We’ve talked a lot about our relationship with our spouse.  The relationship we have with someone is just our thoughts about them.  But today I want to talk about your relationship with you.  So if our relationship with someone else is our thoughts about them, what about our relationship with ourself?  It’s the same!  Your relationship with YOU is the thoughts you have about yourself.

What is your relationship with you right now?

So I want you to think about the thoughts you have about yourself right now.  What thoughts does your brain offer to you?  Does your brain tell you that you are amazing?  Or does it tell you that you aren’t enough?  Does it tell you that you might be good at some things, but you are severely lacking in other areas?  Does it tell you that you should be different than you are?  And probably one of the most important things to think about….are you believing your brain?

Our minds are programmed to seek out and focus on negative beliefs about ourselves and the world around us.  This is called a negativity bias and it’s our brain’s pre-historic way of keeping us safe.  It kept humans from being eaten by Tigers for many many year, but now this thought process holds us back from achieving success and the things we want in our lives.

Did you know that it was option to NOT believe the thoughts your brain offers to you?  You really don’t have to believe that they are true.  It’s truly a choice.  You get to decide what you want to believe about yourself on purpose!

Your past and others don’t define you

I have a lot of clients who tell me it’s hard to believe good things about themselves because of things that they’ve done in their past.  And what I want to tell you (and them) is that you don’t need evidence from your past to believe in yourself today.  You can believe whatever you want about yourself NOW.  Going forward.  You don’t need to believe what anyone has said about you.   Not your husband, not your mother-in-law, not the mean girl from 6th grade.  You don’t need to believe what your own brain tells you.  

Believing

You can choose to believe whatever you want about yourself and you don’t need anyone’s permission to do that.  You can believe that crazy things are possible in your life.  You can believe that you are amazing and capable.  You can believe that you are beautiful.  And you can believe that RIGHT NOW!  

There doesn’t need to be caveats to any of those beliefs.  It doesn’t need to be… I will believe in myself when…. Or I will believe this about myself when…  You can believe whatever you want to TODAY!

We have been conditioned throughout our lives to doubt ourselves.  But we need to retrain our brain to get rid of our fears and our self-doubt and start believing what we want to about ourselves. 

Did you know that everything you have in your life right now is because you believed it was possible?

• If you are married, it was because you believed it was possible
• If you have children, it was because you believed it was possible
• If you have a home, it was because you believed it was possible
• If you have an education, it is because you believed it was possible

Everything you have in your life right now is because of what you believed.  So what do you want to believe about yourself? What do you want to believe about your future?  You can totally make it come true.

So how do we believe things about ourself that we haven’t in the past?  

Identify what we want and start believing it’s possible.

• • If you have a hard time with this, I like to even put that little phrase “it’s possible” when I’m thinking a new thought that maybe I don’t quite believe yet.  
    • It’s possible that I am totally amazing
    • It’s possible that I am beautiful
    • It’s possible that I am an awesome life coach
    • It’s possible that I am a wonderful mother
  • When your brain starts to see that it’s possible, it begins to open up to that possibility.  Then you create emotions which fuel actions to make it come true.  But it takes that small little belief first.
  • But the brain is so incredibly powerful…it can deliver literally everything you want through the power of belief.

And how do we have that small little belief?  It’s just a matter of CHOOSING to think it over and over.  It’s a matter of practicing those new thoughts.

When you practice those new thoughts you create the emotion that will drive you to get where you want to be.  

Have you ever heard the term, fake it until you make it?  Of course you have.  But it actually works, because you are believing the thought and acting as if it were true until it really IS true.

Limiting Beliefs

Sometimes we think thoughts about ourselves that really limit us.  We think we can’t do something because we’ve never done it before.  We can’t lose weight because we’ve never done it before.  Or we’ve done it and gained it all back.  We can’t get a job because we haven’t had one in 15+ year because we’ve been staying home with our kids.  So who would hire us now?  We can’t be a single mom and provide for our kids because we’ve never had to do that before.

But just because you haven’t done something before, doesn’t mean you can’t do it now or you can’t in the future.  You couldn’t walk before you learned how.  And I’m guessing you fell MANY MANY times trying to learn as a toddler.

We get so caught up in our limiting beliefs that we don’t give ourselves the awareness and opportunity to think otherwise.  Over time those beliefs shape our choices, which in turn, shape our lives.  But you can re-shape your future just by choosing to believe something different NOW.

I want you to really examine the thoughts you have about YOU.  What goes on in your brain when you think about yourself.  Ask yourself if that thought is serving you.  If it isn’t, you can choose to change it if you want.

Challenge your limiting beliefs about yourself.  Are they really true or are you making assumptions?  Even if there is evidence in your past, could it be possible that things could be different in the future?  Who would you be without this limiting belief?

If you have a limiting belief about yourself, look for evidence that the opposite is also true.  It gives your brain something different to look for.

If your belief is that you aren’t capable of doing something, look for evidence of what you are capable of.  How could the opposite be true?

Visualize yourself being different.  The mind’s ability to improve results through visualization is incredible.

Learn to trust yourself

I want you to learn to trust yourself.  Look to your own intuition.  Don’t look outside of yourself for answers, for validation, for purpose.  You have all the answers you need for your life already.  You just need to open your mind to the possibility in order to access them.

When you are asking yourself questions, it’s important to phrase those questions positively so you can get a positive answer.  Negative questions will always give you negative results.

For example

• Negative: Why can’t I ever lose weight?
• Positive: How can I lose weight and make it easy?

• Negative: Why can’t I ever keep the house clean?
• Positive: How can I clean the house and make it fun?

• Negative: How can I make my marriage less miserable?
• Positive: How can I make my marriage wonderful and exciting?

Do you see the difference?  Just in the way you phrase the question to your brain, you will get completely different answers.

I love taking questions about how to improve myself to the Lord in prayer.  I always come away with amazing answers as the Spirit speaks to me.  For me these answers come in thoughts.  Sometimes these thoughts come out of nowhere and I know that they are truly from the spirit and not from me.  Right now I’m working on trying to distinguish different thoughts from my Heavenly Father and my Heavenly Mother.  I believe that my Heavenly Mother is guiding me in ways that only a mother can.  I like to think that my mother’s intuition is often Her guiding me.  Now, do I know this for sure?  Nope.  It’s just a thought.  But it’s a thought that makes me feel closer to my Heavenly Parents and it serves me because I am acting out of love and in my best interest. 

Another way to learn to trust yourself is to keep your commitments to yourself.  Most likely you keep commitments to others – you take care of your kids. You do things for your spouse. You do things for your calling at church.  You volunteer in the kids classrooms.  Whatever it is.  But do you show yourself that same level of commitment?  Do you follow through on what you say you are going to for YOU?  This is how you learn to trust yourself.  Maybe you trust yourself in some areas but not others.  So the way to build that trust is to start REALLY small and work up to what you really want.  Want to be committed to exercise.  Tell yourself you are going to take a walk 2 days this week.  Keep that commitment then you can work up to 3 days and 4 days.  When you start honoring your commitments to yourself, you’ll learn to trust yourself even more.

Showing Up for Yourself

The last thing I want to talk about it showing up for yourself.  

How many times do we get dressed up for other people and other things but we don’t show up that way for ourselves?  We might get dressed up and do our hair and makeup if we have to go somewhere or be seen by others, but don’t you always feel better about yourself when you are dressed and put a little effort into yourself each day.  I sure do.

So even if you don’t have anywhere to go, the only people that are going to see you is your kids, take the time to show up for yourself.  Get dressed.  Do your hair and makeup.  Put forth the effort FOR YOU!  Because you are totally worth it!