{Me doing one of my fave things: browsing old books}

If you’ve been reading Self-ish for the past year (hi honey!), you’ll notice some changes, specifically in the tagline and “about” page. That’s because for a long time, I wasn’t sure about this blog’s message. I looked to other blogs for direction and inspiration (this isn’t a bad thing). I thought I had to fit a certain mold.

But while writing Self-ish, I realized that I’m no Zen Habits (I know, what a shocker) or another personal development blog.

While I love list posts, I’m not that great at dishing out detailed step-by-step guides.

I don’t have the prescription to eliminate procrastination (I may have some ideas I’d love to share, but I’m no motivational guru).

I don’t have the secret to productivity. I don’t use various productivity systems, and I can’t rate them. In fact, I get overwhelmed just reading about them. I prefer to write my to-do list on a piece that I usually misplace by the end of the day.

I’m not sure if I write “killer” content. Or if my blog headlines are hot and click-worthy.

I haven’t had some major epiphany in my life. But I’ve had kernels of lessons sprinkled throughout.

For a long time, I stopped writing this blog because I felt like it was floundering. It was lost at sea. I felt lost. And I was too busy brainstorming what types of posts readers would want to find on a personal development or self-improvement blog. I had tons of potentials but shot down many of my ideas. It isn’t that I don’t like the posts I’ve written. I’m very proud of some of them. But a few feel contrived and forced.

And isn’t that what usually happens when we try to be something we’re not?

And it isn’t that I dislike personal development blogs. To the contrary, I find them valuable and inspiring.

But what separates a great blog from another great blog is the blogger. The blogger’s voice. Their personality. Their perspective. Each valuable blog has a distinct voice and way of writing.

To me, this is a lesson in getting to know yourself better. Sometimes, knowing what we’re not can lead us to knowing who we are.

So I’m going to write what I know and what I find interesting, and I hope you’ll find it interesting, too. It might seem like a hodgepodge, but the goal is to explore ourselves and find our own unique voices.

The tagline and “about” page may still change from time to time, as I explore and evolve. And I hope you’ll join me.

Have you had an experience that made you realize who you are or who you aren’t? What are your favorite ways to get to know yourself better? If you’re a blogger, how did you find your unique voice?

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I’m sorry for being absent for so long. No worries! Regular posting will resume shortly. Thanks so much for reading!

Last week I felt like a waste of space. Any productivity, motivation, good writing, whatever, went out the window. I was useless. I couldn’t muster up one logical, good sentence to save my life. And that made me very angry and frustrated.

Yes, I realize that calling yourself a waste of space is harsh – and uncalled for. But I think it perfectly sums up all the teeth-grinding frustration one feels when nothing seems to come out right.

So here’s how you can pick yourself up and salvage the day when you’re feeling ferociously frustrated and utterly useless. I hope these help!

• Move. If it’s possible to change your surroundings, do so. This might mean anything from moving to another room to working at a coffee shop (or library) to going outside. A breath of fresh air can do wonders for your mood and getting some clarity. If it’s not possible for you to move locations, try changing how you’re sitting. Sit up with your shoulders down and chest lifted. A better posture can help – even if just a bit.

• Read something that makes you happy or inspired. When we feel like a waste of space, we’re drowning in frustration and negative feelings. Reading something inspiring or uplifting can boost our mood and give us some inspiration for whatever task we’re trying to tackle. It can put things into perspective, which is tough to see when, again, we’re swimming in icky feelings. For me, reading a well-written article or a positive post can be inspiring.

• Listen to your body. Your waste-of-space feelings might be trying to tell you something. So tune into your body. What is it saying? Are you exhausted? If so, can you take a quick 20-minute nap? Are you hungry? Get yourself a snack. Being hungry only exacerbates exhaustion and a negative mood. I don’t know about you, but when I’m hungry, I’m the world’s most crankiest person! (My boyfriend can attest to this.) Are you feeling aches and pains? If so, get up and do some stretches! The same goes for if you’re tense or anxious.

• Be a smart procrastinator. You’re probably already procrastinating because you can’t seem to get anything done. That was me last week. I couldn’t do a thing. Nothing I wrote sounded smart, good or clever. In fact, it barely made sense. Linda from The Renegade Writer, one of my favorite blogs, suggests engaging in “scheduled procrastination.” In another post, she talks about the various mini actions you can take that are still meaningful and helpful but are also technically procrastinating. Here are some examples for writers (which she took from “100 Micro-Actions for Work” by by Allyson Lewis).

Clip an article or forward an online article to a colleague.

Go to the website of your local professional association and submit a speaker proposal form.

Read 10 pages of a book.

Schedule a regular computer backup.

Place a number of business cards in your wallet/purse so they are always handy.

Make a list of 10 books that can improve your career knowledge. (May I suggest The Renegade Writer and The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rock?)

• Don’t make it worse. It’s important to accept that for whatever reason, you’re having a bad day. Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep or something is weighing on your mind. If you can’t lift your mood or increase your productivity, just try your best not to demolish your day. Avoid criticizing your work and try to shoo any negative thoughts away. You might feel like what you’re creating is crap, but just work through it. Just create. Remember that you can improve it later today or tomorrow.

• Set a timer. To help you get tasks done, set a timer and promise to work until you hear that first ding. The worst thing about a waste-of-space day is feeling out of control and horribly unstructured. This only adds to you feeling like a wild animal flailing about, who’ll never be able to formulate an intelligent thought ever again (yes, this is an accurate descriptor, at least for me). So structure can help you get some control back and organize your day better.

• Don’t dwell. Ruminating about how terrible you feel, what you haven’t done, why you hate yourself, etc., makes matters worse. If your brain keeps churning out these potentially destructive thoughts, just keep telling yourself to move forward. In reality, you’re just having a bad day. There’s no reason to beat yourself up. Everyone has a bad day. Try to learn from it and move past it.

What do you do on days when you can’t focus or be productive, when nothing seems to be going right? How do you lift yourself from a terrible mood?

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After publishing my post on journaling last week, I thought some more about the benefits, and I realized that journaling is key for people who bottle up their emotions (umm..hello, that’s me).

Journaling can become a safe place where you practice letting your feelings out. By writing, you’re able to process your emotions and feel them as you scribble your feelings. Which is so  important for people who bottle things up, because we don’t get that much practice feeling our feelings. We don’t understand how to connect to our emotions, and to even identify them.

Bottling up your emotions is like dieting. When you’re on a diet, after a while, you can’t tell when you’re hungry or when you’re full. You become terribly out of touch with your own body. And you rarely know what your body needs.

After bottling up your emotions for so long, you also forget how to access your feelings. And how to distinguish your feelings. You can’t tell if you’re angry or upset. Or you simply restrict. You push down any emotion (like ignoring your body when you’re hungry by refusing to eat), and become a blank slate. You lose the intuition to know the best ways to cope with your feelings.

Like a diet, which stipulates external rules of what to eat and when, you also might look to others for clues on how you’re supposed to react. You think, “Well, would my friend be mad at this?” “Would so-and-so think this is something to be upset about?” If you’re right next to a person, you might try to mimic their reaction, because by bottling up your emotions, you forget how to trust yourself and how you feel. Just like you forget how to trust your body to tell you when it’s time to eat – and what needs to be on the menu.

Plus, by bottling up emotions, we strip ourselves of our own rights to feel something as deeply as we want to, and to express it (in a non-violent, healthy way, of course!).

Journaling helps you with all of these things. You get to see what your feelings look like and make sense of them. It’s a non-judgmental way to examine your feelings, since most bottlers bottle because they’re afraid of rejection from others (there are other reasons, too, of course, like not wanting to feel painful feelings).

How to Get Started

Sitting down to write, especially about feelings, can seem overwhelming. And you may be tempted to put if off. Instead, think – or rather feel – on a small scale. Start with writing about something that annoyed you today or something that made you happy. Write a few sentences about what happened and how you felt and why you think you felt this way. And that’s it.

If that seems impossible at first, look for images that describe how you feel or words from other writing (like blogs, books, poetry, random quotes, song lyrics). Check in with yourself to see how you’re feeling and then find the things that accurately capture your emotions. This is so helpful for helping you identify how you feel and getting in touch with those feelings.

Do you have a tough time knowing what you’re feeling? How do you deal with this? Do you journal about your feelings? Any tips on how to start and keep at it?

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For me, the weekend is over at around 3 p.m on Sunday. When I’m eating breakfast, I’m already thinking about lunch or dinner.

When a loved one is visiting, I feel like they’ve already left when it’s the day before their flight. I start missing them even though they’re seated right next to me. I can anticipate the dread.

Before I go on a trip, I’m already thinking about the next three.

You could say that I have a problem with living in the present. Sometimes, I can’t help but check things off my to-do list in my mind. I call it my mental multitasking.

Instead of focusing on staying in the moment, is your mind somewhere else, too? Planning for the next thing you have to do?

I think mental multitasking – and not focusing on the here and now – stems from, at least in part, our productivity-soaked society. It’s all about getting things done – and moving on to the next thing on our to-do lists. We’re sprinting to some unforeseen destination, and we’re too afraid of stopping for a water break. But it’s during these breaks that you can breathe and take in the beauty of the present.

When we’re too future- or to-do list focused, we miss the beauty, the gems, the special moments that make up the memories we’ll savor for the rest of our lives (especially of the people who’re gone). While our minds never stop scheduling us for something, our listening skills lose their sharpness. Our patience gets replaced with restlessness. And we start to take many important things for granted.

Here’s how I’m working on staying in the present, and you can, too:

• Take a few slow, deep breaths. Breathing like this helps calm and slow your body down, so if you’re thinking about what to cross off on your to-do list or dreading the work week, just breathing can bring you back to the moment.

• Close your eyes and repeat to yourself why it’s important to be present. Sure, it’s straightforward but it helps. You might say, “Just enjoy yourself. This is an important moment. There’s nothing you can do about such-and-such, but you can choose to enjoy yourself.”

• Practice yoga. Yoga is a great way to sharpen your in-the-moment skills. Not only is yoga soothing, but it also helps your mind focus on the present, on the poses, on your breathing. It helps you let go of other intrusive thoughts that fight for your attention.

• Take in the person, place and other important things. On Weightless, I’ve written about mindful eating, which basically means paying exclusive attention to what you’re eating, focusing on its appearance, taste, texture, the aromas. When you eat, there are no distractions. No TV. No computer. No talking on your phone. It’s just you and your food. Enjoyed in small and slow bites, instead of scarfed down on the go, fast-food style. You can apply these techniques to living in the moment. In whatever situation you’re in, savor the sights and sounds of your surroundings. When you’re talking to a loved one, truly listen to their words and watch their facial expressions. Ponder what they’re saying. Try not to do anything else in the moment.

• Keep a notepad handy. If a thought keeps interrupting you, just write it down, and say to yourself that you’ll attend to it later. If you find yourself constantly worrying about something, try these practical tips.

Learning to live in the present is a process, so don’t beat yourself up if it becomes tougher than you thought to ditch distractions or to genuinely savor every situation. Just try to enjoy the journey.

How do you live in the moment, without getting distracted? If you are distracted, how do you bring yourself back to the present?

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Journaling has many benefits. Here’s an important one:

“It’s not in the rereading that one finds solace but in the writing itself. It’s like crying – you don’t know why, but you feel so much better afterward. Everything pours, streams, flows, out of you aimlessly,” writes Samara O’Shea in her beautiful book, Note to Self: On Keeping A Journal And Other Dangerous Pursuits.

Here’s another:  Journaling is a profound – and simple – way to get to know yourself better. To figure out what makes you tick. What makes you happy. What makes you cry. What makes you who you are. It’s a great tool to help you grow.

Throughout Note to Self, Samara bravely shares excerpts from her journals, along with journal entries from others like Anne Frank, Sylvia Plath and Tennessee Williams. She also gives great advice on getting started. I wanted to share some of her tips for starting to journal below:

You can say anything. There are no shoulds, only woulds, she writes. “Write the good, bad, mad, angry, boring, and ugly.”

Don’t lose faith. You might get frustrated if each journal entry doesn’t contain an epiphany. As Samara writes, “Sometimes, a writing session will be the fast-acting mental medicine needed to release pent-up emotions, and other times, it will just be the beginning of getting to know yourself or dealing with a problem.” She says to focus on the long term. Over time, you’ll be able to witness “your emotional evolution.”

Just start. Don’t spend time thinking about what your journal will look like. It’ll develop on its own. If you feel like you’ve got nothing at first, she suggests asking yourself the following questions:

• How am I feeling?
• How do I want to be feeling?
• What do I want to learn about myself?
• What do I want to change about myself?
• What would I never change about myself?

Or tell yourself to:

• Describe the room.
• Describe the people in your life.
• Describe yourself.
• Describe the aspects of your life that you’re pleased with and those areas you’re displeased with.

Stream of Consciousness

I love this type of writing. It gives you permission to just start and let it all hang out. Samara writes:

Stream-of-consciousness writing is mental anarchy and spring-cleaning all in one. It’s like going into the basement, turning the tables over, breaking the records in half, cutting the stuffed animals open with a sharp pair of scissors (and feeling much better afterward), then putting it all out just in time for the garbage man to collect.

First of all, how awesome of a writer is she! Second of all, I love that there’s no pressure to write things “right,” to transcribe a certain event with precision or create some powerful poem. Which is a relief to all of us perfectionists out there. Plus, when there’s no pressure or precise plan, you open up your mind – and heart – to write the messy stuff, the stuff you might be suppressing, the gems, really.

To get started, Samara suggests beginning with any word (which will inevitably lead you somewhere); picking an emotion that’s been overwhelming you lately or one that you haven’t felt in a long time; or asking yourself a question.

Need more inspiration?

Steal from the famous greats or the not-so famous greats. OK, don’t really steal but just borrow from them. Samara suggests writing down lines from a poem that inspires you, transcribing song lyrics or copying quotes. Each of Samara’s journals includes one quote that represents the theme of that journal, along with a slew of quotes throughout.

Do you like to journal? Why? What are your favorite quotes or pieces of writing? Where do you find inspiration?

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“Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.”—Swedish Proverb.

I read this quote in an article on Psychology Today. And I think it defines worrying perfectly. Worrying is like a magnifying glass. It enlarges everything. It empowers anxiety. It gives anxiety legs, fuel and a super-hero costume. Well, you get the picture.

And it gives us a false sense of control. I’m a worry-wart, who feels like she has to worry. (Don’t all worry-warts?) Because if I’m not concerned with one thing or another, then that means I have no choice but to relax. And relaxing feels strange – not always, but most of the time. Relaxing means that the grip on control is loosened.

For many of us, worrying is living. We can’t help but worry. Concern after concern pushes through our minds and we become anxious messes. Of course, we’re quite adept at concealing the messiness, and showing a cool-as-a-cucumber exterior, while we’re screaming inside.

Whether you worry every day or here and there, these strategies can help you ward off your worries and reduce your anxiety – so your screaming gets quieter and maybe your worries just whisper and eventually most of them simply evaporate.

1. Ask yourself right now if you can do something about it. In an article on Beliefnet.com, author Allia Zobel Nolan writes:

You’re at the movies and a worrisome thought crosses your mind. Did I check whether the documents were sent tonight to my client? This thought leads to another and another: If it didn’t get sent, maybe I can drop it off in the morning? But I have a breakfast meeting with the V.P. tomorrow. In the meantime, half the movie has gone by, and you’ve missed it. Look at what happens when you don’t stay grounded in the present. Squash unnecessary worrying with one question: “Can I do anything about this matter right now, right this minute?” If the answer is “no,” stay in the present moment, jot down the thought, and then let it go.

2. Block out worry time. If your worries are interfering with your day, schedule a time each day that you’re going to worry – and only worry during that time. If a worry thought comes into your mind, just say to yourself “I’ll worry about this at 7 p.m.” Also, during this time, brainstorm some ways you can fix your concerns. Some of your worries may be legitimate and no doubt you’ll feel much better if you create actionable solutions, which you can follow through on.

3. Realize that worrying is a choice and do something better with your time. This is another tip from Zobel Nolan. It’s simple but so powerful.

Worrying is a choice, and you can choose not to do it. Once you catch yourself, you can say, “Okay, I know all I’m doing is going around in circles. So I’m getting off this bus. I’m not going to do this to myself.” Then, get completely absorbed with something that requires your complete mental attention: do a Sudoku puzzle, add some numbers to your cell phone, write a book on Twitter, count the change in your piggy bank, start your taxes early, etc.

Think of some of your favorite activities that not only distract you but also calm you down and give you laser-like focus. Maybe that’s reading inspiring lines from a book, praying, meditating or sweating over a set of push-ups.

4. Flood a piece of paper with your worries. When your brain is bursting with worries, write them down. Release all those cooped-up worries from the four corners of your mind – which is no doubt getting exhausted and claustrophobic from them – and commit worries to paper. The release can feel incredibly cathartic. Plus, you get a sense that you’re emptying your brain, and you feel lighter and not so tense.

5. Identify the deeper threats behind your worries and instead work on those. Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D, of the book The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You,writes (BTW, you can read an excerpt here):

You worry about some things but not others. Why? Your core belief is the source of the worry. It may be your concern about being imperfect, being abandoned, feeling helpless, looking like a fool, or acting irresponsibly.

I love this tip, because it helps you dig deeper to the actual root of the problem. If you work toward solving that problem, there’s a great chance that these worries won’t come up any more – or won’t be as powerful. To get at the core of your worries, write them down and look for patterns. Do these worries all revolve around a similar theme or several similar themes?

6. Feel your feelings. What does worrying have to do with feeling your emotions? Here’s another insightful tip from Leahy.

Use your emotions rather than worry about them. Worry is actually a strategy for avoiding unpleasant emotions. You are afraid of your feelings because you think you should be rational, in control, never upset, always clear in how you feel, and on top of things. Even though you recognize that you’re a nervous wreck, your fear of your feelings drives you into more worry. Rather than trying to worry your emotions away, you will learn to experience them and use them to your advantage.

7. Exercise. This isn’t a shocker but I can’t say enough about the amazing benefits of exercise, particularly for calming nerves and clearing your mind. It’s great for putting life into perspective, too.

8. Use worry for good. Worry can be a good thing, which you can use to your advantage. In that Psychology Today article, Edward H. Hallowell writes:

I was playing squash one Sunday morning with Jeff Sutton, a neuroscientist and good friend, when I told him I was writing about people who worry too much. He instantly responded, “But worry is good! You have to worry to survive!” He then went on to talk about worry in the most animated, unworried tones, as he whipped the ball against the wall with a sharp smack. “Fear is wired in. Deeper than any other feeling.” Smack! “Worry is good! If you don’t want to worry, be a plant!” Smack! “Worry gives successful people an edge.”

He then talks about wise worry, writing “It is our reaction to worry that counts.”

What do you usually worry about? What kind of themes or patterns surround your worries? How do you ward off your worries?

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Do you suffer from I-can’t-itis – an insidious illness that results in an automatic negative response any time you think about doing something, especially something that requires skill?

Anyone: I just wrote this piece for such and such magazine.

Your response: Oh, I could never do that. My writing isn’t good enough.

Anyone: I’m running a race in a few months, and I’d love for you to join me. We could train together.

Your response: I could never run a race. I’m terrible at running.

Anyone: I just went on a road trip by myself and had a great time.

Your response: I’m not that independent or adventurous. You’re much better at these things than I am.

Sound familiar?

Some of us are drowning in self-doubt, barely able to keep our eyes above water, just long enough to see or acknowledge our true abilities. I think of myself standing on tippy-toes in the pool, unable to keep my balance and my head above water. I think of myself teetering.

Saying “I can’t” whether aloud or to yourself is largely a habit (like being a serial sorryist) – and certainly a limiting one. I’ve only recently started believing that I was capable of doing things. I am but for some reason – probably due to a persistent case of I-can’t-itis – my first thoughts are that I can’t do such and such, whether I have the reasons to back up this assertion or not.

In addition to being a habit – which means you can change it! - ”I can’t” is a cop-out. And this cop-out has fear written all over it. “I can’t do something” sounds much better than “I’m afraid.”

If you, too, have a tough time with I-can’t-itis, just know that you can change your automatic, negative, fear-filled thoughts.

Here are a few things you can do when I-can’t thoughts invade your brain:

• Consider what you have done, and keep thinking of that to boost your confidence. I might remind myself that I’ve gotten my masters, something I never thought I’d do, or that I love what I’m doing and have created this career with my own efforts. You, too, think of the great things you’ve accomplished that you never thought you could.

• After you blurt out “I can’t,” say to yourself, “Well, let me think this through. What can I do if I were to take on this project?” By dissecting the project, whatever it is, you can objectively say whether you truly can or can’t do it. And, better yet, you create measurable steps so you can tackle the task.

• Keep repeating “Yes, I can.” It’s worth a shot. When you repeat or practice something enough, you’re bound to believe it – or at least get to a point where you question your negative thoughts – and that’s a good start.

• Remember that everything requires effort. It’s easy to say that you can’t do something when you hear that someone else did it. You envision that person having it oh-so easy. Sure, some things are easy for others. But, in reality, it probably took a ton of work.

• Sometimes, we just can’t think positively about ourselves – unfortunately! If that’s the case, see that specific project or task as a challenge. See for yourself that you can do it. Don’t try to sabotage yourself by being negative. But just have fun with it, whatever it might be. Look at it as something you’ll try, regardless of whether you succeed. Just trying is a whole heck of a lot more than you were going to do, right? So, even if you can’t be positive, just be curious.

Do you suffer from I-can’t-itis? How do you squash this type of self-doubt? How do you turn negative, I-can’t thoughts into a positive can-do attitude?

Today, I’m thrilled to share with you a guest post by Brandi-Ann Uyemura, who writes one of my favorite blogs, 2inspired. I met Brandi through PsychCentral.com, where I’m a writer and blogger, and Brandi’s the assistant editor. I also wrote a post for her during the Blogathon.

Her guest post is incredibly inspiring and uplifting. I think that at one point or another, we’ve all asked ourselves whether it’s better to blend in or stick out like a sore thumb, and wondered where we’ve stood.

Thanks so much, Brandi, for a fantastic post!

BTW, I apologize that this week the posts have been sparse (i.e., non-existent), but I’ll be back next week for regular posts.

When I was growing up in Hawaii (yes I’m lucky!), there were only a few things you could be. There was a doctor, a teacher, a dentist, a cashier and a secretary.  Well, maybe the list was greater, but I was limited by my own perceptions of what I could be. This island girl did not have big dreams to cure cancer. Truthfully, my one true desire was to be a cashier. It was a nice, simple and safe dream. Maybe it was because I didn’t know there was an ocean of opportunities beyond the island life. But I think it was something more profound than that.

Growing up as a fourth generation Japanese American girl, I was taught to blend in. It could be because of our culture and because of the historical backlash against Asian Americans. Being in Hawaii it was actually conceivable to do so since the majority of the population there was Asian. It was not hard to fit in with the sea of black hair brown eyes around me. Yet, I still struggled.

I struggled as a child because I had strong feelings about what I believed, but I was reprimanded when I expressed them. I had difficulty as a young adult because I went back and forth between what my family, friends and our small island society told me I should be and what was true in my heart. I continually struggled with the things I was taught as a child, “Don’t stick out like a sore thumb.” Or, “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”

Then as an adult, a new way of thinking washed over me.  Suddenly, I started hearing from other writers and bloggers that to succeed in life you need to be true to yourself. Oprah, in fact said it’s futile to try to be like someone else. You can only be good at being yourself.  Common sense, yes, but to really experience what that means you have to live it.

For several decades of my life, I spent struggling to be like a blade of grass bending in the wind like those around me.  If someone asked me what I regret most in life, it’s that.

If you’re doing the same, then stop. Have the courage to walk your own path. Be self-ish about who you are and what you believe in. Open yourself up to your own uniqueness. I now know that we’re all made to be different. Our weirdness, quirkiness and imperfections are all gifts. It’s the reason why there are people like Walt Disney and Leonardo da Vinci. Imagine if they stayed small to fit in with everyone else.

So I say why not stick out like a sore thumb, dance to the beat of your own drum, and be as authentically ‘you’ as you can be? That’s how you’ll find inspiration, joy, your true purpose and everything else you desire to be truly happy.

More About Brandi-Ann Uyemura: Brandi is a freelance writer, editor and blogger. She’s written magazine articles on everything from animals to weddings, newspaper features and creative copy for various online retailers such as Tiny Prints and Art.com. Plus, she writes a freelance writing blog and a blog on crafty and creative wallet-friendly ideas. Oh, and she’s an award-winning poet. (Yeh, I know, she is amazing!) Brandi has a BA in English from the University of Oregon and an MA in Counseling Psychology with a Health emphasis from Santa Clara University.

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Sometimes the color of my thoughts is black – or white.

It used to be rare that my thoughts painted a rainbow. Rare that I’d think in bursts of color. In vivid violets, American flag reds, Caribbean water blues and sunflower yellows. Instead, my thoughts were shadings of a grayish black pencil scribbled on a folded-up napkin.

Usually, their one plain-Jane shade spelled out “I can’t.” And, no matter how many times I – or someone else – proved my thoughts wrong, I’d go back to the same old grayish black scribbles.

Scribbles that clearly added up to quite the dull bouquet. Scribbles that made a lasting impression.

This morning, I was really moved by this quote that Jackie, a writer and speaker, posted on her blog, Bike With Jackie:

The soul is stained by the color of your thoughts.

~ Marcus Aurellis

I wondered how the slew of one-shade thoughts stained my own soul. Was it stained with self-doubt, insecurity or specks of sadness?

So I thought more about thoughts: Thoughts can calm us, they can trigger our anxiety, leave us obsessed, make us laugh, even when we don’t want to. Thoughts can steer us in various directions. And they can have a deep effect.

And so I’m working on it. I’m working on picking and pruning a bouquet of blues, violets, reds and yellows. Of being selective with my thoughts. Like Mary NurrieStearns, one of the experts I interviewed for that anxiety article, said: We’re constantly producing thoughts, so why not try to create thoughts that soothe and nourish us?

Think about it.

What colors are your thoughts? How do you think your thoughts have influenced you?

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Ever have one of those days when every project seems painstaking and even replying to an email feels like manual labor?

Yep, I have one of those several times a week. It’s rare that work, no matter how much you love what you’re doing, is all roses, sunshine and butterflies. I go through many moments when I hate what I’m writing. I think it makes no sense and it simply sucks. Maybe the same thing happens to you with work projects, household chores or accomplishing any number of daily tasks.

So here’s how I try to deal with those moments:

• Breathe. If you’re really frustrated, it can feel like you’re suffocating. Taking a few deep breaths can do wonders to calm you down. When you’re relaxed, you can focus better on what you’re doing and ease your irritation.

• Check in with your body. In the middle of writing this post, I realized that I’m actually pretty darn hungry. When our blood sugar drops, we can experience a variety of not-so pleasant symptoms, one of which is irritability. So hating what you’re doing right now may have nothing to do with actual disdain, and everything to do with grabbing a much-needed lunch or snack.

• Check in with your mind. Speaking of irritability, how’s your day going? Anything that you’re upset or worried about? You might not even realize it but you may be concerned about something else, which again has nothing to do with what you’re currently doing. So check in with your head, too, throughout the day. This way, you can figure out what’s getting in the way of you enjoying – or at least tolerating – the task at hand. If it helps, write whatever it is down, and deal with it later. Or deal with it now, and then return to your project.

• Put things into perspective. Oftentimes, when we’re annoyed with a task, we’re so entrenched in our state of irritation and frustration that we can’t see past it. One thing I do when I’m getting frustrated with my progress or what I’m producing is say to myself, “Wait a minute, I’m incredibly lucky to be able to do what I love.” And then I rinse and repeat until I fully understand the magnitude of that statement. Also, it can help to realize that a task will pass. And, once you’re done, you can get to the good stuff.

• Take a break. Sometimes, no matter what you do, nothing works. If that’s the case, take a short break, take a walk or do a workout. For me, exercise is powerful in bringing clarify and a big boost to my mood. And it helps with getting perspective, too.

• Focus on the photo. OK, the above photo has got to be one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen! I can’t help but smile, and let go of some of my frustration.

What do you do when you’re frustrated with a project? What boosts your mood or perspective?