Are you Suffering from Self-Neglect Syndrome?
Written by: Dr. Denise L. Morrison, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Have you been feeling:
Tired
No energy
Moody
Cravings kicking in
Stressed
Overweight
Overworked
Annoyed with people
Frustrated with yourself
Not enough time to do the things you need to do and want to do? Ugh! You are not alone.
This is also not a joke, and I am here to remind you to take your self-care seriously.
Think about the effects on your precious body and life if you were to continue to neglect yourself. In my practice, I see the manifestations of chronic mental and physical illnesses, diseases, loss of friendships, loss of jobs, and more.
My mentor, Dr. Joe Dispenza, reminds us that our beliefs and behaviors affect our biology, so if you keep on this path of putting yourself last, it may not end well for you and your family.
Let me offer you some support.
If you were my client sitting across from me on Zoom (or on the phone), I would ask you these questions. Are you saying yes when you really mean yes; and saying no when you really mean no? Do you give away your power to something or someone else and push your own needs, self-worth, and boundaries aside?
Allow me to elaborate so you can get a sense of what this looks and feels like.
Take me, for example. When the phone is ringing, and a certain someone is calling me, and I see their name, I start to feel my jaw clench and my breathing stop because I really do not want to answer it.
If I neglect my body’s wisdom and distract myself from the screaming voice inside me saying, “No, don’t answer it!” and I take the call, I just fall back into the pattern of being submissive and ignoring my personal boundaries. So, at that moment, I have neglected my true needs, self-worth, and value and put theirs ahead of mine.
Of course, if this was an urgent matter, I would self-assess and know that I would need to take the call as a responsible adult would do.
However, if you know that there are certain people, events, TV shows, social media sites, etc., that will trigger you in any way, you can start to assess if they are truly a “yes” or “no” in your life. Usually, they will be a “no” because they suck your energy, time, and sanity, and you feel bad when you take part in them.
Losing touch with your inner guidance to trust in yourself.
So, if you repeatedly ignore your body and its inner wisdom, also known as your needs, wants, and desires, you teach yourself that you can’t be trusted. You lose that intimate connection between your inner wisdom because you get stuck in your mind doing all the “shoulds” and “musts” that the world has put upon you.
As I have witnessed with many of my clients, their connection to their very personal, intuitive self gets disconnected, and they fill that void, grieve that loss, or numb out any inklings of real feelings by using food, drugs, sex, alcohol, people-pleasing or other forms of self-abuse.
I created these steps to follow so that you can set firm boundaries and learn how to stop and reconnect to your inner wisdom:
Free write your 10 Most Important Priorities (MIP) in your life.
Think about all the activities you do in a day and assess whether they align with your MIPs.
Truly ask your inner guidance and body’s wisdom if those activities feel good to you, or perhaps they do not.
Next, cross out all those activities that you do which do NOT feel good to you.
Create a new list of activities that will honor your 10 MIPs.
Take time daily to check in with your inner guidance to assess how each activity feels and note if it’s a yes or no in honoring your most important priorities.
Smile and know that you are building trust and confidence in yourself so that you become a top priority in your own life.
Set aside time every Sunday to review how your week went and assess which activities you will include or remove from your life based on your own boundaries.
I hope this helps, and if you have questions or need my support, you can find me at deniselynnmorrison.com.
Dr. Denise L. Morrison, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Denise Morrison is the CEO of Intuitively Unique Coaching, her Holistic Brand of Health/Life Coaching.
She struggled for decades to overcome traumatic experiences from my own past. She compensated for lack of confidence with degrees and professional success. She numbed her pain with addictive eating and self-abusive behaviors. And when she finally turned to the right teachers and coaches, she learned that change does not need to take decades. Change can actually be instantaneous. And change can be lasting. After working for many years in healthcare, Denise felt a pull and a passion for working with people on a deeper and more transformational level.
Her academic mind was drawn to the evidence-based practices of nutrition and exercise, but she was also compelled by the more mystical therapies emerging from neuroscience and quantum healing.
Denise sought out the best training in health and wellness, life coaching, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to have access to the most powerful tools to help others change their lives for the better.
