How Can You Overcome Despair? 2 Powerful Strategies Revealed

What if you could transform your darkest moments into powerful catalysts for personal growth? Join me, Linton Bergsen, as I unravel the complex web of despair, anxiety, and fear, and discover how self-empowerment can pave the path to reclaiming control over your life. In this episode, you'll be challenged to confront the root causes of these paralyzing emotions and learn how to unleash your untapped potential. With two transformative strategies, you'll aim to turn despair into a driving force for growth, encouraging a proactive approach to personal development, rather than waiting for life's hurdles to take control.

Imagine being like a tethered elephant, held back by self-limiting beliefs. This episode is about breaking those chains and embracing your full potential. By exploring the metaphor of the tethered elephant, I highlight the importance of initiative and faith in oneself, even amidst uncertainty. Discover how to transform energy constructively, overcoming fear and anxiety, and join others in living your fullest life. 

Stay connected by subscribing to the podcast, where you’ll find more insights and an invitation to join the Self-Realized community through my website. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to step into your true purpose and start your journey toward self-discovery and liberation.

https://www.selfrealized.com

Chapters

• 0:01 Introduction to the Self-Realized Podcast
• 1:25 Understanding Despair and Its Impact
• 4:54 Strategies to Overcome Despair
• 15:38 The Importance of Initiative in Overcoming Despair
• 20:45 Solving Issues
• 26:38 Thank you. Book Promotion & Website

Transcript

00:01
 Welcome to the Self Realized podcast with Linton Bergsen, where you will shatter your limits. I am not much into the self help industry, as much as I'm into the Self Realized individual, which is you, what matters most to you, how you get there, and the obstacles that may be in your way. If you would like to be part of this podcast and part of that discussion, I welcome you here with an open heart, open mind and open arms. So without further ado, let's get on with the podcast.

00:44
Thank you for joining me on episode number 89 I want to thank you as always, for giving me your invaluable time and attention to listen to the episode today. How Can You Overcome Despair? Two Powerful Strategies Revealed. How can you overcome despair? What is it? Where does it come from? What is the cause of it? Why is it such a predominant force in our lives today? Well, there are many answers to that question. I'm sure that you have your own take on that, as to what may cause despair and anxiety, they go hand in hand along with fear. So there's a lot of different elements that come to bear upon this question of, how can you overcome despair? Is it a question that you've asked yourself, is it something that you have sat down and thought to yourself, what is the remedy for this despair, this ongoing anxiety, this ongoing feeling that I have of essentially helplessness out of a situation that I find myself in. Do you feel like the walls are closing in on you? Do you feel that you are looking at a situation not just within your work, but within your life, within the environment that you live, that seems helpless, that seems hopeless, that you don't seem to be in control, that your world is not what you would like it to be. It is a place, it is a mindset, a situation that we've all found ourselves in. The question becomes, how do you strategically begin to move away from despair, move away from anxiety, move away from fear, because despair, anxiety and fear are all interconnected. They are not separate. They trigger off each other. Like most things in our life, there is a domino effect, a trigger effect. There are powerful strategies to begin to implement in your life every day that can begin to dissipate despair. Because essentially, that is what you want to do. You want to begin to dissipate despair slowly, deliberately, with a mindset that is going to be very intentional about how you attack this pariah on your life. It is a pariah. Despair, anxiety and fear are the biggest pariahs in our life, because they paralyze us. Contemplate on this for a moment when you feel in a state of despair, you are really at the point of your life where you don't know what to do, where you feel helpless, where you feel there is no way out for you to conquer and overcome what is in front of you. I will say this today to you without any reservation or doubt, you can overcome and conquer anything in front of you at any time that you want, and that is a mindset to begin to own if you are in the place of being a Self-Realized individual. What do I mean by that, understanding that despair, anxiety and fear are based upon the idea in your mind, in my mind, in the minds of everyone who is involved in that mindset at any given moment in time of what is going to happen now? What will I do now? It is a feeling of being out of control, the Self-Realized individual, which is you. It's an inner awakening always understands they are always in control. Why? Because they realize within themselves that they control how they act on any situation that is presented to them. There is no external circumstance that is driving you to a place of despair. It is an inner circumstance that is causing you to do that. Let me explain that to you. If you honestly believe that you don't have the ability to overcome something, to even reinvent yourself, if you've lost a job, if you've lost a loved one, if you don't like what's going on in the environments that you're currently involved in, even in the place that you're living, you begin to feel that your world is spiraling and falling out of control. There are strategies, two in particular, that I want to give you today that will allow you to begin to answer that question, how can you overcome despair? Let me share a concept with you and see if you agree with this as we move forward in this episode. It is essential for you to begin to understand that you have potential to do anything you want. You have the innate potential, unlimited potential, if you are not in ownership of that as a strategy in your life, despair will begin to own you. Because what despair is, it is a strangling of your own energy around your own neck. It literally begins to stop you breathing. You begin to get into this hyperventilating mode sometimes, which creates anxiety. It is a sense that you have no ability, no more potential, no more unlimited resources to overcome and stretch yourself past where you are. It is essentially a feeling of helplessness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Untapped potential is one of the most unrealized, unsubstantiated, not talked about in enough detail, powerhouses that you have, to get rid of despair as a strategy. What do I mean as untapped potential? Let me give you an example of not living up to your potential, not being able to tap into that potential, unleashing that inner potential is a powerful strategy for you to begin to work with on an ongoing basis every day. Now, here's an important key to understand. Don't wait for life to pile up on you day after day, until which will happen, there is something that is major that occurs in your life that you are going to feel completely at odds with in a deep state of fear and anxiety, don't wait for that moment. Be proactive in unleashing your untapped potential every day. Live in that space. The reason I suggest strongly that you live in that space is because, as you begin to live in this place of tapping in to your potential, what you can do, not what you think is possible, not what you've been conditioned to believe is possible, but what you have tested in the reality of your own life. What you've stressed yourself out to do with stretch goals. When you do that, you are then tapping into your unlimited potential. The only way you can do that is by practicing that as an on going discipline. Every day. I talk more about self discipline in episode number 85 Self Discipline. What does it really mean? Which gives you an idea of what is required to keep tapping into your potential. It means that you are not going to be conditioned by what it is you think you can do, or anyone else has told you you can do, you are literally going to tap into the very core of your innate being, that part of you that defies logic, that part of you that doesn't allow the word impossible to exist. Once you begin to get past that language, that language barrier of, well, maybe I can't do this. Maybe it's too difficult, it's impossible. The dream is too lofty. The vision is too big. That language keeps you small, tapping into your potential, tapping into that unlimited reservoir is a strategy. Is an ongoing day to day strategy with your life, and as you begin to exercise that muscle, it is like anything it will develop. You start small, you go big. You can even start out as a strategy, looking at untapped potential by every day, taking inventory of what it is you're trying to accomplish and become. Let me give an example of that. 

10:43
Let's say that you want to become a better communicator,but you really don't know how to communicate with people that are difficult or that may challenge you. You may have a fear of what people may think of you if you said a certain thing or behaved a certain way by not addressing that issue within your life, about that fear that you may have, you are not living up to your full potential, what's happening is you are now not expressing yourself in a way that allows you to experience life at its fullest, because you now may not have asked a question, or may have felt that you couldn't say a certain thing, and so you don't feel fulfilled in the interactions that you're having with either the people and relationships in your personal or professional life. It's a very simple example, because if you are not able to speak your truth, which is a very, very important concept to begin to own as a strategy, and it is absolutely critical and essential that you begin to live and speak your truth, because that is where you unleash and live your full potential. Understanding this trying to live other people's truths and live up to their expectations of you causes more despair and anxiety within yourself than you truly realize sometimes. You are now by default, limiting your potential contemplate on that for a moment as a truth, because by not being a great communicator, by not working on that and living up to the full potential of your communication skills, you may now have anxiety and fear about different situations that are occurring in your life because you didn't feel that it was appropriate or it was important enough, or you were fearful to ask a certain question, or you didn't have a value system in place that you valued yourself or your effort or your work, where you could ask for a certain amount, if you're in business for your services, or in a relationship that you could ask for what you needed out of that relationship. Now you are unhappy. Now you have despair creeping into the relationship, personally and professionally, despair, anxiety, fear, are an all encompassing energy in our lives based upon not wanting to step into the arena of living and practicing the strategy of untapped potential. Begin to use every part and facet within you that you fear. And what I mean by that is, again, using the analogy of communication, begin to in a small way, communicate and ask questions that you feel you wouldn't ask before, so you can get the answers to the questions that you really, really want, not just from other people, but from your own life. Ask yourself uncomfortable questions. Ask yourself, why am I doing what I'm doing? Begin to journal, write things down, set different goals. If you're unhappy in your work area, if you're happy in your relationship area, this is somewhere for you to begin to look at using your untapped potential to begin to dive deeply into what it is potentially you could do if you address those issues and begin to work with them on aeveryday basis. Simple example, as I just gave you, are you communicating at the highest level so that you can live your fullest potential. With yourself and others. It's simple. When you begin to exercise that muscle on an ongoing basis, when you begin to ask yourself questions and stretch yourself out, you begin to get involved in the second strategy that is important for you to overcome despair, begin to overcome anxiety, and look at working with what happens in your life positively, without imploding into that despair mindset. The second strategy is this goes hand in hand with exercising your potential, is taking the initiative. Initiative is not something that we always see as a cure to despair or conquering despair, but it is again a deliberate strategy to begin to overcome despair. Why? Because, without the power of initiative, contemplate on this for a moment. What can you actually do. Nothing. To overcome despair, to stop going into anxiety, you're going to have to come up with some type of solution, and use your initiative to do so, to have a solution to the problem that you currently have. There is always a solution. Just use it as a mantra. You shut off that valve and switch off that flow of energy coming into you by belittling yourself, by saying to yourself or feeling innately within you, this is a hopeless situatioonn that there is no way out. There is never a hopeless situation that there is no way out. You are not constructed that way. I am not constructed that way. Let me give you a story and picture this if you can. I've used it in a previous episode, but I like the story, so I'll use it here again. Have you ever seen the pictures of elephants? You may have seen it on YouTube. You may have just seen a picture of an elephant secured to a pole by a chain, and the handler goes up to the elephant, has a stick, hits the elephant on the leg or wherever, and the elephant obeys what the handler does by the command it is given. Tethered to this chain and pole. This is an enormous animal with incredible power that is you. It has led itself through conditioning by other people and allowed itself to be tethered to this pole and believes that this is the only way it can live, and there's no potential for it to do anything else. You are the powerful, mighty elephant, but don't tether yourself to the pole and the chain. All the elephant has to do is to not look at the environment that it is involved in, the handler, the people that have conditioned it to live this way, exist this way, and begin to break free of that chain. Begin to break the pole down and express itself as it really is. It's true nature, powerful, majestic, highly intelligent, capable in so many ways to do so much. Which is you? Now imagine this. Let's say a herd of elephants went by and looked at this elephant tethered to this pole. They may think to themselves, what happened to you? Why are you tethered to this pole? Why are you just standing there? Can't you see in front of you that we are free. We're walking, we're going about our business. We are living our potential. What's wrong with you? But you really want to get away from that tether, chain and pole, and you want to join the herd of the powerful elephants that are living their life. So again, you living your potential is also predicated upon who and what you surround yourself with, and the conditioning that you have allowed yourself to accept. The elephant would have to take the initiative to break that chain and pole and walk away. 

20:00
It's going to have to be able to take that first step away from that environment. Initiative means that you are prepared to take the first step away from where you are. That's all it means. So having initiative as a strategy is a problem solving mindset. You begin to research. You begin to look at what can I do to overcome this situation? It doesn't make any difference what it is. It can be health, it can be business, it can be financial. And I've been through that in my own life, where I have had to come back from zero, look at what I'm going to do. Begin to revamp my life and reinvent myself many times, but I've always tried to look at it from this perspective. Number one, my potential, your potential, is not just based upon what can I logically come up with? Now, here's a very important point to contemplate. Sometimes, when you are looking at solving an issue and you're looking at using your initiative, you as a Self-Realized individual, are going to step into a different mindset, a different conscious awareness you are going to allow yourself to begin to receive within yourself inwardly, what it is that you feel that you need to do. That gets back to that very important aspect that I continually talk about in every episode. What are you intuitively being guided to do, living your ultimate potential and using your initiative to begin to find solutions to any issues that you have begins with listening to that still small voice. When you get that sense of what to do, it's not a human being talking to you. We all have it, anybody who solves anything big, small in any walk of life, and really, at some point thought it was insurmountable, will tell you, if you talk to them in depth, it required faith and required intuition. It required stepping into areas that they didn't know the outcome, but by stepping into the unknown with faith and intuition, they uncovered more potential in themselves, learnt more about themselves than they ever could have by giving into despair, anxiety and fear. Our choices in life are quite simple. Which way do you want to go? You, me, everyone. We can spiral down, or we can reverse energy in our lives and raise ourselves up and spiral upwards. It's just taking the energy and inverting it. If you look at a tornado, it spirals. It spirals from the ground and goes up and up and up and up and up and up and up and up. And it becomes more powerful the higher it goes. But it started at the ground. If you take your own energy and you become your own tornado, and you begin to gather your own speed constructively in your life, and not look at spiraling downward, but spiraling upward and using your own energy in a powerful way, looking at opening yourself to fulfilling your true potential and using your initiative to take the first steps to doing so. What is going to happen to you is, is that you are going to become a force of nature. There's very little that will stop you living your life and fulfilling what your purpose truly is, because without the strategy of potential, initiative  as tools to overcome despair, anxiety and fear, you will unfortunately fall prey to what a lot of people fall prey to, which is the terrible life of constant anxiety and fear, not because you have to live there, but because you choose to live there. You are not designed to be that individual. You are designed to be the massive, impressive, dignified, beautiful elephant untethered from the constraints of a pole and chain that is ruining its life simply because it did not take the first step to breaking the limitations of what have been presented to it. Don't live your life like that. Break Free and join the few that are in the herd of living their full potential, living their fullest life. Surround yourself with those people so your influences and your values can be reinforced by those who are living what it is that you want to experience and be part of every day. I sincerely appreciate you listening to the podcast. Please subscribe so you do not miss any upcoming episodes. Whatever platform you're on, please leave a rating and review I would greatly appreciate it. Any additional information on me, Linton Bergsen and my five star reviewed book, Purposeful Vision is available at selfrealized.com which is all one word. You can also leave any comments or suggestions on the website. I look forward to connecting with you very soon and take good care of yourself.