Self-Observation on why I am stressed at work

• A certain level of uneasiness kicks in even when I think about my job.
• I want to feel good at work but my stress, my anxiety kick in.
• This anxiety comes from the thought that I am not good enough.
• I feel shame and I want to comply.
• I find that my job is something that is not about enjoyment. Though I am looking for fulfillment in it.
• I just realize that my mindset is such that work for me is about complying and proving my worth. And about ‘begging’ to stay in it so that I feel some kind of safety.

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• This is not normal. My job shall not be about proving my self-worth so that I can feel safe.
• I project my fear onto my job. This is how I gravitate towards jobs and this fear is behind how I work with people.
• This is not how everybody relates to their jobs. Some people truly love what they do.
• There is this revelation now: Actually, I do not even like my job. And this is totally understandable since the way I think about it is that ‘I need to prove myself because I am not good enough’.  
• If I realized my self-worth, my view about how I want to work, and probably what I want to do would radically change.  
• Stress would be gone, I would not think about why I am not capable, and how hard my work must be. I would just naturally go towards what I enjoy. Stress would not even come up.
• I may not even need to see my self-worth; it feels good now that I have an understanding of why I am stressed.

“It feels as if everything is almost impossible to reach because they are just simply too hard and they seem to take forever.” Does this resonate with you as a major theme in your life? Then this article may be for you.

Important: Please take this article with healthy skepticism and use an open mind and critical thinking. The below can mean a lot of things so the conclusions here may be far from what happened to you. As with many of the articles on Self Chatter, the goal is to stimulate your thinking.

Do you have some of these things happening to you?

• Do you many times need to ‘jump up’ and leave? In other words, do you feel the need to escape from situations?
• Do you get anxious when you face a hard-to-solve situation and you fall into some kind of dissociative state? Do you many times have this thought that situations are extremely hard to solve?
• At times of these hard situations, is one of your fears that you may black out, or faint?
• When you have these hard situations, your body stiffens and you find that it is getting worse by the minute rather than better. Eventually to an unbearable level.  
• You stop just before the finish. For instance, you leave the last bits of your food on the plate because it would be too hard to finish it all.
• Do you have the belief that life is mostly about doing things that you don’t want to? And you may feel you have no other choice but to do it.

Some possible reasons

Birth Trauma

If you look at the above symptoms with this in mind, you may agree that they resemble the heavy feelings and hard labor that happen during the birth process. The likelihood that you have unhealed birth trauma may be higher especially if you have psychosomatic symptoms (like convulsive, spastic body parts, above average physical reactions in hard situations). 

If you have not heard of birth trauma before, imagine this: A baby with a yet underdeveloped body, no mental constructs developed yet to help her or him, with an equally exhausted mother, racing against time. Probably the hardest thing in our life is to be born. 

A lot of people have unhealed birth trauma. The hardest thing about it is that we find it untraceable, unable to consciously connect it to an event. This article is not giving you a detailed description of birth trauma; You can find a lot of material about it. Anyways, if the above resonates with you, then consider that you may just ‘replay’ this trauma of yours in your life situations.

Inherited behavior

It may sound obvious but it sure is ‘easy’ to inherit such beliefs that will result in the above symptoms. And again, something hard to trace and connect the dots until you become conscious of it. 

One addition: Imagine that you have a feeling of abandonment on top of the above. It will serve as glue…

You are going through a spiritual awakening

And you may not know it. Life is throwing these bitter and hard situations at you. You feel like you are constantly being tested all the time and it seems to never end. You have this image that you have to go through it anyways, coupled with the feeling that you don’t want it. The whole situation feels somewhat alien but still somewhat familiar, and it sucks. With the hope that it will be better. Sounds like a birth process.

(I personally believe that we are going through a major shift in consciousness.)

Self-Observation on why I feel unimportant

• This is a childhood trauma I have. I have had this self-image ever since I can remember.
• Sometime early in my life, I developed this image that I am not important. This has become a big part of how I relate to my life.
• I have all kinds of smaller and bigger issues with success and getting what I want. This is because I developed low self-esteem. Since I feel somewhat unimportant, I do not think that I deserve to be successful. So I resonate with situations where I play this out. 
• I do things like overexplain almost everything. I want to win other people’s acceptance this way because then I feel safe…
• I also let people do things that throw me even deeper into my self-doubt.
• Maybe I have made myself insignificant willingly. As a tool to justify why I can never really get what I truly want, at least this was my perception.
• When I do become important, then I feel shame.
• Now that I observe this image of myself, I understand why I feel contempt, resentment, and anger many times.  

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• I feel abandoned and lonely. This is also a little bit of good news because I have a vague idea of what I am missing.
• This feels very true: I lost connection, and I developed the idea that I must not be important if this break happened.
• What is strange is that I understand that this is my problem – I mean that I think I am abandoned – but still, what I want is to feel important.
• I am juggling between wanting to feel important and wanting to restore connection. ‘Wanting to feel important’ to me has to do with getting what I want. ‘Feeling connected’ is a different thing. I know this is more important, but I cannot describe why.
• I connected these two things: Feeling neglected and needing to feel important. ‘My sense of self-worth is dependent on how much people love me…’
• Now I understand that my need to feel important is a symptom, and the root cause is my feeling of being abandoned.
• Right now, for me, the hard thing is to see that it is important. I got used to being alone so much.
• Actually, I see that this loneliness is helping me to connect with myself at a deep level. Things aren’t as bad! And anyway, I am not looking for some half-cooked connectedness, or some puffed-up pride.

Self-Observation on my lack of trust

• I realize it is a main theme in my life. What I mean is that I can trace back basically all of my painful feelings and thoughts to trust. One example that comes to me now is that when something doesn’t go the way I want I ‘like’ to think that it is because people do not care about me, or they intentionally want to do harm to me.
• I am unsure if I feel a lack of trust or fear. 
• In other words – phrased abstractly: ‘I lost trust because I wanted something but did not get it. For instance, I want to feel safe but I do not. Or I want to be successful but I am not.’
• Trust is paradoxical to me: I understand and sort of agree that I should be trustful with people and with situations and then my trust will eventually bring the results. But this just sounds fully counter-intuitive.
• My take is that first I try then I trust. Now that I think about it more, this is not my way. First I trust and then I don’t get what I want.
• This is one main theme in my life…  
• No wonder I have ‘trust issues’. I probably attract them.
• Why is it so hard to trust? 

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• Does trust have anything to do with hope? It should not. Hope sounds weak and trust sounds strong. 
• Trust is on the other side. Hope is not one step before trust but hope is just some pitiful begging without trust. Ok, perhaps there isn’t any problem with hoping as long as there is trust behind it.
• There is no such thing as 60% or 99% trust. It is either there or there isn’t any.
• Trust is meaningless alone because by definition it takes more than one entity. And also by definition, it can only be forever – what kind of trust would it be if I might lose it? And in this case, I am trying to understand trust and my trust issues the wrong way: I am trying to have trust in things that are ‘mortal’. 
• Trust is independent of the outside world. It is in me. Trust is knowing. It makes sense this way because then trust is independent of what happens with me in the world around me in the sense that it is ok if things are not always the way I thought. When I have trust, those things – I mean when something doesn’t go my way – simply mean that I misjudged the world. But it doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with me. This makes all the difference to me.
• I believe in God and this makes all the difference to God too. When trust becomes knowing, the concept of trust becomes unimportant. Why talk about it? The question doesn’t even come up.
• The great paradox for me: Right the moment I have trust, I have knowing. While I sense that I do have the knowing, it seems as if I reject it. For a while, this rejection may have been ignorance or arrogance. But now it is fear. Fear of losing myself. After all, trust is needed before it becomes unimportant.

I am writing this article in 2023. Many of us feel that we are going through truly extraordinary and disruptive times. And many of us find that despite the anxiety, rage, insanity, and confusion that is all around us, these are also the times that hold great opportunities for us. And I mean opportunities to raise our level of consciousness and develop our mental, and emotional health. Opportunities also for the whole of humanity.

So I would like to offer a tool that you can use to get the most out of these times. Not ‘just survive’.

The tool I am talking about is the lost art of Strategy. The below come from strategy experts, and yes, strategy is primarily used in business and in other ‘competitive’ environments with the goal of winning- but I tweaked it for personal use, and this time exclusively with a life-giving approach. 

As you read the example below and the notes, you will get an idea of how you can create your own. 

3 questions to answer that helps to build your personal life strategy

• What do I want to win from this period?
• How will I achieve this?
• What do I need for this that I don’t have today?

An example personal life strategy until 2026

What do I want to win from this period?

I want to increase my consciousness to the level that it becomes my major guide going forward instead of my fear-based, twisted beliefs.

How will I achieve this?

• I am going to use fear: Since fear and anxiety are all around me and it is accelerating, and I am also affected by them, I will consciously use these times to drive fear and anxiety out of my system.
• I will consciously keep away from such things as conspiracy theories, toxic relationships,  too much social media, and addictions because I know that in today’s life, I need to actively protect myself from them.
• I remind myself to get back into my natural consciousness and True Self as soon as I realize that I fell out of it and this continuous outlook will be one of my main tools. This reminder will be with me all the time and get stronger every day.
• When I want, I will seek to be around people who have higher levels of presence and consciousness because I know that their presence has a positive effect on me.
• I will work on healing the traumas that I still have. 
• I will set aside time for truly proper relaxation and for such activities as meditation and self-observation.
• I will let my intuition and consciousness guide me in how I eat and what physical exercise I will do that is good for me.

What do I need for this that I don’t have today?

Currently, I don’t have the best means to be able to spend enough quality time alone and in silence when I want to. I am working on changing my physical environment and relationships so that I can spend more energy on myself.

Some ideas on how to create your own personal life strategy

Your approach and outlook are more important than the mechanics of building it.

Make it come from the heart

The most important ingredient. And I do not degrade you by explaining why. 

Do not worry about the how

Worry about the What and the Why, and the Outcomes you want to reach. In other words, a strategy is not a plan. If you find yourself listing detailed steps, maybe even with exact time intervals on how you are going to achieve what you want then you are not yet thinking about your strategy effectively. It is generally a good sign if you find it hard to distill the What and the Why. It is hard for anyone who does it with dedication. I believe it is mainly because we are conditioned to be ‘solution machines’. Strategy is about having the right perspective, sanity, and honesty. Instead of the go-go-go and do-do-do that we are forced into.

Make it short

Say, make it into a maximum 1-page document. There is a reason for this: The more you force yourself to keep it simple, the higher the chances that you put in the energy that matures it. 

Coherence is key

These are three ‘questions’ to answer: (1) What do I want to win from this period? (2) How will I achieve this? (3) What do I need for this that I don’t have today?

These three things shall form an integrated whole. Coherence is more important than it may look at first. For instance, if you look at the above example: If I put in that I will exercise 1 hour every other day into the (2) How will I achieve this? part – How does this contribute to my overall goal? It doesn’t; It actually may even drive me further away from it. Maybe it is an opportunity for me to recognize that my actual goal is to look prettier so that I can have a ‘better’ job or a ‘better’ relationship.

Come back to it

It is not a one-time exercise but your conscious effort to get the best out of this period. It is normal if you change it (and it is not normal if you keep changing it out of fear or confusion).

Shall I show my strategy to anyone?

I think that only you can answer this. Here are two notes anyways: (1) Be very very careful showing it to anyone. Also, I recommend that you write it down on a physical sheet of paper. Strangely, this method has become more secure, and also it makes it more real. (2) Before you consider showing your strategy to anyone, ask yourself: ‘What purpose does it serve that I show it to this person?’ You may find that showing your strategy even to your closest loved ones does not necessarily serve the purpose you seek…Having said all this, I personally do not want to be in a close, intimate relationship where I do not want to openly share it. 

Let this article be brief about abandonment. Abandonment is one of the major human experiences that we experience. The deep sorrow we experience when we find that we lost connection to somebody or something and we no longer feel whole without it. 

You can learn a lot about abandonment and my attempt here is not to give a deep analysis of how it happens. 

But rather a question this time: “What did I do to be abandoned? How did I contribute to it?”

Self-Observation on why I always want to rescue my mother

• I realize that this is one central theme in my life.
• I heard what it means in essence: I want to be rescued myself.
• When my mother is acting weak, it immediately triggers me. Now I have awareness of it. I mean, when she is acting weak, I start to feel fear and anxiety.
• She is manipulating me with this.
• I feel shame, and I get angry and just want to walk away from the situation. And then I go back and do ‘do the rescue’… Something pulls me back every time.
• I am afraid that if I stopped doing this, then she would not be able to cope.
• This is keeping me back from living my life the way I would really like. After all, I feel as if this is my job. I know it is weird, but this is how I feel. I actually view this as my primary job in life.
• I know that my mother would not want me to live a ‘muted’ life because of this. 
• I dream of a life where we don’t play this sick game and constantly struggle with my mother. But rather a relationship where we can be honest and still have a loving relationship.
• Yes, there is dishonesty. 

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• I don’t think that my mother does this consciously. I think she brought this from her own family of origin.
• I realize that it is how our relationship is ‘set up’ in a way. She is the ‘weak one’ and I am the ‘strong one’.
• She, acting weak, and I, acting strong, is the thing that keeps this thing going. And anxiety in the background for both of us.
• Maybe a good idea is if I talk this over with her. Maybe she will understand, and then we can change this part of our relationship together. If she does not, then at least I know.
• Let’s face it: After all, it is my decision and it is my life that I need to take care of anyway.
• What helps me is that I know that I love her.
• What also helps is that I realize that I cannot just blame my mother; I am also responsible for this. I let the game go on, too, and I want something out of it, too.
• My mother feels my fear in the background, certainly. Maybe if I could let this fear go, then this wicked game would stop automatically.
• I have to work more on this: If I stop ‘playing’ this, it doesn’t mean that I don’t love her.
• Ok, here is the core of the problem as I understand it now: It is my fear of losing my safety that keeps this dynamic going: ‘If I don’t help her, something terrible will happen and she will not be there to save me. So I’d better save her.’ This has nothing to do with the love I feel for my mother.
• I do this almost everywhere in my life. Though I don’t recognize it usually. And it comes in all shapes and forms, from anger to people pleasing, to feeling weak and inferior, and so on.

Self-observation on why I have a hard time starting things

• I really want to start that thing, but I am afraid of it. Why?
• It is because I feel I will not be able to concentrate on this thing I want to do.
• When I start it, I am afraid of what I will see.
• I think it will be something dreadful.
• I have a problem in me now which I ‘combine’ with the thing I want to do. I mean, I project my unconscious problem onto the things I want to start.
• Somehow, I am afraid I will not be able to do that thing. 
• It is too hard. I am blocked. I am traumatized. This is the core of the problem, I think. 
• I also feel sad.
• I feel unsafe. 
• There is a mess in me. I am mixing things up.

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• The fact that I am afraid is only part of my thinking, but not the whole thing.
• There is a reason outside of my understanding why I have a hard time starting things.
• It feels that I am waiting for things to start to flow ‘naturally’ without me pushing them. It doesn’t feel right that I need to push things. 
• Maybe the time hasn’t come yet.
• Maybe my own self is helping me here so that I don’t do things that are not really for me.

Self-Observation on my waiting for something to happen

• I don’t know what I am waiting for.
• I don’t want to do anything else until this happens. Even if I don’t know now what I am waiting for, I will know when it happens.
• I am afraid to go all in on things until something happens because I am afraid that I will make a mistake or go in the wrong direction.
• I feel very uneasy.
• I am fed up with myself.
• I feel that I am at a standstill.
• There are a lot of things that I don’t want to do. And when I have to do something that I don’t want, it gives me a hard time.
• I want to calm down. Is that all I am waiting for?
• Am I missing love or attention? Or admiration?
• I feel like a victim.
• The thing I am waiting for is not something I lost, but something I did not get, maybe.

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• I feel stuck.
• I want to feel ready. 
• While I am waiting, I am calming myself with addictions…This is how I cope with the stress that comes with it.
• I am waiting because I do not feel safe to move, to do something.
• I am realizing that this waiting is actually a sign of a level of intelligence. 
• I am starting to realize that this thing I am waiting for will happen in me, not outside of me.
• I want to feel whole. This is the core of why I am waiting
• If I think of God and want to find out if there is something I want from her, then I feel some guilt: Because I want God to show up… I want to know that God exists.
• I need to make a change. It won’t come from outside. I want a change.

Self-Observation on my desire to achieve something big

• I can only think of my life that it must be a success story. By success, I mean something big. Anything else is almost meaningless and is many times just a waste of energy. 

• It is putting a burden on everything that I do in my life.

• Nothing is good enough.

• It feels good to think about the time when I will be truly successful. 

• This is an order I have given myself. I feel I need to sacrifice myself for this.

• This goal is not a cause but an effect. I understand from books, psychologists, and others that this is a sign that I have low self-esteem. I don’t see it this way. 

• I allow no real playfulness for myself. Now I realize that I sort of look down on people who are not hard-working super-achievers. 

• Everything is hard to achieve. Close to impossible.

• I do not allow myself to fail. 

Chain of thoughts coming when I am able to go deeper

• I think I have set this goal for myself. I don’t remember when. But it is coming from me. At least this is how I perceive it.

• My mindset is such that everything is very serious. 

• I identified my life with this goal.

• I just now realize that I have set myself a goal that is impossible to reach.

• I also realize that there is something paradox in my thinking: I set a goal that is near-impossible to reach and only then I will be fine. But: I sort of ‘know’ that the only way to reach it is if I change completely. Then sadly it means that I must have a problem with my own self. 

• Can I only reach what I want if I change myself? Is this a good logic and life goal?