Reverse, Reset, Restore
This is for all of us who have been wounded by our own (and others) judgements and expectations, who have listened to those inner voices and believed the lies we've sold ourselves and for those who truly want to love and honour who you were always meant to be. If you've struggled with self-acceptance, poor body image and a belief system that is no longer serving you (if it ever did!), then this podcast is your reminder that you're not alone and you can choose to make changes - from your health and wellbeing, to your thoughts and the way you move in the world.
Reverse, Reset, Restore
How Rewiring Your Brain Using Affirmations, Influences Positive Change In Your Life
Ever wondered how powerful your thoughts can be? How they can dramatically change your perspective and life? Well, you're about to discover how. Our exploration uncovers the power of affirmations, these simple yet effective tools that can leverage neuroplasticity to rewire your brain. We dive into my own personal journey of discovering the connection between creativity and science, and share how not all affirmations are created equal, some can be damaging, while others can be life-changing.
There's an undeniable transformative effect of positive thinking that we'll tackle in the next part of our talk. I'll share my own struggles and triumphs over negative self-talk, offering insights into how you can rewrite your story and create a new narrative for yourself. We'll discuss the concept of self-fulfilling prophecies and encourage each other to replace our negative self-talk with positive affirmations. The importance of consistency in positive affirmations and their impact on our physical well-being will be explored, alongside promoting a practice of gratitude and love towards our bodies.
Lastly, we delve into the power of affirmations in fostering self-connection. We'll share how acknowledging and communicating with our bodies can bring relief, and how the placebo effect and shifting subconscious beliefs can lead to real physiological changes. We'll discuss the five keys to effective affirmations and reveal our favorite empowering affirmations. This episode is an invitation to join us on a journey of self-growth and positive change, harnessing the profound transformative power of affirmations. Together, let's unlock a happier, healthier you.
We end the episode with this quote from Louise Hay,
“An affirmation opens the door. It’s a beginning point on the path to change. In essence, you’re saying to your subconscious mind: “I am taking responsibility. I am aware that there is something I can do to change.”
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Welcome to a brand new episode of Reverse Reset Restore your Life Now. Today, we're tackling the topic that can empower you to create lasting change in your life. Join me, sally, as we explore how transformation occurs when you take full ownership of your reactions, thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It's time to step into your power and design the life you desire. Change comes from within. Welcome back to Reverse Reset Restore. I'm delighted to have you here with me today. This episode is all about how you can rewire your brain for positive change by using affirmations. I've talked about affirmations before. We've even had a short episode on affirmations as part of the 31 Days of South Care Program for Mental Health Awareness Month. If you want to know more about the 31 Day Program, start it or revisit it. Check out the links in the show notes or scroll through previous episodes for the program.
Speaker 1:I've always been a creative type of person, which means that I found myself feeling that science was kind of outside of my wheelhouse. Like because I was creative, I couldn't understand or enjoy science of any kind. It's funny how we self-impose these false narratives in our lives, isn't it? That's why, if you are responsible for helping develop a child's mind, it's super important to infuse them with the ideas that they can be more than the labels we might want them to wear. Unfortunately, we don't even see the labels we put on them, or others or ourselves, until it's often too late. Is it really too late? Hold that thought, sally, and we'll circle back to that another time. Anyway, I felt that because I was creative, which was also for me a derogatory term growing up, because I thought creativity equalled, not intelligent. Yeah, I know issues. I couldn't see how science and creativity meshed, so I felt I had to choose between the two and obviously I was going to be team creativity over team science, because I was dumb, and at least I was a little less dumb when it came to creative pursuits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know this line of thinking is yeah, it's messed up, but I bet someone else listening to this maybe even you gets it how fortunate I am that I see so much creativity and science now. I mean, just look at our biology, these incredible divine physical forms we're housed in, what we do with our bodies, how they create for us every day, all day long. We are, quite simply put, miracles. Everything in the world that can be looked at from a scientific eye can also be looked at as the essence of creation. I'm going off on a tangent, aren't I? My point is is that I now see the connection between creativity and science and, as a consequence, often spend a lot of time looking at the science of things, which helps me put it back into the context of my own life how our bodies work, how thoughts are created and how science is every day discovering, analysing, understanding and backing up the mind-body connection. That's why, on some of these episodes, we do delve into science and the mechanics of thoughts and feelings and behaviours and the health modalities. That may seem weird Well, weird for those of us living by westernised ideology. My thirst for understanding, for knowledge, knows no bounds. I probably would have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge too, y'all, to be honest. So for me, the science behind affirmations is captivating and compelling.
Speaker 1:Affirmations, those positive and empowering statements you repeat to yourself, might seem like mere words, but their impact on your thoughts, emotions and actions is actually far-reaching. So why do affirmations work? What a fantastic question Glad you asked. Let's delve into the science behind their effectiveness and understand the mechanisms that make them a powerful tool for personal growth and transformation. Number one rewiring neural pathways. Affirmations have the ability to rewire your brain's neural pathways through a process known as neuroplasticity. The brain structure is not fixed. It can adapt and reorganise itself based on experiences and thoughts. When you repeat affirmations consistently, you stimulate specific neural networks associated with beliefs and self-perception. Over time, these pathways become stronger, making positive or negative self-talk a natural and ingrained part of your mindset.
Speaker 1:Let me just stop here and remind ourselves that not all affirmations are positive. No, my friend, if you allow a certain thought to repeat in your mind frequently enough, you run the risk of it becoming an affirmation, whether the thought is good or bad. We tend to think of affirmations as eerie fairy or only positive sentences or words, but basically they are words we use to affirm our thoughts, beliefs and experiences in the world. If you entertain thoughts long enough, they become beliefs, and then we start looking for the proof to back up those beliefs, and the universe delivers every time. If your thoughts tell you that you are a failure and you can't find love, then the chances are high that you won't. If you believe that you'll never be able to get a better job, then you probably won't, because your thoughts will make you too apathetic to try to get a better job. If you believe that everyone is out to get you and no one likes you, then you'll actually create the opportunity for those experiences to manifest in your life. See how this works. The universe is like a genie granting wishes at our command, even if those wishes are not really what we want, but they are the ones we believe the most in. All of us have created our own affirmations that are not positive and have therefore created our reality by the words we have either allowed to run rampant in our minds or roll off our tongue. Louise Hay put it like this An affirmation is really anything you say or think.
Speaker 1:A lot of what we normally say and think is quite negative and doesn't create good experiences for us. We have to retrain our thinking and speaking into positive patterns if we want to change our lives. I used to refer to myself as an elephant potomist, a cross of an elephant and a hippopotamus, and not for their amazing traits, unfortunately, no, this was a self-directed slur about my body. Now, obviously, I didn't turn into an actual elephant or hippopotamus, but what I told my body and the world was this belief system I had, which was I was fat, so fat that I was basically two of the largest land animals on the planet combined, and so I've kept myself fat. Perhaps if I had referred to myself as a leopard lean and lithe and agile maybe that's what my body may have turned into. Note to self when referring to my body as an animal, choose one that represents what you want as positive traits. New thought experiment. I'll get back to you on the results.
Speaker 1:Luckily for us, we can rewire our neural pathways using language. By expressing positive words and sentences, we can overwrite the negative pathways we have created. This works. It may take time. It may take you days, weeks, months, even years to re-correct these pathways, but it's not impossible. We use the expression you can't teach an old dog new tricks as the sort of excuse for why we can't change. But we can. Change is completely possible, no matter what your age may be. You have the control to make those changes. You've just got to choose to change and then be consistent, and consistency is just practice and action on repeat over and over again.
Speaker 1:Number two overcoming negative bias. Our brains having natural negativity bias, which means they're wired to pay more attention to negative thoughts and experiences. But the reason for this is probably due to our basic fight or flight or freeze responses. This draws back into the amygdala and its drive for survival, that most primal part of us, our core instincts. If your brain is always looking for danger, it's always looking for problems, and this would definitely have been true for our ancestors, who didn't live the way that we do now. It makes sense that our natural instincts would be to pay attention to what could possibly go wrong or what could eat us or hurt us or cause us big problems. Danger Will Robinson, as the robot, said in that very old TV show Lost in Space, affirmations counter this bias by introducing positive and constructive thoughts into your mental landscape. By consistently focusing on uplifting affirmations, you balance the scales and gradually shift your perspective towards a more positive outlook.
Speaker 1:Number three self-fulfilling prophecies. Affirmations work on the principle of self-fulfilling prophecies. When you repeatedly affirm positive statements, your mind starts to believe them, influencing your behavior to align with those beliefs. For example, if you consistently affirm that your confident and capable, your actions will reflect this newfound confidence, reinforcing the affirmation accuracy. Do me a favor. Well, actually, this is more about doing yourself a favor.
Speaker 1:Right now, think of a sentence or a word that you commonly use in your self-talk that is not very helpful. What could you do to turn that negative connotation into a positive thought? For example, if you constantly think of yourself as dumb, try saying something like this instead I easily understand new things. Or I love all the ways I can learn about the world. Perhaps, like me, you tend to focus on your external factors, like weight. Instead of calling yourself fat or, in extreme cases, an elephant potomist, choose something like I love how my body supports me every day, or my body is strong and beautiful. Try this without any caveats or judgments. Repeat it, say it a thousand times, a hundred thousand times, a million, whatever it is, until you truly believe it. This works. I know, I've done it. I am proof, and I just want to add to this that when you talk to your body this way, amazing things happen, that your body responds.
Speaker 1:I have talked about this many times. I have a long-term neck injury and I deal with that. I've been dealing with that for decades now, and recently I've been in the habit of, when I'm in pain, acknowledging that pain and telling my body how much I love it, and not only telling my body how much that particular body parts on my neck that I love it, but actually praising it, thanking it, being grateful for it. Thank you that you hold my head up and you carry me around, thank you for the strength that you bring down through my arms and my shoulders and my torso and all these sort of things. I've changed the dialogue, I've changed the narrative and the way that I talk to myself about myself.
Speaker 1:And what is incredibly inspiring at least for me, and I hope it will be for you, if you are a chronic pain sufferer is when we begin to acknowledge our body and our pain. Our body actually listens and I talk quite openly to it because I think that pain is a language that the body uses to talk to us. It's the way it's trying to connect and tell me something. And I'm listening and I begin to touch that area gently, so I might just be stroking my neck which probably looks a little bit strange and I say things like I love you, you're amazing, thank you for the strength, thank you for everything that you do, and just sort of paying attention to that moment and almost immediately, what begins to happen is that the pain shifts. So I go from being on a scale of 1 to 10 in 11 and you know, just by saying I acknowledge the pain. What are you trying to tell me? What's going on?
Speaker 1:One of the phrases I use a lot is how can I make you feel safe? When I talk to my body now? What can I do right now to let you know, body, I gotcha, that you're safe, that you don't need to be fearful, that you don't need to worry, that you don't need to carry all the stress and tension. You can let it go, and it does. And I have amazing pain relief just by speaking lovingly to myself, by acknowledging that pain.
Speaker 1:And I know it sounds a little bit weird and if you haven't done this before, it does seem strange. And it's only strange because we're very disconnected from actually interacting with our body, which is ironic, you know, since it's our physical form and we are with it forever, until we depart this earth. So learning how to communicate with your body for me has been really eye-opening and it started a whole new relationship with myself. I'm now starting to work on that in terms of, like, wanting to release weight, you know, but right now, the pain, or the pain factor, just being able to go there and recognize hey, body, you're speaking to me, I'm listening, I love you, I care about you. You are important to me. These are the things we tell other people all the time, right, and if I had a friend who was having a hard moment, these are the sort of things I would say to them I love you, you're amazing, don't you see the incredible person that you are? Look at what you do, look at what you can achieve, look at who you are. And you don't need to do any of these things. You are enough. You're beautiful. Look at the strength you have. If we can turn those sort of languages that we speak with other people and turn it towards ourselves, my gosh, the power that you give back to yourself and the relationship that you then begin to formulate with your body is truly it's truly transformative.
Speaker 1:Number four harmlessly the placebo effect. The placebo effect is a phenomenon where believing in the effectiveness of a treatment or intervention leads to actual improvements in health or well-being. Placebos are used a lot in trials and research and treatments. The patient or subject have no idea if what they've been given is the real treatment or one that has no benefits at all, like a sugar pill or saline injection. The placebo effect is where the mind, the belief system, engages and the person getting the placebo over the real treatment actually has noticeable improvements or shows characteristics associated with the real treatment. This happens all the time and it's proof of the power our minds have in creating our experiences. When you believe in the power of affirmations, your mind and body respond positively. Your thoughts create a psychological expectation that translates into real physiological changes, boosting your overall well-being.
Speaker 1:Number five shifting subconscious beliefs. Your subconscious mind holds a reservoir of beliefs and patterns that influence your thoughts, emotions and actions. Affirmations have the power to challenge and reshape these deep-seated beliefs. By consistently flooding your subconscious with positive statements, you overwrite old narratives and create new mentor paradigms. This shifts back to the rewiring of our neural pathways. When we rewrite over those old, probably toxic, unhelpful thoughts and negative affirmations with new ones, this begins to change our subconscious or uncontrolled thinking as well. Subconscious beliefs and thinking take longer to recode because we don't even know they exist, hence why they are subconscious. So this type of work affirmations can take time to sink down beyond the surface level of our conscious thoughts and become subconscious thoughts as well.
Speaker 1:Number six cognitive consistency. Humans are naturally inclined to seek cognitive consistency, which means we want our thoughts, beliefs and actions to align. Affirmations help bridge the gap between your current state and your desired state by encouraging congruence between your thoughts and aspirations. This cognitive harmony fuels motivation and propels you towards taking actions that support your affirmations. When we verbalize our thoughts, our affirmations, we are creating pathways for this to become second nature or more consistent with who we want to be. This is why practicing positive affirmations regularly is super important. The more you do it, the quicker your thoughts will adapt to these ideas and become beliefs and their actions and then trickle down into the fabric of your subconscious framework. I like to think of it as the Oroboros, the snake eating its own tail, symbolizing wholeness and infinity. Building positive affirmations into the core of your being will last forever, as long as you bring your mind back to positive thoughts and affirmations that have become the unshakable cornerstone of your beliefs.
Speaker 1:Number 7. Confidence Boost. Affirmations infuse you with a sense of self-assuredness. By repeatedly affirming your strengths, capabilities and potential, you boost your self-confidence. You can't not Get in front of the mirror for 20 minutes, repeating with conviction, good and positive affirming words and sentences about yourself, and you will change the very energy within you. Try it, but before you come back to me and bemoan it doesn't work for you. Make sure you are sane with conviction. Fake it till you make it. If you have to Work yourself up, you know how to do this to get yourself stressed or anxious or worried. Now try that same power for your good. Pay attention, work through the feelings of awkwardness or being uncomfortable or ashamed. Don't give your ego the power here to let you stop because you feel weird about it. Push through and you will find this incredible shift, even if it's just for a split second, before you allow all the old stuff to come tumbling back in like a roaring wave. You can create this for yourself. I know because I've been there, orquitely standing in front of the mirror, feeling all levels of discomfort because my self-hatred and self-sabotage were such driving factors for me. Let go of your ego and find out who you really are. Trust me, this newfound confidence spells over into all your interactions, your decisions, your pursuit of goals, fostering a positive cycle of achievement and a change in yourself that you'll actually come to love and want to honor.
Speaker 1:Number eight anchoring positive emotions. Affirmations are not just about words. They carry emotional weight. When you repeat an affirmation, you attach positive emotions to it. This is kind of following up on what we were just talking about with the confidence boost by engaging fully with your chosen affirmations, by not just speaking them but feeling them. They become something more than words, more than neural pathways. Over time, the mere recitation of the affirmation triggers the associated positive emotions. This emotional anchoring amplifies the affirmations impact on your mental state.
Speaker 1:You may find, when first starting out, that your affirmations, no matter how positive they may be, may make you feel terribly exposed. You may even cry. This is good. Feelings are good.
Speaker 1:So many of us have been told that our feelings are wrong or unimportant or a sign of weakness. Well, at least I know I have and as I identify as an emotional person, these types of comments, or rather judgments, have led me to feel super bad about myself and made me feel not acceptable, not enough, not worthwhile. But I've always felt my emotions, and my ability to feel is a superpower. But this world will try to take that away from you. Don't let anyone rob you of your empathy, your emotions, your ability to feel things deeply. Yes, you may need to learn to regulate them a bit more so that you can control them and they don't control you. But feelings are good, feeling is important. Feeling is a superpower in a world where too many of us live in fear and denial and end up, quite frankly, with a shitload of mental health issues.
Speaker 1:If you have been told you are too much or you're too emotional or you need to calm down, let that judgement go. Recognize your strength in being able to express emotions is probably just spotlighting the weakness other people may feel in their own inability to reveal their emotions. And if you have stifled your emotions to please others or because it was never shown to you how to express them, just know that releasing yourself to experience emotions can really allow you to walk in freedom that you may have never experienced before. And this is what it's all about, my loves Learning how to embrace, engage and express our true selves, to live authentically, no longer burdened by shame or guilt or doubt or societal expectations, To step into who we are. And that is the best gift you can give you can ever give yourself and others, because when you live authentically, it gives other people permission to do the same. And how do we do this? Well, one way to discovering yourself is to incorporate positive affirmations into your life. Let's talk about how we do that To make the most of affirmations I want you to consider these five strategies.
Speaker 1:Number one be specific Craft affirmations that directly target areas you want to improve or beliefs you want to reinforce. I do wellness, not illness. I am enough. My words create my reality. Number two use present tense. Praise your affirmations in the present tense as if they're already true. This helps your brain assimilate them more effectively. So, rather than I will be healthier, say I am achieving my health goals, or I am getting healthier every day, or my health is improving right now. Number three positive language. Use positive and empowering language to cultivate optimism and motivation. I am amazing. I consistently achieve my desires. I always have positive interactions with others. The world is always seeking out my good.
Speaker 1:Number four consistency. Repeat your affirmations daily, multiple times if possible, to build their impact over time. I have posted notes in my bathroom and every time I go into the bathroom I choose to read at least a half a dozen of them and repeat them until I feel the shift in my body. I do this especially when my brain has tried to return to its old default status of the down and out brigade. Some days I'm in there amping myself up like I'm the coach yelling at the team in the final game of the season. I could be in there for 30 minutes, whatever it takes to remind that old way of thinking that it's no longer the boss, no longer in control and no longer welcome at all.
Speaker 1:Number five believe. Embrace your affirmations with genuine belief and emotional involvement. Trust in their potential to transform your mindset. This is the area where you may need to work the hardest, moving from speaking words into believing them. Keep saying them, say them enough and with that conviction, and you'll begin to change them. From words I'm saying, but feel a bit meh about into words that you take ownership of. In essence, affirmations work because they leverage the brain's malability. They influence your beliefs and actions and align with psychological principles. By integrating affirmations into your daily routine, you harness the remarkable power of positive self-talk, propelling yourself towards a more empowered and fulfilling life.
Speaker 1:I'm going to drop a few of my favorite affirmations on the Reverse, reset, restore, insta and Facebook page. I'd love to know what affirmations work for you if you've been using them, and I'm happy to help you out if you're not quite sure that the affirmation you created is quite right. Remember, as long as you follow the five keys be specific, present, tense, positive language, consistency and believe you can make your words magic. If you like this episode, please show me the love with a like, a follow, subscribe, give me some stars on Facebook. You know? You know all the places and all the things that you can do. It's super easy and super helpful and helping me get messages like this out to others as well. Your support is appreciated. I'm going to let Louise Hay, a huge proponent for affirmations, have the final say as we close this episode. An affirmation opens the door. It's a beginning point on the path to change. In essence, you're saying to your subconscious mind I am taking responsibility. I am aware that there is something I can do to change.