7 Positive Affirmations To Speak Over Your Life Right Now
Self-affirmations is the act of affirming one's own worthiness and value and when done consistently they become your reality. You have the power to speak what you desire into existence. One of the songs my mama used to sing all the time said, "Sometimes you have to encourage yourself. Sometimes you have to speak victory during the test." Speaking over your life helps you to determine who you are, who you want to be and it attracts the things your heart craves. Who are we not to participate in the illustration of our blessings?
Fear and anxiety are natural reactions to the the woes of the world but it doesn't require us to succumb those feelings. It does require us to stand flat-footed in our faith, speak from our hearts and summon the light within. Here are some affirmations to stay ignited in the most profound form.
"We are never alone in our struggles -- and right now, we need each other more than ever." - Alex Elle
Isolating yourself from family and friends automatically triggers feelings of loneliness. Declare that loneliness will not prevail knowing that you have multiple ways to connect with your loved ones. Honestly, this pandemic couldn't have happened at a better time because we are equipped with so many platforms to mind the gap during our social distancing.
When taking deep breaths, breathe in all of the people in your support system and breathe out all negative feelings towards isolation and solitude. No longer will you allow loneliness distract you from the blessing that is your life.
"I am always finding reasons to be happy with the life I have. Good things are unfolding for me because I am grateful for every blessing, big and small. The more I am thankful for in the now, the more I can create for my future." - Commanding Life
It may be hard to find hope in the darkness right now but it has never been so important. When you say this affirmation aloud, follow it up by writing down five things you are grateful for. It pushes you to find the beauty in everything. You were given your life and your circumstances to show others what's possible.
When you live in a space of gratitude, you show the universe that you are ready for new blessings. Gratitude equals abundance. One of the greatest quotes ever says, "Plant yourself so deeply in gratitude that even the greatest of landslides cannot shake your peace."
"I am worthy and my heart is open to receiving love."
Feeling worthy starts with self. Embracing love starts with self.
You have to believe you are worthy so that you can attract a partner that believes you are worthy. And if you aren't in love with yourself, how can you expect someone else to be in love with you? The law of attraction says that our thoughts and feelings shape our reality. For this reason, you have to hold yourself in the highest regard and begin to speak the life you desire into existence.
"I can't control what I can't control. I will do my best with what is in my control."
Letting go of control has to be one of the hardest things to do. As women, we especially want to help by fixing things but the hard truth is that we can't fix everything and everyone. Our superpowers don't extend that far.
Saying this affirmation aloud consistently will help you release unrealistic expectations and the need for perfection which opens you up for spiritual growth. The objective: to be untethered from unwanted emotional possessions and obligations. Relinquishing control makes us free from hindrances.
"I am grateful for another day to shine."
With the intention that every day is a new beginning, start your morning knowing that you are destined to shine bright like a diamond. This specific intention is great for the start of the day and sets the one for everything you do in that 24 hours. We are currently experiencing something that none of us could have possibly imagined. That uncertainty can create a lack of motivation but manifesting success can easily transform those feelings.
"I affirm: I'm not going to rush anything. I'm not going to stress out or worry about how things will work out or worry about how things will work out for me. Instead of overthinking, I will align my faith with divine timing and trust that everything that belongs in my life is making its way towards me right now." - Idil Ahmed
Idil Ahmed gets me together daily on Instagram with her affirmations. When I read this one, it hit different. Mostly because women have this thing with thinking that there are deadlines for things like getting married, having children and having a successful career. I have to constantly remind myself of Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." In other words, God's got us.
"April is going to be a month of massive evolution."
March was full of challenges but we are proclaiming that April is already planting seeds of peace in our minds. We are what we think so this month we will use our thoughts to launch us on a positive path.
The good sis, Dani Simone, tells us to be careful with our words this month in her monthly horoscope, it read, "Mercury's transit in Aries reminds us to think before we speak but also grants us with the conviction needed to speak up for ourselves when needed."
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Joce Blake is a womanist who loves fashion, Beyonce and Hot Cheetos. The sophistiratchet enthusiast is based in Brooklyn, NY but has southern belle roots as she was born and raised in Memphis, TN. Keep up with her on Instagram @joce_blake and on Twitter @SaraJessicaBee.
Beyond Burnout: Nicole Walters' Blueprint For Achieving Career Success On Your Own Terms
Nicole Walters has always been known for two things: her ambition and her ability to recognize when life’s challenges can also double as an inspiring, lucrative brand.
This was first evident more than a decade ago when she quit her job as the corporate executive of a Fortune 500 company during a Periscope livestream. “I’m not sure if there’s an alignment of [our] future trajectory. I’m going to work for myself. I'm promoting myself to work for myself,” she said at the time before flashing a smile at the viewing audience. As she resigned on camera, a constant stream of encouraging messages floated upwards on the screen.
By 2021, she’d fashioned her work as a corporate consultant and her personal life with her husband and three adopted daughters into a reality show, She’s The Boss, for USA Network. This year, she released the New York Times bestselling memoir Nothing Is Missing, written as she was in the process of getting a divorce and dealing with her eldest daughter’s struggles with substance use.
Convinced that there’s no way the 39-year-old has achieved all of this without intentional strategic planning, I asked her about it when we spoke less than a week before Christmas. I’d seen videos on social media of her working on 2024 planning for other brands, and I wanted to know what that looked like following her own year of success.
She listed a number of goals, including ensuring that the projects she takes on in the new year align with her identity “as a Black woman, as an African woman, as a mother, as someone who has lived a [rebuilding] season and is now trying to live boldly and entirely as themselves.” But, I was shocked by how much of her business planning also prioritized rest.
Despite the bestselling book, a self-titled podcast, and working with numerous corporations, Walters said she’s been taking Fridays off. This year, she doesn’t want to work on Mondays, either.
“A lot of us think we work hard until retirement hits. I want to progress towards retirement,” she said, noting that she’ll check in with herself around March to see how successful this plan has been. The goal, Walters said, is to only be working on Tuesdays and Thursdays by sometime in 2025. “It is intentionally building out what I know I would like to have happen and not waiting for exhaustion to be the trigger of change.”
"A lot of us think we work hard until retirement hits. I want to progress towards retirement... It is intentionally building out what I know I would like to happen and not waiting for exhaustion to be the trigger of change."
Walters said the decision to progressively work less was partially in response to her previously held notions about her career, especially as an entrepreneur. “When I first started, I thought burnout was a part of it,” she said. “What I didn’t realize is that even if you’re able to bounce out of burnout or get back to it, there’s a cumulative impact on your body. If you think of your body as a tree and every time you go through burnout, you are taking a hack out of your trunk, yes, that trunk will heal over, and the tree will continue to grow, but it doesn't mean that you don’t have a weakened stem.”
But, the desire for increased rest was also in response to the major shifts that occurred three years ago when she was experiencing major changes in her family and realized her metaphorical tree was “bending all the way over.”
Courtesy
“One of the things we have to recognize, especially as Black women, is that there is this engrained, societal, systemic notion that our worth is built around our productivity,” she added. “That is some language that I think is just now starting to really get unpacked.” In recent years, there’s been an increased awareness of achieving balance in life, with Tricia Hersey’s “The Nap Ministry” gaining attention based on the idea that rest, especially for Black women, is a form of resistance. Even online phrases such as “soft life” and “quiet quitting” have hinted at a cultural shift in prioritizing leisure over professional ambition.
"One of the things we have to recognize, especially as Black women, is that there is this engrained, societal, systemic notion that our worth is built around our productivity."
If companies are lining up to consult with Walters about their brands and products, then women have been looking to her for guidance on starting over since she invited them to livestream her resignation 12 years ago. As viewers continue to demand more from content creators in the form of intimate, personal details, Walters has navigated her personal brand with a sense of transparency without oversharing the vulnerable details about her life, especially when it comes to her family.
The entrepreneur said she’d been approached to write a book for several years and was initially convinced she was finally ready to write one about business. “I started to do that, and then I went through my divorce. When that happened, I said, why would I write a book telling people to get the life that I have when I’m not sure about the life that I have,” she said.
Instead, she decided to write Nothing Is Missing and provide a closer look at her life, starting with being born to immigrant Ghanaian parents (“You need to know my childhood to know why I’m passionate about entrepreneurship.”) through the adoption of her three daughters and eventual divorce. Despite her desire to share, however, she said she felt protective of the privacy of her family, including her ex-husband.
When discussing this with me, Walters said she was reminded of a lesson she learned from actress Kerry Washington, who released her own memoir, Thicker Than Water, just a week before Walters’ book release. Washington’s memoir grapples with family secrets, too, specifically the fact that she was conceived using a sperm donor and didn’t learn about it until she was already a successful TV star. While Washington reflects on how the decision and subsequent deception impacted her, she’s also careful to hold space for her parents’ experiences, too. “A lot of things she said was that she had to recognize where she was the supporting character and where she was the main character,” Walter said.
This is something Walter worked to do in Nothing Is Missing when discussing her daughter’s struggles with addiction. “I was very intentional about making sure that I did not reveal more than what was required,” she said. “If I say something about someone’s addiction, I don’t need to go into the list of the substances they used, how they used them, what I found. [I don’t need to] walk into a room and paint a picture of what it looked like for people to understand.”
Walters said some of the most vulnerable moments in the book barely made a ripple once it was released. She was extremely nervous to write about getting an abortion, she said. But no one has asked her about this in the months since the book was released. Instead, people have been more interested in quirkier revelations, such as the fact that she once appeared on Wheel of Fortune.
“I have bared my soul about this thing I went through in my youth that has changed me for people, and people are like, ‘So how heavy was the wheel when you spun it?’” she said, chuckling. “It just goes to show that people never worry about the thing that you worry about.”
With the success of Nothing Is Missing, Walters said she still isn’t planning to release a business book at the moment. But, as she navigates parenting a teenager and two adult children while also navigating a relationship with her new fiancé, Walters said she believes she has at least one or two more books to write about her personal journey. “There is sort of an arc of where my life has gone that I know I’ve got something more to say about this that I think is important, relevant and necessary,” she said.
In just three years, Walters’ life has undergone a major transformation. There’s no telling what the next three years will have in store for her, but it seems likely she’ll retain an inspired audience wherever life takes her.
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Exclusive: Tyla On Making History & The Grammys Acknowledging African Music: "It's About Time"
History was made in more ways than one at the 66th Grammy Awards. One of the biggest highlights was Tyla accepting the first-ever award for African Music Performance for her hit song "Water." The melodic masterpiece, which took over our TikTok feeds back in August of 2023, has proved to be much more than a trend—last night earning a solidified spot in history.
The #TylaWaterChallenge was undoubtedly one the most popular dance trends sweeping social media in 2023, with dance icons like Ciara even joining in on the fun. The viral craze would later earn Tyla a performance spot at the coveted "New Years Rockin' Eve" in Times Square, with the new artist only releasing the song less than five months prior.
Tyla Makes History at the 66th Grammy AwardsPhoto by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
The South African songstress was up against stiff competition, including Afrobeats superstars Burna Boy and Davido, for the history-making African Music Performance award. The honor marked the Grammy's first acknowledgment of African music and Afrobeats after 66 years of existence. To say the least, it was a moment the superstars and their predecessors had worked extremely hard for.
xoNecole spoke to Tyla after the historic win in the Grammys media room. "Afrobeats has already started booming all over the world, which I'm so happy about," she said. "It's about time." She continued, "I just feel like this is going to open so many more doors for us back home and introduce our music and our culture to so many more people, which we've been wanting." She concluded by thanking The Recording Academy for giving African music the platform.
Tyla's self-titled debut album is slated for release in March of 2024, and she's already earned her first Grammy to set the tone. To say Tyla's "future is so bright that we need sunglasses" would be an understatement.
Congratulations, Tyla! This is truly a moment Africa will never forget.
Tyla On Her History-Making Grammy Winyoutu.be
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Feature image by Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Recording Academy