This month, I’m trying a new approach! For a couple of years now, I have been posting one video a month telling you what to expect in the month ahead, and in the rest of the month’s posts, sometimes I refer to it, and sometimes I don’t.

This month, I’m starting a new process to see how it goes. All of the blog posts that I post for the rest of the month are going to directly relate to the energy preview. After all, our healing occurs fastest when it’s happening at all levels, and if I truly want to help us all become more whole (and I do), why not support that? That is, why bother to tell you what’s coming and tell you really quickly how you can handle it without giving you more concrete help? So that’s what I’m going to try to do, starting right now. All of the posts are already related in some way—mostly because they include my reflections on my own healing, which I think others can benefit from, but I’m pledging right here and right now to try to do better to make their relevance even better for you.

If you have already watched the October energy blueprint video (you can catch it here), you’ll know the energy of the month supports forward movement—Progress!—and that to really, truly make a lot of progress, we need to get some good sleep. I promise that later this month, I’m going to go into how to get better sleep, but I’m offering something else right now because (1) this topic is about mindset, which is incredibly important to making any sort of progress at all; (2) I’ve been telling everyone for years (literally) to read the book Sleep Smarter, and this is the perfect chance for you to empower yourself by reading it if you haven’t started; and (3) I’ve previously mentioned ways to get better sleep (here and here).

The Importance of Mindset

Let’s get right to this mindset discussion. This is incredibly important to discuss even before the more concrete ways of getting more sleep because if you don’t change your language, you’re not going to change your mindset. And if you don’t change your mindset, you’re not going to change your sleep.

Don’t get me wrong—getting more sleep definitely helps improve your mindset, but to make the biggest leaps, you first have to be aware of your current mindset. That’s why today, I want to talk about becoming aware of the language you’re using—especially inside your own mind (sometimes referred to as self-talk)—so you can begin to shift it, which will also shift your mindset.[1]

Have you ever found yourself using a phrase and not being sure where you picked it up from or why on earth you started using it? It’s amazing how a phrase can actually affect our behaviors and our thoughts without us even realizing it. You are probably familiar with the meme that says that “bless your heart” is basically an insult in Southern. Think about all those phrases that, like “bless your heart,” have second or even third meanings, depending on how they are said or who says them. Layers and layers of meanings. Do you use any of them?

A Poor-Mindset Example

A few months ago, I found myself realizing that I use the phrase “I’ll worry about that later” when I thought of something that needed to be done. It may seem an inconsequential phrase, but it had big implications for me. The phrase automatically cast me into the role of a worrier. Worrying has been almost second nature to me at some points in my life. For a while, I fully embraced the masculine energy taught to me by our culture—the one that says if you want something, you have to work to make it happen—but then if you aren’t getting the results you hoped for, it’s easy to fall into worry that you aren’t doing everything “right.” After all, that mindset says if you aren’t getting what you want, it must be your fault—you don’t want it bad enough or you aren’t trying hard enough. You are clearly doing something wrong, even if you think you’re doing all correctly.

Worry therefore sets me into uselessly spinning my wheels: If it’s my fault I’m not getting the results I want, even though I’ve done everything “right,” I’m obviously just going to keep screwing up. This thought process disempowers me, and I become unable to look at the situation as an opportunity to learn. Plus, disempowerment causes procrastination. After all, what’s the point of doing that thing if I’m just going to make it worse by trying to fix it?

With this whole process, whatever I was “worrying” about eventually turned from molehill to mountain.

In contrast, my naturally easygoing personality allows me to fall into periods when I trust totally that everything is going to work out fine. In those times (which were generally frowned upon by persons of authority in my younger life), I was just living, not striving, and enjoying life. I like those times much more, so I have striven hard (which are words used in that masculine mindset) to let go of my learned tendency to worry, because the role of worrier is definitely not one I enjoy, exactly because it leads to a downward spiral that can be hard to escape.

I’ve written previously about how I repeat the five Reiki principles every day. If you’ve read that post, you’ll likely remember that the very first principle says, “Just for today, I will not worry.” And yet when I remembered something that I couldn’t take care of right away, I would say—either mentally or aloud—“I’ll worry about that later.” I’ll bet on some days, I said that phrase more than I repeated, “Just for today, I will not worry.” And which thing is most likely to happen?

The one I repeat more often.

Even while I was telling my mind once or twice a day to not worry, I was essentially programming my mind to keep worrying.

D’oh!

Think about the habit of your words. What are you saying to yourself? Are you, like me, giving yourself mixed messages every single day?

Changing My Mindset

In an effort to retrain my brain and get rid of this negativity of worry, I’m trying to be more mindful of this habitual phrase and its effects on my behavior and mindset. Now when I catch myself saying I’ll worry about something later, I stop what I’m doing for just a moment. I take care of the thing immediately if possible. If that’s not possible and the task is a complex one, I try to take at least the first step. And if that’s not possible, I simply add the item to one of my to-do lists (I have both a long-term master list and a daily list) and rank it in order of priority. No more saying I’ll take care of it by 3 PM/tomorrow/by the end of next week and maybe doing it. I have rated the thing in terms of priority relative to everything else on the list so I know that I will eventually get to it when the time is right—or not, if other things keep taking higher priority. It may not seem like much, and it may still look like procrastination, but this practice has actually retrained my brain so I take care of things sooner.

Even if I can’t take care of the task right away, with it written and prioritized on a to-do list, I don’t have to give the thing any more headspace. That prevents my mind from spinning into a worry cycle.

As I look back … now, I’m painfully aware that I was operating from a limited set of choices. Now it seems easier to motivate myself by saying, “As I begin on this, the wall begins to dissolve, because as soon as I start, I’m immediately learning more about my energy, my abilities, the task—I’m immediately making it easier because I’m taking the first step.”
NLP: The Essential Guide

I have seen so much change in my overall attitude and productivity levels after this simple modification of one habitual phrase—which I hadn’t even been aware I was saying—that I encourage you to take some time to be very conscious of the things you say to yourself and to others, both aloud and in the privacy of your head. And ask yourself how the things you’re saying affect you, and if the words affect you negatively, how can you change them into something more positive?

What phrase or phrases have you noticed are problematic in your life (maybe triggering less-than-optimal behaviors), and how did you reframe them?

Or if you have identified the phrase and/or behavior and have tried to change it but just aren’t making the kind of progress you’d like, feel free to contact me. My new Reiki & Akashic Records Clearing program has been helping people just like you make those changes!

Note

[1] For a deeper dive into how language affects mindset (and can also reflect the personality), check out chapter 4, “Upgrading Your Self-Concept,” in the book NLP:The Essential Guide, by Tom Hoobyar and Tom Dotz with Susan Sanders (2013, William Morrow Paperbacks).

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