The Power of Positive Affirmations
Did you know I have two degrees? I have a bachelor’s, yes. But I also have a Ph.D., a Ph.D. in being mean to myself.
I'm so good at the negative self-talk, just call me Dr. Negative-to-myself. Self-critique, self-shaming, self-degradation, self-disrespect, I’m good at it all. I have a Ph.D. in being mean to myself with a specialization in shame.
Before I was aware of how pervasive this problem was, every time something didn’t go as planned, my brain would automatically (like a light switch) start saying, “Liya, you suck, you messed up, this is all your fault, you are a terrible person, you deserve all of this because you lack foresight. How could you be so stupid?”
I spent years being mean to myself. Every time I was triggered, my emotions took a life of their own and rolled away, down the hill, and I'm doomed to catch them. My negativity controlled me.
All this shame burst into flames when I was looking for a job. Because I already had so little self-confidence in my abilities, getting rejected from job after job hurt ten times more than it should. I just did not have the mental tools to take myself out of that dark place. So I spiraled down.
It became clear I needed to talk to a professional about this. So I called up a life coach (because therapy is expensive if you’re unemployed). I blubbered this to her in between heaps and heaps of tears streaming down my face.Why was I such a trash person? Why is this job search so fucking damaging? Why can I not stand my worth in front of more senior professionals?
After patiently listening, she made one suggestion,
“Have you ever written positive affirmations to yourself?”
“Do I ever what? Positive affirmations?"
"Yes, you're saying all these terrible things about yourself, have you ever tried writing down some positive things about yourself to balance it out?"
No, I have never.
How you can do it
We are told to exercise on a daily basis because it’s good for our health. We do repetitive motions like 3 sets of 12 reps of bicep curls. Exercises like positive affirmations are the mental bicep curls to strengthen our mental muscles. If there’s one thing I am willing to invest my time in, it’s in developing a healthy brain.
Identify what part of self-love are you struggling with. Is it your body image? Is it your parent’s harsh judgement still ringing in your head? Are you embarrassed you “lack” something = you’re not good enough?
For my situation, it was my self-confidence in a job setting. My eastern-culture parents never once told me they were proud of me. This means I have a hard time selling myself in professional settings, where self-confidence is the most important tool you can use.
After you know what you struggle with, listen to those voices.
You’ll notice immediately, after you identify what you struggle with. The negative voices, will show up. LISTEN TO THEM. Write down what they say. You want to catch them in the act, gather your evidence.
For me, all I needed to say to myself to trigger this was “I’m not good enough to get a job”, and lo and behold, the shame hurricane blew through my front door. I wrote down every self-deprecating thing my nasty voices could spew out. I wrote it down on paper, and stared.
Now you see your darkness, show yourself the light
After you gather your most important piece of evidence, that piece of paper of all those bad things you believe about yourself. Immediately start writing down things about yourself that you wish were true, or that you wish the voices would say instead.
For me, I just need a little injection of self confidence. I needed to hear the things that my parents will never say to me. I needed to hear“I’m really proud of you”
“I believe in you wholeheartedly that you will get a job”
“You are a light that deserves to take up space”
“I’m really proud of your accomplishments, remember when you did X, Y Z? That was amazing.”
“I will never shame you for frivolous mistakes again”
So Liya, what happened next?
I wrote every empowering quote I could think of, and I had sticky notes side by side on my bathroom mirror, my door, my light switch, my doorknob, everywhere. I sometimes took one sentence, and wrote it 20 times before I started my day, or before a job interview.
When I woke up in the morning, or when I went about my day, or opened my agenda, there it was:
“You are a fierce-ass, boss-ass woman”
“You are capable and awesome”
“Today is a beautiful day to be alive”
“Go kill it”
“I believe in you”
“I am so proud of how far you’ve come”
“I am surrounded by an abundance of blessings”
The result? It actually worked. At first, it was hard to believe all these nice things I wrote about myself, but I couldn’t ignore what was literally, right in front of me.
Slowly, I was being a little nicer to myself. Slowly, I wasn’t so hard on myself.
I had visual evidence in front of me that I was not as horrible as my brain made me out to be.
Just seeing simple words like “you are going to nail this job interview and you’re awesome and I love you” repeated back to me, was so powerful.
You need to practice positive affirmations everyday.
I am not saying positive affirmations will replace actually professional help, or that all mental health issues are as easily curable as writing nice sentences. But for me, this worked profoundly. I needed to develop a healthy parent in my brain, because the current way I was talking to myself, was self-sabotaging.
Religious folk have been saying prayers for millennia, and indigo sells fancy quote pics for $32. Positive affirmations are in our lives everyday. I’m not reinventing the wheel, just making the wheel work for me.
So if you’re reading this, I hope you’ve said something positively affirming to yourself today.
You are fucking awesome. And you deserve to believe that.
Cya next week,
Liya.