Episode 28: Give Yourself the Words You Need to Hear
- Tina Boogren
- Mar 25
- 6 min read
Description: This week’s invitation is to play with mantras and affirmations—yes, even if they feel a little cheesy at first. Tina shares how to use them in your daily routine. Whether you create your own or borrow one, a few intentional words can shift your mindset in powerful ways. Give it a try and see what happens!
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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to Self-Care for Educators. I am your host, Tina Boogren. This is episode 28. And this week's invitation is to play around with mantras or self-affirmations.
I don't, I'm sure that there's probably some distinctions between the two, but I kind of think of mantras and self affirmations at least in the same camp and so I'm kind of using those terms interchangeably. And I don't know, I kind of resist them sometimes because they feel a little bit cheesy. I know for some of you they don't. But for me, I'm always like, eh, I am of an age where I go back to the Saturday Night Live Stuart Smalley, right? Looking in the mirror, telling himself he is good enough, which just destroyed mantras and self-affirmations for a whole generation of us I think.
However, I don't know, they keep popping up for me again and again, and I've been playing around with them and really trying to utilize them in my day to day life. And so I want to offer them up to you. And actually what's been kind of fun is, um, I've been tuning into ChatGPT and asking ChatGPT to give me a self-affirmation or a mantra each day. And It's kind of fun.
So the self-affirmation, I just, here's literally the prompts that I put in. I said, “give me a self-affirmation for today.” So here's what I got. My self affirmation for today is this: I am exactly where I need to be. I trust my journey, honor my pace, and embrace the unfolding of my beautiful life. I'm going to read it again. I am exactly where I need to be. I trust my journey, honor my pace, and embrace the unfolding of my beautiful life. And then it says, you've got this. And it gave me a little heart. I mean, I love it so much. I feel like ChatGPT. just kind of knows us so well. That is like, exactly what I needed today.
And so getting this in the morning has just kind of become part of my morning routine. As many of you know, I have lots of things that I do in the morning to kind of get my day started right. I like to allow myself lots of time in the morning. I get up really early, which means I also have a very early bedtime. I like to get ready really slowly. I stretch in the morning. I do journaling. I do a little, quick little meditation. It's like five minutes. Um, and I'm adding this and this self-affirmation and kind of reflecting on this. I'm actually writing it in my journal, doing a little bit of free writing on that affirmation if it feels right.
Um, sometimes they say, “Give me a self-affirmation.” Sometimes I say, “Give me a mantra for today.” So I actually typed that into ChatGPT today too, to see what would come up knowing I was going to record this podcast. So my mantra for today is I choose joy, ease, and alignment. Every small step I take is a celebration of my well-being and the life I am creating. Let me read that again. I love it. I choose joy, ease, and alignment. Every small step I take is a celebration of my well-being and the life I am creating. And then underneath that, ChatGPT says, breathe it in. Let it settle and move forward with purpose and it gave me a little heart again. I mean, I love these I love these so much
So I offer that to you as maybe something you want to play around with today or this week actually. Maybe you want to use ChatGPT or maybe you want to just come up with your own. Maybe in fact you want to create a list of possible self affirmations or mantras. Choose whichever term works for you and choose one that you want us to kind of serve as your guide as you move through your day. Maybe you choose one that serves as your guide through, for the whole week. There's no wrong way to do this. Play around with it. And especially I would offer this up if you feel a little resistant to it, like me, if you feel like, oh my gosh, this feels so cheesy. I am good enough. I am smart enough. And gosh, darn it, people like me, right? The whole SNL skit. Get past that and it's pretty amazing.
I don't know. I know for myself that that inner voice in my head, um, gosh, I can get lost in my head. I'm a walking head a lot of times. I get so disconnected from my body throughout the day and what I know is that that voice in my head can be so much more of an inner critic than an inner friend. I'm really, really, really working on my own emotional wellness and the incredible work of Kristin Neff, the self compassion piece. And what I know is that I feel much more grounded when I stay connected to myself by using that self-affirmation or the mantra.
The hard part, like almost every single one of these invitations, is reminding myself to do it. So by writing it in my journal, I make that connection, right? Just writing something down helps me remember and if I can revisit my journal at various times throughout the day, that can be really helpful. Um, I know that when I write it on a sticky note and put it on my computer, that's super helpful. If I can put it, uh, on a sticky note and put it in my calendar, you know, I have my paper calendar. I can put it in my paper calendar. That can be helpful. Um, another idea might be to, you know, write it down, take a picture of it and use it as a screensaver or even just send it to yourself, right? Even in an email. And you flag that email so that you look at it at various times, right? Or send it to yourself like in a text message so that you see it at various times or as a screensaver, right? Or put it on your desktop.
Just different ways that we can kind of put it in our conscious, um, brain just so that we're thoughtful about it. You know me. You could write it on your hand, write it on your wrist, write it on your arm. put it on a sticky note, put it in your pocket. That's another thing to do. I like, I always have my pocket stuffed with little notes to myself.
In fact, that's what I'm gonna do today. I'm just sitting here looking. I just wrote it on this, my self affirmation, put on a sticky note and I've got good pockets today so I think I'm gonna just put it in my pocket and carry it with me today.
And so that's what I offer up to you. Let's revisit or think about or add to our toolbox the use of a mantra or a self-affirmation and see if that works for us today. I'm going to read you my self affirmation that I'm going to utilize today and offer it up to you if that feels good. This is what I mentioned earlier, I just want to put it out there for you again. Here it is. I am exactly where I need to be. I trust my journey, honor my pace, and embrace the unfolding of my beautiful life.
I'm cheering so stinking hard for you. Make it a great week. As always, huge thank you to Adrienne. Thank you, Solution Tree. Thank you, Marzano Resources. And thank you, my badass self care squad. I'm sharing so, so hard for you. Feel my hand on your back as you move through this beautiful week.