First things first I just want to say that I am proud of you. You landed here because you want to change or you’re at least thinking about how you are going to change the narrative that plays in your head. Just for that alone I feel like you should pat yourself on the back. Backstory on me I lived a really hard life, my family would joke that I should sell my story rights to Lifetime because there were so many twist and unexpected tragedies that happened in my life it would make for a great and suspenseful movie. I cried a lot of tears and internalized a lot of pain, rejection and disappointment. There was a point in my life that I started to stop daydreaming and having aspirations because I didn’t want to have to deal with what I felt was the inevitable disappointment that came along with me fighting to achieve a goal. It felt like sadness was my only friend and all I knew.
It’s really hard to see a yellow photo if you are wearing blue tinted glasses. Meaning its hard to see the bright side when you are conditioned to see sadness. While I don’t deny that indeed your life is hard, and you have had loss and hardships which have landed you to feel down. What you are asking for from this bit of reading is how to change your view of life, so that even though tragedy or misfortune is around you ,you can still find happiness or a little bit of a glimmer of light and hope that will help you through the tough times. This is what I want you to achieve also. What I first want to explain to you is that the brain is a machine that feeds on routine, a routine was set in place at some point in your life, maybe your father always said hurtful and cruel things about you early in childhood, or maybe you went through a year or lifetime of bad events that caused you a lot of stress. All of these events create a routine in your mind that lingers in your subconscious. An example is when anything good used to come my way I would immediately get anxiety and panic and start thinking that this too will be taken away from me or messed up because that was what I was used to. This did two things, it stole away the joy that I should have been feeling for having anything good come into my life and if in the possible chance it was taken away I would have suffered twice; once in the beginning and then at the end of the ordeal. Doing what I did set a routine for my brain to perceive anything good as bad and a threat. I could never enjoy the good in life I only felt comfortable in sadness and to feel comfortable in sadness you have to be sad which is why I always was.
I wanted to change, which is what you want if you’re still reading this, so I will tell you what I did, it wasn’t easy, but it is doable. And even if you don’t do the tips I give you, please still read the information because at a later time everything you read on this topic from me or other sources will come together when you are ready, and you will indeed implement them and overcome.
Affirmations are the first step in trying to change your outlook on life and yourself. Even if in the beginning you don’t exactly believe in what you are saying. What we are doing by saying positive affirmations is downloading new vocabulary. A tip is to actually verbally say these things out loud and not just read them in your mind, it works better and quicker. You can say things at the beginning and end of each day like : “ Today will be a good day” “ I will focus on the positive things today” “ Goodness and kindness will find me today” “ I will turn my negative thoughts into positive actions today” “ I am worthy” “ I am beautiful’ “ I will achieve my goals today”. These are just a few you can say if they resonate with you. I have embedded a youtube video that you can follow along with until you get the hang of saying positive affirmations about yourself without prompting. I remember when I started to do these affirmations I would cry and think they were a load of crap but I still kept doing them and in time the negativity I thought about myself and my life was replaced with these phrases that were foreign at first but then started to become my identity.
The next phase now that you have started to do the affirmations and downloaded the new positive sentences into your mind is to bombard your thoughts with the positive affirmations when they arise. I call it “thought bombing”. I actually did this on new year’s day; with the ending and beginning of the year a lot of negative thoughts come into my mind, whether this year would be any better or worst than the preceding years, will I actually achieve my goals, find love, and elevate my career. I had a lot of negative things to say about my own future and I got sick of it so every time I recognized a bad thought I overwhelmed it with positive affirmations. It is tedious and takes discipline, but it worked. The positive affirmations allow you to later on be able to identify when you are thinking negatively and create a new routine, and the thought bombing helps to not allow negative thoughts to take root anymore.
Waking up and not having a positive outlook on the day is weighting on the body, soul and mind. It becomes like a shackle that you don’t feel you have the key to. Start your day with a positive affirmation, even though you are sad, even though you are fed up, even though you are heart broken. And I realize you are fighting with yourself when your forcing words out of your mouth you don’t believe are true, but you are going to need to fight the negative thoughts. Every day will be a battle but you are worth it, do not allow the world to beat you down and don’t allow the mistakes of others in your life whether it be an abusive or absent father, a controlling mother, an emotionally abusive relationship or just really messed up events to dictate the rest of YOUR life. I really hope this lights a small fire under your butt because I know your outlook on life can change, you just have to change the way you’re seeing it, and the way you are talking about it.
