Were you aware that your mind is comprised of many rooms, some of which are as varied as the actual rooms in your home? The rooms of your mind are many and serve different purposes.

For example, just as the kitchen in your home serves the purpose of cooking and creating meals (and glorious desserts!), the rooms in your mind, built by you as a child, contain many memories and experiences, some of which bring a smile to your face while others cause you to retreat in fear and anxiety.

The rooms in your mind are also furnished! For example, the room that houses the memory of a special birthday party at age 7 is full of balloons, presents and your favorite cake. The image of that room can be so clear and distinct that you can actually hear your friends sing “Happy Birthday” to you.

Each room also contains various pictures that hang on the walls. It is these pictures that you have hung that make significant statements, both positive and negative, and provide the memories that you have attached to each of them.

The picture might say, “What a wonderful party. I’ll never forget how happy I was.” Or, it might say, “Only a couple of my friends came to my party. I wonder why the others don’t like me…”

Pictures of fear, self-doubt and anxiety are often the pictures that hang in the rooms of our mind. These pictures are not always based upon the reality of the event but, rather, are often painted and hung to remind us of how scary the world can be, of how I must remind myself to look at these pictures so I will remember to play it safe, to not create too far outside the box, to avoid feeling that the world might reject me again.

As a creative, performer or someone who longs to gain acceptance and contribute your gifts to the world, it is these negative pictures in the rooms of your mind which constantly remind you that staying anxiety-free is the smartest goal. Yet, as ‘safe’ as that might sound, the result is a life of creative blocks and unfinished pieces of work.

I wonder what your rooms look like? What pictures have you hung up over the years that interfere with you achieving your dreams and goals?

In my next post, I will share some ideas on how you might begin to ‘refurnish’ your rooms with new pictures in order to remove these negative and fear-inducing messages that have created roadblocks to the life you desire.

If you are ready to challenge anxiety and stress and begin to live and perform on a new and more positive level, then let’s schedule a Free Conversation to explore how I might assist you. This is a no-charge opportunity for you to learn more about how it IS possible to manage and overcome anxiety and panic.

The post The Pictures That Hang in the Rooms of Your Mind (Part 1) first appeared on Dr. Nick Lazaris.