Just B: Repeat After Me…”When All I Do is Win, Win Win… No Matter What!”

These days I feel like I’ve been ‘winning’! I know this may sound cocky and for the superstitious readers among you. You might even say ‘hmm don’t go and jinx yourself o!’ But let me explain what I mean…to give you a better understanding of this statement. Recently, I have noticed an increased positive state of mind within myself that just leaves me feeling inspired, at peace, well and positive.

Now, this does not mean that I have not faced challenges, I have. I really have faced them! I have been battling some situations of indebtedness which at one point I felt was definitely going to take me under. I have had anxiety over the health of my boys who have had bouts of illnesses; and like any mother, I hate to see my children suffer in anyway. I have had misunderstandings with close loved ones that has caused major breakdowns in communications and has left me frustrated and sometimes isolated. I have had feelings as a single woman that has caused me to feel like I’m on a rollercoaster, swinging from emotions of patience and understanding to feelings of frustrations at unmet needs. So no, life has not all been Rosie and Dandy.

However, what life has been and continues to be, is a journey of evolution. Literally every day, my faith is getting stronger, my reactions to when things go wrong are getting more controlled, and my attitude towards disappointments is becoming more self-reflective. I realized that at some point in my life, I just had to stop playing the same record of life and start making changes.

One key lesson I have learnt is that, I cannot always control the situations I find myself in, nor the things that happen to me. However, my choice of responses, towards those things, will inevitably bring the necessary change for that moment. And that change, most of the time, takes place within me – leaving me with a new mindset to handle life issues.

Let me share something with you. One of the things that has helped me to get to this stage of my life, has been the use of affirmations to change my thinking. If you were to come into my bedroom, the first thing you will notice, is that I have a part of my bedroom wall that is covered with all kinds of yellow, pink and green pieces of small card paper stuck, rather amateurishly, onto my wall. These my dear friends, are my affirmations, statements and prayers (kind of like ‘Being Mary Jane’ type style). For those of you who watch Being Mary Jane, starring Gabrielle Union, you will know exactly what I mean. If you don’t, then just google it to get an idea.

Anyway, when I first heard about the use of affirmations, which are essentially a series of positive statements that you say to yourself repeatedly to help change your thought processes, I really wasn’t convinced. I felt it was strange and unbelievable to speak positively and feel positive about things that were just blatantly nothing near positive. For a very long time, to me, affirmations seemed to be a lie and delusional. But I stuck with it. I was so determined to make this work for me that I also started having them pop up as reminders randomly on my phone throughout the day. However, reading those pops ups, I must confess, got quite annoying at times, as they would often come up whilst I was in the middle of doing something important on my phone. I felt like they were actually rude irritating interruptions to my day! But, eventually, it started to work. Gradually my mindset was changing.

There is power in the words we read, speak and think and they can change the course of our destiny. When I found myself on the negative thought train, my life wreaked havoc! It was so toxic and as a result I constantly attracted toxic situations and people in my life. My mind was destroying me. The battles I was losing in my life, were battles that were lost a long time ago in my mind before they manifested in reality. But now, with my new thought life, I can easily hop off that negativity train and get on to the right way of thinking positively.

There is no big ceremony with affirmations. Sometimes I say them whilst getting dressed, or whilst looking at myself in the mirror and sometimes honestly I’m too tired, lazy or not in the mood to say anything at all, but the mere fact that these are positive words in my presence and I am surrounded by them all day in one shape or another, means that they make an impression on my subconscious mind, which results in the changed mindset I am experiencing daily, and truly, this is what is keeping me on top of things. And oh, all the complaints I listed above just now, have somehow managed to resolve themselves, not all the problems have gone away, but the way I am now handling them is with a lot more maturity, composure and roundedness. Life is not perfect, but your way of thinking can make you sail through the imperfections of life gracefully.

Are you aware of your thought life? Challenge yourself to do a ‘thought audit’ and see where you can change. Comment below on what you learn from your audit, and if you have any other ‘winning’ tips share them too! We are all here to learn and would love to read your comments!

Till then, stay affirmed and inspired.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime