of others and myself.  Rather, I don’t take myself nearly as seriously as I once did.  And I definitely no longer use manipulation to control someone’s behavior.  And once I no longer felt the need to control someone on account of me, it was so freeing.  It was a learned behavior that had to be crushed, which then released me.  On the negative side of it, I could defend my stance till I was blue in the face.  I was so self-righteous at the time.  And after that part of me was finally extinguished, the next scenario I encountered where my reaction would’ve been to use offensiveness or manipulation, left me feeling as though I didn’t even care because I didn’t need to care anymore.  My causes were no longer important enough to go down this path of negative emotions.  It was no longer worth it to me.

It was the strangest, most freeing thing for me.  I went through similar experiences with many other negative emotions such as jealousy, hurt, anger, but going through each one today would take too long to go through.  

How about guilt?  Guilt towards yourself about mistakes you’ve made, things you should have said or things you shouldn’t have done.  It is important to acknowledge what happened but hanging onto it and wading in guilt is where it poses a problem.  That will keep you weighed down, making it harder to recover.  Rather, as soon as it happens, quickly learn from it.  Then forgive yourself and make a concerted effort to walk with your new, clean slate.  Keep in mind, maintaining your balance, finding your center point is a discipline.  The mind will want to remind you again of the past at some point.  Without judging yourself, gently bring your mind back to that clean slate.  Then move forward again.  It is a habit to be practiced.  It kind of reminds me of the board game, Chutes and Ladders.  Did you ever play that as a kid?  You roll the dice and move that many places on the board.  Sometimes you land on a ladder in which you can climb ahead several spaces.  But if you land on a chute, you slide back down several spaces, pushing you further away from the finishing line and you have to work your way forward again.  That’s kind of like what dealing with emotions is like.  Do you suppose the game creator had that in mind when they came up with that game?  Or maybe just life in general?  But I really do believe that getting yourself back to a center point from guilt can be done.  We all go through past guilt and regrets and guess what?  We will go through it again, minor or not, as we are not perfect.  But it does us no good to live in perpetual guilt with every mistake that we make.  In fact, I find that I don’t even have time for it as in, I won’t make time for it.  Of course, I apologize where I need to, I give myself a pep talk where I need to and then I move on.

Then there’s sadness and depression.  It is important to keep ourselves in check in this area.  Other than any kind of tragic or traumatic experience or something that truly cannot be helped, sadness and depression is something that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to wallow in for long.  It’s something that we should absolutely fight through.  And the right time to prepare is not when we are in the midst of those feelings.  It’s beforehand.  Before the next time you get sad or depressed about something is the time to be prepared with how you are going to combat it.  

From the outside perspective that I have, the real downside of depression is when it affects your relationships, your work, and any other aspect of your life you find important.  When it really affects the important things in your life, I believe personally that you’ve been in this state too long and you really need to examine why you’re there.  With truthful examination, you may be able to see that it is caused by something under your control.  Maybe you need to lower your expectations.  Maybe you need to not compare yourself to others.  Maybe you need to keep your perspective and realize that things could always be worse.  Just maybe.

If you were to look up emotional scales, you’d find a variety of charts, pyramids and spirals that show the different negative states leading up or laterally to all the different positive states.  The center point from any of those negative and positive states is usually contentment.  In my mind, that’s the sweet spot that I aim to be in at all times.  Because from there, I can get to the more positive states.  I can’t jump all the way over there if I’m stuck in any of the negative states.  Which is why a state of contentment, I will gladly take.  To me, that is a neutral place.  I don’t have to be elated or enthusiastic all the time.  I definitely don’t want to remain in any negative state longer than I should therefore, I do require that I am at least at my center point as often as possible.  It’s my home base.  My place of contentment is my place of balance.  It's being the best version of me that I can be from moment to moment.  In my mundane, usually uninteresting, sometimes boring life, I am satisfied.  I don’t see it as an undesirable thing.  I see it as balance, which is freeing.  

I’ve known people in my past who operated on drama.  They were stuck in that kind of horrible energy.  Or others who, if they were not completely happy (whatever that means), then they were never satisfied.  They were never satisfied.  The glass is always half empty to them.  But I don’t know.  My learned behavior has been for a long time now, optimism.  That’s because I would rather spend my energy on the positive.  I already did the anger thing as a child into my 20s.  I already had my angst phase.  I already had my blame and resentment phase.  I already dwelt in any sadness, hopelessness, self-pity and shame.  I don’t want it anymore.  I am done.  To me, it feels like it takes more energy to remain stuck in those places than it does to be in the place of contentment once all those negative states are lifted.

So, how was your 2022?  Have you dedicated too much time to negative emotion?  Is it time to change your mind set on that?  My goal is to share what I’ve learned up to this point, giving you some food for thought on how to better manage yourself so you can be a better you.

I hope you are feeling that too.  I really hope and encourage you to evaluate how you manage your emotional state of being.  And to look at it from the viewpoint of a scale and aim for contentment which is to be balanced.  Be mindful and proactive in what you are feeling on a regular basis.  Think about what you are thinking about.  Make 2023 your year of balance.  Make it your mantra.  Be intent on loving yourself and taking care of yourself by making time for yourself.  Let’s make 2023 our best year yet!  It has been my pleasure to offer you this encouragement.  Thank you for being here with me.  Until next time, carry on balanced.      

[Ding dong]

Ladies and gentlemen, the episode is coming to a close.  We ask that you remain seated until the episode comes to the very end.  Be sure to take your encouragement with you as you disembark your podcast app.  We do hope you enjoyed this episode of Carry On with Criselda.  Do consider following this podcast, leaving a comment for your pilot, AKA host along with a five-star rating and sharing with a friend to come along as a passenger.  We have an episode take off every week on Tuesdays.  If you’re like most and don’t want the fun to end, you are welcome aboard on any of our other episodes.  From your pilot, AKA host, and on behalf of Carry On with Criselda, thank you and carry on. 

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