It Takes Time to Shift Your Mindset

It’s like a pendulum; momentum is the key

If you’ve tried to change your mindset about some things in the past and became frustrated and gave up, you might be expecting too much too soon.

Change, in any direction, doesn’t happen overnight. It’s subtle shifts that build into momentum until you begin to see your way to the other side.

Trying to transform anything overnight — from your waistline to your mindset — is setting yourself up for failure and disappointment.

For over 30 years I suffered from migraines. No, I am not using that term loosely — I suffered, a lot! As they increased in intensity and frequency, I lost my ability to endure them. Just the thought of another migraine triggered panic and fear. After a harrowing night at the emergency room (again), I told myself I had to do something.

I had tried just about everything to get rid of migraines, so my last stop was acupuncture. I was afraid to go. Not because I feared the needles but because I was afraid it wouldn’t work and I’d be completely out of hope. Sounds crazy, but if you’ve ever faced a giant in your life that didn't surrender to anything, you know what I mean.

Ashley was kind and gentle and when she told me that the thing she has the most success with was migraines, I cried because I felt the sweet bird of hope lift its wings in my heart.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers… — Emily Dickinson

Shifts don’t happen in a vacuum

Step one in eradicating migraines from my life was letting go of some emotional baggage that I had been lugging around. About ten minutes into the procedure I felt a sensation I can only describe as a ‘whooshing’ that went through my body from head to toe. Kind of like that satisfying feeling of when you unplug the stopped up bathroom sink and whoosh! — everything drains away!

And then a thought consumed my mind: I want to forgive everyone for everything. Nothing huge, no main offender…just those little offenses I had held onto all my life that were draining my positive energy and literally blocking my body’s ability to heal.

I cried and Ashley explained that was completely normal and I should come back three times a week until the migraines started to subside.

The first thing I noticed is that they were less intense when they did occur which helped me to stop fearing them so much. I also noticed a decrease in frequency so I could bounce back between rounds and imagine a life without migraines.

After a few visits, I told Ashley I was still getting migraines and I really wanted them GONE!

She asked me if I thought about getting a migraine every day and if I feared or worried about them. Well, duh, ya, of course, I do, I said.

Using the Law of Attraction

Then she introduced me to the pendulum of my thought life and the Law of Attraction. Maybe, on some level, I kind of knew this but I certainly wasn’t applying it in my life and I had indeed let my thoughts about migraines consume me. After 30 years of indescribable pain, it had become a habit.

Ashley explained that what I thought about regularly I would attract more of. The simple Law of Attraction: what we think about and talk about and feed in our life grows.

She helped me understand that I could turn this mindset around but it would take a bit of time. I had been going in one direction for so long that I would have to apply the breaks (stop thinking about getting a migraine) and send the pendulum in the opposite direction by thinking about life without pain and disruption.

She asked me to visualize a happy place, or a place that made me feel great — it could be anything, she said, your garden or a memory from a great vacation. I chose the memory of me standing on top of Merry-Go-Round rock in Sedona, Arizona, feeling like I was on top of the world — migraine free, of course!

Ashley’s instructions to me were to replace any thought about migraine with the image that I had chosen. I shouldn’t berate myself for thinking about a migraine, just recognize it and then wipe it away and stick the happy-place image in its place.

I practiced doing this in the morning upon rising, as I washed dishes, and whenever I felt a twinge that might be the harbinger of a migraine. If I felt a migraine coming on, I took the precautions I needed but instead of panicking and picturing the worst-case scenario, I reminded myself that they were getting better and it would go away.

Over time, I could go days without thinking about migraine and eventually weeks without getting one. If I did get one I wouldn’t worry that it was going to be in the top ten migraines of my life. I told myself it would pass and put my mind in its happy place as I drifted off to sleep.

The momentum continued to build until I realized my thinking had swung the other way. Instead of imagining a migraine ruining my day, I pictured each day migraine free.

Over time I have been able to eliminate all of the migraines, zeroing in on the final key to giving them the heave-ho altogether. But what I learned from my acupuncturist is that I can choose my thoughts, and I can shift an ingrained mindset with time and practice.

Here are the keys:

1. Understand it will take time to change how you’ve been thinking about something, whether it’s your self-worth or your ability to thrive or changing from chronic complaining to gratitude.
2. Use concrete items to get you started. I rummaged through my pictures and found the print of me standing on that mountaintop.
3. Use affirmations. Write them down in the present tense and say them out loud. When your mind hears your voice it doesn’t distinguish between you saying it or a stranger saying it! It will believe whatever you tell it! I didn’t say, “I will be migraine-free.” I said, “I am migraine free.” You need to push your mind to where you want it to go — not just a gentle nudge!
4. Don’t beat yourself up or get guilt-ridden when the negative thought enters your mind. You can not stop those kinds of thoughts from showing up — they are like the wind or mosquitoes and flies — they will appear but you don’t have to invite them in and make them dinner. Acknowledge and switch to the affirmation or happy-place image and then move on. Fixating on the fact that you had a negative thought is like entertaining that thought — you’re pushing the momentum back the other way.
5. When you pray, pray for what you want, not what you don’t want. Someone once said that worry is praying for what you don’t want to happen. Thoughts grow and create reality, so do words, so pray with a thankful attitude: Thank you, God, that I am migraine-free. And move on.
6. Believe that change is possible. If you don’t, no positive thinking or amount of prayer will help.
7. Be open to the idea that change may come in stages, but that you are moving closer to what you want. Acupuncture, and Ashley, helped me a lot because she gave me hope, and the treatments gave me breathing room to analyze other things like my diet. I still needed to go a step further to completely eliminate migraines but shifting my mindset helped me travel down the road I needed to be on.
8. Don’t claim what you don’t want. I used to say, “my migraines” until one day I heard the spirit of God say, “So you want to keep them? Are they ‘your’ migraines?” That shifted my conscious language right on the spot! No, they weren’t mine! They were straight from the pit of hell and I would not claim them any longer!

I am not a life coach, a therapist, or a psychologist, nor did I consult any of the above. That alone should give you hope that you can shift your mindset too!

Ready to shift to happiness? 😸 Another way to deal with pain: Lean into it. 💃 Find your way around life’s obstacles. 💙