Affirmations

One way to work on your mental health is to practice affirmations.  What are affirmations?  How do they work?  What should you say?  Listen to find out.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast Working on Amazing. In this podcast, we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life.

And I say rebuild because we're specifically geared and designed for women who feel like they're starting over in the middle of their life. Maybe it was because of a divorce or a loss.

For whatever reason, you find yourself in the middle of your life having to start over. All your plans for the future kind of went up in smoke. Everything kind of got shifted and changed in a way that you didn't plan.

And now you're kind of rebuilding your life. If that's you, I truly am sorry. But you are in the right place.

Welcome. I am so glad you are here. So if you'll remember in the first episode, I talked about the areas that I focused on and I wanted to rebuild my life, and I wanted to rebuild a better life than the one I had before.

So I focused on my spiritual health, my mental health, my physical health, my financial health and growth and goals. So today's episode, we're going to talk about an area that falls under mental health.

And this one was one that was a little bit odd for me. It took me a while to warm up to the idea. But today we're going to talk about affirmations.

And every time I had heard about affirmations, it just sounded really hokey to me. I don't know. Maybe you don't have that opinion of it.

It sounded to me like they were trying to say, I could say, I am a millionaire every day, and one day I'd wake up a millionaire. And I know that's not true, and that seems ridiculous. And so I just wrote it all off as over the top, right?

But I happen to read an article on a really dark day about affirmations, and I thought, you know what? This doesn't cost any money. It's simple to do.

I'm going to give it a try. And I did, and I'm so, so, so glad that I did. So I will tell you, just as a disclaimer, there are far more knowledgeable people that talk about affirmations, that write about affirmations.

I would encourage you to Google it and read what other people have to say because they have much more knowledge than I do.

What I'm going to share today is layman's terms, personal experience, sort of the guidelines I use to write my affirmations, what I noticed in my life. So that will just give you a starting point.

By all means, there are far more knowledgeable people. But what I learned and what I read is it all has to do with the way our brain is wired. It almost gets down to a science.

So our brain has pathways in it. And when we tell it negative things, and we do it on a subconscious level, we're not even aware, but we replay these negative beliefs about ourselves over and over. I'm not good enough.

I can't do that. I won't make it. We replay the things that maybe people have said to us over and over in our head.

And we do it on an unconscious level a lot of times. And as we do this, it just, in our head, those pathways just, they become entrenched, right?

And so the idea of affirmation is to rewire the way your brain sees yourself, to make new pathways that are positive instead of negative. So what we're telling ourselves, what our brain sees about ourselves, is positive and not negative.

We're actively participating and taking part. I think most of the time, our brain just functions. So much is done on a subconscious level.

It tells us negative things because we've had negative experiences, and we just roll with it.

But Affirmations is saying, I want to take an active part in the way my brain views the world and the way my brain views me, and I want to set these pathways in motion. I want to have a say. I want it to be wired this way instead of that way.

So it's just becoming aware that our brain functions a certain way and in taking part and participating in how to maybe rewire those pathways. I kind of think it's like the grooves on a record, right? And so right now, one song is playing.

Those grooves are pretty entrenched, and we've just got to set new grooves. We've got to make a new pathway for our brain to go in a positive pathway. We get to choose what that is, right?

And it takes time. It's not a snap of a finger. It's going to happen overnight, but it's important.

So you can change the negative mindsets you have. I had so many negative mindsets. I went through divorce, so my ex-husband cheated on me.

So I didn't feel like I was good enough. I didn't feel beautiful. I didn't feel worthy.

There is a whole host of things that I struggled with, right? So as I went to write my affirmations, I started with a few affirmations about that. I am worthy, I am enough, I am beautiful, I am loved.

Now, if you are a Christian, I would strongly encourage you to look at what God says about you. God says, I am loved. I speak those promises over yourself.

And from the standpoint of affirmations in rewiring the way your brain subconsciously views yourself, make them short, simple statements. Don't get, don't wax poetic. This isn't the time to be super whatever.

You want to keep them as simple as possible and as direct as possible. I am worthy. I am loved.

And if you are struggling in an area, if you really don't feel that way, that's what you need to write.

And as you look over them, one of the ones that I had in my affirmation list was, I make good decisions, because I felt like I questioned my decisions. Did I make good decisions? Was it right to marry this person when I was 21?

Did I do this right? Was it right to divorce him? Was it right to...?

I just questioned myself constantly. Everything that I did, I second-guessed myself. I struggled with believing that I made good decisions.

So one of my affirmations was, I make good decisions. So look at what you struggle with. Look at what God says about you.

Look at what scripture says. And make a few simple I statements that you really want to be true about you, even if you don't feel it. I am strong.

I put that there because I felt so un-strong. I felt weak. I didn't feel up to the task of being a single mob and responsible for everything.

So to say I am strong, it was a mental strength and an internal strength that I spoke over myself because I felt like I didn't have it.

So the things that you feel like you're lacking, the things that scripture and the Bible says about you, make those your affirmations. Speak truth over yourself. Remember, fear is a liar.

Fear says you are not good enough. So the things that you say about yourself, flip that and say the opposite in your affirmations. If you say, I'm not good enough, I want you to say, I am enough.

I am worthy. If you say, I can't do it, I want you to say, I can do it. If you say, I'm not beautiful, I am ugly, and no one will ever love me, I want you to say, I am beautiful, I am loved, and those things are true.

So just spend some time and think about where down deep at the heart of it you struggle, and you're going to say the truth.

You're going to say what God says about you, you're going to say the positive affirmation, and you're going to speak that over yourself. So pick a few that you really know that you need to believe down deep in your soul.

You don't believe it now, and you know you're struggling with it, and we all struggle with different things. So pick some.

Like I said, some examples would be, I am enough, I am amazing, I am worthy, I am strong, I am loved, I am smart, I make good decisions. Those are examples. You definitely can branch out beyond that.

Just some strong I statements about yourself, and definitely pick the areas that you know you struggle believing that truth about yourself in. Because that is what we want to rewire our brain from the negative to the positive.

You know, it's been going down one way. You can't do it, you're not enough, and now you're rewiring it in the opposite direction. I am worthy, I am enough.

So think about, just take some time to really think, what do you want to tell yourself? What do you want to be true about you? What do you want to walk in and believe?

Okay? The next step is we're writing our affirmations that you may or may not choose to add in. Is there a habit that you want to start?

And affirmations are a good way to reinforce a new habit that you want to start doing. So for example, maybe you want to start waking up earlier, right?

So you could write an affirmation to reinforce this behavior in a positive way in your affirmation. So let's think this through. You might write at first, I wake up early.

But I would encourage you not to do that, and this is why. We want to be really specific. Our brain, even at an unconscious level, is specific and detail-oriented.

So let's work on it a little bit. Let's say, what time do you want to get up? What is early for you?

What's early for my kids is totally different than what's early for me. So everybody's different. What's early for you?

Is it 5 a.m.? So maybe you would say, I wake up at 5 a.m. But let's go a step further than that.

Let's get even more specific than that. Because let's think about it. Do you wake up early?

Do you want to wake up early on the weekends or just on the weekdays? I mean, maybe 5 a.m. is when you want to wake up every day of the week, and that's fine.

Leave it at, I wake up at 5 a.m. But maybe you just want to wake up at 5 a.m. on the days you work or on weekdays.

So whatever the case may be for you, you may refine it a little bit further to say, I wake up at 5 a.m. every weekday. And it's a little bit longer affirmation.

We really strive to be brief and short with our affirmations, but you also want to be really specific. So I wake up at 5 a.m. every weekday.

That's rewiring your brain. So when you do sleep in on the weekend, your brain isn't like subconsciously going, but wait, you're doing it different from what you said you would do. We want to stay on a positive track.

We want to say exactly what we want to do with a new habit.

And the other thing I would really, really encourage you to do, if you're starting a new habit, I would encourage you to really take some time to think about what that would look like, what the reality looks like in your life.

So if you say, I wake up at 5 a.m. every weekday, well, what are you going to do when you wake up at 5 a.m.? Everybody's different, right?

So maybe for you, you want to wake up at 5 a.m.

because you want to get a cup of coffee and enjoy some peace and quiet because all day is hectic and busy, and the kids are calling, and the this is doing, and work, and it's the only time you will have some peace and quiet.

So when you think, I want to wake up at 5 a.m. every weekday, so you can have a moment of peace. So you're going to just see yourself getting up, getting the coffee, maybe sitting on the back porch, just enjoying a moment by yourself.

Maybe you want to get up at 5 a.m. because you want to get a jump on the workday. You've got things to do.

If you go ahead and check your emails off super early in the morning, then you can move on to the next thing and that will free up time during the day. And that's why you want to wake up early. So visualize yourself doing that.

What would that look like? I get up, I go ahead and get out of bed, I get dressed, I start working on my laptop. Whatever new habit you want to form, and I'm just using waking up early as an example, but visualize what that would look like.

Get specific and then kind of in your head, just take some time. What would that look like if that was what I started to do? If I'm starting to do that, what does that look like?

And just spend some time there. The other thing I want to talk about just a little bit, because I feel like it's important, if you have a habit you want to get rid of. So you have a bad habit that you want to eliminate from your life.

So the wording is a little bit worth noting here, okay? Because you really don't want to say a negative affirmation.

And it's just simply because from what I have read from experts, I am not the expert, that your brain on a subconscious level doesn't process negative or abstract words.

So since you're rewiring your subconscious, you really don't want to use abstract terms. So as an example, you wouldn't say, I don't smoke. I am not a smoker.

Your brain doesn't process on a subconscious level that abstract term, don't, not, something about your subconscious. And like I said, you can Google it. Experts know way more than me.

I'm just telling you what I read and the way I learned to write affirmations.

So instead of using that negative or abstract term, if there is a behavior you want to eliminate in using smoking as an example, you might say, I am smoke free or I am cigarette free, something along those lines. I am able to change bad habits.

I am ready to be healthy. Or like for smoking, you could say, I want to go to Italy, because maybe you're going to take the money that you would have spent on cigarettes, cigarettes are expensive, and put it towards a vacation you want.

So if you're going to take the money that you were spending on a bad habit and put it on something else, use that in your affirmation. I want to do whatever you're going to put that money towards. That is a positive way.

So try to frame everything in a positive, not a negative way. That abstract term, your brain, from what I've read, just kind of skips over, and it doesn't process it the same way. So I am smoke free.

I am cigarette free. I want to do whatever you're going to do with the cigarette money. Things along those lines.

So your main bulk of affirmations are those simple I am statements. I am worthy. And then if you want to throw a habit in there that you want to start, this is a good way to reinforce a positive new habit and new behavior.

Let's just add that into your affirmation. And then, like I said, if you want to take a negative habit, just frame it in a positive way. So that's something that we can do.

Take some time with these. Six to twelve affirmations. I wouldn't go more than twelve.

Eight might be a good landing point. You know what's best for you, but really take some time to come up with what you want to be true about you, what you want to do. How do you incorporate them in your life?

So you're taking some time to pick the right thing, the thing you want to be true about you, right? These things, I am loved, I am worthy. You're going to write them down.

I want you to put them where you can see them. So maybe tape them to your bathroom mirror. I put them on my desk at work.

I didn't care if other people thought I was hokey. I don't think anybody paid attention or noticed, but I put them, I saw them on my desk at work. I saw them on my bathroom mirror.

Then I spoke them. So on the way to work, when I was in the car by myself, everybody was like, she's talking to herself. I was alone.

It didn't matter. After I dropped the kids off for school, I would speak them out loud over myself. I am worthy.

I am enough. I am loved. I would say my list of affirmations out.

Then at night, I would remember them, and I would go over them in my head. And at night, when I would do it, when I was already in bed going to sleep, when I would re-say my affirmations, I would spend more time visualizing them.

What would my life look like if I felt loved? That's such an odd term, but what would I feel like? What would my mental health be like if I didn't struggle feeling unloved and unworthy?

What would that be like? All these, everything that's on your list, take the time as you're drifting off to sleep to really think, what would that look like? Visualizing that in your head.

I would encourage you also to write them down. I wrote them again probably three, four times a week. I would write out all my affirmations.

It was part of the way I journaled. You may think that's too much. You may not do that.

I encourage you, try it for a month. Every day, speak these things over yourself. Speak truth.

See what happens. I noticed a difference probably in maybe a week. It wasn't like a drastic difference.

In about a week, I noticed I was in a better mood. I noticed I could just feel my mental health lift just a little bit. It wasn't like a magic wand.

It wasn't like I suddenly won the lottery. It wasn't like this drastic change, but I could feel the difference, right? And it encouraged me enough to keep going.

I encourage you, speak truths over yourself. Take the time to write them down. Start small.

Start simple. But do it every day. And give yourself a month.

Do it for a month. Just speak simple, positive things. Say them out loud on your way to work.

When you're in the car by yourself, nobody's going to look at you like you're crazy for talking out loud. But it's important to say them out loud because then your ears hear it. You're speaking it with your mouth.

You're using one of your senses, physically moving your mouth, making the words, but then you hear it with your ears. And then when you write it down, you're writing it.

When you think about it and visualizing it, you're using as many different things as you can to rewire your brain, to make a new trench, a new pathway that's positive, that you're choosing.

The old pathways came about by default because something negative happened, and we just took that on. And negative things are going to happen in life. That's just the way life is.

And just so kind of by default, some of these negative pathways in our brain have just been laid out.

But now that we're aware, we can take proactive action and say, I'm going to make a new pathway, and I'm going to work really hard to make a new pathway. I'm going to lay a new groove in this record.

And if this record plays over and over in my head, I care what it says. It matters what this record says because we all have a record that plays in our head. We just don't think about it.

So, I really encourage you to write some positive affirmations. The things that you were struggling with, the things that are holdups and hangups in your life, in your mental health, say the opposite of what you feel.

And I remember, I always ended my affirmations on I am loved. Because even though I knew my children loved me, even though I knew God loved me, at that season in my life, I felt so unloved. I mean, it was almost overwhelming how unloved I felt.

And so, I said it every day to myself, I am loved. Because even though in my head, I knew it was true, I didn't feel it in my heart, and I wanted to feel it in my heart. I wanted to feel that to be true.

So I said it every day. What's your thing? What are you really struggling with right now?

You're going through a dark night in the soul. It's a tough season. What do you struggle with?

What's going to be your thing? And you speak it over yourself every day. A couple of times a day.

Over time, it's going to become truth. I know it. I believe it.

You're going to rewire your brain. You're going to see yourself in a positive light. It's not going to magically take you out of a dark night in the soul and transport you to a totally different place.

But if practiced daily and consistently, it really makes an impactful change on your mental health. Gratitude and affirmations are two things that are so simple to do. They don't cost anything, and they make a true impact on your mental health.

And I strongly encourage you just to try it. Even if it sounds a little odd, even if you aren't sure, just try it and see. I just encourage you because these are truths.

They are true. You are worthy. You are enough.

You can do it. So I encourage you to speak that truth over yourself. Look me up on Facebook, Working on Amazing.

I would love to interact and connect with you. We have a page that you can follow and comment on, and we also have a private group.

So if you just kind of want to ask questions or start discussions and talk to each other where it doesn't pop up on your newsfeed, totally get that. So there's a private group as well. So come join the conversation.

You are not alone. Find this group of other women who are going through the same thing you are. I appreciate you joining me today.

I'm so glad we are on this journey together. I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.