Crafting a Love Letter to Yourself with Johanny's Insight on Affirmations

Imagine your words as seeds, planting the garden of your mind. Will you grow weeds with self-doubt or blossoms of confidence? 'Have a Cup of Johanny' returns with a deep and heartening session on affirmations and self-love, where your host, Johanny, guides you through the transformative potential of nurturing your inner dialogue. We'll traverse the landscape where words wield the power to heal or harm, drawing from my own skirmishes with bullying and discrimination. As we unravel actionable affirmations full of emotion and intention, inspired by "Miracle Mornings," you'll learn how to cultivate a mindset that empowers resilience and self-acceptance. You can grab your copy here

Our conversation today is not just talk; it's a soulful journey toward embracing the strength within through the art of positive self-talk. We'll explore our internal language's undeniable impact on our well-being, and I'll open up about my transformation through dedication to this practice. With every word of affirmation, we're drafting a love letter to ourselves, combating haters and other challenges that many of us face. So, grab your favorite cup, settle in, and prepare to foster a dialogue of empathy and compassion as we step into a world where self-love is spoken fluently, one affirmation at a time.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to this new season of have a Cup of Joani podcast. In this season, we are embarking on an exciting journey, one of shameless learning. We're tossing out the fear of judgment and embracing curiosity with open arms, whether it's exploring new ideas, tackling challenging topics or learning from our missteps. We're doing it all without shame or inhibition. Can't wait for y'all to listen to this. Hello everyone. Alright, so we talked about self-care last episode and how it is not selfish, but it is essential. If you haven't listened to that one, go ahead and listen to it, okay, or you don't have to listen to them in order or anything like that, but just listen to it, because all of these episodes that I am publishing in February fall under the self-care umbrella, so that way, we can learn to self-love and take care of ourselves in this sometimes brutal world. Alright, but nevertheless, welcome back, peeps. Welcome back to have a Cup of Joani, and I am here to journey with you through this self-love. And, like I said, today we are embarking in words of affirmation I am, I am, I am. Oh, that's my practice for A-bar. Yes, so those are. We're talking about the phrases that we tell ourselves. I can either lift us up or, if we're not aware and we're not careful. They can bring us down as well. But on this episode I'm going to talk to you about how I learned to be my own high person. You ready? Let's get it Alright.

Speaker 1: 2:24

First up, let's talk about what happens in our brains when we practice positive self-talk. Have you all seen that video? And this is old, I don't know. I don't know how many of you all have seen it, but it happens with plants too. There was an experiment in a classroom and it was a plant that the kids were growing and I think the teacher was running this experiment. And the teacher was like, okay, give it kind words, say kind phrases to it, and it was growing and it was healthy, or I think it was the opposite. And then it was like okay, say unkind phrases to it, say mean things to it, and the plant started to wither and didn't fully grow, even though it was given nutrition like water and sunshine and all of that. So the plant was withering based on its reaction. That's what this experiment theorized that it was based on the reaction of the unkind words that it was sensing or hearing. So in a way, this is me, jo, thinking we as human beings, if a plant can sense that for sure, a human being that has the capacity to have logic and make an argument and understand complex things will be more affected than a plant when it comes to negative words. I think what gets us is that if you heard me say this on the last episode, then you know what I'm fixing to say here. But if you did not here it is Oftentimes we're not tacked into our inner voice because we have shut it down for whatever reason past traumas and all of that and because of that, because we have shut down that voice and we're not listening to it, we don't hear it when it's saying negative things about us.

Speaker 1: 4:36

So then these negative things go undetected, but it still have the same effect. We still suffer the same repercussions. So kind of like how that plant withered. Based on this, the same thing happens to us. We wither, we wither inside and it rewires our brain. So it's like listening to a sad Celine Dion song as opposed to blasting reggaeton. Okay, bad analogy, but the shift, the shift is real. The shift in energy is real. So go look for that video, let me know. But yeah, it's there. I remember seeing it a while back, so hopefully you can find it All right.

Speaker 1: 5:27

How do we craft affirmations? One of my previous episodes I told you that my husband and I, driving back from El Paso to Kentucky, we were listening to Miracle Mornings and in this book the author was talking about affirmations and he explained this is his opinion that I am statements are hallowed or can be hallowed, and I am statements can feel unauthentical to the brain and when that happens, then we go back to the self, to the self-talk, to the self-being. How, when something sounds inauthentic, hallowed and not true, then it just we push it off to the side. Then we don't have the positive effects that we will have from affirmations that have an action statement. That's what this author said. Now, before I read that book, I was into the I AM affirmations. But let me explain those affirmations. I understand what the author is coming from.

Speaker 1: 6:54

From Miracle Morning I began with I AM affirmations and I saw a difference in me. Why? Because after a while I started believing it. I think it's similar to when affirmations work on people as well. Because you say it enough, you end up saying it with intention. You end up saying it with feelings, with emotion, with strength, and then your brain catches up to that. Your brain catches up to the emotions that are there when you say these I AM statements, then something clicks in you, when you start believing it, then your actions follow through that belief, because all of this is connected. That's how I have found I AM affirmations to work.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Now I still tailored my affirmations for 2024 and wrote them as an action statement where I said I am committed to and I will do X, y and Z to achieve this because this is important to me. I crafted my action statements like that. It's in the book Powerful Mornings and he has a formula I believe it's a three-step formula to help you craft actionable affirmations. I have found that these are very encouraging and I have found to I have sense I should say that found, but I have sense a shift in mindset and a gradual shift in behavior For me. I had affirmations when it comes to my three priorities, which is family, career and writing. I have seen, I have observed a shift in inside of me when it comes to how I look at certain things that affect those three buckets and how now I am prioritizing what I said I am committed to.

Speaker 1: 9:16

I think, based on my personal experience, I think both kinds of affirmations. If you want to say I am capable, I am worthy of love and respect, they work. I think it may take a while for them to work, because you've got to start believing them. Then your tone and the emotions that you share when you say those things out loud, it is what's going to sell it to your brain, to your soul. When you don't sell it, when you don't sell your I am affirmations, I think that's when they don't resonate with your inner being, and then they end up falling into deaf ears per se, your inner self won't listen to it, your inner self won't action it because it doesn't believe it. You don't mean it. You see, I think the other way, like in the miracle morning.

Speaker 1: 10:19

If you do it that way, it may streamline the process, because now you're crafting an action plan, a mini paragraph action plan, where you say I am committed. Let's say I am committed to being a millionaire and I am committed to being a millionaire because I want to build generational wealth for my next three generations. And I will do this. I will be a millionaire by saving 10% of my paycheck and investing 10% of my paycheck every month. You see the difference there as opposed to I am a millionaire, you see. So one has like actionable stuff, and then the other one is telling you you're this, start believing that. So you see how it can be a little harder to achieve a certain reality in your brain with the one that is just I am, as opposed to the one that is an actionable plan, where it empowers you. When you hear the other one, the longer one, you're like, oh shit, yeah, I can do that, yeah, I'm going to do that, yeah. And then you make it detail specific. You're like, oh, yeah, I got this, I got this. So I'm definitely going to be a millionaire because I got this, because I'm doing this and this which I put in here, and I am committed to doing that. So something to think about people, something to think about. That is something that I learned very recently and I'm already putting it to work. It's already on my bullet journal.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Another part of words of affirmation is not just the words that you hear from yourself or the words that you tell yourself, but it's also the words that you hear from other people. I'm talking about compliments. I am the worst at taking compliments and when I see it in my husband, I'm like, oh, my goodness, that's how I am too. So we have made a path to just say thank you and just accept it and not try to minimize it or not try to kind of like shimmy ourselves out of that compliment. But I'm telling you it was like and once again I go back to it's the trauma, it's the. I've been bullied for so long. I can't, I don't. There hasn't been a day in my life when that has not happened.

Speaker 1: 13:07

Just because of how I look, my physical aspect, I have a LACI and I mean there's nothing wrong with that, right, I mean it's just. I am who I am. I was born the way that I was born. I live on this earth. I am allowed to live on this earth even if I look this way. But other people don't see it that way. Other people find it that is easier to minimize or is easier to put down or to make fun of someone who looks different than the general population. And I don't know what it is. But when, when you look different or there's something that is not the same with you, it becomes like this click that occurs in other people where they find it as if it's okay to dehumanize that other person. And I don't know why that shift happens. I don't know if it's like from our caveman days, when if someone looked different, that means that they were weak and they weren't going to make it in the pack, or something like that. So I don't know if that is still something that is hardwired in our brains, because being in this body which I cannot get rid of, right, this is it for me.

Speaker 1: 14:33

I have experienced that and seen that every day of my life, and I think the God is. I have a strong resiliency, right, because I am to the point where I now I am able to observe others, even the mean ones, even the brutal ones, to try to understand why it is that way, while still keeping my feelings and my emotions intact. And I chuck that to these words of affirmations and how I started with those I am statements when I eventually started to believe that I am worthy to take up space. I am a human being that is worthy of love and respect. I said that for so long and from a very early age, because when someone is born different, right, you have to learn these things very early on in life, very early. I grew up so fast. It's insane. So because of that, that longevity that I have in experience when it comes to this.

Speaker 1: 15:47

It's why I'm currently in my early 40s, at a point where I am able to observe and assess these people that have this thing in their heart and try to ask those questions as to what clicks in their brain to start dehumanizing someone just because they look different than the general population. And this happened with people that are in bigger bodies. This happened as well with people from other races, from other cultures, and I think it all it kind of all stems. They're different, right. There's racism, xenophobia and various different isms out there, right? I think they're all under the umbrella of that intolerance, intolerance of someone that looks different. They all stem from that. Either they look different, they feel different, or they are different. And when you fall under that umbrella, you may feel racism, discrimination, xenophobia, islamophobia. You know all of that. I think it all falls under that umbrella.

Speaker 1: 17:01

And then, when people react that way, those people have a bias that I don't think they realize it's in them, or believe that. I don't think they realize that it's in them that it is okay to dehumanize someone because they're different. That's like their proof. That's what I've seen when these people start bullying or start putting someone down or anything like that. Or worse, it gets violent, physical because of that is because in their mind, their belief is you are different, therefore you're not a human, therefore you're not worthy of any empathy or human emotions. And that's what I have lived through my entire life. No exaggeration there. So that's why I will say that this type of self-care words of affirmation have really saved my life, because if I wouldn't have come across that and if I wouldn't have learned very early on as a child to have positive self-talk and to love myself with no shame and no excuse, then I think I would have been gone a long time ago. Because bullies are very harsh human beings, right, very harsh human beings, especially when they have identified someone as not being human and they don't give you that compassion or that empathy. It is very hard to be on the other end of that. So words of affirmation that saved my life and hopefully you're not in the same predicament as me, hopefully you can just use these to spruce yourself up, to bring yourself up to a certain level of self-love, self-care and self-compassion. But if you ask me for my experience, they do work All right.

Speaker 1: 19:06

Remember the words that we use, either in our heads or outwardly, can change our lives. And if you leave with anything from this episode, let it be this that with your words, whether it's your internal or your external language, that you use them to build up as opposed to tear down. And if you don't use words of affirmation on yourself, that's cool, you don't have to. But remember that. Use your words to build up, because words are powerful. They're so powerful. They can tear somebody down like a sentence, but let that sentence be something that will build somebody, that will give them a hug, that will tell them that somebody else cares about them. All right, beautiful peeps. So we wrap up today's episode on the power of words and words of affirmation.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Remember, you have the ability to be your own best friend. You also have the ability to be your own worst critic. Don't be that. Be your best friend. Choose kindness, remember, choose empowerment, and next week we are tackling drum roll. Please, setting boundaries. This is an ongoing coaching process for me when it comes to setting boundaries. I'm still working it, not just individually, but I'm still working it alongside my husband as well. Both of us have worked to do on this one, and that's why I wanna talk about it. All right, beautiful peeps, be ready to grab a cup next Wednesday and I'll see you then. Bye, oh, we can. We can fly. Thank you so much for listening. I wanna hear from you. Leave me a comment, do a rating if you can on the podcast, share it with somebody you love, but, most importantly, come back. Come back. See you next time. Bye.