The Flipside

 The flipside is always there but we don’t always think to go there. We’re pretty good at finding problems and focusing on them but we aren’t so good at focusing on the good stuff. This is the flipside. The flipside is what helps. The flipside is what transforms. It’s what makes us feel better. It empowers us. 

What exactly is the flipside? The flipside is the positive stuff. It’s the good feelings. It's hope. It’s faith. It’s the positive side of things. And it can empower you to live your life in a way that feels good.

As humans we have this instinctive habit of noticing and latching on to something that’s a problem or doesn’t feel good. Let’s look at an example of something like stress or anxiety. When we feel stress or anxiety, it makes us feel unpleasant. It makes our heart rate and blood pressure increase. It causes our muscles to tense. I call this “attention tension”. We feel less patient, more stressed and frustrated. It feels bad, and unfortunately it can take so much of our attention that we can only notice and pay attention to the bad stuff. We become hyper-focused on the problem.

The problem with paying attention to the problem is that it gives the problem more power. We give power to something that isn’t us. And often it’s something that isn’t true. It’s often a story or a habit that is only continuing because we continue to pay attention to it and give it power. Often we’re paying so much attention to the outside that we forget to pay attention to the inside. The flipside is that our strength, our health, and our wisdom is on the inside.

Let’s look at another example of what happens when we pay too much attention to something negative that’s outside of us. Imagine you’re driving down the street and someone pulls out in front of you. In most cases, our immediate reaction is to get mad, tense our body, and complain about what that person did to us. If we keep thinking about it and talking about it and being upset about it, it can ruin our entire day. Sound familiar? In this case we’ve made a choice, an unconscious choice, but a choice nevertheless. We’ve chosen to give our power to that person who pulled out in front of us. They may or may not even know what they’ve done, but we’ve given that person power over us and unleashed an avalanche of unpleasant feelings in ourselves. But what if that person who pulled out did it because they didn’t see us, because they were rushing to check on their pregnant wife, or if they just did it because they wanted to? Frankly it doesn't really matter. What matters is what we do in response. If we let ourselves get upset, we’re the one who loses.  We’re the one who feels crappy, and if we let it, that crappiness can overflow into our entire day and even into the lives of others. 

The flipside is that we can choose to flip the switch to something more positive so we can stay centered and not let someone else ruin our day for whatever reason. The flipside is that, in every moment, we as human beings have the capacity to pay attention to something that feels good and is positive rather than something that feels terrible and is negative. 

The flipside is a choice…but we need to pay attention so that we can catch ourselves when we find ourselves going into the “yucky” feelings, whatever they are. We can stop and say, wait a minute, I have a choice here. A choice to stay positive rather than going into a negative abyss. The flipside can be letting go of a story that is no longer true, being grateful for what we have, and being kind to ourselves and flipping the switch when we need it.

The flipside requires change, choice, and attention. Typically the problem is that we’ve let our thoughts take control of our entire being and we’ve lost ourselves. The simplest fastest way that I’ve found in 25 years of trying to feel better and good in my life, is to use the mind-body connection. Over the years I’ve shared it with my patients and course participants, and they keep confirming how powerfully transformative it is for their lives on many levels.

Our body is wired to calm itself down when we need it. It’s just that no one taught us how. The simplest, fastest way is to put our attention in the lower half of our body. This works for many reasons, including our biology and nervous system. I see it work every time I teach someone how to do it. I’ve seen it stop stress and panic attacks, decrease pain, heal trauma, and empower people to change how they’re feeling when they need it in the moment. And it has transformed the lives of people who put it in practice in their daily lives so much that instead of feeling crappy, they feel peace and happiness more and more of the time. Simply put, positive thoughts and more importantly, good feelings within us create an entirely different reality of how we live our lives, moment to moment.

This is the flipside. The flipside is on the inside. The flipside is that we can stop the fight or flight sympathetic nervous system and activate our calming healing parasympathetic nervous system. The flipside is that we can choose a positive feeling instead of a negative one. The flipside is that we can empower ourselves to control how we feel whenever we need to and want to. The flipside gives you power, the power to create positive change in your life.

So if you aren’t feeling like you have any control of how you feel, flip it and remember the flipside. I can give you a million more examples of how applying this method has changed the lives of those who do it, but I'm hoping you’re already convinced to give it a try in your life. To access the flipside by using your mind-body connection, you can do simple things like feel your feet on the ground, breathing gently into your belly, or putting your attention in the lower half of your body. I’ve found that these simple things can quickly shift our attention into something that feels good and can often be the quickest way to “flip the switch”. The more you do it the better it works and the easier it gets. And maybe we can even live our lives on the flipside.

I write these articles because I want the flipside for everyone. I created my courses so that anyone can access everything they need to create positive change in their lives and get to the flipside in any moment when we need it. Our online community is a place where we work together to continue healing and transforming our lives on many levels. If you still aren’t getting where you want to go, reach out to me, so I can help you figure out the best way to get to the flipside, the truth of who you are, so you can live the life you truly want to live.