My son had just climbed 1,000 feet aged 3, wearing crocs! He was exhausted and extremely hungry. The thing was, the food and drink were back down with my wife. He was too tired to go another step but it was just too dangerous to even consider carrying him. ’I can’t do it’ he exclaimed bursting in to tears from tiredness, hunger and frustration. I told him to say ’ I can do it, I can do it, i can do it’ out loud three times.
I am in no doubt affirmations work. Most of the clients I see use them and you can see the affect, however they are using negative affirmations such as ‘I’m not good enough’ or mine used to be ’I don’t deserve good things’ – I became aware of mine during our infertility journey. These negative thought create stress chemical in your mind and body – infertility is stressful enough without this adding to it!
All thoughts impact your brain chemistry in one way or another. Regular thought patterns create well worn paths in your brain. However, you can undo these with new thought patterns and create new ones with new thought patterns.
A couple of years ago we climbed a waterfall in Yosemite. We were nearly at the top when we saw that the path became a vertical climb. My wife decided to wait there with the bag, having no head for heights, and my son I went alone from there. We made it to the top
Nearly there…
and enjoyed the marvellous views. ’I can’t do it’ he exclaimed. I told him to say ’ I can do it, I can do it, I can do it’ out loud three times. When he did this his physiology changed and he immediately started the decent. Again about half way down to where my wife was he stopped saying he couldn’t go any further. We repeated the exercise and he continued down to the food and drink. After a short refreshment break he continued down the path to the base without any further stops – well he apart from the last few hundred yards when he could just go longer and fell asleep on my shoulder within seconds!
The thing is, I do believe in affirmations and use them from time to time I think they are a bit like a first aid and can help you in times of trouble. However understanding the nature of thought can transform your experience in life far beyond the use of affirmations.
Any thought that is not in the present moment is imagination. It is not reality. You don’t know it is going to happen but we spend so much time believing it. For example, part of me was telling myself we were not going to get pregnant because I believe I didn’t deserve good things. At the time it was my reality, but the reality was created by thought. Then came the fertility test results. They kinda backed up my thoughts, they had a field day saying ‘I told you so’ and switched to ‘you are never going to be happy or fullfilled without children’. Again, my thoughts were projecting in to the future telling myself a story – a negative affirmation, that was working! However they were just thoughts. We don’t know what is going to happen in the next five minutes, let alone three months or two years. We went through a grieving process and found sense of peace and acceptance of where we are on our journey and went on to conceive naturally against ‘all odds’.
I believe acceptance for the here and now is far more powerful than any affirmation. Acceptance does not mean giving up hope, far from it. It means ignoring the noise & stories in your head and being in the present moment, that’s the only place you can be because it is where you are. When we let go of our thoughts we find out default state of peace and wellbeing.
The best affirmation I recommend is ‘I accept myself as I am today’.
In what way can you begin to accept yourself as you are today? Try the saying this out loud and then listen to what is going on inside.
If you want help letting go of the noise in your head then you might like to use one of our programs that help you find more of a sense of peace on your journey as well as actively utilising the mind-body link to guide your body to what you want it to do.
Contact me for a conversation on how I can support you do this on your journey. I work with women and couples all over the world via Skype/phone.
With love
Russellx