Do you want to learn how to use the power of positive language to find anxiety relief?

Do you feel like you’re stuck with your anxiety? Are you struggling with your everyday responsibilities because of it? Does it feel like your anxiety is a constant battle you’re fighting every single day?

You’re not alone in these feelings. As an anxiety sufferer, I’ve known these feelings all too well!

What I want to share with you today is one of the most profound shifts I’ve personally made to relieve anxiety. And that is shifting your language from the negative to the positive.

There are three critical steps to this practice. It starts with building self-awareness and mindfulness, followed by knowing your WHY, and then offering yourself compassion and kindness to shift into creating more positive language to help relieve your anxiety.

By simply making this shift, which I’ll get into detail about below, you can get out of the struggle and start working toward progress. You can start to rise up out of combating your anxiety to WORKING THROUGH your anxious moments and then to even FINDING SOLUTIONS. Because by upgrading your language to be more powerful, you can make a profound shift in your mindset to help you alleviate anxiety.

Cultivating Awareness of Your Language

How are you talking to yourself? How are you communicating with others? What words are you using to express how you’re feeling?

These are a few key questions to start to ask yourself to help you cultivate self-awareness around your language. I want to start with a personal example for you:

I used to say “I struggle with anxiety and depression” and “I’m battling my anxiety (or depression) today.” In doing so, I accepted the feelings of struggle and battling. I was allowing myself to struggle and battle with my choice of words. I was accepting the struggle and the battle!

When we do this, we’re giving a lot of power to the struggle and the battle. That’s why it can feel like we’re stuck because we’ve accepted the “stuckness” simply because of our mindset around the situation.

This is where I recommend you start getting curious. When you’re feeling like you’re stuck in the agonizing moment/hour/day, take a step back and ask yourself what’s happening. Get curious about what is going on that is making you feel that way. Lean into the moment, the struggle, the battle, the discomfort. And once you lean into it and feel what is happening, you can start to understand more fully why you might be feeling stuck.

This might not sound like the most helpful step, but I promise you, this is the foundation to finding relief. Because once you identify how you’re feeling in these situations, you can start to understand what you want to change! And if you’re wanting more details on developing your mindfulness, I highly recommend you check out my blog that discusses it in more detail here.

As you begin to recognize the feelings you’re experiencing and you can start to see the meaning you’re giving the situation, this is where the magic starts to happen!

As soon as you develop the ability to identify the struggle, and where it’s coming from, that is where you can catch your word choice in the moment, and make the shift to choosing more positive language!

Here is your challenge with this first step. Once you’ve started to identify your word choices and feelings in the moment, get curious about why you’re feeling that way. As you do, start to think about how you’d like to be feeling instead (more on that below), and focus on what you can control in a positive way. Simply changing from “I’m struggling with” to “I’m working on” or “I’m finding solutions to” can be a game changer!

As an example, here is something I’ve successfully shifted in my own language. I used to say “Today, I’m struggling with the feelings of restlessness and isolation.” And honestly, on the days I was using that statement, I would feel restless and isolated ALL. DAMN. DAY.

Now, if I notice restlessness or isolation coming up for me, I instead acknowledge those feelings and say “I’m feeling restless and isolated today and I’m finding solutions to relieve these feelings.”

BOOM. Game Changer!

As soon as that language “upgrade” happened (and continues in my life), solutions present themselves and I easily find ways to channel the restless or isolated feelings. It’s like magically, by choosing my words differently, I stopped staying stuck in the struggle and started being more open to the solutions to appear.

This is the beauty of cultivating self-awareness and mindfulness around your language.

Your thoughts are powerful. Your words are powerful. And the meaning you create for the feelings you’re experiencing through your words and thoughts are EVERYTHING when it comes to manifesting the life of your dreams and freeing yourself of anxiety. Understanding the power you have, and what you’re giving power to, in each and every way, is the very first step in improving your language to be more positive to relieve anxiety.

Know Your WHY

Why do you want a better life? Why do you want to be free of anxiety? What goals are you committed to working towards?

As we go on any journey in life, it’s important to at least have an idea of where we’re heading and what goals we have. This is critical when it comes to self-improvement. If you don’t have a clue as to WHY you want to stop feeling anxious or depressed, then it might be time to go within and ask yourself the question.

When you are connected to the reason you want and desire change, you’re more likely to stay committed to overcoming any adversity in achieving it. And as you’re improving your language to be more positive, making sure you know WHY you’re doing it can help you stay on track with making progress!

If you have no idea why you want to stop struggling with anxiety, then this process would be pretty pointless. However, since you’re here, reading this post, I’m guessing you’re looking for some ways to stop the struggle and to get to finding relief!

But we all have different reasons for WHY we want to make changes. For me, my why has always been YOU. Whoever you are, reading this post from wherever you are, I know it’s my purpose in life to help people heal from anxiety and depression naturally. I know I’ve been called to be a healer and to lift people up in this world so I can help them experience their awesomeness!

And with that calling, I have a crystal clear WHY. I’ve been doing the deep, difficult, challenging work to rise up and uplift myself so I can teach others how to do the same. I know the more I can improve myself and my life, the more I’m able to have energy to help others. The more I learn about this process of self-development and healing, the more knowledge and tools I have to share with you!

So when I work on things like shifting my language to be more positive, not only do I want to feel happier, more joyful and more fulfilled, I want to be able to better serve individuals who need the same level of healing too.

For you, it may be that you want to be more effective at work. Maybe you want to have more energy and patience with your significant other or your children. Maybe you have a deep inner calling to help and heal others too, but are so “stuck” right now you don’t know how to do it.

Whatever it is, you need to figure out your WHY and get crystal clear on what your goal is in doing this work. Because I can tell you, if I didn’t have my purpose and my WHY clearly known, I wouldn’t have been able to find the relief I have with my anxiety and depression.

As you’re working on this step, an awesome thing that starts to happen is you can begin to match your language with that which you desire most. If you desire to stop struggling, battling, and fighting, and instead want to feel energized, free and resilient, then use that to drive your language!

If you’re at the point where you’re still “fighting your anxiety” or “battling your depression”, choose instead to “welcome in calmness” or “find solutions to feel happier”. This is where your power of positive language can grow roots and help you shift to finding anxiety relief throughout your days!

Give Yourself Compassion & Kindness

Along with cultivating self-awareness and knowing your WHY, you’ve got to be able to give yourself some compassion and kindness along this journey. This is needed to ensure your long-term success in keeping yourself powerful in using positive language!

We’re all imperfectly perfect, and it’s highly likely you’re not going to nail this practice and change right out of the gate (though good for you if you do!). With that, as with any change you’re looking to make in life, you need to give yourself some kindness and compassion when you slip up or make a mistake.

It’s super easy when you’re making changes to slip up, take a step backwards, and then beat yourself up with negative self-criticisms. I’m sure you’ve said things before like “I’m a failure, I might as well give up!” or “I’m so stupid I’ll never get this” or even “this is too hard for me to do and I might as well just stop trying.”

These are the moments where you have to dig deep and offer yourself some kindness and compassion. You need to give yourself some grace and space to be able to make mistakes, learn from them, and then get back to focusing on your goals.

So what does it mean to offer yourself kindness and compassion?

Let me give you another personal example here to help illustrate the practice.

When I first started making the change to using more positive language, I had some insanely powerful, deep-seeded negative internal dialogue. While cultivating my awareness and mindset, and keeping focused on my why, I still had plenty of moments where I was using negative language with myself and in expressing how I was feeling.

What was most difficult for me was framing how I was looking at life. It was hard to stop coming from a place of negativity, lack and focus more on the abundance and the good!

My biggest trip up was always the phrase “I’m struggling with X.” I knew I didn’t want to struggle, but the damn words just kept flowing out of my mouth WAY more than I wanted them too!

Initially, I would beat myself up about this. “I know better!” was always my first reaction, followed by “why can’t you just stop this already?” Usually followed by, “It’s so simple to just say something positive, why aren’t you just DOING it already?”

When I got really honest with myself, and offered myself some compassion, I realized I was unraveling over 30 years of neurosynaptic pathways in my brain that had been conditioned to think this way! THIRTY years of growing neural networks wasn’t going to be undone overnight. That’s just not how it works.

So what I had to develop in these moments was a level of kindness and compassion for myself. I had to create some room for error. I had to accept myself for making mistakes and let myself know it was okay, we’re working through it, and we just need to keep at it!

When I’d catch myself using negative language, and then have a thought of beating myself up with negative internal dialogue, I started to make changes to what I said to myself. Again, this is where the level of self-awareness and mindfulness comes in to play again!

As I became aware of self-criticism, I started to take a step back from it. And I’d say something to myself like, “I’m choosing to love and accept myself. It’s okay that I’ve used negative language and it’s part of my learning experience to make mistakes. I’m proud of myself for stretching myself, learning to grow, and for being committed to positive changes in my life. I’m imperfectly perfect and I’m going to continue incorporating more positive language in my life.”

Okay, yes, maybe that’s more of a long-winded answer than you have to give, but whatever you need to say to YOU is what is important.

Self-compassion is all about wanting to alleviate a feeling of suffering and to empathize with yourself for how you’re feeling. And kindness is just being a nice, friendly person.

In combining the two concepts for yourself, think about treating yourself like you would a best friend. If your best friend slipped up, and made a mistake, would you berate them with negative words to make them feel bad? Probably not.

Start to treat yourself like you would your best friend during this process, with all the kindness and compassion you have! You deserve the same level of kindness and compassion you would give to a dear friend or loved one, so start opening yourself up to receiving it as you work through this practice of improving your language to be more positive!

It’s okay to make mistakes, and it’s okay to take a step backwards. The key to success is being kind and compassionate to yourself in these moments, to get back up, and to keep working toward your goals!

Use the Power of Positive Language for Anxiety Relief.

I hope by reading this blog, you’ve started to see just how incredibly powerful your words and thoughts are, and how much language comes into play as you’re working to relieve anxiety.

Remember, your words are SO POWERFUL, and simply your choice of words you use in your communication to yourself and others can make all the difference!

Gaining awareness on how you’re currently using your language is the first step. And using that awareness to find opportunities to make upgrades is a must! Start to notice what you’re saying, what language you’re using, and how you’re feeling in those moments. Get curious about the thoughts and feelings and find opportunities to shift your words to be powerful in a positive way!

From there, make sure you connect your language back to your WHY. Use your why to stay focused on the goal. Have a deep inner knowing and purpose as to why you’re committed to doing the work to incorporate the power of positive language. This helps you choose new, more powerful words in your communication because you have your goals and your purpose in mind.

And then, along the way, recognize opportunities to offer yourself some kindness and compassion. It’s not about getting this practice “perfect” (because what is perfect anyway?). Even if you slip up and use some negative language from here on out, it’s okay! Rewiring your brain takes time so give yourself grace, space and time to make it happen. Remember, treating yourself like you would a best friend, and offering yourself support and encouragement will feel better than criticizing yourself.

It’s all about making small, sustainable changes to lead up to a magnificent shift in finding and expressing all of your awesomeness! And from personal experience, I can tell you shifting to using more positive language will make a profound shift in finding anxiety relief and letting all of your awesomeness shine through!

As always, If you need extra support around any of these strategies, please contact me! I’m always here to help you.

You can also connect with a group of other like-minded folks looking to alleviate anxiety, reduce stress, and ease depression naturally by joining my group Eat Healthy, Be Happy on Facebook. You’re not alone and we’re all in this together!

You are worthy and deserving of awesomeness, positivity, joy, happiness and love dear one.

You’ve got this and I believe in YOU!

Much Love,

Susan Renee