A Year Of Character Development: Higher Self Starts Here

Hi lovelies! Welcome to Episode 1 of the Character Strength Affirmation Series.
This introductory episode sets the stage for a year-long journey of character development. While there WON'T be affirmations in this episode, it’s designed to establish a foundation for understanding virtue, character, and affirmations. What are they? Why do they matter?
Grounded in ancient philosophy and modern science, this series invites you to reconnect with your innate strengths, fostering balance and harmony in your everyday life. Whether you’re looking to boost confidence, overcome negative self-talk, deepen relationships, or cultivate a greater sense of well-being, this series is designed to offer a practical and uplifting path to personal growth.

Transcript

In a world that often focuses so much on what we lack,

It's easy to overlook the incredible internal strengths that each of us possess.

Grounded in ancient philosophy and modern science,

This series invites you to reconnect with the innate strengths that make you who you are,

Promoting balance and harmony in everyday life.

Whether you're looking to boost your confidence,

Overcome negative self-talk,

Deepen your relationships,

Or simply invite a greater sense of well-being,

My hope is that this series offers a practical and uplifting path to personal growth.

Hello beautiful people and welcome to episode 1 of the Character Strengths Affirmation series.

I am truly so excited to be starting this journey with you.

It has been in the works for a while and a long time coming.

This first episode is an introduction to set the stage for what's to come.

So while there will not be affirmations in this episode,

It's designed to establish a foundation for understanding what is virtue,

What is character,

What are affirmations,

And why do they matter?

Each episode following this one will be devoted to exploring and affirming one of the 24 character strengths identified by positive psychology,

All of which fall under six key virtues.

These strengths and virtues are universal and they form the foundation for our highest selves.

Before we dive into that,

Just a little bit about me.

It feels important that I introduce myself to you.

My name is Hannah.

Most of you may know me as a certified meditation and yoga teacher based in Atlanta,

Georgia.

After working in the mental health field for several years,

I became really passionate about understanding how we can use positive psychology to improve our sense of connection,

Meaning,

And purpose,

Particularly in the face of hardship.

I became a certified positive psychology practitioner and I currently work as a research assistant at the Humility and Advancement of Positive Psychology Lab,

Otherwise known as the Happy Lab,

At Georgia State University.

Honestly,

Y'all,

More important than the trainings and the certifications,

I'm just somebody who has personally benefited tremendously from understanding and integrating character development into my own life and I feel called to share what I've learned in a way that's accessible and relatable to all of you beautiful people.

Through these affirmations,

My hope is to inspire a shift in focus from unattainable ideals to grounded,

Purposeful living that uplifts you and the people around you.

Alright,

So to kick things off,

I think it's helpful to understand what we mean by virtue and character strengths.

Virtues are the core moral qualities we value in ourselves and others that shape our actions and our decisions.

So I'll be listing them all out soon,

But an example of this would be wisdom.

Character strengths,

On the other hand,

Are the specific positive strengths we each possess that help us embody those virtues in everyday life.

These strengths are what allow us to bring our virtues to life.

An example for wisdom would be curiosity.

I want to bring attention to the fact that they are in fact dynamic and not static,

Meaning that we can grow and cultivate them with practice.

The framework we'll be using is the one developed by Dr.

Christopher Peterson and Dr.

Martin Seligman.

Martin Seligman is often referred to as the father of positive psychology.

So this framework,

Organized through the Values in Action or VIA Institute,

Is intuitive,

It's well researched,

And it's culturally inclusive.

By the way,

I'm not affiliated in any way with the VIA Institute.

I'm just a fan and I really appreciate their work and find that their framework is my favorite one.

It's the best one that I have found.

So it's the one we're using.

On their website,

They have a free character strength survey,

Which you can take.

It takes like 15 minutes.

It'll give you a clearer picture of where your strengths lie.

It'll rank them in order.

Again,

This is free.

It's just a recommendation,

But not at all required for this series.

It's a great tool for deepening self-awareness and supporting insight and growth as we move forward through the series.

Just bear in mind,

It is not a divine revelation.

It's a self-report survey,

So your results can vary based on your mood,

Your mindset,

Or even where you are or who you're with when you take it.

So take your results with a bit of discretion and remember that it's just one snapshot of who you are,

Not the whole picture.

Okay,

So earlier I mentioned that there are six virtues and then 24 character strengths that get organized into those six.

I'm going to review them now,

But there's no need to remember all of them.

We'll be diving into each of them throughout the series.

The first virtue we'll cover is courage,

Which includes the character strengths of bravery,

Honesty,

Perseverance,

And zest.

I wanted to start with courage because I think engaging and authentic growth and healing takes courage.

The second virtue is humanity,

Which includes the character strengths of love,

Kindness,

And social intelligence.

I love this virtue.

I love love,

So this one will be really fun.

I'm really looking forward to this one.

The third virtue is wisdom,

Which includes the character strengths of creativity,

Curiosity,

Good judgment,

Love of learning,

And perspective.

And now that I read these,

I'm like,

Who am I kidding?

I love all of these.

They're all so great and wonderful.

So the fourth virtue is justice,

Which includes the character strengths of fairness,

Leadership,

And teamwork.

The fifth virtue is temperance,

Which includes forgiveness,

Humility,

Prudence,

And self-regulation.

Again,

As somebody in the mental health field,

This section is one that just feels really,

Really relevant for a lot of people,

So I think this section will be really meaningful.

And the sixth and final virtue is transcendence,

Which includes appreciation of beauty and excellence,

Gratitude,

Humor,

Spirituality,

And hope.

I think it'll be really great to finish up with this one and end on hope.

So throughout the series,

We'll celebrate the strengths you already embody and explore ways to cultivate balance in areas you may wish to develop.

Speaking of balance,

I would like to touch on an essential truth about virtue that dates back to Aristotle's concept of the golden mean.

If you've noticed a change in my tone,

It's because I,

I'm gonna be honest,

I,

So embarrassed,

I spent months writing the scripts for this series.

I've been working on this for a long time.

And when I first started,

I was like,

Yes,

The more the better.

Virtue is great.

We love virtue.

And then like a month ago,

I was reading for some of the research for a literature review I'm working on,

I was reading about Aristotle's golden mean,

And I was like,

You know that mean that's like,

That was me.

That was me realizing that I had a completely wrong understanding of virtue and had to start from scratch.

Okay,

So the golden mean.

This operates on the understanding that virtues exist as a balance between two extremes,

Excess and deficiency.

So for example,

Courage is a virtue.

But too much courage can lead to recklessness.

Too little courage can result in cowardice.

So the goal,

It turns out,

Is not to promote virtue for virtue's sake,

But to encourage a sense of balance and authenticity.

Throughout the series,

I will be sharing not only areas that I have really worked to try and cultivate,

But areas that I've really had to reign in and really find more of that balance.

And I'll give personal examples as a means of modeling what that can look like.

This is a good time to offer a quick disclaimer.

I love spirituality.

I love science.

I am constantly learning and growing.

But I am NOT perfect.

And I am NOT enlightened.

When I first started teaching meditation in my late teens and early 20s,

I felt this pressure to always perform wisdom and virtue.

And honestly,

It led to a sense of disconnection from myself and those I worked with.

Now I see that these practices are ways to embrace our humanity,

Rather than escape it.

In my experience,

It is only through facing the reality of what's coming up for me,

And allowing myself to be chipped away at,

Which,

Man,

It can be uncomfortable.

But that's how I can become truly refined by life.

This is also a good time to bring up a caution going into this series.

There's this term called spiritual bypassing,

Which happens when we use spiritual practices to avoid engaging with difficult emotions or experiences.

Relatable.

Similarly,

I've noticed what I call virtue bypassing,

Which is where we intellectualize virtues like forgiveness,

Without addressing the emotional or physical layers of our experience.

My hope is that these affirmations help you meet yourself where you are,

Have courage and have grace with yourself.

It is through meeting ourselves where we're at that we can ever begin to move forward.

And you know what,

Some days,

Some seasons,

We may find ourselves cycling back to old states.

Believe me,

Friends.

There have been many a time when I have gone back into an old journal or two,

And seen that I understood something then that I'm struggling with now.

And that is always,

That is always a moment,

You know.

But the truth is,

Is that we come back again and again and again to the same lessons,

Not because we didn't learn anything.

But because each repetition provides an opportunity to approach the lesson with greater awareness,

Offering insights and wisdom that may not have been accessible before.

In the tradition that I come from,

Life is viewed as cyclical,

Much like the natural rhythms of the earth.

So seasons change,

But they return.

Just as the sun rises and sets each day,

Our lessons may recur until we fully align with their meaning,

And our soul's purpose.

So revisiting them isn't a mistake,

It's a necessary rhythm for growth.

Whether that resonates with you or not,

The challenge that I propose to you is to consider what would it be like to observe whatever's coming up for us?

As we recite these things,

As we,

As we connect with these parts of ourselves?

What would it be like to do so from a place of non-judgmental,

Open curiosity?

What would it be like?

Food for thought.

Okie dokie.

So we've covered character.

You've heard my disclaimers.

Now let's take a bit of time to address the affirmations part of this.

Affirmations are positive statements that we repeat out loud,

Typically framed in the present tense,

With the intention of challenging negative thought patterns and nurturing resilience,

Self-awareness,

And growth.

Also,

Culturally,

There are practices similar to affirmations across pretty much every spiritual and religious tradition,

Where you're saying the same thing out loud with a quality of repetition to imbue it into reality.

For those of you who are cautious about the woo-woo aspects of the practice,

Or those of you who are like me and just love research,

Please know that there is compelling empirical support for the benefits of affirmation.

I'm going to spare you and not just like go full literature review on it.

I will find a way to cite the studies as part of the post somehow,

Even if it's just like a link to a Google document that has all of the studies that I recommend looking at.

But I will say for the next few minutes,

I will be getting a little bit science-y.

Stay with me.

It does not get terribly dense.

And if you know anything about placebo,

Understanding the underlying mechanisms of how something works,

Makes it more likely for it to work for you,

Because it encourages a sense of belief or a sense of faith and openness,

One might say,

To the practice.

And also,

I just think informed practice is really important.

So stay with me.

Over the last couple decades,

Studies have shown that self affirmations can boost self-esteem and confidence,

Reduce stress and anxiety,

And improve mood and overall well-being.

In other words,

They work.

But how do they work?

Our brains rely on neural feedback loops to process information efficiently.

To conserve energy,

Which is one of the brain's main priorities,

The brain defaults to well-established pathways,

As these are stronger and easier to activate.

So if you've spent years thinking in a particular way,

That way of thinking becomes like a well-traveled path in a forest,

Becoming clearer and clearer and easier to travel again and again.

Over time,

These habitual thought patterns become essentially wired into the brain,

Shaping how we perceive and interact with the world.

Since our nervous system extends throughout our entire body,

These thought patterns don't just affect our minds in the way that we think,

They influence how we feel emotionally and physically.

So essentially,

What this is saying is,

The more you think a certain way,

The more likely you are to continue thinking that way.

And not only that,

The more likely you are to continue feeling a certain way and behaving a certain way,

All of which perpetuate one another.

So for example,

If you've habituated the thought,

I'm not brave enough to take risks,

That belief will limit you from tapping into your courage and seeking out new challenges,

Even when the opportunities for growth are right in front of you.

This becomes compounded by our evolutionary negativity bias,

A survival mechanism that helped our ancestors stay alert to danger.

The best way that I've heard the negativity bias be explained is through the smoke alarm analogy.

It's very difficult to make a smoke alarm be perfect,

And to know exactly when somebody is in danger and exactly when they're not.

So instead,

We wire it to be more sensitive than it needs to be,

Because it's safer to go off when it doesn't need to,

Than for it to not go off when it does.

We're the same way.

It's safer for us to be more attuned to danger than we need to be,

Than to be not attuned to danger enough.

Nowadays,

Rather than it being used to save us from a Bengal tiger,

It's being used to make us anxious about deadlines,

And about our futures and our self worth.

And we have a reaction as if it's life or death when really it's not.

So for instance,

Let's say you're trying to show kindness to someone and they brush it off.

Your mind might focus on that negative interaction instead of recognizing how many people you've helped over time.

This bias can amplify negative thoughts about our experiences and more specifically about our character.

We can undervalue our own kindness and feel like we're not living up to our own standards of honesty,

Resilience,

Or creativity.

As that last example illustrated,

In Western cultures where individualism is emphasized,

This tendency often manifests as super harsh self criticism.

So all of that put together,

We have a series of thoughts and belief systems that result in feelings and behaviors that perpetuate those thoughts and belief systems that are hyper focused on ourselves,

And are leaning unnecessarily towards the negative.

For me,

Affirmations are a powerful tool to break this cycle.

They offer a way to rewire these negative thought loops,

Shifting the focus from judgment to growth and possibility.

For example,

Replacing I'm not brave enough with I am courageous and facing challenges can help you tap into your inner strength and take on risks with confidence.

Or instead of thinking I'm not creative,

You might affirm I am resourceful and find new ways to express myself.

These small shifts help forge new pathways in the brain,

Allowing us to more fully connect with our potential.

My hope is that these affirmations will help you reclaim how you see yourself,

Fostering a greater sense of well being and empowering you to nurture the strengths that are all ready in you.

Again,

These strengths are universal.

The potentiality for all of them exists in all of who we are.

All we have to do is cultivate them.

However,

Going back to that spiritual and virtue bypass conversation we had a couple minutes ago,

It's important to note that understanding and identifying with something on a cognitive and intellectual level is not the same thing as resonating with it or embodying it.

It is necessary but not sufficient.

Through experimenting with what it's like to say statements out loud about ourselves,

We can observe what feels natural and comfortable and what feels downright inauthentic and dissonant.

Both of these experiences offer us a tremendous amount of valuable insight into who we are in this moment.

The statements that are easy to say and embrace,

Savor them,

Appreciate them,

Stand like a mountain in their truth.

The statements that are not so good,

That feel uncomfortable or foreign or even like blame lies,

Go ahead and say them anyway.

This is where the work happens.

This is where we are rewiring those neural networks.

This is also where we gain insight into unhealed wounds,

Limiting beliefs,

And ingrained biases or judgments toward a particular way of being.

It's great material for journaling or discussing with a counselor,

Or a trusted friend,

Maybe even someone who's doing the series with you.

And as I've already said,

I will be honest about which ones have come more naturally to me and which ones I personally have struggled with.

There are so many books and courses and podcasts and magazines that promote this idea that if I can just be super healthy,

And if I can just make a ton of money,

And if I can be stunningly gorgeous,

And if I can have tons of followers on social media,

Then I will be successful and I will be fulfilled.

And I don't know about y'all,

But I think that the challenge for me,

Like all of those things are great.

All those things are wonderful,

If they are being motivated by something greater than yourself.

You know,

I think that it's this idea that we're doing it solely for ourselves that is leading so many people to be really unhappy.

We are social creatures,

We evolved together,

As collaborators,

As connectors.

My purpose in creating this series is rooted in my deep belief that personal growth and self awareness are not just tools for individual fulfillment.

They are keys to a greater sense of well being for everybody.

When we cultivate our strengths and work towards balance in our own lives,

We are not only enhancing our own experiences,

Which is very important,

You know,

It's important that you be happy and healthy for the sake of your own experience.

But it's also so that we can create a ripple effect that can positively impact those around us.

By intentionally developing virtues like courage,

Strengths like kindness,

We contribute to a more compassionate and resilient society.

Ultimately,

Y'all,

My goal is to help empower you to nurture your unique strengths,

To embrace who you truly are,

And to live a life that not only uplifts your own well being,

But in doing so serves the greater good of humanity.

So with that,

I'll get off my soapbox and just say that I am truly so excited and so grateful and humbled that you've decided to join me on this journey.

Next episode,

We will be getting started with the virtue of courage and the character strength of bravery.

Before we go,

Let's end with a quick blessing.

May we be open to the ebb and flow of our own growth,

Knowing that the path of self discovery is ever changing.

May we learn to honor both our strengths and our weaknesses,

Knowing that each contribute to the richness of life.

And may we embrace the wisdom that comes from reflection,

Finding peace in the process of becoming who we are meant to be.

With patience,

And with grace,

May we cultivate the character that reflects the depths of our hearts,

And the clarity of our purpose.

Thank you so much for being here and for sharing the intention to work on ourselves so that we can be better for ourselves,

Better for the people that we love and the people that we come into contact with,

Better for humanity as a whole,

And better for the world at large.

May we be well,

So that we can do good.

Go forth with peace and many,

Many,

Many blessings.

And I will see you next time.

Reviews

Hannah, I am so grateful to have found you and this series. Your voice and your content are so easy to listen to which enables me to really resonate. Thank you so much!🙏💝

The blessing at the end is extra powerful and the thought & clarity in this tall is illuminating 🙏

Covers many important concepts succinctly in a way that is informative without being overwhelming. Looking forward to future entries in the series.

Informative, thoughtful, balanced, genuine, interesting - this is an excellent resource to support personal growth. I feel empowered and motivated to keep spiraling up!