Story Time with Rishone – My Mental Tricks and Treats

I have been in a rut lately. Like everyone else, the effects of the quarantine, uncertainty of Covid-19, the political meandering and side choosing has either made us disconnect from each other or fearful of what is next. 
I had to mentally make a choice to face that fear and move on with my life as well as my goals. It has not been easy because somehow, as these incredible beings, we have let the creative marketing of the unknown become our kryptonite in owning our awesomeness and resilience to push forward to claim what is truly meant for us. 

Yes I agree, it has been incredibly hard to not lose your mind on a daily basis. Everyday has been a chaotic, domino effect of challenges. When I am not battling with myself, I am battling with my drive, my emotions, my family issues, and most frequently what my future holds. Some days smiling after brushing my teeth in morning naturally prepared me to conquer everything on the schedule and on other days I have to use every mental tool I own to engineer my next move. 

Ye,s I am aware this is some form of depression but in order to be balance we have to learn how to navigate who we are in the messy bashment of our lives. We have to find a way to assess what we are looking at, throw out the unnecessary, unused piles of garbage that we love to hold on to and find a way to organize the mess we created for ourselves to make room for a new version of yourself. 

It is so easy to blame all of this on the restrictions of Covid-19 and be the victim of so many of the programmed victim narratives we feed our comfort driven selves but the reality is that this state of our being was present before the trauma of now exposed it.  To be transparent I was too busy to pay attention to it or I used the too busy excuse to not work through because I knew it would be too much of a challenge. So in some ways I am thankful for this opportunity to be accountable for the parts of my life that need improvement. 

With that said, there is no way to meet a better version of yourself without taking the necessary steps to do so. So for the past 4 months I have been using all the tools to either get started on clearing our my messy basement to make room for my life upstairs. 

I want to share those tools that has been beneficial to my life that is slowly bringing me back to a place where I am inspired to live and evoke change. With the inspiration of Halloween just passing I copied the phrasing as the mental tricks, and treats to a better me as well as a better you. 

First of all it is very important to know your self and the bullshit you tell yourself when things get challenging. Also you need to know what I what inspires you, what keeps you focus, what distracts you, how clear you need to be with my goals, and most importantly knowing what weapons/tools you need to have in your mental tool box to conquer the unknown. Yes, the unknown, something that has kicked everyones’ ass is 2020. 

First in order to be a little more transparent I will share 3 of my personal in three separate areas of my life but they are all significant in my growth to a better version of myself. My first personal and family based goal is to be more be more present in my mother’s journey as she battle some mental illness and also continue to help my sisters navigate the confusion and emotional toll it has taken on the entire family. 

Secondly from a business perspective It is time to take the steps to expand my Plated_Soul Business with the creative ideas I shelved for some time. 

And as self it time to build better habits to learn new things and feel comfortable in that process of uncertainainty and the unknown. This was my goal for 2020 and trust me it has kicked my ass but during the times of getting my ass kicked I spent enough time figuring out the nature of my opponent, how to counter his attacks, and make it through day with just a few scratches.

Mental Trick # 1: Visualization – Be clear about what you want to improve in your life. Write it down, make a song about it, rap about it, put it over you bed so it’s the last thing you see before bed and the first thing you see when yoy wake up. Know what is smells like, taste like, feels like, and sounds like in real life. Sometimes you can start without an end goal in mind but the moment you give yourself a clear picture of what that clean basement looks like after you’ve figured how to clean it, the quicker you will find the resources you need to get it done. 

Mental Trick #2 : Plan for your self destructive patterns or bullshit cards. Most of the time we tell ourselves we cant because of this or that. Sometimes they are valid reasons but even then you know better. Just because its uncomfortable or new doesn’t mean you wont figure it out over time. Keep going and create an inner voice that tells the bullshit card creator to STFU because you CAN indeed do it. 

Mental Trick #3: Create healthy Boundaries. I know you have heard this before, but protect your dreams or your growth journey. You have to have boundaries with family, friends, and even yourself sometimes. In order to keep yourself consistent you have to create boundaries for your emotional sanity and productive functionality. What you allow people to say and do to you can derail your progress way more than you could even imagine. So if you share you goals with someone and they seem negative or discouraging about it, then you know you need to leave them out of your process. I mean sometimes it’s hard because things happen in life that can definitely throw things for a loop. However toy have to have a boundary for how far you let it pull you under before you decide to swim. 

Mental Trick # 4: Be Brutally Honest with yourself. I cannot stress this one enough. It is the most important mental trick that gets you through the rough times and helps to to break those patterns you need to go to the next level of self. No matter how painful it is confront it with honesty and the commitment to m work through it. 

Mental Treat #1: Genuinely celebrate your small victories and be thankful for the people or the effort you put fort. The journey of bettering yourself is a long never ending journey. Celebrate the small things you accomplish. There is enough time to evaluate the mistakes because we do that subconsciously all the time. Conscious take the time to say thank you ro yourself or give your self credit for the work you put in. Of course knowing that there is more to do and it wasn’t the best you had in you but you put fort the effort for genuine change and that my friends is what is all about. 

Mental Treat # 2: Seek Experience. As much as I pride myself on being self sufficient, recently I have learned that people are a great resource. We are all battling some of the same things and can be a resource to each other. Find someone you trust, someone with  experience, someone who can be a mentor to help guide you through or a simply someone that understands to challenges of the journey. Even though it’s hard to find people that genuinely care about your well being and your goals to be the best version of yourself, just finding someone who has worked through or is working through the same things you are helps to unload that burden you carry around. 

Mental Treat #3 : Meditate – Find time during the day where you can just sit away from everything and tune into your life force and the life forces in your path that are open to helping you. Or just use that time to recalibrate and release all things that drain your energy. 

Mental Treat #4: Smile and Laugh at your own jokes. Smile when things get rough so you can be reminded of being happy. Smiling resets your emotions and pensive mindset. When you have an opportunity, find memories that make you genuinely happy and use them to help you pick yourself up in the tough times and make your happy moments that much better. 

These are the mental tricks and treats I have employed more intentionally over the past 4 months. Again, it is an on-going journey with inevitable ups and downs that you have to accept. However, as long as you stay consistent and focus on the cumulative growth rather than the momentary failures you will unlock the best parts of yourself that you never knew existed. Also the unknown will also feel a little more familiar and fear will also start to be less and less of a deterrent in going after the things or improving the or relationships you value most in your life. 

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