Episode #85: The Power of Affirmations in PCOS Healing

Our mindset and our thoughts have such a huge power on our ability to heal and work with our bodies and so in today’s episode, we’re going to take the angle of our thoughts and how they affect a holistic approach to our PCOS health. So let’s dive in.

You’re listening to the PCOS Repair podcast, where we explore the ins and outs of PCOS and how to repair the imbalances in your hormones naturally with a little medical help sprinkled in. Hi, I’m Ashlene Korcek, and with many years of medical and personal experience with polycystic ovarian syndrome, it is my joy to watch women reverse their PCOS as they learn to nourish their body in a whole new way. With the power of our beliefs, our mindset, and our environment, and the understanding of our genetics, we can heal at the root cause.

Welcome back to the PCOS Repair podcast, where today we are going to be diving into our thoughts and in particular, affirmations. Affirmations can sound a bit woo-woof to some people, and perhaps they can be used in that way but in this episode, we’re going to be talking about how you can use the power of having a predetermined thought to pull yourself out of the negative thoughts, out of the thoughts that are telling us that we’re stuck, out of the thoughts that are pulling us down and keeping us from being able to reach our potential with our PCOS health and so as you listen to today’s episode, I want you to start by having in mind what are some of the areas that you struggle with. As we get into how to start creating your mindset and your affirmations to support what you’re wanting, first of all, of course, we need to know what it is that we want. Do we want more energy? Do we want easier time managing our weight? Do we want to increase our fertility? Do we want to have more energy? The list goes on and on with PCOS because it can affect so many areas of our life so with that, first of all, the power of thoughts when it comes to our health, when it comes to our entire life and all successes that we want to have, but in particular when it comes to our health, is so incredibly important. Stop and think about it for a second. We’ve all had days where we are down in the dumps and on those days, how much motivation do we have? How much determination to go ahead and do the thing that we wanted to do? At the time of this recording, I’m in January, which is a month where we typically have all of these resolutions, all of these goals that we set for ourselves and as we try to continue those past January into February, and hopefully throughout our life, it’s so easy to say, Oh, I lost motivation or life got busy. What happens there? What’s actually going on? Oftentimes, we have thoughts that were the beginning, the seed of our downfall. If we think about our day and if we’re super busy, we might start telling ourselves, I don’t have time, we might start telling ourselves things like, It’s not working anyway, I don’t even know what to do, I feel like my PCOS is a mystery. All of these things that we tell ourselves give us the excuse to not try, to not take the actions. Then overall, we prove that theory that it was too hard, that we didn’t know how, that we couldn’t do it.

It all starts with our thoughts but how do we get a hold of those thoughts? Our mind wanders, our mind just comes up with things on our own, and we have to learn how to redirect it. One of the best ways to redirect it is to have some predetermined thoughts that we tell ourselves over and over and over. This is where we have sat and we have logically thought through. We have figured out what we what we really do think and what we really do believe and so that when we have those doubts, when our mind starts to be negative, when we are tired, when life gets busy, when we feel discouraged, all of those things are normal but when we have predetermined thoughts, many people call them affirmations. We can help our bodies, help our minds, help ourselves stay focused on how we want to think, how we want to show up in our life and you can do this in all areas, but today we’re going to be talking about it in terms of PCOS.

These aren’t just mantras or empty words or something that you can Google and take somebody else’s. Now, you can get ideas by googling. If you go to today’s show notes on the website, you’ll see I have a whole list of ones that you can get started with to help inspire you but ultimately, you have to make your affirmations your own. For someone who is trying to, say, get pregnant, you may have an affirmation of, I am nurturing and nourishing my body so that my ovaries feel healthy, so that they feel cared for, and so that they are ready to work with me and ovulate monthly. Do you see how specific that was? Just saying, I am nourishing my fertility, that’s a good start but getting really specific into mentally picturing what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, is really helpful for when you’re choosing your food and you have this in the back of your mind of why you’re doing what you’re doing. Also, telling yourself if you have doubts. That’s one where if you realize, Okay, I know what I need to do, I’m just having a hard time staying with it because of whatever reasons but if you actually have doubts that you know what to do or doubts that this will work for you, then make an affirmation on that. My body and I are a team, we work together to create health. Again, you have to take it and make it your own, but that gives you a different angle on how you could take that.

As you create your affirmations, the number one important thing is to think, where are you struggling and where do you want to be? The affirmation is a mindset to bridge that gap. It’s a thing that you already know or that you want to believe, but maybe you have heard it before and you think it’s probably true, but you’re having a hard time actually taking it in and believing it and so saying it over and over and over to yourself can help us to get to that place where, yes, that’s right and as we start to do that and we start to take the actions on it, we start to see that, you know what? This thing that I keep reminding myself is true.

So it’s if you think about a person or a friend in your life, if you constantly remind them, Hey, you matter to me. Of course, I want to hear that. You matter to me. Hey, why didn’t you tell me about your day yesterday? Why didn’t you call me when that happened? I want to hear what’s going on in your life because you matter to me. When we repeatedly tell someone who may not believe that it’s true, and we take the time to act upon it because empty words are just empty words but as we take the time to act upon it, all of a sudden, we start to believe it or they start to believe it in that situation. As you create your affirmation, start with one or two if you’re new to this. If you’ve done this before, you can have many, but you want to start with one or two that you’re focusing on, and then you want to use them consistently. You want to write it down, you can put it on your phone, you want to put it somewhere maybe you have a timer that goes off, and every couple of hours, you remind yourself to go look at it, maybe it’s somewhere that you go frequently, maybe you put it on the refrigerator. Everyone’s going to have a different idea on how to do this because some people, they work from home and they don’t mind having a sticky on their computer, so they see it all day long. You want to have it in a place where you see it, but you also want to have a place where you are comfortable and you don’t feel like it’s maybe too personal and too public. So you have to balance that. Also, I think that you want to look at it with intention and so if you put it somewhere where you just pass by it, so I I actually don’t love having it on my computer unless I only use my computer sporadically throughout the day because in some ways you almost want to have it be a reminder. You could put it in your phone as a calendar appointment and then have it right there that when it pops up as a reminder, on your phone, it’s written right there and you see it intentionally. Take a moment, pause, take it in, say it to yourself, and you either out loud if you’re by yourself or somewhere where you feel comfortable or repeat it in your head quietly and that way, you show up and digest that on a routine basis and not just get used to having it there like you would a decoration or something that you just glance past and don’t see anymore. So that’s what you want to avoid but ultimately, you want to just make sure that you’re it over and over and over and this is your affirmation. You can change it, you can alter it, you can change how many times a day you see it, if there’s days that you feel like you need to see it more, if you start to feel like that negativity is coming in, have it somewhere where you can just read it, hold on to it, you’re going to have it memorized very quickly, and you can even just recite it without having seen it when those negative or doubting thoughts come into your mind.

As we start to use our mindset this way, as we start to program our thoughts to the thoughts that we want to be thinking. We know, how does this work and what should our expectations be? Because sometimes it’s like, Oh, great. I’m doing affirmations. Well, it didn’t seem to do anything for me. In and of themselves, our thoughts don’t do anything for us. We have to back them up with actions but if we don’t first have the thought, the intention, the motivation, the determination, the discipline, and the reminders of the next step for as in we’re continue plodding along, the tortoise wins the race, kind of a thing. If we don’t take the actions, the affirmations still help our mindset, and our mindset is still vastly important. But as we have that mindset, as we take our thoughts and use them to help us move forward in the direction that we want to go with our PCOS health, then we have to also take the actions. If you’re in a place where you’re I actually don’t know what to do, that’s when we seek help. Our affirmations are the next step where we are stuck. If we are in a place where we have no idea what’s going on with our PCOS, we have no idea where to start, then an affirmation that says, I’m nourishing my PCOS in a way that will boost my fertility and my body and I work together, that’s a great affirmation. It’s a little bit hard to believe when you don’t have step one, two, three and three in place first.

You may back up and say, You know what? I’m struggling. You may start with that one and then realize, You know what? I’m missing some pieces. So your affirmation may be, I’m asking for the support of an expert, I’m asking for the support of my family, I’m being more open to getting help, wherever it is that you’re feeling stuck, it may be, I’m open to having these conversations with my partner so that we eat healthier. Wherever it is that you’re being stuck, that’s where your affirmations, your mindset, and your daily reminders basically come in.

In closing today, I would love, if you would be so willing, as to share your affirmations with me over on Instagram. I will keep everything private, I will not share anyone’s names, but I think it would be really cool to share these with each other and I can do that in my Instagram stories. Anyone who feels comfortable sharing their affirmations, now no one’s going to know where you’re at in your journey, no one’s going to even know who shared each one. There is no right or wrong affirmation here, but I think that it’s really helpful to see what other people are saying and to feel the community of all of that.

I get so many DMs from all of you and I just love it that I would love to, this week with this episode, be able to share some of your lovely thoughts with our community over on Instagram. If you are willing to do that, you can find me @Nourishedtohealthy on Instagram. Send me a DM of your affirmations. Of course, if you have any questions about PCOS or anything PCOS, but specifically for this week about affirmations or your mindset or the thoughts that you’re thinking and how to get started, that is also a great place to reach me over on Instagram @Nourishedtohealthy. Until next time, start working on your affirmations. Use them daily. Let them lift your thoughts, lift your attitude, and ultimately help you to take the actions that you need to begin to thrive in your body with your health. Until next time. Bye for now.