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Key points
- With a bit of awareness and effort, your inner resources can be accessed and make a difference in your well-being.
- Access your deeper self, see long-term growth, and bring a compassionate perspective to enhance your well-being and happiness.
Co-authored with Joel Klepac.
In Paulo Coelho’s famous tale, The Alchemist, the Andalusian shepherd Santiago follows his dream in search of treasure. After amazing adventures in Tangier and Egypt, he finally finds it hidden under a sycamore tree, right where he began.
Coelho’s story is fiction, but it’s true that you often have untapped resources within your grasp. From our experience counseling (Joel) and coaching (David), we know it’s possible; there is good news: with a bit of awareness and effort, your inner resources can be accessed and make a difference in your well-being.
Tap Your Inner Resources by:
1. Accessing Your Wise Guides
Often as you deal with the ambiguity of life’s circumstances, you may feel self-doubt and even question your value. When you are in the thick of it and feeling desperate for someone who can say the right thing, access your wise guides by asking, “Who is someone that seems to know the right thing to say?”
Maybe a favorite coach, teacher, or friend has been a wise mentor. What would they say? Often, it’s almost automatic response: “They would tell me, I know you…you got this…you can do this.”
Pause and really hear it. Let it sink in and empower you.
2. Seeing Long Term Growth
When you feel self-critical and frustrated that you’re not further along on your journey, access your ability to zoom out. See the place from where you started. Reflect on how far you've come from being a newborn, toddler, or teen.
Say to yourself, “I’ve navigated challenges before; I am more capable than I feel right now.” This helps clear a path to your power, capacity, and ability to access safe and healthy resources.
3. Bringing a Compassionate Perspective
If you’re feeling less than worthy, it may help to consider this question: What gives people value? Often, people get stuck thinking their worth depends on pleasing people or their performance or accomplishments. “If I do X, I will belong or be loved.”
But why do you love your friends and family? Will you love them more if they accomplish more? Will they matter more to you if they get another degree? What makes people “valuable” to you?
Often the answer that we hear is, “I love the people in my life just for who they are,” or “They’re there for me; they have my back.” So, can you tell the vulnerable parts within you that feel a desperate need for accomplishment, “I matter because I’m me?” Bringing compassion to yourself is powerful and under your control.
4. Being a Friend to Yourself
Do you sometimes get stuck in self-deprecating thoughts or doubt yourself? Maybe you’re angry at yourself because of an apparent setback.
Stop for a moment and think about what you’d say to a friend struggling the same way. You probably wouldn’t say, “You’re an idiot.”
Your compassionate self usually knows what to say: “Yes, this is hard. I know you’re smart, and you’ll get it.” Or maybe it’s, “Welcome to the human club! We mess up–no big deal–you are a great person trying to learn and grow.” It might be easier than you think to share with yourself the same wisdom and kindness you’d extend to a friend.
5. Activating Gratitude
All kinds of emotions come and go every day--and they don’t tend to ask our permission. We can attend to them or distract ourselves, but we can’t always choose what emotions arise.
Gratitude is one emotion that we can often choose and one that can bring enjoyable results. Even in the worst circumstances, is there something you can focus on that will help shift how you feel about it?
Gratitude is available anytime and anywhere. Simply ask, “What is good here? What could have been worse, but isn’t?”
You aren’t lying to yourself; you’re choosing to focus attention on the good for a moment. This can bring a bit of relief and provide the needed energy to face more difficult emotions like sadness and loss.
6. Remembering Your Gifts
A variety of personality tests and character trait inventories can identify your strengths. These can be fun and insightful discussions with friends, colleagues, and family.
You can call up your strengths when you’re struggling. Ask yourself, “What am I good at? What are my strengths and moments when they really came out?” Sit with them, write them out, and remember what it felt like coming into your gifts, even in small ways.
Doing so can bring a larger perspective: “Yes, this current challenge is a weak point for me, but I have strengths too.” A kind inner voice can bring reminders of your gifts: “It’s good I’m learning in this area, and it’s also true there are things I rock without trying too hard.”
Like flying on a cloudy day and encountering the sun just above the clouds, your inner resources are present even if they’re hidden. These six tips can help you access your inner wisdom, compassion, and gifts. Try them and share them to help others access their own inner light.
Co-author Joel Klepac is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
References
Neff K. Self Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. William Morrow, 2015.
Portocarreno FF et al. A meta-analytic review of the relationship between dispositional gratitude and well-being. Personality and Individual Differences. Volume 164, October 2020.
VIA Character Strengths Survey & Character Reports | VIA Institute.
