Wedding planning should be a fun and joyful experience for both you and your partner and an exciting chapter in your life, however we know it can get stressful at times with certain types of pressure and worries. According to a survey of 500 engaged and newlywed couples by Zola Weddings, seven out of eight couples (96 percent) said wedding planning was stressful.
Our mental health and wellbeing should always be a priority for us as we navigate this thing we call life. But on your wedding planning journey, additional stresses, strains and pressures can often tip the balance, and we can find ourselves struggling to navigate through the time when society tells us it should be the most exciting time of our lives. The irony ay!
Well, we have invited one of our valued approved suppliers on The Guide Directory to share her expertise with us in relation to the power in we speak to ourselves. We are excited to welcome Sally Jackson, aka My Wedding Godmother, the online brides body confidence coach who helps brides see themselves through loving eyes. With this blog we aim to inspire you to be true to your authentic self and plan the dream wedding you and your partner want without compromise or worry. By providing you with 5 positive affirmations, we hope you find this blog post useful in managing your wedding planning stress and helping you to refocus your mindset.
. 
Here is what Sally had to say…
Affirmations: words, phrases or quotes designed to promote positive behaviour by reprogramming the mind. If that sounds crazy stay with me. I promise you cannot overestimate the power of changing your language. In a fasinating study using MRI, showed that when people practise self affirrmations, the reward centres of the brain are activated, neurologically changing the way we feel for the positive.
Imagine going to buy your wedding dress and dreading it because you think you’re too fat. Now instead choose to replace the “I’m too fat” thought with “I am beautiful just as I am”. As you walk into that shop hold your head up high and hear those words repeating over and over. There is now no space in your brain for that negative chatter.
By repeating those words, you free yourself from old ways of thinking and give yourself permission to be empowered. To stand in your power. What does that look like? It means using affirmations, positive affirming words, to push past that negative Nellie in your head, rising above your own thoughts of “I’m not good enough” and evicting those negative thoughts that do not serve you.
Here are 3 of my favourites:
“I carry myself with love and grace”
Wow!! 7 simple yet unbelievably powerful words.
To carry yourself with love and grace, isn’t that beautiful! I love it. It speaks to inner confidence, to a quiet calm and a deep knowing inside that you are enough. When we carry ourselves with grace and love we do so much. To love ourselves is truly the greatest gift we can give ourselves. When we love ourselves fully, we release insecurities, self doubt and fear of not being enough which so often we project onto relationships with others.
“All is well. Everything is working out for my highest good. And out of this situation only good will come”.
This beautiful affirmation by Louise Hay is one of my favourites and has helped me through many difficult times. A calming affirmation that is perfect both for the stressful days leading up to your wedding when perhaps not everything goes to plan and for your wedding day itself. I encourage my brides to take 10 minutes each morning and sit quietly and say this whilst visualising just how amazing their wedding day will be. Smell it, hear it, feel it taste it and see it in glorious technicolour. You’ll be amazed, when you trust that all will be well and you get super clear on what you want, it somehow it all falls into place!
“I am beautiful just as I am. I do not need to hide or change any part of me”
When the excitement of the engagement has faded, it’s very easy to start thinking you are not the perfect specimen needed to be a bride. Perhaps you worry about your teeth, or maybe your curves or maybe you just find it hard to remember when you liked you. Now’s the time to change that. I don’t mean get your teeth whitened or lose a few pounds, in fact even if you did you may well still not like you. No. What I’m talking about is changing the way you talk to yourself. This affirmation is a great way to get started.
A few added positive affirmations provided by Jen at The Boho Bride Guide:
'I am worthy of having a wedding that aligns with my energy & authenticity'
Being true to yourself and the values you and your partner have is essential to making sure you dont get overwhelmed or stressed. Remember it's your day your way.
'I am tusting the process and releasing all worry surrounding our wedding'
Trust that your wedding will be the best day of your life, you are marrying your best friend and the best is yet to come. Don't focus on other influences, all that matters is that you and your partner are happy and have the day your dreamed of.
Maybe these affirmations don’t feel right for you? If so, don’t worry. Writing affirmations involves 5 steps.
- Write your affirmations in the present tense. If you’re writing about your wedding day in the future just imagine the day has arrived, you want to come up with a way to put in the present.
- Adopt a positive tone of voice
- Make them believable
- Ensure they reflect what’s important to you. This is about your priorities not what someone else might want you to do, so be sure they are something you want to achieve.
- Really feel them. It’s not enough to simply say them or just go through the motions.
Some of my brides when they start working with me find affirmations hard to use. Sometimes they may feel like they are lying to themselves and subconsciously sabotage the effectiveness of the affirmations. When this is the case, we often need to work on helping them to let go of hurtful moments in the past so they can begin to accept that as a result of those moments they now behave in ways that do not allow them to accept themselves.
A classic example here is yo yo dieting. Other times the search for perfection leaves us racked with guilt when we can’t achieve it. This negative behaviour can literally result in stress, anxiety and paralysis and definitely block affirmations from having any chance of success. For other brides their affirmations fail because they are simply outnumbered. Spending 5 minutes saying affirmations first thing and then constantly beating yourself up throughout the remaining 16 hours for all the things on your to do list you didn’t get to just won’t cut it!!
If you’re struggling to find the joy in your wedding preparations because of feelings about your body, and whether you will shape up in your guests eyes as the perfect bride, why not book a call with me. I promise to help you see yourself through loving eyes and any change we achieve will last long after your wedding.
Lot's of Love,
Sally Jackson
Image credits:
Unsplash
