Align Your Mind And The Rest Will Follow

Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

It all starts in the mind, align your mind and the rest will follow. It’s wild the things we tell ourselves that are not true, not nice, and NOT EVEN OUR OWN THOUGHTS! Multiple systems of oppression are introduced to us even before we are born, berating us with expectations. To align your mind, you have to strip away the layers that are not you. For me, this took multiple steps and a lot of time. I still find thoughts that don’t belong to me, and it’s likely I will continue to do so the for rest of my life. Alignment isn’t for the faint of heart. It IS work, but it’s worth it. And you deserve it! We all do.  

First, you must pay attention to the things you tell yourself. Just becoming aware that you tell yourself things is progress. Even if you don’t have an inner monologue, there are expectations you place on yourself. I began taking note of the types of things I would tell myself, all the shoulds and have tos and expectations, the rules, sooooo many limiting beliefs. Even though these limiting beliefs were not my own, they still posed barriers to me being able to love myself, nurture my body, and find my passions. I mean how are you supposed to take care of your body’s needs if you are judging it based on society’s version of what a body “should” look like? You can’t nurture your body when you are focused on hating it. You also can’t make time to find and participate in the things that bring you joy because you think you don’t deserve it. The only reason we hate our bodies or think we don’t deserve something is because that is what someone else told us to tell ourselves before we were old enough to know better. That’s why you start with the mind.

1.    NOTICE what you tell yourself. You must consciously “catch” yourself. This will take as long as it takes. You may cycle through moments of intending to do this and then life happens and you’re back to saying you need to do this for yourself. That is progress. Keep going. Eventually you will start to notice thoughts that sound limiting, you’ll pause and think wait a minute… and then you’re ready to… 

2.    EVALUATE the thoughts. You know those 3 rules of gossip from Socrates? Is it true, is it helpful, is it kind? We can all apply these rules when talking about someone else (not that everyone does lol), but what about applying them to ourselves? Chances are, these limiting thoughts are not true and kind and necessary. I mean, I don’t even know you and I would bet money they aren’t. Once you have the thought and you see it for what it is, you…

3.    REWRITE the thought.  Getting rid of the thought isn’t enough to keep it away. You need to rewrite it, correct it, set the record straight. Different thoughts will be rewritten in different ways. Is it untrue? Make it true. Unkind? Make it kind. It can take rounds and rounds of this process to completely take back your power from the specific limiting belief at hand, however every time you do it is progress.

I’ll walk you through a classic example I’ve experienced (as myself and from talking with others). You have the thought, “everyone hates me” and then punish yourself in some way for it. For me, believing this thought created an invisible weight that held me down and prevented me from being able to do the things I wanted to do. I was frozen, stuck. But is this true? Does everyone hate me? I mean at the very least, some people are at least indifferent when it comes to me. EVERYONE hates ME. Hate requires effort, it’s active, it’s consuming and at the end of the day we are all occupied with our own business and there’s no way everyone has the time and energy to actively hate me. When I stop and think about it, I have no choice but to admit to myself it isn’t true. I rewrite it, everyone doesn’t hate me. Eventually, after practicing this for some time, I was able to move past everyone doesn’t HATE me into some people like me into these specific people love me (yes, the dead count!) into I am loved into I deserve love.

Take a shot, align your mind, and see what changes come about. If you want support or one on one help, schedule a session with me and we’ll get started!

Puddin Devereaux, the goldenest of girls