Some days I am just in a funk. Yesterday was one of those days. The sun was shining, I had my family around me, but things were just pissing me off. I couldn’t put my finger on what was going on. Why the sudden venom for my darling husband and my tribe of three little loves? What had gotten into me? And then it dawned on me. I had neglected to take my happiness potion for the last week or so. This potion is hands down the best concoction I have ever used. It’s guaranteed to make me feel good, be in complete love with my family, and ready to bounce out of bed and face the world every day. What is this miracle potion you ask? Well I am happy to share with you.
I have learnt over the last few years, that a daily dose of positive affirmations make the world of difference to my well being.
I am happier, more pleasant to be around, more positive, and I find that I rarely focus on the ‘bad’ things in my life and instead focus on the beautiful things. So let me give you a bit more insight into this little gem.
What are Affirmations?
Daily affirmations are your key to a better relationship with yourself, and with the world. We have somewhere between 50,000-70,000 thoughts everyday, and most of them circulate around in our head time and time again. We don’t really pay attention to what our thoughts are saying, but the affect they have on our self-belief, our happiness, our willingness to try something new, and our relationships is enormous. Many of our thoughts are derived from our subconscious mind, the part of our mind that we have no control over.
The repetition of thoughts in our subconscious mind is what leads to our beliefs. If our subconscious mind is constantly telling us ‘I hate rain, why did it have to rain today’, ‘I slept so badly, my day is going to be crap’, ‘My kids are always fighting, I am so sick of them’, ‘My boss is a d*ck, I wish I didn’t work here’, then surprise, surprise; that is what we believe.
In addition to creating our deeply-held beliefs, our subconscious mind is brilliant at reliving and recreating the past.
We constantly revisit and rehash past experiences and relate them to our current situation. For example, perhaps my subconscious mind remembers that I forgot my speech when I was speaking in front of the whole primary school to try to gain a position of leadership, therefore I steadfastly believe that I can not stand in front of my colleagues and deliver a presentation.
By allowing our subconscious to rule, we mistakenly believe that who we were, will always be who we are.
But this isn’t true. Who you are today is definitely a result of who you were. It’s the ups and downs from your past that have shaped you up until this moment. But who you become depends entirely on who you choose to be, from this moment on. And this is where affirmations come in.
Affirmations allow you to design and develop the mindset you need, to create the life of your dreams.
Instead of conditioning yourself by focusing on what you have done wrong, or the mistakes you have made, affirmations allow you to condition yourself to be confident, successful and positive in all that you do. How is this achieved? By repetition of positive affirmations. It really is that simple. It is the repetition of affirmations that results in the subconscious mind BELIEVING what it is told. And when your subconscious BELIEVES, you will manifest those affirmations in your reality.
If this all sounds a bit hard to believe, think about it. How many times have you told yourself I am a terrible cook, I’m no good at reading, I have no idea how to use computers, I’m ugly, I hate my hair, all my husband and I do is fight? We are very good at repeating negative affirmations over and over and over. But rarely do we hit repeat on the positive, uplifting affirmations that will help guide us to be the healthiest and happiest version of ourselves.
For me, the power of affirmations was shown to me in its full force during the birth of my first baby. I had decided that I wanted to do Hypnobirthing, and a big part of the Hypnobirthing Method is to listen to daily affirmations. For 5 months I listened to affirmations such as ‘my baby’s birth is easy because I am so relaxed’, ‘I breathe correctly and eliminate all tension’, ‘I deepen my relaxation, as my labour progresses’, ‘my body and my baby know what to do’, ‘I turn my birthing over to my baby and my body’, ‘each surge brings my baby closer to me’.
These affirmations helped me go into the birth with absolutely no fear, and a whole lot of excitement.
The affirmations had done such a good job at convincing my subconscious that I wouldn’t feel any pain, that I honestly and truly believed it. And even though I did feel pain, I was able to handle it. Because I was so sure my body and my baby knew what they were doing, and I trusted in the process. I don’t think I would have had as much courage and belief in my ability if I hadn’t listened to my daily affirmations.
I have developed an ever-changing list of about 20 or so affirmations that I read daily, and they are statements of how I want my life to be. Some are written because I have identified areas of my life that I want to be doing better in (e.g. not yelling at my kids as much), and others are statements to reflect my dreams, my goals or where I want to end up. Here is an example of a few of mine:
I am a calm and gentle mother
I love myself exactly as I am
I exercise daily so I am healthy and strong
I eat foods that nourish and energise me
I meditate daily and this helps me stay balanced
I empower women to find true health from within
I wake up every day with energy and vitality
I am creating a life of freedom and designing a path to follow my passion
I trust my intuition
By writing these affirmations, I am designing my life to be exactly the way I want it to be.
If you are ready to start designing your life to be the life of your dreams here’s what you need to do.
Write 10-20 positive affirmations
Think of some of the negative self talk you impose on yourself, and replace it with a beautiful, positive affirmation e.g. whenever you hear yourself saying “I hate my body” replace it with “I love myself exactly as I am”
Place them on your mirror, or have them beside your bed.
Read them to yourself three times over every day (out loud if possible)
Watch your life transform
It may feel really uncomfortable at first if you have never said anything like this to yourself, or never had anyone in your family tell you this growing up. You may feel extremely vulnerable and even cry, but please don’t give up. Have a go. Be kind to yourself and create some beautiful positive affirmations. You are beautiful, special and one of a kind. Remind yourself of that every day.
Give it a go, stick at it, it will be worth it I promise.
Honestly,
