The Voice Within
I am asked a lot how I managed to stay Princess Positivity through such adversity. For a long time I figured I was just hardwired this way - to always fight, to always see the positive - to always choose optimism; but then I realized that it was rooted in MUCH more than that!
CHOICE has been a theme of most of my postoperative blog posts and I still believe I did choose and that we all have a choice. However, I also believe that our strength, or lack thereof, is greatly influenced by the internal dialogue we have with ourselves. We send ourselves messages all the time, telling ourselves this or that all day long about how we look, how reacted, how we behaved, what we said in that interview or meeting, what we could have….would have…should have…..
It is THOSE internal conversations that cultivate our strength or diminish it. It is in the phrases, or mantras if you will, that we repeat to ourselves that we generate our FIERCE. We #findourfierce in the song we choose to play in our moments of weakness or fear, in the particular lyrics that resonate with us, in the way we speak to ourselves when no one else but us is listening, in the books we choose to read or the social media articles or activity we choose to get involved in. It really is in the messages we are giving to ourselves and that CAN BE STRENGTHENED by anyone….not just by #littlebutfiercewellness.
And it is actually real science my friends, not just my humble opinion. Check out the work of the brilliant Carol Dweck on growth mindset and grit. Being able to persevere doesn’t have to be an innate trait that if you weren’t hardwired with it, well too bad. Sure, it may come more easily to some, but so does math…or sports…or singing. But what also strengthens those talents is being willing to put in THE WORK.
The same is true for finding your fierce and being positive in life!You can start by recognizing what the messages are that you are sending yourself. Pay attention the next time you have a quiet thought - Ugh, I look awful! Ugh, that was dumb! I can’t do this! I’m not good at this! I’d challenge you to take the time to add the small little word “Y-E-T” onto the end of many self-criticisms and start tot notice the incredible power one small tiny little syllable can have on your attitude towards things.
By adding that small word YET, we give ourselves hope that we CAN achieve whatever that is. We reframe our thinking to focus on process rather than outcome; to effort rather than product; to the little :-) improvements and changes we can make that will over time lead to fierce outcomes! Shifting our focus gives us the permission not to have everything all figured out RIGHT NOW, but rather to acknowledge that it is precisely in the not knowing that we find our WHY, we find our motivation to continue, we identify our goals and specify steps we can do NOW to bring us closer to them, we define There will always be challenges that are outside of our control (certain medical issues, etc), but there is ALWAYS something SOMETHING we CAN DO… and defining what we can do and repeating that to ourselves over and over again is how we find our fierce and make changes that will last.
You see, fierce friends, finding our fierce is about empowerment. It is about finding the one thing that you have the ability to impact and then actually taking steps to impact it. I was not ever going to be able to untwist my very twisted insides - medical geniuses needed to do that, but I WAS able to search for those medical minds; I was able to find the courage to take that leap of faith; and I am still able to treat my newfound chance at life with the respect it deserves and model that bravery, commitment and respect for my family and friends.
Finding our fierce is about allowing ourselves the space to listen to our internal voice and decide what WE want it to say. It is always a choice even when we do not realize it. I still work at my inner voice. I still have my mantras and songs that inspire me. I am mentally strong. My inner voice is loud and positive. It is feisty and it is fierce. My inner voice, fierce friends, is a roar. What’s yours?
