Believing is Seeing…

 

If you’re anything like me, once you realize you want to make a change in your life you try to find the simplest, easiest and least painful ways to do it. It’s not that you’re weak or lazy, its that it just makes a heck of a lot more sense to do whatever needs to be done the most comfortable way possible. Right? If we want to lose weight we adopt the Special K diet*. If we want to get in shape we buy DVDs to do at home when we, ahem, get up earlier each morning. If we want to be more creative, we sign up for email prompts that promise to unearth our inner artist.

Please be clear, I am not dissing any of these methods. I am the proud owner of several yoga and dance DVDs, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the e-courses I’ve signed up for, and up until a few weeks ago Special K was on my weekly shopping list. There is no doubt in my mind that these small steps can lead to big payoffs, but only if they are built upon a solid foundation. What does that mean?

It means you have to actually believe change can happen.

 

Way too often we discount the power our mind plays in our life, deferring instead to courses rooted in ACTION and FORWARD MOTION, in the fine art of MAKING THINGS HAPPEN. It’s an alluring idea. If we just do things differently, things will be different. But if that were the case then wouldn’t resolutions stick, new routines be easily adopted and change be painless? Action piled on top of a shaky foundation has a tendency to crumble at the first sign of fatigue. If you want your changes to really stick, you’ve got to do some digging…

Have you ever tried to use affirmations? These powerful statements have been known to fuel major overhauls in people’s lives. I think that’s great. If they work for you, by all means deploy them as often as feels good. For me though, I like to use them in a different way. Take, for example, the simple statement “There is nothing I cannot do”. Seems harmless enough, right? Easy to believe… Or is it?

Sit for a moment with that statement. Repeat it to yourself, out loud then silently. Feel for any physical sensations in your body as you say it. Do you feel good? What do you hear echo back to you? What images does your mind create for you in response to that sentence? Are they happy images that affirm: “There is nothing I cannot do.” Or instead does your mind call forth other words and images of the not so fun variety, like “Oh, yeah, since when?” “There is nothing you cannot do WRONG” and “If that were true how come you failed here, here, and oh yeah, here too?”

Affirmations might be powerful motivators, but sometimes they can give birth to a whole slew of negative memories and nagging, doubtful thoughts. Why? Because while our brains can think, and our mouths can say, that positive sentence what we really truly BELIEVE is much, much different. And before affirmations, or any other simple step toward change, can have a lasting effect on us for the better, we’ve got to address these underlying thoughts. And this is why I love affirmations; they are a litmus test for our minds.

If what you hear echo back to you is less than motivational you might have some limiting beliefs eroding your foundation and letting the air out of any action steps you do take. To get some reinforcement…

~  Write them down. Let the negative backlash have its say, being sure to write down every less than positive reply to your affirmation of choice. Once you feel you’ve exhausted the peanut gallery and your list is nice and long…

~  Circle the most painful or upsetting pieces of evidence your brain has tossed out. You might see some similarities or themes come up, that’s great. Pick the ones that hurt or bother you the most…

~  Then prove yourself wrong. Your mind is an evidence machine, but just as well as it can recall screwups and let downs, so can it bring back times when you’ve shined and done what no one else could do. This isn’t simple positive thinking (though there is something so right with that!) this is reworking the evidence in your mind to disprove your negative beliefs. The more evidence you can find to refute it the less of a hold it will have on you going forward. If you can’t find any evidence to disprove it…

~  Then find the lesson you learned. If you really can’t find anything that proves your limiting thought wrong then find the best lesson you learned from the failure or disappointment. We learn from bad experiences as much, if not more, than from good ones, so even if something felt all bad at the time, looking back you will see exactly what that experience gifted you. Repeat with each painful thought that came up.

~  Then celebrate. Whether you found evidence to disprove that eroding thought, or discovered just how much wisdom you gained because of it, you now have a far more solid foundation to build upon.

So how will you know when your foundation is strong enough to build your dreams on? Repeat that initial affirmation and listen for what you hear. It’s true that some nay sayers might still pipe up, but are they the loudest thoughts you hear? And how do you feel in your body now as you say it? I’m gonna guess that the good mojo flowing after all that evidence collecting and wisdom accumulating is going to feel pretty awesome. This is the place from which affirmations get their power, and this is where you want to start building from. Whether your goal is to write a novel or run a marathon, you’ll get there a heck of a lot faster and easier if you truly, honest to goodness, believe you can.

*I am in no way condoning the Special K diet!