In today’s episode, we take a look at affirmations and how to begin to elicit from the self-affirmations that are working for you in areas of life that are problematic.
Listen to this episode as Dr. Alex walks us through the process to start out with thoughts that don’t feel good and have your affirmations in the middle to help you get to the believability of what you ultimately want.
You can listen to the episodes on iTunes here.
You can listen to the episode on Spotify here.
You can listen to the episodes on Google Podcast here.
You can listen to the episodes on Amazon Music here.
You can listen to the episode on YouTube here.
Dr. Alex Golden
Hi there, Dr. Alex here with you, thank you so much for being here with me, I am so, so, so grateful for you. And it’s always so fun to be able to chat with you. I love doing this. So I appreciate you, I am going to be talking about affirmations today. And really specifically a little bit about affirmations in general, and then how to begin to elicit from yourself affirmations that are working for you in areas of life that are problematic, like problematic thoughts, decisions or beliefs that you have. They’re kind of tricky for affirmations, right? Because a lot of times what people do is they, they do they know what they don’t want, like they don’t want to be sick. So then they make something that’s like, completely the opposite of I am healthy. And then they try to just say I’m healthy, I’m healthy, I’m healthy, I’m healthy, a whole bunch, and their own brain often isn’t buying it. So it doesn’t really feel that good because it doesn’t feel true. And they don’t really get the result. Here’s the thing with affirmations, affirmations are a repetitive invitation to think something, right. And we know that repetition hardwires the brain. But there’s lots of things that make the hard wiring of the brain faster or slower. Kind of like if you put enough emotional charge to something, you don’t need that much repetition, because you hardwire it really fast. That’s the definition of trauma, you only had the one thing happen, but it had such an emotional charge that it got primed. If it’s something that is not that charged or not linked with something like that, then it takes slower, the more resistance that we have to it as in the less you believe it, the longer it takes even then. So if you think something that you agree with, it’ll go faster than something that you completely don’t buy. And the problem is that the way people are taught affirmations is say it the way that you want it. And so people do say it the way that they want it. But it’s so unbelievable, and does not actually address what’s going on and keeping them from that. And therefore it takes so long that people get to the point of saying it doesn’t work. So what they’re saying is I haven’t given enough time for my brain to have the exposure long enough to start buying it. And I’m unwilling to continue waiting that long. Really, I don’t blame them. I also don’t like that approach. And I have tried this right. I’ve tried to do the repetition and just come up against that belief of I’m not really agreeing with it. Like I’m healthy, I’m healthy. I’m not in pain, I’m, you know, I’m totally comfortable in my body. And my brain was like, Yeah, girl, we’re not buying it. I don’t know what you’re saying, but we’re in pain. So you can go sit and do whatever you want. But this is what it is. And so functionally, it felt like nothing was happening was something actually happening in my brain very slowly, probably is the reality. So we’re not talking about something that’s an on and off switch. But we are talking about getting results. And how fast you want to get the results that you want to have is completely up to you. And you will determine how fast you get there. Because you will either take action, change your strategy to speed it up, or you won’t and then you won’t have it. Right. So that is because it’s under our control. And we can interact with it differently, it becomes a lot more fun because we can create something we can take something that’s kind of working but not really and really augment it to make it super super effective. So recently, I’ve started creating audios for myself and we obviously do this within our programs for I have started creating affirmation audios and I listened to them all the time. So I even have some that I play at night for myself and they are completely customized to me. So as we talk about affirmations and kind of unpackaging problematic areas that you might be fighting yourself on. This is the kind of application it is and it’s been amazing to see as I’ve been really committed to listening and creating these and working with myself how quickly I am changing and that’s even saying that with Megan and I do this for a living we do this all the time. So obviously I usually don’t really feel like I’m moving slow because I don’t want to I mean why would I so even now to see the difference with the addition of this has been really really cool. Course I do lots of other things but It has renewed my excitement about affirmations. And it has also doubled down on my apprehensions around them on why they don’t work and why I think a lot of times people are creating things that aren’t, aren’t helping them that much. And then they use the fact that they’re doing affirmations as a way to beat themselves up, but they go look at all this time I spend doing affirmations, and now I’m extra frustrated with myself that I’m not getting better. And so anytime we have that kind of setup, we need to reconsider what we are asking of us. And definitely the real solution is solutions ready to to create resources for yourself that address this stuff. So I’m going to walk you through my process of what it looks like to start out with the thought that doesn’t feel good. And then to have the thought that you’re trying to get to and to have the affirmations in the middle, that help you get to the believability of what you ultimately want. Right. For me, it was like I do feel comfortable in my body, I feel great in my body. And but there were a lot of steps along the way for that, that allowed that to occur. Alright, so before we dig into that I just wanted to share a little bit about our support for the episodes of this is, this episode is supported by our friends at full script. And full script is an online formulary that allows practitioners like my and I to compile and curate collections of supplements at a discounted rate. So this is where we and our family members or friends get all of our high quality and effective supplement options. And while still being conscientious of budgeting, which is as we talk about taking all of you into account, all of it has to make sense. And that’s why we appreciate resources like this. So when you go and visit our collections, you can actually see what we use, and what we’ve used throughout the years basically in our health journey. And then of course, as we have gone into more and more of our Empower transformation into all the elective things we want to be right what are we doing with that good health, we have supported the physical bodies significantly through that as well, because that matters, too. And you can see that reflected in all of our collections, and has been a key part of us relearning to feel safe and supported. In all of who we are re starting with the physical body and going all the way up. So you can check all of that stuff out zesty, ginger.com/full script. And then of course, feel free to reach out with questions. If you have them after you you’ve taken a peek at that. Okay, so let’s head back to affirmations. So I have an example here that I wanted to work through and narrate here on the podcast in real time. So let’s say that the affirmation that you want or that you have heard is I am healthy, right? But when you say that, the thing that you will find, and you can even during right now you could pause this or as I’m talking and just think to yourself, I am healthy. And then see how you feel. Your emotions are a compass. Without them we are lost. That is why emotional repression is incredibly costly, very, very costly to our lives, and as will keep us from our goals. But we are actually using that emotional compass intentionally. Because how you feel saying I am healthy, tells you everything about what you have hardwired around it. Now, most people dealing with health issues, especially if they’ve been around for a while, do have some sticky points, I am healthy because of exactly what I just said, that has not been our reality. Therefore the brain is imprinted with our past. We have portions of the brain that stores past memories and experiences and thoughts. That’s why it is relatively unreasonable to expect yourself to just like forget about the past and step into I am healthy. That’s why it doesn’t really work that well. It would take an extraordinary fee of someone completely transforming on a dime, which there’s lots to unpack there to go from that to all of a sudden ignoring their past and completely believing something new that they don’t have evidence for very few and far between in the grand scheme of things. And hopefully that helps the rest of us feel a little bit better about why we can’t do that and why having a plan for getting there is a much more reasonable supported plan than just hoping one day this guy, you know cracks open and all of a sudden you can be deaf Right. So you’re trying to get to I am healthy. But let’s say and this is again, an example, you may not resonate with this one. And that’s okay. I encourage you to think through what does resonate for you. And if this is business changes a business, right? I’m a successful business owner. How does that feel? What does that feel like to you? I’m an amazing coach that can handle anything my clients bring. How do you feel about that one, this is just the example that I’m going through. And let’s say someone is realizing based off their emotional compass, that really the thought that they do believe is I’ll never get better because I’m broken. Now, this is just an example. But this is one of mine. I have thought this in the past, and this was very much my belief, enough things that happened to me that told me I was broken, and then I kept not getting better. So that statement, at least to my brain, felt very true, because I could actually go and tell you about things that happened to me that supported that and why I thought that and more than likely, you have very valid things as well. And because of that, that’s actually the very reason that brokenness is the reason why your brains not believing I am healthy. So let’s dissect them that statement, how would I craft affirmations to help get myself ready to be someone who can say to themselves, I am healthy and actually believe it. So this may happen over time. And it can be a little bit of time or a longer amount of time, it just kind of depends on the work that I’m willing to do to get there. So to to convert, I’ll never get better because I’m broken. That’s not an affirmation that is empowering anyway, right? You’re, you’re essentially future predicting, when you don’t really know you have no way of knowing if you’ll ever get better, that you’ll never get better. You just made that up. Because I’m broken is again, a subjective experience, someone else could look at you and think that you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. So you thinking you’re broken is your narration of that. And on any given day, you could relate to that more or relate to it less. Or you can even have days where you feel great and confident and don’t relate to it. All. Right. So this whole statement, there’s multiple areas of it that are both untrue, unverifiable and problematic. In that once you think I’ll never get better, because I’m broken, the only way that you could reasonably have appropriate emotions to it, like ones that match this, or the negative ones, you could feel frustrated, you could feel better, you could feel ashamed, you could feel guilty, you could feel despair. But there, you’re probably not. And appropriately so not gonna think I’ll never get better because I’m broken and then be happy. Those the thought and that emotion, the compass is broken and right, there’s or there’s something else leading the compass. But this thought alone will lead to generally not great thoughts, or not great emotions, once we get into the emotions, the emotion drives our ability and our decision making capacity for what we’re going to do about it. So when we’re broken and in despair, there, despair has no motivation, it is not an activating emotion, it’s a deactivating emotion, so despair will keep you in bed thinking, why even try, it doesn’t even matter. Right. And if that’s the case, then we really don’t, we can’t leave this kind of thought unattended. Because what we’re saying is, if we know what the emotional compasses gonna do, and then we still choose to do that, without modifying it, we’re going to keep getting the same results. So we could feel guilty and ashamed about that. But the fact of the matter is, is that that’s what’s going to happen. That is what we have input to the system, and the output is going to be the same. You change that though, which is what we’re talking about here. You change the actions, you change the results. Now you’re up and running on actually making a difference for this. So once you have a statement like that, I’ll never get better because I’m broken. Then, generally speaking, there will be something in the sentence that describes why why your is happening that way, the way that it is, and my example here is actually broken. I’ll never get better because I’m broken. There could be any number of things. I’ll never have a successful business because Instagrams sucks, because they’re my market is oversaturated because I got abused whatever that is what whatever is being modified there in that sentence, and granted, your sentence may have a different structure than mine. But same thing, then we’re pulling out that, that modifier that broken. The question ask yourself is what makes broken or insert in that word, an important part of the narrative? Why? In my statement, why is broken link to never getting better? What about that? Makes it part of your story? Why is an important part to include? And as we work on things within ourselves, there’s always things like this in whatever’s happening, the problem is the problem because there are things like this. So if you’re like, Huh, I’m not saying what this is in my statement, you might need to actually play around with some of the details. And then when you feel that emotional resonance, you’re like, oh, it’s the Instagram that I feel unworthy of right? And you can start to get it. But always there’s a story to this, right. There’s a story of how you got there. And there’s a story of what can happen, that’s bad in the future. So that is why we are working to elicit that within ourselves to get the actual statement. And that is why then we can ask, How is broken and important part of this story? Why is being broken, relevant to health? What I recommend in general is that when we ask ourselves some things, we’re we’re asking this question of our unconscious mind, because consciously, you’re going to fire off the same thing that you’ve probably told your therapist or your friend or your mom a million times, we’re looking to elicit the subconscious programming, the patterns that we have. So the first thing that pops into your head, or the first couple is often an aha moment for people. So whatever it is, that comes to mind, when you’re looking at this, allow yourself to write down whatever first came up, just put it down, even if you’re like, well, consciously, I don’t normally think that good. That’s the point, you’re actually getting somewhere, right? It should, the perspective should shift with the things that you’re doing. If you’re getting to the exact same place as in, you’re still thinking the same, the perspectives are the same, and you feel the same. There hasn’t been enough of the movement, right? And so that is what we’re going for right now. And the first thing that comes to mind on this. And so for here, I have continued that thread of our example. So if broken, why would someone think they’re broken? For me one of the other three things that I wanted to give as options here, they were all three were true for me. And you could have all three active, right? I’ve been hurt. So someone else broke me. I’ve been hurt. Someone else broke me. But now I identify as being someone who has been broken. So I’ve been hurt is a subset to describe the way that the reason that broken is an important part of the narrative. Why would I even include that? Well, I including that because I’m acknowledging in the past, I’ve been hurt. Then the second one that I had was part of broken as I’ve messed up. So I did things that I perceived, were wrong. And by definition that is supporting evidence for why I’m broken. Right? Because people who do things right, generally, and I’m narrating my own beliefs here in the past, if you’re someone who keeps messing up when you know that you shouldn’t be doing other things, right, you know, you should be eating healthy, and then you don’t, then that is how I was describing myself being broken. There’s something wrong with the fact that I can’t just do what I say I’m going to do, or carry through or follow through or whatever. So by definition, then, I’ve been hurt. And I’ve messed up, we’re defining why broken was an important part of that story. And then the third one that I had really prominent was I let them do it. So part of my brokenness also came from traumas that had to do with other people. And the I’ve been hurt, covered that part in some ways. But then I also had unforgiveness towards myself on the fact that some of the situations were actually allowed to be maintained or perpetuated by me, I actually had allowed myself to stay in that place. And that is why I felt felt icky stuff around these statements, the broken the concept of brokenness, and my brain was linked to each of these events, there are actual neurons touching, right? This is how you feel and think the way that you do. That’s why that happens that way. All right. So with that, there are good with those three statements, then, as you get to that, you have asked, Why is this part important? And then you’ve narrated for yourself, the couple of things that are true, what actually defines these things, and now you have new statements, see how we’re going, we’re starting with the one we don’t like so much, then we’re pulling it apart. And we’re actually getting more relevant subtext of statements, and the things that define the very problem that we’re working with. And so then, I have I’ve been hurt, I’ve messed up, and I let them do it, you will have your versions of these things. So then, the last step that we are getting to is converting, I’ve been hurt to a progressively believable affirmation, so I’m going to read it to you, and then we’re going to break it down. So instead of I’ve been hurt, it’s, I choose to believe I can overcome challenges. So let’s break it down, I choose to believe is a very handy believability, like softening opener for an affirmation because you can choose to believe anything I can choose, I choose to believe I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread. I don’t have a lot of resistance in the emotional body to that, because I can choose to believe anything, I can choose to believe that I’m a purple elephant, right. So that I choose to believe as a great part of that because at some point, I’m I don’t have evidence. So I’m just choosing to believe something that I can overcome challenges. The reason I went there for this one, and of course, there’s, there’s choices in this. But if I’ve been hurt, I’m not actually going to affirm that I’m never going to be heard again. Because quite honestly, if someone came along and hurt me after that, and I had been telling myself I’d never get hurt, then I’m basically leaving myself unsupported with my pants down, right? Like, that’s not a very safe thing to do. The same way I wouldn’t tell a child like yeah, it’s safe to jump off that height, nothing will happen to you just believe in yourself. Because what if they fall and hurt themselves? Now they’re looking at me like, Hey, lady, you’re crazy. You’ve told me that I wouldn’t get hurt. And I did. We don’t do the same thing to her inner child that we would do would that we wouldn’t do to an outer child. Right. And so that is why I’m not telling myself I’ll never be hurt. But I can choose to see them as challenges, as opposed to things come in to hurt me. And I can overcome them. I can be the kind of person to overcome challenges. And that is in support to I am healthy. Once I begin to believe that I am someone that can overcome challenges, then starting to believe that you can be healthy is way easier. Because becoming healthy from a place where you’re not you are overcoming the challenges. So the believability factor just went up. Now your brain is trying to get to the point of buying it. So let’s do the second one. I’ve messed up. What does that turn into? Mine was I’m a work in progress. And I can always choose again. Right? So instead of saying, I always do the right thing, which I’m gonna be honest, I don’t and I don’t have that expectation. It’s too unreasonable. And it forgets the thing that I’m a human and I’m imperfect, right? So what I’m going to choose instead is I am a work in progress. And I can always choose again. So when we’re coming up to being healthy, it’s like okay, well what if you’re messing up the diet, being healthy and being a work in progress is a lot more supportive because you can always work in progress and improvement in your diet. If you just mess up your diet all the time. People don’t feel very resourceful about that. Right so I’m a work in progress really supports the healthy journey, because we know that in order to go from unhealthy to healthy, it is a work in progress. And so we are helping ourselves see the bumps in the road as that and I can always choose again right so if you’re a work in progress, you can always choose what you’re working progress on. So then if you’re feeling like you’re messing up, like, let’s say you’re messing up going low carb, and then one day you decide going low carb isn’t for you, you don’t have a low carb problem anymore, right. So these are the things that set you up because a healthy person rolls with the punches. A healthy person can eat healthy one day and then eat trash one day and go right back to being healthy, they have the health reserves, they have the health security, they’re not worried about it. So see how these thoughts of I am a work in progress. And I can always choose again, is so much more believable, and helps you have the mindset to approach yourself now. And if you’re already healthy, you’d already have this mindset. So you might as well start having it now. That’s why we’re doing the affirmations see how this is all working? I really hope you do. And then the third one is I let them do it. Right. And so an option for turning that over is I’m learning to stand on my power. I’m learning to trust my intuition. Those kinds of things are where I went with that, because I can’t go back to the past anyways. So I am healthy. If if I’m someone that’s healthy, someone that’s healthy generally doesn’t feel like people come and just do stuff to them, and they let them do it. Right, you’re not generally talking to healthy people, they’re not also putting themselves in positions that they are in that now. Obviously, there’s goofy things that people do. But generally speaking of the embodied, empowered version of I am healthy, is someone who does stand in their power and does trust their intuition, right. And so you are becoming the identity of it. And it resolves the problem that you’re having, if you let them do it. The answer to that is trusting your intuition next time to know if it’s right for you or not, that’s where things went wrong. You didn’t recognize that at the time of when you needed to remove them or you from the situation. But as you learn that standing in your power, or listening to your intuition are two things that you may need to resolve that to say, I’m not going to let you do it this time. And to come up with that I needed to use my intuition to see what that I thought that and then I had to stand in my power to deliver it to you. So the sub set of I am healthy, then the person, the kind of person that would be healthy. Last thing through this, there is someone that overcomes challenges. They see themselves as a work in progress and have agency to change directions, make other options choose again. And then they’re learning to stand in their power and to listen to themselves and to deliver that internal information externally, in order to navigate their world. When you think about that, from the greater perspective, someone who’s healthy, generally speaking, most now, the nuances might be different for each of us. But generally speaking, most people would be like, yeah, that doesn’t like a healthy person, right, you would have need to have all these components to be that. And when we have followed this thread, they each of these steps that we go through to modify these statements then are of service to the next step. And then they also support each other. So there’s lots of crossover, there’s lots of transitional step wise process here built in, because that’s what’s happening. If something’s unbelievable, you need to start having enough neurons working together to believe it in that general direction to start even being available for thinking it at some point. And that is the process that we’re doing here. I would love love, love to hear from you when you apply this. Because it is I have been taking people through this. And I just love hearing about all your stories. Like I love hearing about the experience of when you can take yourself from a thought that doesn’t work to one that does and then build that evidence for yourself. It is just really cool. And I really love the feedback that yeah, I’m always hearing things from you that like just small nuances that then I’m like, Oh cool. I can I can speak to that we can build this into here. So just it’s very exciting and anytime that you share with us like we’re so so so appreciate it Have I know this probably seems like a really minor thing to you. And you could be like, Well, I don’t know if they want to hear from me. But really we do. We absolutely do. And we really love it. I have been, I’ve been chatting on the phone people. So amazing. Hi, if I’ve talked to you, I today, I wanted to also state that we do have times that Matt, both Mike and I are hopping on the phone with people about the retreats that we have coming up, because we have a couple of very interesting retreats coming up. So we have one in January, that is a over the weekend retreat in person in Virginia, by Megan’s house. And we are going to be meeting in January to talk about compassionate transformation for habits. So it’s a bite sized mini retreat for a weekend and it’s all going to be on top of how do you intentionally become the identity that you want and have it trickle down to the habits that you do day to day, because they’re one in the same. So that is coming up. And then we also have our level one our next practitioner training. So for Neuro Linguistic Programming certification, Quantum Time technique, the subconscious reprogramming certification, life coaching and hypnosis. So that is in April, May like late April, early May, it’s a seven day retreat, and that is in Dallas, we have another one, level one and October. And then everybody that did level one, that year and is ready for Level Two will come to level two in February. That’s kind of our rhythm. If you are a coach or practitioner, a provider, a teacher, a parent, a leader of any kind, they’re either one, either the smaller retreat, or the larger retreats could work. So what we do is just hop on the phone with you and figure out what’s a bit better fit for you. Obviously, we believe in flexibility and customization we always have if you’ve been around you know this is so we roll exactly like that, right? Just shoot us an email, podcast somewhere in there so that I know you’re coming from here. And let’s hop on the phone and we’ll chat about what we got going on. We also have a personal breakthrough one that if you’re not a coach, and you’re and and you’re not hoping to work with people directly or you don’t have kids and stuff like that, then the personal breakthrough retreat is the more chill non certified version of level one. And that’s like its stated personal breakthrough transformation. And it’s also gets to be a little more chill, because we’re not certifying for four different things, right, the the seven day is intense, but you walk away with a lot of resources to help yourself and other people with. So it’s intense. The personal breakthrough is more chill. Of course, transformation is always transformation. And your brain will tell you that but but there will be a lot more of that casual vibe to it. And if that is a better fit for you, then of course we can talk about that too. So shoot us an email and just let us know that this is what you’re wanting to talk about. And we will hop on the phone with you and help you decide which one is best for you. We had such an amazing time in October this last level one. It just every time we do it the the transformations that we get to witness like what people come in with. And then the things that they’re able to do. The changes that they’re able to make are always so motivating for us like it’s next level. People always say like, Oh, when I go to the tree all change. But Megan and I have realized we changed so much because we get to witness all of it. It’s all multiplied. And it’s such an honor. Because the changes that people make are astronomical. When people have the right resources for themselves. They can actually compassionately gently and like, in a proud way and I don’t mean pride, like bad, like they’re truly proud of themselves because they’re like holy cow. I said I was gonna do that. And I said this is who I am and I’m actually living it and and I’m doing it I’m not just like saying and then falling off the wagon and feeling guilty and feeling ashamed and all that noise. They’re like, wow, I decided and I did it and that’s how damn good it feels. And so we always have a renewed sense of excitement about it and you know more and more we come up to a level where it’s like, We’re always excited about it. And now we’re considering doing more and more of these retreats. So you know, whether you come whether you just talk to us or whatever, we really appreciate the discussions around this, hear your guys’s thoughts and hop be able to hop on the phone with you and hear what you got going on and do that with you. It’s truly one of our favorite favorite things about we would say our job but it doesn’t even really feel like a job like this is what our purpose is. And so it truly Jazz’s lab to be able to do that. So shoot us an email support as St. ginger.com just put podcast somewhere in there so we know where you’re coming from and we’ll get you set up in the right way. All right, I’m sending you so much love, and I’ll talk to you soon.