Ep 81. Affirm It

If you want something for yourself but don't have it, you feel it.  What you think about not having it will determine how you feel and I think for most uncoached brains, it's unpleasant. Our thoughts influence how we feel so if we focus on how it's never gonna happen, we're going to feel BAD. 

Some people pretend they don't want what they want because, why bother... But that desire is bound to come up and reveals itself as shoulda and coulda.  It feels like regret. Regret is haunting.

Today's episode is about no longer denying yourself the life you experience you want. A life experience that feels good, that feels BETTER and more you, right now. Today is an opportunity to affirm what that life is like.

Transcript

0:00 Amy Linsmeyer

If you aren't willing to be honest with yourself about what it is you want to experience in life, if you aren't willing to even say the things out loud to yourself, then you sure as hell aren't putting it out there in the universe, and I don't know how you're going to obtain it. 

You're listening to Roots Change and today's episode is all about affirming yourself.

I'm Amy, a life and wellness coach. You're listening to Roots Change, A Grow With Me Podcast. Every week, myself and others come on to share something we've learned in our own journey in hopes it helps you and yours.

What does it mean to affirm something? Now, this might not be the technical definition. I can give those to you if you want 'em, but according to me, affirming something is saying what is true to you, and standing in that truth, in that belief. It's put in your money where your mouth is. People can affirm things all day long and it doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make it true.

Affirming something is stating it as a fact and asserting it strongly and publicly validating, confirming, and expressing a strong belief in even emotionally supporting or encouraging someone. That's how we affirm each other. 

My friend told me a couple of months ago, she sent me a message and said, You know what, Amy? I can't wait until you blow up. She didn't mean like physically blow up. She meant my coaching business. She meant this podcast. She meant Roots Change community. She meant what I'm about, what I'm putting out there in the world. She met my mission. 

She can't wait for me to blow up. 

She can't wait until other people figure out what it is I'm doing and get on board. She can't wait until more people stand in their power. Because that's what this podcast is all about. It's about uplifting others. It's about creating the change that we want, and it's no different in my coaching business and it's no different in my community and it's no different in my friendships.

All the connections I have are in support of my personal commitment, my personal mission I have to help as many people as possible go from, this is as good as it gets to living an empowered life they love. 

My friend believes in me. 

She believes that what I said I'm going to do, I will achieve. Her belief in me is empowering. It's uplifting. It helps me to believe in myself, and I needed it. 

I received that message on a day I was in mixed belief. What I mean by mixed belief is a little of this and a little of that. You kind of sort of believe, but not fully. You know it's true in your heart of hearts, your higher self knows, your higher self believes, but your brain makes it hard to always trust what you know.

That's mixed belief. 

It's when you know, but you don't always know and it's uncomfortable. It keeps people stuck. It keeps people from moving forward. It's why we quit things that we actually care about. It doesn't mean you don't believe in yourself. It basically means you're human. That's why affirming each other matters.

That's why it's important.

I do believe that when we have something in our heart when there is something that we desire, something that we want, an experience we'd love to create or be a part of, I believe it's there because it's supposed to happen. It's already lining up for us and unfortunately, What happens sometimes is we experience different things in our lives and we forget.

We forget what's possible. Our belief in self becomes limited. Our self-concept is warped. Shame is introduced, a disease that kills, that keeps us small, that keeps us from what we want, that keeps us from achieving what we're here to achieve. It keeps us from creating the life that we want, a life that we would love, the life that we deserve, and came to be a part of.

Affirming means deciding. It means proclaiming to yourself, to source, and to the world that what it is you believe about yourself, what it is you believe you will achieve, what it is you believe you will create and experience and live. That's affirming it.

As a society, we are great at the shoulds and coulds. Well, the shoulda and coulda only happens because you didn't do this: you didn't tell yourself you could. You didn't give yourself permission to move forward on what you want, and that's what I wanna talk about today. 

My son, Tyler, is 21. Tyler is my oldest child. If you haven't listened to this podcast, honestly, I don't know if I've ever said my children's names on this show, but Tyler is my oldest, and with his permission, I'm going to share a story, something that really inspires me about him, that helps me to explain why affirming it matters so much and exactly how to do it.

I was just making dinner. It's literally still on the stove, and I was thinking about how proud I am of him. I'm so proud of all of my kids. I'm seeing my oldest two from a new perspective because they're both out of high school and they're creating a life for themselves, and they're both doing better than I was. Definitely at that age, but friends, they're doing better than I was at 30, and I am so proud of who they are and I have nothing but pure positive anticipation for what is going to happen in their life. 

From a really, really young age, Tyler started to affirm himself. I don't even think he knew what he was doing. This shows up as early as kindergarten when he started school. He decided that he wanted to play basketball. He loved it. He would watch the team. This was a very small school, literally probably like 150 people K through 12. And Tyler would watch these kids play basketball and he decided, At five, (I think) that he was gonna play basketball and he was gonna be amazing at it.

He spent his years between kindergarten and sixth grade affirming it.

Here's what I mean by that. 

He told everybody. He told everybody, Someday when I grow up, I'm gonna play basketball. When I'm in sixth grade, I'm gonna play basketball. And it didn't just stop there. He didn't just say he was going to, he believed it. It was true already. He was getting ready to be ready to actually play.

As far as Tyler was concerned, this was a fact. This was happening. There was no way he wasn't going to make the team and he wasn't going to be good. And we supported him. We affirmed his belief. We affirmed him. 

How did we do that? By showing him we believed in him. By fueling his passion, by getting him the tools he needed to learn how to play. Basketball, basketball Hoop, the little tykes plastic one, yep. He sure had it and he was out there all of the time. 

Every year, he would say, in four more years, Mom, in four more years I'll be on the basketball team. In three more years, I'll be playing basketball. In two more years. 

And he didn't just wanna play it. He wanted to play good. He wanted to be a starter, and he believed that he would. He planned for it. He learned the strategy. He wasn't even able to play and he had a position. Tyler started his basketball journey as a kid, as a water boy, and then as a team manager. He learned and studied the plays. He learned the strategy. He was small. He was at least a foot smaller than everybody else on that court, and by the time sixth grade rolled around, he was ready. 

He played his heart out and we soaked it up. We loved it. We poured love into him. We poured life over him. The crowd rallied around him. He wasn't the best player on the team. He's not the one who scored all the baskets. He played just about every position, but he loved it. He started his whole sixth grade on, I mean, it was a small school, but I, I, I don't think it would've mattered. I think no matter what, Tyler would have rose to the occasion it took to be where he wanted to be because he believed it. 

He didn't go on to play college basketball, and for him that was fine. He was on to new things. But the point of sharing this story is what's possible is to show you what's possible and what happens when you believe in yourself when you affirm yourself. When you say this is happening, and then you step out of the way and you let it happen. You believe it so hard, it can't not come. Other people believe it for you. 

That's what my son showed me at such a young age. Before I even knew what affirming yourself meant, before I believed in myself, he was showing me what it would look like when I did. 

Tyler was about his shit and he was affirming what he wanted and making space for it to show up, and I was thinking as I was cooking dinner... How the hell did he know to do that? And then it dawned on me. I really honestly think it was Thomas Thomas, the Tank Engine. 

Tyler was obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine. Loved, loved, loved trains! Loved all of the characters, and loved the show. And I remember him sitting on the floor playing with his trains and saying to himself, I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. 

Friends, we don't always pay attention to the messaging that we're receiving. I believe Tyler was retaining and taking to heart the message from that show. I believe Tyler learned at a very young age, even before his mom, how to create what you want. 

I think therefore I am. I believe therefore I receive. 

I think I can. I think I can. 

And Thomas always did. He was on time and always reliable. And that is my son. That is Tyler. Throughout his entire life, if he says it's gonna happen, it is. I trust in him. I believe in him. If he wants to do something, I know he will achieve it. I know he'll find a way. He can visualize what he wants, see it happening, and it's as good as done.

For me, it wasn't that easy.

It took me a really long time to ask for what I wanted. It took me a really long time to even allow myself to go there in my brain. To even imagine what life might be like outside of my current circumstance. 

You see, I didn't believe better was possible. And because I didn't believe better was possible, thinking about what I might want that is different than what I had was uncomfortable. It was awful. It felt bad. But the truth is, regardless if I acknowledged what I wanted or not, I would've still felt it because I did. 

I was in despair. You know the feeling when you really wish you had this and you don't, and you feel the not having it part and it doesn't feel good?

Yeah. Do you know what that is?

That's you knowing that you want different and being afraid of going after it. 

Failure is better than never trying. Failure teaches us things that later lead to success, so regardless if you say nothing, you're still damned. Damned if you do, Damned if you don't, but mostly damned if you don't because it's never gonna get better if you don't say the thing. If you don't affirm it. If you don't ask for it, if you don't align yourself to it, if you don't take action towards it, then you're just going to live a life full of regret and be haunted by that. No thank you. Been there, done that. And oh, by the way, It sucked. 

Intentional living is the way to go. Affirming it is a step. It's part of intentional living. It's showing that you can follow through for yourself. It's having your own back. If you think you are protecting yourself from pain, by not saying the thing jokes on you, you're not, you are still experiencing it. You're living it, but you're not doing anything about it.

Change takes work. It's a choice, followed by action. 
Affirming it is a piece of it. 
It's a piece of the pie.

So listen, if I asked you today what you want and your mind draws a blank, here's an invitation to not do that anymore. To get clear, to be real with yourself. Grab a pen and a piece of paper, and get something good playing. Get some good tunes that you like. Light a candle. Do whatever you need to do to set the mood and ask yourself a question at the top of the page.

Just write: What do I want from life? What do I want to experience in my life? 

And without hesitation, without judgment, without resistance, without correcting yourself, just write whatever comes up. Write it down as much as you can for five minutes. Until you're so bored, you can't stand it! Until your fingers hurt. However long it takes. Let everything in your brain come out. Show yourself you know yourself. 

Stop hiding what you want because you are afraid of not having it. Because you're afraid of what might happen if you actually try to move toward it.

Let all that go. Don't worry about it. Just be real.

Just write. 

Let it feel good. Let it be fun. Because it is! Use your imagination. You are remembering a part of you that you might have been suppressing. 

This is an invitation to enjoy the creation process. 

This is literally the first thing you do when you create anything, you envision it. You get clear about what it is that you want. What you want from your life, what you want in that painting, what you want in that sculpture, what you want from that song, what you want from that job. 

It all starts with clarity. It all starts with self-awareness, and that's what this exercise will help you do.

When you're done and you've read it and you feel good and you are surprised by what you wrote and you're like, Holy shit, I forgot about that. I didn't know that would still be there. Guess what, it is. 

Surprise, surprise. We can suppress what we want, but it doesn't go away. You've been feeling it for a long time. Today is a step towards affirming it. 

Step one is getting clear about what you want. 

Step two is deciding what you believe is possible right now.

Step 3 is affirming what's possible. 

Step four is building new beliefs for yourself. Finding the evidence of what's possible by making progress and seeing results. Rinse, recycle, repeat. 

I love affirmation work and Sunday I'm gonna be doing exactly that. I'm hosting a 60 to a 90-minute workshop, not quite sure yet how long it's going to be. It's called Affirm it Scared, and we're gonna be doing this work. Literally what we just did. That's how we're gonna start. We're gonna regulate our nervous system, we're going to envision the life that we want for ourselves. We're gonna start writing without judgment, what it is we want for ourselves from this life, from each other. And then we're gonna decide a few things. 

We're gonna decide what we want to focus on, and we're going to create affirmations around it. We're going to decide to take action around it. We're gonna build new beliefs by taking action and affirming ourselves daily.

This is how shit changes. This is how you experience transformation. This is how you get what you want. 

Roots change, with every choice you make. Until the next time, you are loved, you are worthy, and you can achieve anything.