Maybe I should learn to shut up..

This is how my day kicks off, most of the time..

I wake up, stand by the mirror, or as I am still lying in bed, repeat a daily mantra that goes something like this, “I am beautiful, I am confident, I am intelligent, I am respectful, I command respect, I am successful.” These affirmations have been revised a few times, but generally, this holds the core. They have had such variations as, “I am a hard worker, I am tolerant, I am honest, etc.” When I started, I looked into the areas in which I lacked and these are the values I wanted to adopt for myself.

I was introduced to this concept about a year ago and I decided to implement the use of affirmations into my everyday life. It has worked out quite a bit, I mean my outlook on life and my personality is not the same as it was in February 2019. If I have to be honest with myself, however, I should mention that my mantra chanting mornings have only resulted in mediocre results so far. As I have been evaluating my progress this past month, I realised there has to be something improper about the way I am doing this. It had to be me because I am fully convinced of the effectiveness of affirmations.

You see here is the thing about affirmations. They have the power to influence your subconscious mind. As you may or may not know, the brain is divided into two elements, if I may say in layman’s terms. That is the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. As I am typing this right now, I am awake, and my conscious mind is at play. This particular part of the brain is the one that influences or commands the subconscious mind. What the conscious mind says, the subconscious takes subjectively with no questioning or reasoning. So if my conscious mind says in the morning, “I am successful”, and then two hours later I utter the words, ” I can not do this, it’s too hard”, my subconscious is not going to kick into reason and say, “No no, no! you just said this in the morning.” It takes the new information and stores it right up until action time.

The subconscious mind takes care of your everyday life emotions. Happiness, love, fear, anxiety, you name it. These emotions, it has stored up to be released when it thinks it’s the right time to release them. The emotions are influenced by the words you say consciously, the things you listen to, read or see. So when in a conscious state, you have always said some negative words even in a joking manner, the subconscious mind has been storing these and creating emotions that will run your life. If for example you always say, even jokingly, “I can not swim, because I am afraid of water, I can not breathe underwater, water freaks me out” (that’s an example directed at me because that’s what I have always told myself). The day you decide to jump into the water and finally learn to swim, fear creeps in, the subconscious mind starts to remind you of all these phobias that you have. Why? because your conscious mind told your subconscious of your fear, and it stored up that information with regards to swimming so that when swimming time came it was ready to release those fear emotions that you said you have. Your conscious mind could have forgotten about that, as it does forget. However, one thing about the subconscious is that it does not forget. Whatever you feed it, it stores. The funny thing is that sometimes you could have even exaggerated fears to your friends, you were probably even joking, right? Well, that part of your brain does not get jokes, it does not reason, it just stores. Better watch those words next time.

The unfortunate part is that even though our conscious mind commands the subconscious mind when it comes to every day making of decisions, the subconscious mind has the upper hand. Research says the subconscious mind controls our lives up to 95% of the time. The good news, however, is that, if your conscious mind feeds the unconscious mind rightly, the best thing that can ever happen to you is your subconscious mind controlling your actions. If it had been engraved in your subconscious that you are a very brave person, and you have been supporting this with your words, you are yet to display the bravest act of your life.

Now back to why affirmations haven’t been wholly working for me. Take a guess.

After saying these wonderful affirmations, my day takes a whole different twist. I work in a fine dining restaurant, I am a waitress there. I love the job, but there is one downside, the money is very bad. See what I have already done? I have exaggerated, the money is not always that bad, in fact, I do make enough, especially when I put my A-game and give good service. Yet when people ask me about my job I always tell them all is well except for the peanuts I get. Now, this is someone who was busy chanting about how successful she is in the morning.

If I am not complaining about the peanuts I get, I am complaining about my bosses, or how bad the economy is, or what a bad job government is doing. My subconscious mind quickly forgets about the one minute of repeating affirmations in the morning. And when I decide to take action do something worthwhile in my life, it kicks in to say, “Eerrr, sorry, bad economy, bad government, selfish and cruel bosses, the system will eat you up, honey.” That’s fear now, and I hesitate.

How did we get here? It was me, busy saying things I do not know because I found a group of friends complaining about the government and I wanted to look smart and show that I also read the news. This started with me quickly opening my mouth without thinking and saying, “I am so broke, I don’t even know how I am going to pay rent this month, some people are lucky, I have bad luck.” And most of the times those negative words I say are not even true. It’s just that everyone else is complaining that their money situation is dire, so I also have to make them feel better, I believe, by telling them that we are in the same boat. It doesn’t matter why I said it. The bottom line is that I said it, and Mr subconscious says, “oh! Storage, storage, storage, I will release this when money time comes.”

That’s it, folks, I am done. If we are to talk about how ridiculous the Crocodile’s scarves are and how he has messed up Zimbabwe, I am out. I know all that, so what? Let’s talk problems with the idea of finding solutions, then, and only then, am I joining the party. I am done sabotaging myself.

So maybe i should learn to shut up, and talk only when i know how to properly feed my subconscious mind.