Ever find yourself asking someone if things will be ok? Asking on occasion is normal. Asking if you’re in a crisis or a tough spot is also normal. Needing it on an ongoing basis, however, isn’t healthy. In fact, it keeps you stuck and in a cycle. The more you get it, the more you want it.
When you’re going through a bad time, it feels good to have your mom or your bestie tell you that everything’s going to be alright. It provides that warm fuzzy to hear comforting words.
When you’re in a transition or making a big decision it’s understandable to want some comfort. Let’s say you’re making a career change. You want it, you think you can do it, but you’re not really sure. What do you do?
Call your mom or your bestie.
What happens when they’ve told you over and over and you’re still not convinced or want to hear it again and again? If it’s your mom or good friend, they won’t abandon you, but they could lose patience with you.
Self-Soothe
More importantly – don’t abandon yourself. Reassure yourself. It’s like a baby learning to self-soothe. Moms that jump to their child’s every need aren’t helping the child learn to be ok. The child needs to learn that on their own. Even if they sit in a wet diaper for five more minutes, they’ll be ok. Their world won’t end.
And neither will yours.
Learn to give yourself comfort by believing in yourself. You CAN get that new job or promotion or find the perfect home. You do have the skills to advance your career. If you’ve done it once, you can do it twice. If you haven’t done it, you can learn to do it.
Just Because a Psychic Told You…
People get addicted to psychic readings to tell them it’ll be ok. It’s fine if it’s infrequent because we all need reassurance at times. When it’s ongoing it becomes a problem for the client because they don’t learn to believe in themselves.
When any psychic predicts your future, they are basically reading probabilities. They may hear the answer from Spirit, but that’s what Spirit is doing – reading the probabilities that you will get what you want based on where you are today. But if you start making different choices, it could change. A different choice could be not to take action.
For example, anyone can reassure you over and over that you will meet Mr. Right, but if you don’t take any action to do so, you may not. Taking action is part of getting what you want in life. Taking action could mean making a phone call or changing the way you look at things. It doesn’t have to mean going somewhere or checking tasks off a to-do list.
YOU Have to Believe It!
If you’re looking at a career change, your friends can reassure you that you’ll do fine. But if you don’t believe it, then you may not. Why? Because believing in ourselves is key.
They can tell you all you want, but if you don’t believe it, then the reassurance doesn’t mean anything. It’s all for naught. It has no impact. You have to believe in you. Your abilities, your capabilities, your qualities. All of it.
If you believe in yourself, then you don’t need reassurance. Because you already know that you’ll be fine. You know that you’ll be fine because you trust yourself to make it so.
When we don’t believe in ourselves and seek constant reassurance we get caught in a trap.
And so the Cycle Begins…
Reassurance is a way to reduce uncertainty. Uncertainty produces anxiety because anxiety is worrying that something may or may not happen. There is actually hard science behind this behavior. Without boring you with the scientific details, once your brain starts seeking reassurance it gets stuck. Every time you get reassurance your brain gets a dopamine hit – the “feel good” drug of the brain. But like a junkie needing a fix, the brain wants more and more dopamine hits from reassurance.
The trap is the cycle. The more you seek reassurance, the more you want it. Your brain gets hard wired for this pattern, putting you in a cycle. Every time ambiguity strikes, you look for reassurance. And round and round you go.
The problem isn’t just the cycle. Like a junkie needing another fix because tolerance builds up, now even when you have small doubts, the uncertainty starts and triggers the cycle. You need another reassurance hit.
What started as a seemingly harmless coping mechanism can spiral into a compulsive habit, where the search for certainty increases anxiety and makes you feel less confident in your judgment.
Where you once were a confident person, now you are not, questioning everything and everyone. The more you seek it, the more you can’t stop. Like a drug addict, your brain starts to crave the dopamine hit or reassurance more and more.
Now that you know this, you can fix this. It isn’t a sign of weakness but rather a biochemical response. Thankfully we can change our thinking, so all is not lost.
How to End the Cycle
So, how do you get out of this trap?
- Be Mindful – check in with your emotions when you feel the need for reassurance. Are you feeling anxious? Impatient? Or just needing some comfort? Naming your feelings is actually very powerful because it activates a part of the brain that calms the worry center of the brain and gives you more control.
- Stick to the Facts – look for new, factual information to avoid getting stuck in the same questions, activating the cycle. Are you repeating the same questions? Are you still looking for answers to the unknown?
- Get Support, not Reassurance – tell a friend how you’re feeling and ask for support, not repeatedly asking if you’ll be ok, getting stuck in the trap. Sometimes just talking about your struggles can take away their power.
- Be Ok with the Unknown – try sitting with uncertainty before asking for reassurance. Over time you will rewire your brain to know that you can do this.
- Resist for a Reward – every time you resist the urge to seek reassurance, your brain rewires. Celebrate yourself when you withstand the impulse.
- It’s Just a Thought – when the need for reassurance kicks in, realize those worries are just thoughts. Not everything we think is true! Separate fact from fiction.
- Reality Check – when you feel the need for reassurance ask yourself what will happen if you don’t get it? What are you afraid of or worried about? Now you can tackle those concerns, not get caught in the cycle.
- Wean Yourself – resist the urge by reducing how much you ask for it. Go slowly, not cold turkey. Eventually you will get there.
If what you want doesn’t work out, go back to the drawing board to look for areas of improvement. If your dream house isn’t appearing, maybe now isn’t the right time. If you didn’t get the promotion, maybe more training is needed. Whatever happens, learn to be ok with the outcome. Get comfortable being in the driver’s seat of your own destiny, not in the passenger seat watching opportunities slip by.
It’s like I tell myself when I feel the need for reassurance: if I did it once, I could do it twice. No matter what it is. The same applies to you! You can do this! 😊
Learn to reassure yourself with your best tool possible – your intuition! It will tell you that you’ll be ok every time!
It won’t steer you wrong! It is your built-in GPS.
If you want to learn how to listen to your intuition, how to talk to it and how to trust it by CLICKING
HERE.
Once you start listening to your intuition, you’ll be amazed how much your life clicks into place. Then you can truly start enjoying yourself. CLICK HERE to find out more!
