How the Power of Words on Your Mindset Can Block You Before You've Even Begun
Prefer to listen? This is Episode 5 of the No Bullshit Spirituality podcast. Go and have a listen, link below.
It’s 7am, everyone’s arriving for the Hyrox class (fast paced, no let up), and my friend walks in and says, "I'm just gonna chill today."
And I looked at her like... really?
No-one turns up to Hyrox to chill. But that one throwaway sentence told her brain exactly how far her body was allowed to go today. That's the power of words on your mindset. And it's working on you whether you're aware of it or not. What she'd actually done was create a self-limitation before the class had even started.
So I suggested she reframe what she said. Instead of saying you're gonna chill, why not say I'm just gonna see how it goes or I'm gonna do the best I can today.
You Set the Ceiling Before You've Even Begun
When she said I'm just gonna chill today she set a bar. A ceiling. A limitation. She told her brain, this is how far we're going today, we're not going any further.
And her body was going to follow those instructions.
There was no room for expansion. No room for oh actually I feel better than I thought or hang on, I've got more in me than I realised. No room to surprise herself. She'd closed it down before she'd even begun.
Words Are Spells: How Words Create Your Reality
There is magick in the words that we use.
Words create frequency. And certain frequencies stimulate parts of the brain to produce brain chemicals (neuropeptitides) which then flood your brain and your body and tell it how to respond, how to be, what to do.
And this is the same for what you say inside your own head, too, because even thinking something creates a frequency. Thoughts are electromagnetic waves. They produce neuropeptides in the brain. Your inner monologue is not neutral. It is actively shaping your biology.
So we need to make sure that the words we are using, inside our minds as well as out loud, are the ones we actually want to live.
Why Your Affirmations Might Not Be Working
This is also something I see a lot when people are working with affirmations.
Someone says I am rich or I am doing my best. The affirmation intention may be good but the problem is the absolute.
If you say I am rich, your current level of abundance is then your ceiling. You've defined it. You've capped it. There's nowhere to go beyond what you can already imagine. And if you say I am doing my best then what you're doing right now is your best. Full stop. But what if you could do more? What if there was more available to you that you just talked yourself out of?
We have to be mindful that we're not accidentally creating a limitation dressed up as a positive statement.
Anyway. I turned and looked at my friend partway through the class.
She was doing bloody great. She was way beyond ‘just chilling’.
But What's Really Underneath It?
Here's what really interests me, though. What drives a comment like that in the first place?
Because it's not just about being tired. When someone says I'm just gonna chill today before a session has even started, there's always something underneath that.
Is it:
I need to manage expectations in case my performance isn't great?
If I lower the bar now, nobody can judge me for not clearing it?
I'm scared to fail, I have to be perfect, I can't look weak?
I don't know which one it was for her. But something was in there.
This is the kind of thing I journal about in the mornings. I'll notice something I've said or felt or done and rather than just leaving it at face value, I go deeper. What does this actually mean? What is this really showing me? What is underneath all of this?
Because the comment I'm just gonna chill today is not what's stopping her in life. That sentence is not the problem. What's creating that sentence - the belief underneath it, the trapped emotion sitting in her subconscious - that's what keeps recreating the same pattern. The same ceiling. In different areas, different ways, but always the same story underneath.
I'm not worthy. I'm not good enough. I can't fail. I have to be perfect.
It's always something in that territory.
How to Actually Remove the Block
This is exactly how I work with my clients. We don't take things at surface level. We look at what's underneath, what's driving the pattern, and we work on removing it, discreating it, releasing it.
Because when you can welcome and release the energy that's been sitting there asking to be felt, you are no longer governed by it. It's no longer recreating the same limitations over and over without you even realising.
And when that energy is gone? You get to choose. Consciously. What you think, what you feel, what you do, how you show up, what you want to create for yourself.
Rather than your suppressed emotions choosing for you.
Watch What You Say: A Simple Reframe That Changes Everything
Notice what you say, to yourself and out loud.
Is there room in your words for expansion, or have you already set the ceiling before you've begun?
Is there something in the way you speak to yourself that's quietly telling your brain how far it's allowed to go?
Even a small reframe can shift what's possible. Not because of magick words but because of what those words actually do inside your brain and body when you say them.
I'm going to see how it goes leaves the door open. Whereas, I'm just gonna chill closes it.
One of those gives you a chance to surprise yourself. The more aware you become of the power of words, the easier it becomes to recognise the language that creates possibility and the language that creates limitations.
Watch what you say, my friends.
Your Guided Meditation
This guided meditation helps you create space to find emotions hiding in your subconscious. Once you connect to them, you welcome them, let them pass, and reclaim the freedom to choose your response.
This has helped many of my clients finally see what has been driving their unwanted behaviours and patterns, and shift them for good.
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Here’s to no more ceilings. May you reach the dizzy heights of your potential instead.
Carrie x
Need help reframing a phrase or an affirmation? Leave a comments and let’s see what we can do :)
