2. The most powerful words you'll ever speak

Two words are powerful beyond measure. Two words can change your life from self-destruction, mediocrity, and unfulfillment to gratefulness, self-care, self-love, and power.

Two words define who you are. Two words either lift you up or put you down. They empower and support you or destroy your sense of self. So powerful are these two words. 

Use them with care and intention. 

For yourself and for those whose lives you touch.

Listen to today's episdoe to find what these two words are and how to use them to your advantage.

Transcript

Nadja Hagen [00:00:14]:
Are you ready to go from am I good enough to is this good for me? Welcome to the self love sessions podcast. I'm your hostess, Natje Hagen, and I'm the self love coach for ambitious women recovering from people pleasing and starting to love the heck out of themselves. The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. It sets the tone for all other relationships in your life and your overall quality of life. It's worth cultivating. In the self love sessions podcast, I share nuggets of wisdom on setting healthy boundaries, prioritizing your needs without shame and guilt, and building relationships that enrich your whole dang life, starting with the one you have with yourself. Let's dive into today's episode. Welcome to the second episode of the self love sessions podcast.

Nadja Hagen [00:01:18]:
This episode has the title, the 2 most powerful words you'll ever speak. And I know this is a mouthful of a promise. But I'll deliver on it. So stay tuned, we are diving right into it. So there are 2 words that are powerful beyond measure. These two words are indeed the most powerful words that you could ever speak and use. And whatever you put behind these two words will become your reality, your truth. By now you're probably very curious.

Nadja Hagen [00:01:54]:
What are these two words? Okay. I'll share them in a second. Drumroll, please. These two words are I am. Whatever you put behind these two words will become your self identity. What is behind the words I am is your self belief. It determines what you believe about yourself. And your self belief over time becomes part of your self identity.

Nadja Hagen [00:02:29]:
And your self identity determines how you live your life, What kind of decisions you make. How you react to certain situations. How you self sabotage. So these two words are mighty mighty powerful. And you could take what I say just as a given, but I really appreciate that you critically question what I'm sharing with you and I'm happy to deliver on that too. Let me share a little bit about how our brains work. I will give you a little bit of background theory on brain science and neuroscience. But don't worry, I'll keep it easily digestible and fun.

Nadja Hagen [00:03:12]:
And you will walk away with so much knowledge to change your life. Seriously. So let's dive deeper into the theory. The first thing you need to know is that our brain has a limited perception. I know that you don't notice anything of this in your regular life. You have your perception and you think that is the world around you, but that is false. Your perception only catches a tiny little bit about everything that is surrounding you. Let me explain this further.

Nadja Hagen [00:03:52]:
Our brain can perceive around 32 bits of information. That means you have probably heard the term bits of information in relation to computer science and it's similar to that. One bit of information is one tiny, really tiny piece of information. It can be information like the leaf in front of me is green. So the color green is a one piece of information. One bit of information. Noticing that there is a leaf in front of your face is another bit of information. So you see 32 bits of information isn't much compared to all the bits that are surrounding us.

Nadja Hagen [00:04:38]:
I have heard and read different numbers. But in the end, it doesn't matter if it's 1,000,000,000 pieces of information surrounding us or if it is 3,000,000,000 pieces. It is huge. It's so huge. I have difficulties to imagine this number in my mind. Catching 32 bits of information from a whole huge sea of 1 or 3000000000. That's quite a tiny excerpt of our surroundings that we actively and consciously perceive. And when we perceive these things, our brain automatically processes the emotion it perceives.

Nadja Hagen [00:05:23]:
We perceive the information through our eyes, our ears, our skin, through seeing, hearing, feeling. And then automatically our brain starts to process these. So if I perceive a certain temperature on my skin, my brain automatically tells me, oh, that's cold. You better put on a jacket when you go outside. So this is very useful if it works in our favor. But it doesn't always work in our favor. Unfortunately, I'll share more about this at a later point in this episode. Coming back to the tiny part of reality that we actively perceive with our brain.

Nadja Hagen [00:06:09]:
There's another thing that you need to know. I have already talked about self beliefs at the beginning of this episode. We all hold a certain set of beliefs about ourselves. As an example, I can believe that I'm smart or I can believe that I'm not so smart. But whatever I believe, my brain will do everything in its power to prove my belief right. And your brain does the exact same thing. What does this actually mean for you and your life and how your life is going? Let me explain. If you hold a negative belief, your brain does everything to prove this belief right.

Nadja Hagen [00:06:57]:
And it starts with a perception. I have a friend who is constantly struggling with her weight and she was on a diet, actually a very successful diet. So she was losing weight and she fed awesome doing so. But she still had the belief, I'm one of these chubby girls and weight will always be an issue for me. And she noticed that suddenly her weight loss stopped. She didn't change anything. At least that's what she thought. She was still exercising.

Nadja Hagen [00:07:33]:
She was still eating healthy. The only thing that has changed is that after her exercise routine, she ate a certain bar from a certain brand. And she guaranteed that this bar was healthy because she'd checked the labels and the ingredients. And it didn't have lots of sugar. That's what she said and that's what she believed. And after her next exercise routine, when she grabbed her bar, she checked the labels again. And the ingredients were still good until she showed this bar to a friend of us. And our friend said, it has lots of sugar in it.

Nadja Hagen [00:08:14]:
Didn't you notice it? And you know what? Even though she checked the labels several times, she didn't notice this. This is how powerful our perception is or in this case, non perception. Why I'm sharing the story with you? Because I wanted to give a hands on example of how our brain actively filters out information that is not in alignment with our beliefs. This was an example where a negative belief was enforced. There are also lots of examples where positive beliefs are enforced. So if I believe I'm smart and I'm making a dumb decision, I will look at the situation completely differently than somebody who holds the belief of not being so smart. And this is the exact reason why these two words, the words I am are so massively powerful. They are a self fulfilling prophecy.

Nadja Hagen [00:09:19]:
And when you hold a negative belief about yourself, you will repeat a pattern over and over and over again without even noticing that you are repeating a pattern. Because you are absolutely convinced that this is how things are. This is the reality. This is the truth. But it's not. It is only the part of the reality, the part of the truth that you are actively perceiving. There is a different reality. There are different facts.

Nadja Hagen [00:09:57]:
But these are automatically filtered out by your brain. There is the saying from Wayne Dyer. If you change how you look at things, the things you look at change. And I couldn't phrase it better. The moment you are able to reframe and change your self belief, this is the exact moment that your perception of reality of your surroundings automatically and instantly changes too. And that's a game changer. It's also the reason why mindset work is so powerful. I'm not sharing all this information so that you can just impress your friends with your knowledge.

Nadja Hagen [00:10:40]:
I'm sharing this knowledge so that you have something in your hands to truly make a change in your life. So let me share with you how you can use this knowledge to your advantage. When you notice that you get negative results in a certain area of your life then you are with a high probability repeating a negative pattern over and over without being aware of it. So the first step is to create awareness. If you notice something is regularly not playing out in your favor, stop immediately and bring awareness to the situation. What is really going on? How are you feeling? Do you notice certain emotions in your body? Maybe certain negative emotions that you haven't noticed before. And these emotions might give you more information about what is really going on. When you have created awareness, then you are in a position to catch these negative beliefs and patterns.

Nadja Hagen [00:11:42]:
And the moment you catch them, you can stop them. When it's a negative belief, you can stop rethinking the same old thoughts. And you can rephrase them into more empowering ones. If you notice certain behaviors playing out, as an example, you successfully went through your exercise routine and instead of grabbing an apple, you are grabbing some sweets. The moment you catch this, you can stop it. And again, you can create awareness and ask yourself, why am I doing this? Is it out of habit? Is it out of the belief that I deserve to treat myself because I so bravely went through my exercise routine, which actually is just self sabotage in this case? Maybe different questions and observations are coming up for you, but they are so valuable because they contain the exact information you need to resolve this pattern and reframe your self belief. Which leads to you reframing intentionally your self identity. Isn't this powerful? Because the words I am are so powerful, I advise you to use them very intentionally.

Nadja Hagen [00:13:03]:
So often when people are experiencing a mishap, they are saying things like, oh, I'm so stupid and it comes out of their mouth completely unreflected, unintentionally on autopilot. But just because you drop something randomly, you're not stupid. Not at all. But these things have been modeled to us by our surroundings, by our caregivers. And these are things that we've been trained to do without even thinking about it. So use the words, I am very carefully and intentionally. And choose very intentionally what you put behind these two powerful words. Because these two words are powerful beyond measure.

Nadja Hagen [00:13:56]:
These two words can change your life from self destruction, mediocrity, and unfulfillment to gratefulness, self care, self love, and power, and so much more. These two words define who you are. They either lift you up or they put you down. They empower and support you or destroy your sense of self. So powerful are these two words. So it's very wise to use them carefully and intentionally. And do this not only for yourself but also for the people surrounding you, especially when you have children. Telling a child you are so stupid or you have such a difficult character can destroy their sense of self, their self worth and their self belief in an instant.

Nadja Hagen [00:14:53]:
We are so easy to throw out some words without even thinking deeper about them. And sometimes we don't have a clue how impactful these words are. No matter if these words are directed towards ourselves or towards our children, our partner, our friends, our family, our colleagues, our clients, whoever it is. And these two words can also change your world from a world that's a dangerous place where you are constantly need to pay attention so that you are safe, sound, and well taken care of, to a place where you are loved, supported, seen, and valued. It's just incredible how immensely powerful these two words are. I sincerely hope that today's episode brought you huge 's and gave you something at hand that you can practically use in your everyday life. I'm sending so much love to you and I would love to know how is your experience with these two powerful words, I am. What do you use to put behind them? Let me know, and I talk to you in the next episode.

Nadja Hagen [00:16:19]:
Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you found this valuable, please give a 5 star rating and tell other women that this show is worth listening to. I talk to you in the next episode.