Surprise! It’s been a minute, but don’t worry I’m back and I’m here to stay.. So today I’m here to talk to you about

Our topic for today;

Positive self talk:

So you might be wondering what this is, for the past few months while I was away from you my loves, I learnt that this is the most important thing to help one progress in life..and I’m going to show you how.

“Loving or hating the life you are living is solely all in your repeated self-talk.”

Edmond Mbiaka

My definition of Positive self-talk is:
The flip of negative self talk, showing oneself self compassion and understanding for who you are and what you have been through.
Positive self-talk sees our internal narrative switching to ideas like ‘I can do better next time’ or ‘I choose to learn from my mistakes, not be held back by them’.

Personally, I have learnt to practise positive self talk daily. It can be quite hard especially when so many people doubt you or even when you have self doubt and you constantly have so many negative thoughts among others. But guess what you can do it! These are some of the examples of positive self-talk statements and phrases;

1. 1. I have the power to change my mind.
   2. Attempting to do this took courage and I am proud of myself for trying.
   3. Even though it wasn’t the outcome I hoped for, I learned a lot about myself for trying.
   4. I might still have a way to go, but I am proud of how far I have already come. There are so many of these statements, so do you now realise that you can actually say these statements to yourself?

Before you can begin to use positive self-talk, you first need to identify how often and what type of negative thinking/self-talk you engage in. Once you understand this, you can make a start on retraining your thoughts.

Negative self-talk tends to fall into one of four categories:

• 1. Personalizing – Meaning you blame yourself when things go wrong.
  2. Polarizing – Meaning you see things only as good or bad, no gray areas or room for middle ground.
  3. Magnifying – Meaning you only focus on the bad or negative in every scenario and dismiss anything good or positive.
  4. Catastrophizing – Meaning you always expect the worst.

You might identify with only one of these categories or multiple. The point is once you start categorizing your thoughts like this, you can then begin to work on switching them for more positive frames.

This won’t happen overnight, and you’ll need to ensure you put in the practice to really hone in on your self-talk and identify where changes are needed.

Some strategies you might use to achieve this could include:

1. Identifying Self-Talk traps

Some situations may cause us to indulge in more negative self-talk than others. Forexample for me, negative self-talk comes up more when I have to relate and socialise with people at social events.

Identifying these traps can help you put in more preparation to address and switch your negative to positive self-talk.

2. Utilise positive affirmations
Positive affirmations are a great way to switch up our self-talk chatter. Before a situation even arises that might incite negative self-talk, practice saying positive affirmations in the mirror to encourage your positive approach to yourself. You may not have a mirror, but you can speak to yourself mentioning positive affirmations and your mind will be altered from negative self talk or thinking negatively.

3. Check-in with your emotions Regularly

Switching to positive self-talk takes effort. We’re so attuned to negative self-talk that it might only take one or two minor setbacks to put you back down that path.

When challenges do arise, make sure you check in with how you’re feeling and that your self-talk hasn’t gotten negative. Bring it back with some positive phrases.

4. Don’t be afraid to create boundaries

This is the last but most important of all!

Sometimes there are people in our lives who don’t bring out the best in us. Identifying self-talk traps might also mean identifying a person or two who encourages you to think negatively about yourself. It’s okay to create boundaries and remove these people.

Focus on surrounding yourself with people who talk positively about you, and encourage you to do the same.

this has worked so much for me and in sure it will for you. I call it: “weeding“.

I hope you take everything in this piece seriously,as December is coming to and end it’s time to embrace positivity for fresh vibes in the new year 2020 innit?

Thank you so much for reading, share with everyone you can.

Sending you love and good vibes,

Grace Natukunda Lynne.

Hey hey, how are you doing? How is your week? I’m certain it’s going to be amazing because I’m always praying for you and God loves you!!So today on this blog, we are talking about having a positive mindset or what I can term as positive thinking.Many times, I tend to think negatively of myself based on what people have said about me, what I think about me, what life throws at me, it’s a bit natural don’t you think?Don’t worry, today I’m going to help you think positively and know the advantages.Today I’m going to give you seven tips to achieve a positive mindset.

1. Start the day with positive affirmation

How you start the morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. Have you ever woken up late, panicked, and then felt like nothing good happened the rest of the day?

This is likely because you started out the day with a negative emotion and a pessimistic view that carried into every other event you experienced. Instead of letting this dominate you, start your day with positive affirmations. Talk to yourself in the mirror, even if you feel silly, with statements like, “Today will be a good day” or “I’m going to be awesome today.” You’ll be amazed how much your day improves. It works for me and it trains you to have a positive mindset no matter what situation you are in.

2. Focus on the good things, however small.

Almost invariably, you’re going to encounter obstacles throughout the day—there’s no such thing as a perfect day. When you encounter such a challenge, focus on the benefits, no matter how slight or unimportant they seem. For example, if you get stuck in traffic, think about how you now have time to listen to the rest of your favorite podcast. If the store is out of the food you want to prepare, think about the thrill of trying something new.Evaluate yourself each day, and focus on the positive things you have done. Your brain is going to bring up negativity but ignore and focus on the positive.

3. Find humour In bad situations
Allow yourself to experience humor in even the darkest or most trying situations. Remind yourself that this situation will probably make for a good story later and try to crack a joke about it. Say you’re laid off; imagine the most absurd way you could spend your last day, or the most ridiculous job you could pursue next—like kangaroo handler or bubblegum sculptor. I usually do this and it works for me, I imagine myself laughing after going through a trying situation. It works amazingly.

4. Turn failures into lessons
You aren’t perfect. You’re going to make mistakes and experience failure in multiple contexts, at multiple jobs and with multiple people. Instead of focusing on how you failed, think about what you’re going to do next time—turn your failure into a lesson. Conceptualize this in concrete rules. For example, you could come up with three new rules for managing projects as a result.

5. Transform negative-self talk into positive self-talk
Negative self-talk can creep up easily and is often hard to notice. You might think I’m so bad at this or I shouldn’t have tried that. But these thoughts turn into internalized feelings and might cement your conceptions of yourself. When you catch yourself doing this, stop and replace those negative messages with positive ones. For example, I’m so bad at this becomes Once I get more practice, I’ll be way better at this. I shouldn’t have tried becomes That didn’t work out as planned—maybe next time.

6. Focus on the present.Do not live in the past, I personally do not like people who constantly remind you of things you did in the past especially when you’re doing well. I’m talking about the present—not today, not this hour, only this exact moment. You might be getting chewed out by your boss, but what in this exact moment is happening that’s so bad? Forget the comment he made five minutes ago. Forget what he might say five minutes from now. Focus on this one, individual moment. In most situations, you’ll find it’s not as bad as you imagine it to be. Most sources of negativity stem from a memory of a recent event or the exaggerated imagination of a potential future event. Stay in the present moment.

7. Find positive friends, mentors and co-workers

When you surround yourself with positive people, you’ll hear positive outlooks, positive stories and positive affirmations. Their positive words will sink in and affect your own line of thinking, which then affects your words and similarly contributes to the group. Finding positive people to fill up your life can be difficult, but you need to eliminate the negativity in your life before it consumes you. Do what you can to improve the positivity of others, and let their positivity affect you the same way.

Almost anybody in any situation can apply these lessons to their own lives and increase their positive attitude. As you might imagine, positive thinking offers compounding returns, so the more often you practice it, the greater benefits you’ll realize.

Positivity is a very important part of your mental health because when you choose negativity you will not be happy.I hope today’s blog helps you affirm positivity. Thank you for checking it out.

God bless you.

Grace Lynne

Hey there, I hope you had an amazing week, Did you know I prayed for you to have one? If you didn’t it’s coming your way, God loves you.

So today we are going to talk about finding yourself and accepting who you truly are. Most of my agemates have a problem with this, they struggle to fit in somewhere, or feel like they need to be more like other people they see on instagram, among others.

Not only them, it could be you reading this blog today, guess what! I am here to help you.

First things first, who are you? What’s your name? What do you love doing?

What describes you? What defines You?

Too many questions, right? But have you ever asked yourself any of them?

If you have,

do you have clear answers to these questions? Well, if you don’t calm down! I am here to blow your mind and help you figure this out.

Here are different ways that can help you find yourself and accept who you truly are.

1. Accept yourself;

Acceptance is the ability to unconditionally value all parts of who you are. That means you acknowledge all of yourself–the good and the things that need improvement. For most of us, self-acceptance can be hard. We tend to be critical of ourselves, but there are a number of ways to learn to accept yourself and your life. It all begins with your state of mind.

Accepting yourself includes: knowing who you truly are, what can you do? What can’t you do, what can you afford to purchase in your life as an individual? Who are you? What are your weaknesses, strengths?

Do you know any of these?

2. Acknowledge your reality

Did you know that accepting your current situation can help you be happier in the present and it leads to a better future?

Understanding, accepting, and working with reality is both practical and purposeful. Acknowledging your reality will help you choose yourp dreams wisely and then help you achieve them.

3. Practice radical honesty
When you can admit your own pretense you can begin to powerfully create a new future. Denying your current reality–especially if it’s a bad one–will not make it make it go away. Dealing with the bad stuff is a way to get to the good stuff–but it takes practice, practice, practice.

4. Identify your part
To fully accept your reality, it’s important to acknowledge any role you may have played, good or bad, in getting where you are. Ask yourself questions related to your current situation to help work toward solutions. To fully accept your reality, it is important to identify what you may have done to foster success or failure. Once you know what you’re dealing with, you can work toward the best next steps.

5. Admit your mistakes
Remember that you can’t fix anything until you admit there’s a problem. Try to view your mistakes not as failures but as learning opportunities, and have the strength within to realize you control your reality and you’re the only one who can change it. Decide what’s important to you and set your mind to it.

6. Own your outcomes
Work toward owning every part of your realities–not just the things that need work but also your strengths and successes. Owning all your outcomes can help teach you to do better next time, to see failure as a learning moment.

Say to yourself each day, these are my strengths and I’m proud of myself, and these are my weaknesses how do I help myself? I failed at this, but is it the last chance I have in life?

I always tell myself silently, wow! Look at what you have achieved, wow you didn’t do this well but you can, I don’t let anyone belittle me.

A little trick I use, I don’t let any negative comments get to me and as a result I own my outcomes myself. Try it it’s a brilliant way to accept self and find self!

7. Don’t let fear get in your way
Don’t let fears–especially fears of what others think of you–stand in your way. You must be willing to do things in the unique ways you think are best, and to reflect on any feedback you receive.

A good friend of mine always says: I refer to myself as a “god” because what others think of me has never stood in my way.

This has helped this person achieve very many things in life, Do not be afraid of negativity, do your thing and accept all the feedback you receive and life will be amazing.

8. Count on your competences
It’s easy to look in the mirror and point out all your insecurities. But to face your reality, it’s best to start counting all positives. Make a list of your strengths, the things you are good at, the values that you hold, and the accomplishments you’ve achieved. Counting on your competencies helps you realize your strengths, which in turn will help you improve your attitude toward yourself.

9. Let go of your biases
Don’t get caught up in the life you think you are supposed to have, but work on creating the reality you are meant to live. Your biases can blind you to almost any reality. You can try to ignore them, but closing your eyes won’t make them disappear. Instead, learn to understand them and let them go.

10. Accept that struggle will always be part of our reality
Don’t shy away from challenges but wade into the struggle and get comfortable with operating and living there. Struggles are a way of life, and we have to learn to confront them. And you never know: sometimes the most challenging things can hold the greatest opportunity for success.

11. Make a plan for reaching your goal

Hey people,
Hope your week has been awesome, and you’re ready to start off another amazing new week, if it hasn’t gone so well for you don’t worry I’m praying for you, God loves you and this week is going to be amazing for you!

So still on self care this week we are talking about physical self care!!💃

Physical self care

1. What does it mean for you?
2. How to practice it
3. Why it’s important

So let’s begin with what it actually means:

This is the the ability of one to take care of self, love their body, consider it a gem and it involves a lot of things to do with the body.

You’re probably wondering OK, I’ve got the definition but what can I do about it?

How do i do this? Well, guess what that’s why I am here at the end of this blog definitely your questions will be answered!

So there are two things people do not understand regarding to physical self love, there is loving self, and liking self.

Let me give you examples of liking self.

1. When you manage to lose a few kilos, when you do your hair and make up and look great – you like yourself.
2. When you achieve something big – you like yourself.

But what happens when the opposite happens? Do you still love yourself, when you look in the mirror do you love what you have become after losing these kilos, or after achieving something, are you proud of yourself? Do you love yourself?

Hopefully, we are getting the difference now .

So let me go ahead,

How to practice Physical self love

This are a few things that helped me in my journey of loving self. I hope they help you too.

1. Become aware of your inner voice

Did you know, that we always talk to ourselves but we are not always conscious of that voice, I also find myself a victim to this, but don’t worry it has a solution!

So the first step, become conscious of your inner voice, pay attention to what it’s saying.

Notice what you say when you achieve something great, when you fail, when you think you don’t look amazing, when you don’t like the image you see in the mirror among others.

Here are some of the situations in which you should keep awareness of your inner voice:

• When you wake up and look in the mirror
• When someone is really mean to you
• When you get scolded by your boss
• When you put on weight
• When you make decisions abruptly

Those, and many more. Are you still loving to yourself in these moments?

If not let’s go to step 2

STEP 2

Take control of your inner voice

The things you hear now, have been in your head your whole life, you may actually be amazed when you look back at some of the things you said to yourself. The more you hear something, the more you believe in it.( Did you know that) ?

So if you speak negatively to yourself, then negativity you shall produce are we together?

But you can also change these things you say to yourself, it’s not too late.

How? Everytime you find yourself speaking negatively about yourself just say no! “Cancel cancel”! This actually sends a message to your subconscious mind to ignore what you just told yourself.

After cancelling, say a new thing to yourself: this time a very loving and supportive message and just keep doing this.

At first, you will still find yourself being negative once in a while, I know it’s not easy it’s catchy. But the more you practice, the more you will believe in it. I believe you will so let’s do this.

STEP 3

Treat yourself like a child ;

People often ask how should they talk to themselves. After being so harsh on ourselves we don’t know what that new voice should be like.

So to help you change the tone of your inner voice, imagine yourself as a child. Some people call it your inner child. Tuning into that inner child allows you to look at yourself without judgement.

You see yourself as this little, vulnerable creature, that simply wants to be loved.

The moment you envision yourself as a child, you’ll notice that the harsh judgement melts away. It’s that simple!

After all, we all have inner children in us. There are needs that were never met when we were very young – and we carry these needs into our adult lives. We might suppress them, push them into subconscious and not even realise they are there – but I guarantee you, there are.

Treating yourself like a child allows you to cater to those needs

STEP 4

Love yourself emotionally and physically
What do you do when you love someone? Think of your parents, siblings, a lover or a best friend. Do you get them gifts? Do you take them out on a date? Do you pay for them? Do you spend quality time together?

So guess what!now is the time to love yourself the same way you do when you love someone.

This seems freaky right? but you can actually do it how?

• Take yourself For a date sounds weird, but you can do it.
• Take a trip alone somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.
• Go to the gym often or take yoga classes
• Buy that nice dress, shoes, tuxedo for yourself
• Take pictures of yourself as often as you wish
• Rock that amazing dress, shoes,shirt,trousers and believe you look amazing
• Dance, listen to your favorite song.
• Go and hang out where you’ve always wanted.

There are very many amazing things you can do to show love to yourself.

The more you practice acts of self-love, the stronger message you send to yourself: “You deserve it”. It’s an essential, and a fun way to practice self-love.

So just start. Follow these 4 steps. And know that if you do : You’ll wake up and you’ll feel different. You’ll be in love. With yourself.

It all begins with you sweetheart! YOU

Lastly, let’s look at why it’s important;

1. You will learn with time, that you do not need to be perfect, you are amazing just the way you are.
2. Other people’s image of you will not matter, because you love yourself physically, emotionally.
3. You will learn that you do not have to be exactly like someone else, we are different.
4. You will appreciate yourself more often.

I really hope you are going to practice these amazing steps of physical self love.

I love you all, and I would love your additions and topics or questions on this matter.

Till the next episode, I remain

Grace Natukunda Lynne

Hey people, starting this month this is going to be the topic for this blog..

So I’ve seen a lot of my friends basically struggle to love and appreciate themselves, and Guess what I’ve been there before too!

So guess what, this month am going to take you through a few ways how you can work on loving yourself, accepting self, and learning that self care is important…

For today’s episode, first things first do you recognise what self love is?what It means, why it’s important, have any clues?

Well the word self love for me means:

A state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, emotional,psychological and spiritual growth.

To elaborate more on this I would say. It’s a way to come to terms with our personal weaknesses, strengths and above all to always have Time for oneself either spiritually, emotionally, physically or psychologically.

So today, am going to talk about

Emotional self care

This involves a lot of things, for starters:

1. Setting boundaries
2. Choosing the right way to deal with your emotions
3. Forgiving and protecting self
4. Managing your anger

Let’s start with setting boundaries, this can also go with protecting self, what does it include?

How do you do this?

As I said earlier on, YOU and only you can choose what things get to you, forexample: I could choose to get angry or sad about certain things or ignore them and be happy because it’s important for me to limit myself from things that deplete me emotionally.

I am sure you can relate to this, throughout the week notice whenever you get annoyed can you choose to actually be happy about it? (whisper the answer to yourself) you shall figure out this is easy!

Next we have what we call choosing the right way to deal with your Emotions:

Lemme start by giving you a few quotes

“Note to self:anger is a chosen response. “

“If you aren’t the one who is controlling your own thoughts, feelings and emotions then you are the one being controlled.”

So let me elaborate more on this issue,

Some people I know, get angry and can break anything they come across, others feel good by “putting” their anger on other people who have done completely nothing.

But did you know you can actually decide not to even let anger get to you? Well not only anger, but other emotions too like worry, stress, sadness and many more especially negative emotions.

Let me tell you something exciting, you can actually deal with them and tell your mind and heart that,

Today: I choose not to get angry over simple issues, I choose to be happy, I love myself and nothing is going to belittle my emotions. I can control my temper, I will not allow to be provoked and I can deal with my emotions, yes I can.

You notice the constant use of the word I? Guess why..its because it all starts with you!

Try it and I promise you will thank me later.

THEN we have what we call forgiving and protecting self, which includes:

• Bringing the right people into your life. A lot of people my age use the phrase “frenemies” . This literally means friends who take pleasure in your pain and loss rather than in your happiness and success. But guess what , get rid of them! There isn’t enough time in your life on people who want to take away the shine on yourself that says: ” I genuinely love myself and my life”. You will love yourself more!
• Forgiving self: you have to accept your humanness , you’re not perfect, you can make mistakes. But hey guess what! You can correct those mistakes too. There are no failures, if you’ve learned and grown from your mistakes; they are lessons learned.

LASTLY:

MANAGING ANGER!

This is quite an issue. I’ve a friend called Nancy( not real name for personal reasons) had anger issues that were quite serious, she would even break her phone by hitting it on the wall, and other things.

So she went for therapy and the first thing she was told is; Did you know it all starts with you?

You can decide not to do certain things when you’re angry it all starts with you, love yourself.

And this was the beginning of the end of her anger issues so you can do the same too.

In conclusion, it all begins with you, as we progress you will learn that self love is the most important thing!

I love you all, keep on your toes for the next episode.

Grace Natukunda Lynne

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton