“I’m not smart.”
“I’ll never feel good again.”
“I can’t meditate, my mind never stops.”
“There’s no other job I can ever do!”
“It’s my fault – I don’t deserve to be happy.”
These are all sentences that people I care about have said to me in the past month. If you read the sentences carefully you’ll notice they’re also limiting beliefs. Something we all have had, or still do today.
I used to think and say things like this all the time. “I’m a bad writer. I’ll never get pregnant. I’m not thin enough.” Like a broken record in my head over and over and over again. Until the day I walked into a random holistic massage parlor in Tampa while covering cheerleading for SunSports.
This was pre-kids and I had a neck ache, so I entered the tranquil retreat recommended by the hotel.
While on the table receiving a massage, I confided in the therapist about our infertility struggles, and how much shame I felt for not being able to give my husband a baby.
She talked to me about shame. She pointed out my belief system, and told me I needed to work on my self-talk. After the massage she referred me to a book by Louise Hay called “You Can Heal Your Life.” It was a gift edition that had beautiful illustrations, and was exactly what I needed. I devoured the book that night, but had a hard time with the concept of “mirror talk.”
What do you mean look in the mirror and say I love you? Who can do that?
Not me.
I tried to speak the unthinkable out loud into that budget hotel bathroom mirror with deplorable lighting, but I just started crying imagining all the things I loathed about myself. All the things I had heard about myself as a child had become my inner voice, and my inner critic was louder than my will.
It was then in my late 20’s that I first began to understand the mind-body connection, and how important our words were. Not just our words spoken to others, but our words we say to ourselves. And how our emotions can impact our physical health.
While I might not have been ready yet for mirror talk, I did love Louise Hay’s concept of affirmations, and practiced them for the next seven years in my gratitude journal as we tried to conceive. Writing and saying things like:
I deserve to be happy and healthy.
I am well.
A healthy baby is growing inside me and I accept it.
I am strong.
I am capable.
I am beautiful.
And most importantly, I approve of myself.
It felt funny of course at first, but just like riding a bike, the more you do it, the easier it becomes to say AND believe.
Now over a decade into motherhood I’ve taken my practice further, and really focus on my phrases and statements about my life, turning limiting beliefs into powerful positive affirmations. Instead of being my thoughts, I am an observer of the ego in my mind. I see the thoughts, recognize my old habits, and then redirect myself.
I can meditate.
A new job is waiting for me, now to make some space for it in my life.
I am smart.
I am exactly where the Universe wants me to be.
And I’m trying to help my children do the same. Because our thoughts become our reality, and what we say and think has the power to determine the course of our lives. Isn’t that incredible?
We have the power to flip the script and change how we think about ourselves, and what we can accomplish! It’s not easy, it takes work, but you’re worth it.
So the next time you think, “I can’t.” Or you utter a limiting belief to others or yourself, become an observer. Notice those thoughts and ask yourself is this really true? Because most likely it’s not. You are capable of anything your soul dreams up. You were created in God’s perfect love and the Universe wants you to succeed in work and life.
The question is, do you?
If you liked this post then read this, my Top 5 Inspirational Books.
You are so right about how hard it is to say affirmative things to yourself! I too had negativity geared towards me as a child and some of that negativity still pops up in my head even after all these years! We need to teach our children that they are a precious, unique gift from God! I cringe when I hear someone say something negative about themselves and I cry when that person is a child!! I worked in the school system and I can’t tell you how many times I heard someone say something negative to a child! Then later, it could have been weeks later, that child repeated to me what that person had said! We have such a problem with self-image and we should be encouraging each other instead of breaking each other done!! As parents and grandparents we need to discourage our children/grandchildren from saying anything negative about themselves!!
YES!