Walking down the beach on the remote coast of Mozambique, the sea on my right, sand under my feet and nothing but miles of wide-open beach, not a soul to be seen on it, ahead of me – it was the freest I had felt in a while.

This got me thinking – why had I not felt the extent of this sort of freedom in a while? – that pure serenity, calm and peace - What was I doing (or not doing)?

I am someone who meditates daily, who journals and does morning mindset, who walks every day and makes sure I am doing things that make me happy. So, what was I doing wrong?

I sat down on the beach, closed my eyes, breathed deeply and had a long hard think.

 What has been stopping you from feeling like this lately?

 When was the last time you felt truly free? Truly at peace?

How could I bring the extent of this feeling back into my reality?

The realisation for me, was that I had been stuck in the ‘time trap’ for the last few weeks – (that is forward and backwards thinking) – and although I had been present in moments as well, I was largely thinking about things, trying to solve the unsolvable in my own mind and unusually for me - as it’s what I do for a living - although I may have noticed myself doing it, I didn’t stop myself.

I knew the personal situation I had been overthinking about - but I hadn’t stopped myself.

Why?

We as humans have a relationship with our minds at times which means that we think that by feeding something with the power of thinking about it – obsessing over possible outcomes, worrying about the future, projecting fear based ideas around it, which have no real backing and there is just as much a chance of the opposite happening as what we are fearing – that we can somehow solve it with our thoughts and remain feeling connected to it at the same time.

The truth – it only makes us feel low vibe, anxious and disconnected to our best versions of ourselves.

So why do we do it?

 It’s like an addiction – once the mind starts on one route and we feed it enough and we strengthen that synapses, then it can be hard to break it, unless we make a conscious effort to – as the mind loves the easy route, loves the quick way around – and what it knows is easy it does.

It takes mental strength, emotional will power and self- awareness to change it.

Start with Mindfulness – or what I like to call Mind Screening – which is becoming aware of your thoughts.

What are you telling yourself – is it fear based? Is it full of worry and stress? Or is it kind and positive?

Once you become aware – then you can catch yourself doing it.

Then it’s choice in that moment to either let it continue or to pause and re frame it.

We can do this by either stating the opposite to what we are saying in our mind – such as ‘What’s going to happen if this doesn’t work’ to ‘What could happen if it does’?

Make this new thought the continual dialogue, by consciously choosing a new one as much as possible, until it becomes habit and a positive thought automatically overrides the negative.

It takes awareness, practice, willingness and mental strength – but unless we actively take time to do this, then we can get lost in a negative headspace quicker than we realise.

Which becomes more of an effort to come out of - (but it’s always doable).

Take 10 minutes today and reflect on what stories you have been continually running in your mind recently and if they have been lifting you up or bringing you down.

Once you have clocked the negative ones – then make it your mission this week to change it.

It can be tough at first - but it’s like building a muscle at the gym - what you practice gets stronger, so don’t practice the negative - feed the positive instead.

The power lies within our mind, our mind lies within us - so the power is all you.