Benefits Of An Intentional Affirmation Practice

Tune in to hear the amazing story of how Kari went from politics to mindset and astrology and how affirmations helped her out of depression. Learn what an affirmation is, how it's connected to living with intention, and what makes a good affirmation versus bad affirmation. Finally, use her six simple steps to enhance your affirmation practice!

Transcript

Welcome to Mindset Reset Radio where we're on a mission to help millennials get intentional in life,

Business,

And career with practical advice and real stories of living with intention,

The good,

The bad,

And lots of the ugly.

I'm your host Jess and my goal is to flip your perspective on what's possible with the help of the amazing intention getters I get to have as guests.

Find my community on Instagram at Jessica Tiefels so we can keep these conversations going while supporting one another to stay intentional every day.

And finally,

If you love this podcast,

Please subscribe,

Share,

And review.

I would greatly appreciate it.

I'm so excited to introduce you to Keri Raquel who's a super cool chick that I actually met on Instagram.

She is the founder of Affirmation Destination which is a mindfulness community that hosts 30-day affirmation challenges for every 30-day month.

So for those of you who don't know,

Those months are April,

June,

September,

And November.

And I'm one of those people that totally doesn't know that off the top of my head.

She's also an evolutionary astrologer and shares her insights on her own podcast,

Soul Full of It.

So welcome Keri.

Thank you so,

So much for being here with us today.

Hi Jess,

Thank you so much for having me.

I am beyond excited and stoked to join you for this episode.

Yeah,

And I love this topic.

So before we dive in to everything affirmations,

Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Lovely.

So I am,

Like you said,

I'm an evolutionary astrologer.

I'm an aspiring tarot reader.

I'm stepping into that metaphysical realm right now and have been playing with that for a little while.

And I love everything that has to do with positivity that's not toxic.

I feel like that's an important thing to mention.

I like to say authentic positivity,

Which is how I like to embrace having a positive mindset,

Which is very in line with affirmations.

I really care a lot about self-empowerment as well.

And that's where all my work really ties together is the metaphysical realm,

My passion and love for astrology,

Meeting with my desire to improve the world one positive thought at a time.

Beautiful.

I love that mission.

And I love,

Love,

Love authentic positivity because I could not agree more.

Like I can't stand like the Instagram posts that are like,

Just be happy.

Think positive thoughts.

And I get the idea behind it,

But it's like,

It's okay to be bummed out.

It's okay to feel emotions other than happiness.

Totally.

Totally.

So empowering.

So okay,

Affirmations.

I want to start with you sharing your connection to affirmations because,

And then we'll dive into like what they are and how to use this as a tool just because you have a really,

Really cool story about it.

So do you want to tell us a little bit how you got started with this?

Yeah,

Definitely.

So I had always been one of those people who really enjoyed the concept behind the secret,

If you're familiar with that.

The law of attraction and attracting what you want and desire.

And that's something that had always been in my brain.

I had really enjoyed the idea of it,

But I don't know that I was like,

Kind of bought into it.

I was like,

Yeah,

That's a great idea.

Like you can think that you want it and think that you have it and then you'll have it.

And I loved the concept,

But I wasn't,

Again,

I wasn't bought into it until about 2017.

I was about to graduate from college with a degree in political science.

It was a really contentious time to be graduating with a degree in political science for obvious reasons.

All of 2016 I had spent,

I actually spent the entire summer of 2016 campaigning to register people to vote.

So not even necessarily for specific candidates.

I was literally spending 10 weeks straight going out every day,

Seven days a week for a political internship that was focused on voter registration.

And that was like my passion.

I really wanted to make sure that people had accessibility to that.

And I really,

At that point in time in 2016 was convinced I was going to go into political campaigning and that was my future.

Then 2017 happened.

I was depressed.

And it took me a couple months to even recognize that I was depressed.

I had like stopped working out,

Which is now I know to be like a really big red flag for me that I'm maybe not doing well because I'm a very physical person and I have a lot of energy and I was just kind of in the slums for a couple months.

And by the end of March,

I was like,

Something has got to give.

I cannot live like this and I cannot graduate from college as a first generation graduate in my family in a severe depression and try to get a job.

That is not going to serve me.

So I went online and I went to Pinterest,

Which I'm not even like a Pinterest person.

Shout out to our Pinterest people.

I know that they're out there and they're amazing.

I'm not one of them,

But I should be.

I should have converted because of this.

I went to Pinterest and I found on a whim a 30 day affirmation challenge and I decided I'm going to fucking do this.

For 30 days I am going to speak and think and live an affirmation every day for the entire month of April,

Which was coming up.

I sent a text out to my mom,

My sister,

All my friends,

Family,

Anybody I could think of.

Hey,

I have this crazy idea.

I'm going to do this 30 day affirmation challenge.

Would you want to join me?

Totally not expecting anybody to take a bite.

Every single person that I reached out to and asked them if they would join me to be an accountability partner said yes.

Through the month of April when I committed to this,

I completely transformed my life in every way in 30 days from engaging in positive thoughts every single day.

I began my day with them.

I ended my day with them.

I was eating lunch with them and it changed everything.

Then flash forward,

I ended up getting a dream job,

Which I'm still working right now that I absolutely love and I was offered that job in the month of April.

I graduated,

Things went smooth.

I came out of a severe depression and then in September of 2017 I decided everybody should have access to this.

That is why I launched Affirmation Destination.

We run 30 day affirmation challenges for every 30 day month now,

Honoring the journey that I experienced and really hoping that other people can experience something like that for themselves because positivity and joy and peace,

All of those things are accessible to you.

I would even argue that all of those things already belong to you.

That's beautiful.

I literally got cool chills when you said that you reached out to so many people and every single one of them said that they would do it with you.

That's incredible.

What a great first experience diving into this mindset work.

So powerful.

Yeah,

Big shift.

Yeah,

Big shift.

It makes me like,

I'm getting on your next one.

Your next one is June 2020,

You said?

Yes,

Coming right up.

Here we are.

Awesome.

I'm going to do that because it's sort of funny.

I do so much mindset work and I meditate every day.

Something that I've been finding though is throughout the day I'm sort of like losing that connection to center and wanting something more to ground me in and keep me really tuned in because right now I'm feeling super scattered because I have a lot of big projects going on.

So I'm reminding myself,

Everything is working for you.

The universe is working for you.

But I love the idea of doing your affirmation challenge and pulling those affirmations in because I feel like they might help me stay a little bit more connected to myself and my sanity and my grounding throughout the day.

Definitely and it also kind of shows you how many different kinds of affirmations there are and we encourage people as you're doing the challenge,

If one of the affirmations you don't like it,

Scrap it,

Replace it,

Put in your own words,

Create something that empowers you,

Not everything in life is one size fits all.

And frankly,

We shouldn't approach everything in life as everything is one size fits all.

You know,

Like you need to find what fits for you.

So yeah,

I'm excited for you to join us.

It's an exciting journey to go on and I know that you're a leader of so many mindset journeys yourself.

So it'll be fun to see you kind of fracture off into this new pathway with affirmations.

I had a blast with it.

So it's exciting to hear you joining us.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So with all of that said,

Let's rewind and start at the beginning.

Tell us what is an affirmation?

How do you define it?

That's a great question.

So I would define an affirmation as even as a simple as one word or a phrase that you are getting in tune with your desire ultimately,

Right?

So let's take an affirmation.

I love this one.

I've been working with this one recently.

I am always right on time.

That one is such a powerful one for me because I have a tendency to be a little late and when I am late,

I get in my head and suddenly it turns into,

Oh my gosh,

I'm not respecting their time.

They don't think that I'm respecting their time.

And like really when I've sat with that,

I'm like,

Wow,

I really,

It's important to me that people feel that I respect their time.

That is what I have learned from the moments that I'm running late.

And when I'm running late and I'm able to just sit in my car or I'm walking or I'm on a bus or wherever I am and just say to myself,

I am always right on time.

That is my desire is to be on time.

The reality is I can't change the fact that I am quote technically late.

I can't change that.

It's out of my hands.

And my misery around my desire to change that is really not doing me any good.

So if I can affirm what I desire and I can put my faith and belief in that,

Then I can align myself with where and who I really want to be and who I really am as well.

I think that's an interesting example because do you find that you,

Let's say using that affirmation I'm always right on time.

Do you find that you are more likely to be on time since you've been using it?

Like do you find that that is helping you shift that habit of being late to things?

Absolutely.

Yes.

It's definitely helped me shift to being on time.

But it's like,

Cause if you wake up and you're thinking,

Oh,

I always oversleep,

You're going to keep oversleeping.

Like we live out what we believe to be true.

We believe the stories we tell ourselves on repeat.

So what story are you telling yourself?

And really an affirmation is just a snapshot of an entire story about yourself.

You know,

If you are affirming I am not enough every day,

That is a snapshot of maybe decades worth of things that happened to you or ways that you have interacted with the world or the world has interacted with you that affirmed that to you.

So for you to shift that to I am enough,

You take your hand and put it on the driver's.

.

.

Where was I going with this?

The wheel.

There we go.

It's like,

What do you turn in a car?

So funny.

Got to give yourself grace.

So you put your hand on the driver's wheel in your car and you're driving it now versus it driving you.

I love that.

Okay.

So that's a great description.

So then let's say with that,

Knowing what it is,

How do you develop an affirmation?

How would I just create my own affirmation for myself?

I love this question.

I would say start with the feeling.

And I don't know if you're familiar with Danielle Laporte.

Yeah,

She's fantastic.

She wrote the Desire Map and a bunch of other amazing stuff,

Runs a ton of really cool programs.

I haven't partaken in,

But I'm a huge fan of hers.

And what she teaches is about identifying the feeling that you want and then living your life in support of that feeling and that desire to have that feeling be a part of who you are.

So I'll use one of my very favorite affirmations.

This one's been with me since I want to say November of last year.

It came to me kind of in a realization around the toxic positivity,

Which is that you always see people post happiness is a choice.

To me,

Telling people that happiness is a choice is not super empowering.

For me,

It's not empowering to hear that.

When I hear that,

It almost feels like it's integrated with the blame and shame of happiness is a choice.

And if you don't choose it,

Then you don't deserve to be happy or something like that.

Again,

That might not be the truth for everybody listening right now.

Maybe someone listening right now loves when they hear happiness is a choice that brings them into a good place.

They feel empowered.

That is not my experience with it and it was not working for me.

So I decided to start with the feeling,

Which is joy.

I want to feel joyful.

That is my desire.

So the affirmation that I came up with that encompasses that is joy belongs to me.

And it shifted everything because as soon as I was able to realize that joy belongs to me,

Even in grief,

Even in anger,

Even in jealousy,

In the ugliest,

Darkest,

Worst emotions that arise in me,

If I'm able to go,

Oh,

But joy belongs to me,

It brings me back home,

Which is to my center inside of me.

And that is where I think everybody should begin.

And if that doesn't resonate for you right away,

That's okay.

You can take a look at the 30 day affirmation challenge and you can look at one of those and you can rework one of them or maybe the exact way that it's worded is really working for you.

So go on Pinterest,

Go online,

Go on people's Instagram pages,

See what's out there,

Type in affirmation,

See what pops up and then rework it so that it works for you.

And if that isn't going well,

Shift to the feeling.

The feeling will always guide you home.

So can you give me,

Slash,

This is for our listeners,

Not just for me,

Give me a,

Maybe it doesn't work like this,

But sort of like a formula.

So like,

You know what feeling you want to feel,

Then how do you place that in the affirmation?

Okay.

So yeah,

I like that question and I think I get what you're trying to ask maybe is how to build it into your life and how to build it into.

.

.

So outside of saying like,

Okay,

So I know let's take lightness.

I want to feel light and free.

So how do I now take that feeling and turn it into an affirmation?

Okay,

Great.

So if you want to feel light and you want to feel free,

I am as always a great starter.

So you can just start with,

I am free.

I am light.

Another way that you can put it together is when I am blank,

Then I am free.

So maybe it's when I am grounded,

Then I am free or then I feel free.

So playing with it in those senses is a very quick way to begin to develop your own affirmations.

But when it comes to integrating them into your life,

Which I feel is maybe even more important than knowing exactly what the affirmation is,

Even if maybe all that you have is the feeling,

Well,

I just want to feel at peace.

Maybe that's it for you,

Is to be able to build it into an existing routine that you have.

And I would emphasize the existing routine because the issue that you have when you're trying to build something like an affirmation practice into something that doesn't already have consistency.

So like let's say that you never really work out,

But you have this goal of working out and it's the 30 day affirmation challenge that you heard about and you're going to do it.

So you're going to say the affirmation before and after you work out.

Well,

Suddenly if you're not working out every day,

Like you said that you were going to do,

Because it's a brand new habit for you,

Then you feel like you're failing.

You want to set yourself up to succeed.

So I always attach my affirmations,

They come from feelings and I attach them to pieces of my routine that already exist that I know without even thinking I'm going to do just like breathing.

And for me,

Those perfect places are cleaning.

I don't know why,

But for some reason I just love if I'm cleaning my house,

If I'm doing the dishes,

If I'm cleaning my body.

If you're cleaning your body and you're saying positive affirmations to yourself while you're cleaning and caring,

Intending your physical human form,

That to me is one of the most powerful intimate ways that you can integrate affirmations into your life because you're literally taking that time to care for yourself physically and mentally and emotionally.

So much self compassion.

I love,

Love that idea.

Like the first thing that comes to mind when you explain like what I'm thinking like in the shower or something like that is just like gentle.

It's like a really beautiful,

Gentle way of connecting with yourself and showing yourself love.

I absolutely love that.

I feel like some other good places would be like when you're brushing your teeth or if you sit and drink your coffee or tea in a specific place.

I also always love the idea of setting alarms on your phone.

So like setting an alarm like three times throughout the day if maybe you don't have specific like habits that you can stack on to.

So that just reminds you,

You know,

Maybe 10 a.

M.

,

2 p.

M.

And 6 p.

M.

And whenever your alarm goes off,

You know it's time to drop into that affirmation and maybe take a few deep breaths too.

I actually on one of my alarms,

My alarm clock that I wake up to every morning on my phone literally says,

Joy belongs to me.

So I read that every day when I start my day,

Every single day and that is so powerful to have started the day with that.

And I had one more thought as far as developing your own affirmation that could be really helpful for people is to reverse a compliment.

So let's say that I'm going to give you a compliment,

Jess,

Which there are so many that I can give to you.

You're too nice.

I would say that you have a wonderfully powerful voice and I really feel that that's true.

And the thing about giving a compliment that people don't tend to take into consideration is that often we give compliments that we maybe want to receive.

So if I can flip the compliments that I notice that I'm giving out the most and put them together for myself,

Like I have a wonderfully powerful voice.

If I can affirm that to myself,

Then suddenly I'm living in alignment with the compliments that I'm giving because I'm also giving them to myself.

I feel like that's such a simple way to,

If people are struggling to create their own affirmations,

What a simple way to do that.

What do I normally compliment my best friend about?

Now let me turn that around on myself.

It's sort of like the idea of mindful self-compassion where you talk to yourself like you would talk to your best friend.

That's a very self-loving way of bringing affirmations into your life.

I'm just all about this self-love and compassion right now apparently.

The world needs more of it.

Right?

We need more of it,

Every single one of us.

Okay.

So I'm loving these sort of formulas because I feel like that's really helpful for people just starting.

So a question I want to ask you,

Because I sort of know the answer,

Is,

Is there such thing as a bad affirmation?

Ooh,

Yeah.

That's a great question as well.

So I would say yes and no.

Because yes,

Because if you have any negative words in the affirmation,

Then you might manifest the negativity.

And I'm trying to think of an affirmation to have an example of that.

I've been working so intentionally not to include negative words in any of my affirmations,

So it's actually kind of challenging to think of one.

But I know that I've worked with a few before,

Actually in my early affirmation challenges,

Like early 2017 and 2018,

That I had a conversation with the girls who helped me run the community where we acknowledged that any negative word being in there can kind of spin it off and then you're manifesting the opposite of what you want.

Man,

I wish I had a good example of that.

Maybe it'll come to me as we're discussing.

I'll think on that.

But so yes,

So that's why I'd say yes.

And then the other reason I'd say no,

Kind of,

So it's a yes and no answer,

Is because any affirmation that you're trying to integrate into your life is great.

The fact that you're even trying to do that is great.

Keep doing it.

Should you be mindful about what the words are?

Absolutely.

Words hold vibrations.

Words hold energy.

They hold power.

You want to make sure that they're empowering the things that you want them to empower.

So yes,

Be intentional about it.

But again,

If you're doing it,

That's great.

You're already ahead of everybody else who isn't.

So congratulations to you for doing that.

I never ever want to say anything that's going to steer somebody away from trying.

Yes,

I completely agree.

I think like maybe an example of a bad affirmation or an affirmation with a negative word is like,

I am not stressed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

That's a great example.

Then could you give us an example of what someone would say instead of flipping the I am not stressed to something that's more powerful and empowering?

Yeah.

So identify what's the opposite of stress for you.

For me,

It would be peace.

So instead of I am not stressed,

I would,

I love some of the breathe in,

Breathe out ones.

I haven't even mentioned that yet.

So when you breathe in,

I am at peace and then breathe out,

I am grounded.

So that's another great way to integrate affirmations is with breath.

So breathe in,

Repeat one thing,

Breathe out,

Repeat a separate thing or maybe that same thing if it's really,

You know,

Bringing a good vibration to you.

So yeah,

Deconstruct the affirmation if it has something like that in it and flip it to what is the desire because the affirmation I am not stressed,

It's completely lacking the desire.

Which is funny because I am not stressed is like the desire to not be stressed but it's still lacking the feeling behind that which is the opposite of stress.

Yes,

Yes,

Absolutely.

And when we talk about,

You were talking about a little bit when to do it throughout the day but I know you and I have talked about the idea of an affirmation practice.

Can you tell us like what that is and maybe how listeners could start building an affirmation practice for themselves?

Yeah,

Definitely.

So again,

Putting it into your routine is really the key aspect.

Figuring out where are the places that you are most frequently or what are the things that you're doing with most regularity that you can just easily slip that affirmation into.

You know,

Maybe if you're a parent for instance,

Maybe every morning you kiss your kid on their forehead and send them out the door.

I guess maybe during the quarantine chapter that's not a thing but you know before that,

Yes that was a thing.

And like even if you don't say it to your kid,

Maybe you just say it to yourself when you kiss your child,

You just affirm,

I am a great mother.

I am a great parent.

I'm an excellent caretaker.

Like it could be anything.

Maybe that's something that you were working on.

You know like you know that you're going to have that regular piece of your schedule and again schedules change.

Do you want it to be something that can be as easy or as regular as possible or as simple as possible?

I think keeping it really simple is the key to making it sustainable and long term.

Yep,

That makes sense.

And did you have six steps to enhance your practice like how to make it maybe more powerful?

Yes,

Definitely.

So when we think about affirmations at first we just think,

Okay I'm just going to affirm this to myself over and over again.

And that is you know the general basic simple idea behind it.

But the six steps that I recommend are speak it,

Repeat it,

Visualize it,

Feel it,

Share it,

And believe it.

So when I say speak it,

Speak the affirmation out loud or in your head.

When I say repeat it,

Yes,

As many times as you can think to repeat it,

That's great.

There's no attachment to if I don't do it this many times and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

No,

Do not make those attachments.

Do not tell yourself those stories.

As many times as you think to speak it or repeat it,

You are doing great.

Give yourself a gold star.

Number three is to visualize it.

This is just creating a deeper alignment with that affirmation and the desire that you're trying to have be the outcome of repeating it to yourself.

So if you can visualize what does joy look like?

If your affirmation is joy belongs to me,

Which I absolutely recommend,

It's been fantastic for me,

10 out of 10,

How can I visualize joy?

You know when I am visualizing joy belonging to me,

I can close my eyes and imagine myself on a hot but not too hot,

Let's be real,

Like 73 degrees summer day and just like looking up at the clouds and the sun shining on my face,

Like that feeling of the sun on my face,

Like that brings me joy which leads into,

So that's a visualization,

Leads into step number four which is to feel it.

If we're able to feel the affirmation as if we already have it,

If I'm able to feel joy in my body when I say to myself,

Joy belongs to me,

That makes it so much more real for my human experience and also for me to keep repeating it and attracting more joy to me because I'm feeling it.

Number five is to share it.

The accountability partners can really help make a difference and you never know who you're going to text an affirmation to who needed to hear that.

I can't tell you how many times I texted my mom just an affirmation,

Literally no context,

Just an affirmation and she just texted me back,

Thank you so much,

Like I really needed that,

You know?

And then the last one,

Number six is to believe it.

If you're going to do an affirmation practice and the entire time you have an internal naysayer who's like,

Yeah,

This is all bullshit,

Yeah,

Well,

Sure,

Joy belongs to me,

Like,

Yeah,

Sure,

Joy belongs to you.

Like you need to tell that little miniature devil inside of you to take a fucking hike because it's not serving you because if you don't believe it,

You cannot bring it into your awareness fully.

You can,

Half-assed,

Bring it into awareness.

You can feel joyful most of the time,

But are you really going to be leaning into the magic and the medicine of repeating that affirmation to yourself?

I don't think you are and I want to make sure that everybody who listens to this episode who is excited about engaging in an affirmation practice has all the tools possible to have as much success as possible because you do deserve it.

You deserve to be happy.

You deserve to feel loved and you are loved,

You know?

Yes,

Yes,

Absolutely.

I love those six steps and I really like the sharing piece of it because I feel like that also almost empowers you more with the affirmation because it's like,

This is working for me.

Maybe this will work for you and it's sort of,

I don't know,

Almost like that feeling you get when you volunteer,

Like the sense of really knowing that you're helping someone and I feel like that would add so much to an affirmation practice to just be sort of like spreading that joy,

Spreading that love,

That compassion,

That sense of centeredness and connectedness.

I think that's my favorite one of all the steps.

That's awesome and we make it really easy because we have the Affirmation Destination Instagram account and Facebook group.

So if you aren't the type to send a text message to someone,

You can tag them on a post,

You can share it with them,

You can send it to their DMs.

There are other ways to share affirmations than just even writing out the text.

There is a lazier way for you to share an affirmation.

I have made sure of that.

Great.

So I guess that's a good transition into,

So Affirmation Destination is the 30-day challenge.

Are there other ways for listeners to connect within that community or if they're interested in connecting more with you in terms of affirmations,

Can you tell us a little bit about the Affirmation Destination community?

Yeah,

Definitely.

So,

The community is still growing.

I think the Facebook page has,

I think over 400 people now,

Which is really exciting.

A lot of them are based in Portland,

Oregon because that's where I am,

But it is worldwide.

We definitely have people from all over.

So you can engage in that group,

Which is on Facebook or you can follow the Instagram and you can engage there.

I'm happy to answer any questions anytime people are so welcome to send me a DM.

I do run at Affirmation Destination,

Which is the group for that.

A more direct way to get my attention since that account is bigger and it's also ran by four other women.

So there's several of us who are running it.

It's really a group project to heighten positivity in the collective for everybody,

Which is why it's so collaborative and I can't claim all of the magic behind it because frankly,

It's not all just me.

But yes,

If you want to connect with me more directly,

If you have questions around affirmations or you want to talk about some metaphysical stuff or whatever,

I'm super happy to chat.

That would be at soulfulofit,

Which is S-O-U-L-F-U-L-O-F-I-T.

That is the Instagram page for my podcast and it's also where I post more astrology focused things and then hopefully here in the near future,

Some more tarot magic because I'm really excited about diving into that right now.

Yeah.

And do you talk about affirmations and stuff on soulfulofit as well?

I do.

Yeah.

So the soulfulofit podcast is very much my metaphysical outlet,

But it's also really closely tied together with mindfulness,

Positivity,

Affirmations and anything that has to do with self-empowerment.

Awesome.

So I feel like all the listeners know where to find you now.

That sort of lends itself well to all of your social handles and such.

So I suppose,

Well first,

Before I ask you the final question,

Is there anything else that you want to share with listeners that you feel like listeners absolutely need to know about using affirmations that we haven't talked about yet or that you want to repeat?

Yeah.

Actually,

There's one thing that I wanted to mention and that is sometimes the idea of flipping the negative thing that you say to yourself to be positive.

We can go back to one of the earlier examples.

I am not enough to be,

I am enough.

Sometimes even though that is pretty simple,

That still feels like too much and it's enough to stop somebody from trying or engaging with affirmations.

And if you're one of those people,

I just want to say that I see you and you're not alone and I have also struggled with that.

Even as somebody who's running an affirmation group,

I always tell people I approach this work not as a master but as an equal.

We are all students of life and I just want to acknowledge that it's okay if you are one of those people and you're struggling because here you are listening to this episode.

This is you trying and that's amazing.

And I have one very quick and simple trick that might work even better for somebody in that specific situation,

Which is to start by remembering that you're human.

And this has been really powerful for me and I've been working with this maybe half of a year now.

And so it's kind of crazy.

It's only been with me for such a short period of time.

But it's when I catch myself saying something like I dropped,

This happened recently,

I dropped a glass and it broke and I literally said out loud,

God,

I'm such an idiot.

Seriously,

I said that and here I am.

I do all this positivity work.

And here's the reality is that I'm such a human.

So as soon as I said,

God,

I'm such an idiot when I broke the glass,

I literally immediately replaced it with,

Oh,

I'm such a human.

And I said it out loud too.

Because what I said was spoken out loud,

I used the same medium to replace it with the truth because saying,

God,

I'm such an idiot.

And then flipping that to God,

I'm such an amazing genius feels fake.

That's fake positivity.

But switching it to the truth,

Getting to the reality of it,

God,

I'm such a human.

I was like,

Whoa,

What a powerful shift.

And I've been using human as a replacement word so often.

And it is amazingly powerful.

And when I have a friend with me who says something,

They put themselves down.

I literally say exactly what they have said about themselves back to them with the word human replaced.

And people are shocked,

Like the shook-ness,

Like the look on someone's face when you say that back to them.

Because they in that moment,

They realize,

Wow,

I am just a human being.

Like we're all doing our best out here.

We're all just winging it.

That's okay.

Nobody is supposed to be an expert.

You know,

Like it's okay.

You are doing enough.

The fact that you're here listening,

Like you're trying.

Let's acknowledge that.

So yes,

That is really the last thing I wanted to offer to the listeners because it's something that's really,

Really helped me and made an amazing shift in my life and my relationship ultimately with myself.

Yes.

I love finding those simple little things you can do because sometimes it feels like such a burden,

Such a challenge to shift your mindset,

Especially when you feel so stuck in a certain story.

And so I love that when you can find those little things that just click like,

Gosh,

I'm just a human.

You know,

Replacing those negatives with the word human,

I feel like it's such a simple way to shift your mindset.

So thank you for sharing that.

I'm glad that you shared that because we would have all been less better off if we had not heard it.

So last final question of the podcast is the same one I asked every incredible guest I have.

What is your current intention getter story?

What are you working on?

Yes,

This one is very relevant for me.

So my goal for 2020,

This is funny,

Is to become a morning person.

I love sleep almost as much as I love burritos.

I love burritos.

Those are like things that I love that will probably go in my grave one day.

Here lies Keri Raquel.

She loved burritos and sleeping.

That is who I am to a T,

Absolutely,

But there's such a thing as sleeping too much and there's also such a thing as staying up too late.

So I've just noticed the patterns of myself that in the morning when I get up and I have an early morning and I'm able to really put some intention into what I'm doing with my time in the morning before I start working for anybody else or even working on my own stuff,

I am creating space for myself to just be.

That has really been wonderful for me.

So trying to become more of a morning person,

The way I'm going about that right now is going on walks every morning and rain or shine,

It does not matter if it's pouring rain here in Portland,

Oregon,

Which it is often,

I still go out.

What I do to kind of set myself up for success with that is that the night before I intentionally grab the outfit out that I'm going to wear on my walk because typically I don't wear like jeans out walking because I'm briskly walking and it might be pouring rain,

Which happens all the time in Oregon.

So I have a workout outfit and then I have a jacket of choice and the boots are by the door.

So I literally have everything set up.

So the night before,

I'm already intentionally telling myself I am agreeing and honoring my own desire to wake up earlier tomorrow so that I can have the best day that I can possibly have and become the morning person that I know is somewhere deeply buried inside of me under an insane amount of burritos.

Perfect.

I feel like so many people want to be a morning person and I feel like that's such a nice way of finding what supports you and then getting intentional about pulling it in.

So rather than being like,

I need to be a morning person,

It's like,

I really want to embrace more of the day.

And so I'm going to honor that by taking walks in the morning.

I feel like that's a really nice way of going about it.

And affirming the whole time,

I am a morning person.

I've been saying that for a while and so far I've been kind of a morning person,

Which wasn't the truth when I kept telling myself I am not a morning person.

Right,

Exactly.

Well,

Thank you so,

So much,

Keri,

For coming on and sharing all this amazing wisdom with us.

I've learned so much.

I know the listeners have too,

And we'll all be looking forward to your next affirmation challenge.

Yay!

Thank you so much for having me on.

I could not even say how excited I was to join you.

I just think you're wonderful and so excited for this episode to go out into the world and share a little bit of both of our collaborative magic with the collective.

Yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

Can't wait.

And to all the intention getters tuning in,

Thank you so much for stopping by and we'll talk to you again very soon.

Reviews

Phenomenal job explaining, with clarity and ease, the benefit of affirmations. The host provided a wonderful canvas for the guest to illustrate the what, how and why. Very excellent!

Thank you! Very informative and helpful😊.