Contents
“We are used to making decisions from fear and not from love”
Psychology
Does your mind not stop, and that exhausts you from the physical and emotional point of view? Do you feel that there is something in you that damages your well-being, self-esteem and happiness? Do you want to stop suffering more stress, insomnia, anxiety … than other people in similar situations? And last but not least, do you want to learn to make decisions with confidence and self-love?
In ‘Mind, help me decide!’, Eduardo Llamazares (@eduardollamazares) shares his method to help us make decisions that make us feel better about ourselves. In addition, it provides the keys to understanding why it is difficult for us to get out of a bad time, and its relationship with the decisions we make and stop making.
We have been living in uncertainty for a year, what do you have to say to those who cannot bear to be able to plan in the long term?
Planning our goals, such as a vacation, helps us connect with emotions such as joy, illusion or hope, and that is why this situation becomes so difficult that we are living with uncertainty and restrictions due to the pandemic. However, we could distinguish two great ways of dealing with it. The first, and most toxic, would be to focus on everything that we can no longer do, such as planning for the medium or long term. This generates frustration, demotivation and sadness.
The good news is that there is another option: to focus on what we can do, even without the planning that we would like. The difference between the two options is very important: in the first, we assume that we have lost freedom. In the second, we accept that we have a new freedom, and that to enjoy it we need to open ourselves to flow, to plan in the short term, to make changes in plans and to be attentive to what possibilities exist to enjoy in the closest environment. Therefore, this pandemic can help us to loosen that rigidity of wanting to control and plan everything, and open ourselves to a flexibility that will always come in handy. Because if life has something, it is change and uncertainty!
Dedicate a section in your book to talk about change. Something that is constant since we are born and that, however, gives us so much fear …
The origin of this fear of change comes from the first years of our life. Most of us grew up in an environment where almost everything was controlled and we had little choice to decide, explore, and improvise. Our parents gained security by controlling us. And our infant mind assumed this principle. The reality is that change does not have to be a threat, but that all change implies a possibility. Depending on the interpretation we give to the changes, we will feel emotions that will limit us, such as fear, or ones that will empower us, such as enthusiasm and motivation.
Would you say that we are more afraid of change when it comes suddenly than when we plan it?
Undoubtedly, the changes that we perceive as taxes or unforeseen make us jump the alarm of fear in a more intense way. But this happens in the beginning. Later, as that change has already occurred, we draw our resources to adapt to it, and this helps us overcome the initial fear. However, when change is something we want, and we plan for it, we often fall into procrastination. We are letting it go, postponing it for later. This is due to the fear that we take to make the necessary decisions for that change that we want to take place.
How does procrastination affect us when making decisions?
Without a doubt, it is one of the most common and harmful self-sabotages out there. By postponing our decisions, we are ceasing to lead our life. The message we are sending to ourselves is that we are incapable of taking action. We tend to deceive ourselves with excuses such as “I don’t have time”, “This is not the time”, “I don’t have money” … However, behind these ideas there is a fear of moving towards that decision you want or need to make. .
Many times it is impossible for us to make decisions, what steps should we take so that it does not become a problem?
This is where emotional management becomes very important. The first step would be to feel the emotions that the fact of making that decision produces in us. It can be fear, it can be guilt, sadness or worthlessness (feeling unable to achieve it). Then we need to understand the origin of that emotion. What makes you feel that fear, guilt or inferiority? The answer is always in the information that your mind has stored about yourself or about that particular situation, from past experiences. Most of the time they are limiting beliefs about yourself and about the consequences that that decision can have for you and for your environment. Finally, the third step would be to establish a progressive process of putting into action, which allows you to free yourself from those emotions that limited you. Sometimes it will consist of asking for help, others in having a conversation with someone, and others in accepting that you are no longer the same person as the one who lived the experiences that marked you. In each case it will depend on the emotional history with which the block you feel is related.
What is the antidote to indecision?
Detecting what that fear is that prevents you from choosing an option is the first step to solving it. It can be the fear of failure, of criticism, of success… Accepting that in every decision there is a margin of error, and that you are valuable enough to accept and resolve the risks that that decision implies is the way. Therefore, a good self-esteem is the best antidote to indecision.
The emotions that move us, in general terms, are love and fear. From which of them would you say it is more difficult to make decisions and why?
We are more used to making decisions from fear due to our learning in childhood. We detect threats and, from there, we decide. However, it is difficult for us to make decisions from love, especially because we tend to understand love as something where we must prioritize others. To be able to decide easily from love, we need two ingredients about which we have been taught little: self-knowledge (knowing what each of us needs and values to be really good with ourselves) and self-esteem (giving value to who we already are. what we deserve to feel, live and share). Once we have this information clear, and we feel it as real, it is much easier for us to decide from the love of ourselves and the people with whom we want to share our life.
About the Author
Eduardo Llamazares is a doctor in Physiotherapy and a coach for very mental people. He has dedicated part of his professional career to improving the quality of life of people who suffered from pain, insomnia and other somatizations of stress.
With a great desire to excel, he managed to change a life with a lot of suffering and devaluation for a day to day lived from its authenticity, vulnerability and inner satisfaction. He has written two books: ‘Mind, let me live!’ and ‘Mind, help me decide’.