Around the time of my first yoga teacher training in 2014, I was just in the beginning of my remission after a few years of difficulties with Crohn's disease.
One day when I was discussing this in training, my teacher Lizzy recommended the book "You Can Heal Your Life" by Louise Hay.
I jotted down the title in my notes.
Admittedly, I never read the book. But those words-- you can heal your life-- stuck with me and became a mantra that I could return to whenever I needed the reminder.
A quick Google search of affirmations brings up a lot of suggestions that, for whatever reason, don't really resonate.
Over the years, many of the affirmations that have landed with me have come from random conversations, passing statements in a yoga class or guided meditation and, of course, book titles.
In a yoga class I took with Jen Pastiloff 6 or 7 years ago, she said "it's not about me," and that became an affirmation that helped me remember not to take things personally, one of The Four Agreements identified in the book by Don Miguel Ruiz. Anytime someone says or does something hurtful, I return to those words: It's not about me.
On Tim Ferriss's podcast, Jamie Foxx shared that he will often say to his children, "What's on the other side of fear? Nothing!" If I'm being honest, I didn't fully understand this quote. But for whatever reason, when I was scared to quit a job a few years ago, those words kept returning to me. I repeated them over and over again and somehow they gave me the courage I needed. Once I got past the fear, as you can probably imagine, nothing happened to me.
One of my favorite books, "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie, has a powerful title much like You Can Heal Your Life. I return to this title nearly as often as I return to the wisdom within the book. Similar to another favorite mantra I've shared before-- right now it's like this-- Loving What Is is a helpful reminder to accept the present moment.
My husband Junior and I have been rewatching The Matrix movies. In the first movie, there is a scene where the main character Neo encounters a child, dressed like a Buddhist monk, who is holding a spoon and willing it to bend by simply looking at it. After giving the spoon to Neo, who was staring at it with confusion, the child said "Do not try to bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon. You'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."
"There is no spoon" becomes a sort of affirmation for Neo, something he returns to later in the movie when he needs to access his power to change his reality.
While we may not be able to bend spoons with our minds, this story is a reminder that our thoughts and beliefs shape our realities. This, of course, is the purpose of affirmations.
In "Loving What Is," Byron Katie gives us a script to challenge these thoughts and beliefs. Much like the child in The Matrix, she asks us to try to realize the truth. The first two of the four questions she presents to challenge a thought are: 1. Is this true? and 2. Can you absolutely know it is true?
When we realize many of our thoughts and beliefs are simply stories we have made up, we realize there is no spoon. And every time we reframe a thought or challenge a belief, the spoon bends.
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