If you’re like most people, your answer is probably “yes.” Even individuals who generally have strong self-esteem and are emotionally grounded can experience negative self-judgment or self-criticism. When these tendencies occur, they can really erode your sense of confidence and overall well-being.
Chinese Medicine and Qi Gong offer a few important principles that can help you overcome negative judgments and feelings about yourself. In this blog, you’ll learn how to apply these principles in order to transform negative thought patterns and truly accept who you are as an individual. In doing so, you can become a loving and compassionate friend to yourself.
Become Aware Of Self-Defeating Stories And Thought Patterns
One of the first steps to transforming self-defeating thought stories or thought patterns is to identify them. If you’re not aware of your internal thought patterns, it’s difficult to shift them.
In order to cultivate greater awareness, it’s important to quiet your mind. In daily life, it can be easy to become consumed with constant thinking or worry. However, when your mind is busy, it’s hard to step back and have a broader perspective on both yourself and the world as a whole.
To calm your mind, it can be helpful to move your body and focus your attention inward. When you let go of thinking about the world around you, you’re able to experience an expanded perspective on your thoughts and feelings. This allows you to recognize negative judgments or feelings you might be having about yourself.
Another part of becoming aware of self-defeating stories and thought patterns involves realizing that those stories are creations of the mind. In other words, your negative thoughts aren’t based on some objective truth, even though it might feel that way.
Acknowledging your thoughts and feelings in this way allows you to create spaciousness between yourself and the negative stories you’ve been experiencing about yourself. This step of cultivating awareness empowers you to move onto the next step of your journey: Letting go
Once you’ve created space between yourself and your negative self-judgments, it’s time to release those self-defeating thought patterns.
In Chinese Medicine and Qi Gong, every thought and feeling reflects a specific quality of energy, which is also referred to as Qi. When you experience self-doubt or other negative feelings about yourself, it means that there’s a certain quality of energy that is moving within you.
To release these thoughts, you must let go of old and stagnant energy within you (i.e., noxious Qi). In Qi Gong, this process is known as Purging since you’re ridding yourself of energy that no longer serves you.
Even just acknowledging negative self-judgments can start the purging process, but there’s also more you can do to let go. In Qi Gong, there are many exercises that are specifically designed to help you release stagnant energy. These include breathing exercises, flowing movements, and meditation practices.
One of the simplest ways to start releasing noxious Qi is to do a big inhale of your breath and then do a large exhale through your mouth. Doing this several times can go a long way to shifting your internal energy.
Releasing old thought patterns is important, but you also want to replace them with new thoughts that support how you want to feel.
Many people create visions about what they want to achieve in the world, but usually these visions are external. Career aspirations, health intentions, and financial goals are just a few common elements that people often set visions for. These are all great things to think about, it’s also important to establish an internal vision for how you want to think and feel.
Just like you need to water flowers in your garden in order for them to grow, the same is true when it comes to internal energy states. To cultivate a positive relationship with yourself, it’s important to focus on self-love and self-acceptance.
Next time you journal, try to write down what kinds of thoughts and feelings you want to have about yourself. Gratitude, self-love, and personal acceptance are a few healthy qualities that help you cultivate an empowered friendship with yourself.
There’s an expression in Chinese Medicine and Qi Gong, “where the mind goes, energy flows.” In other words, if you focus your mind on the positive thoughts and feelings you want to experience about yourself, your internal energy will naturally align itself in support of those healthy energy states.
Once you’ve established your vision of self-love and self-acceptance, you must support that vision with daily habits that nurture that positive intention.
Establishing a consistent journaling practice is a wonderful way to nurture a positive relationship with yourself. When you sit down and write, it helps you identify the thoughts and feelings you’ve been experiencing. In turn, this empowers you to continually cultivate greater self-awareness, which is one of the critical steps to transforming self-defeating patterns into self-affirming thoughts and actions.
Also, try including a set of daily affirmations in your journaling practice. Reaffirming your love and acceptance to yourself each and every day is a great way to nurture a healthy relationship with yourself. Over time, your specific affirmations may shift a bit, but they can always include self-affirming and self-empowering statements about who you are.
Additionally, Qi Gong offers many wonderful practices that help you nurture a healthy and positive way of relating to yourself. By cultivating awareness, releasing old energy, and strengthening the energy of love and self-acceptance, the practice can help you transform negative patterns into those that are truly self-empowering.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Qi Gong can help you cultivate a healthy friendship with yourself, be sure to check out our Thirty-Day Challenge.
