056 Words That Heal

But if you know, if the alert says the turn is in 1 mile and you're looking for it, you will find it. You will see it. And I think that's where affirmations are so huge in that if you're stating it, expecting it, and looking for it, you will find that door when it's open. If you're in the negative, you're going to miss it.

Yeah, you're right.

We missed a lot.

You think?

At first, yeah. I think at first until we started to get it and then we started seeing the possibilities of getting away from this, getting out of this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Easy self— easy tricks to eliminate outside influences that are negative. First thing you do, you ready for this?

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Here are your hosts, Aaron and Sarah Sanchez.

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Lime Voice thanks Invita Medical for the continued support. Please reach them at 1-866-830-4576. Welcome, Lime Voice listeners. Today you have Aaron and Sarah Sanchez on the mic. We are going to be talking about self-talk today. And let me tell you, folks, self-talk— if you say you've never negative self-talked to yourself, I'd have a hard time believing you, because I think this is something that we all deal with. And especially, much like Sarah's documentary— if you haven't seen that, Disappearing from Society, look it up on Vimeo.

Vimeo.

Disappearing from society. Or email us and we'll send you a link.

Or go to Lion Voice.

But in that video, we talk about the shame associated with being sick. And I think a lot of that— not to blame any one person— a lot of that is self-generated because we've fallen short of our goals. We've fallen short of health. We have not been able to function in the way we want to. So how do we get away from self-talk? But before we go there—

not get away from self-talk, get away from negative self-talk, right?

Negative self-talk. But the whole basis of this is you've probably heard of affirmations, saying positive things in order to improve your spirit, improve your attitude, improve your life. You may have heard some things like that. And the reason being is words are very powerful, and I don't think we understand how powerful they are. I think we've been in the Western medicine world too long where the power comes from chemicals, a drug, and not necessarily our words. Here's a quote from Dr. Haider Zahid: "Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity." And we really have found that. I think one of— I mean, we've done it all. In order to recover from this sickness, you have to do lots of— you have to fight this on multiple levels.

Yeah.

But where we've noticed, being on this side of the fence, what we've noticed, some of the biggest achievements and the biggest breakthroughs, gains in our life, gains in your health, has been with our words. And even me not being sick, I still had a hard time understanding how important those words were, and I still had a responsibility of helping us out of this sickness. And it was that negative self-talk that really was eating my lunch, if you will, and it just was taking things from me that I didn't want to give up and didn't realize.

Yeah, I mean, it was really like in 2013 when we started to— or '14 when we started to kind of— you specifically started diving into a lot of help books, and we've talked about just repairing our lives and trying to figure out, okay, we have these— this Lyme factor in our life, and the way we earned money is not working anymore. We have to get to a place where we can do things differently so that if I go downhill, we're not in crisis as a household over and over and over again, which is what we have been doing. And in the last episode, Fit Lyme Warrior with Christina Glowack, she attributes a big part of her healing to shifting to positive self-talk. And you hear that over and over again. And I remember, I mean, I've been a big reader and had been reading, but when you started reading and realizing like, we have to start speaking about what we want and not what we have. We have to start talking about the way we want things instead of the way we have them. And it didn't make sense and it doesn't unfold instantaneously. So I see why people quit. But just like with Lyme, I just decided I'm just gonna do what people are doing who got better. And okay, if I have to implement something for 6 months or 2 years to see it, I'm going to do that. I mean, it doesn't always take that long. But words are truly like seeds. And when you speak them forth, whether for good or for bad, they start to build either a bridge to where you want to be, or a prison to stay where you're at. When you got a hold of that, really, our lives started changing in a really positive way.

Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, it kind of breaks down like this. Your attitude is driven by your thoughts and your words. If you're negative, if you're a negative Nelly, your thoughts and actions will be negative. I mean, you can see that very quickly. And here's the rough thing about being sick is you have to say it. Yeah, you don't feel good.

You have to say it.

You don't feel positive. So how does one go from not feeling good enough to say these positive affirmations to saying them? Like that, to me, it never— when you were at your sickest, when you were, you know, when our finances were at their worst, to be that, to stand there and say, everything's fine, I will succeed, we will be healthy, it didn't feel right.

No, it felt awful.

Yeah, it didn't— like, I couldn't understand what they were talking about. Like, just saying words over and over to make yourself better is silly. I mean, to me, that's how I felt at the time. But where I really— and so if you're thinking like that, I understand where you're coming from. But where I saw the greatest, and we both saw the greatest achievements, is eliminating that negative self-talk. And when I was able to do that, I could see how positive affirmations could work. Negative self-talk was destroying anything positive because if anybody said anything positive, I would immediately in my mind or out loud match it with a negative. For instance, if someone would greet you and say, "Oh, what a beautiful day it is," I would immediately in my mind thinking, "Well, it's not so great because we're sick," or "It's not great if you don't have money.". And that would instantly ruin any forward movement. Like, yes, it was 70 degrees outside and the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. But I didn't— but with my negative self-talk, I was ruining what is true and what was true. It was a beautiful day.

Well, and I think what— we're not naturally negative people. I have— we have people in our lives who have a very nihilistic viewpoint on life and nothing is ever right and nothing is ever good. And we do not have that outlook on life. But when you are being oppressed on so many levels, which happens through illness, financially, physically, energy-wise, emotionally, like when you're being oppressed, it eliminates the cushion in your life from other things. And I felt like we just ran out of cushion. And the reality was, is our utilities were getting shut off. We were completely and totally broke. And so then you speak forth your reality, and we had to consciously stop speaking forth anything negative, anything negative. And we don't succeed all the time. I fail, but we try so hard, right, to not, to not say things that are counterproductive to our goals anymore.

Yeah, because I mean, the truth of it is, if you're constantly saying how something negative over and over and over, it drives your mind to that spot. Yeah, it really does. And you can't move past it if you're negative. It's once you, once you start letting your emotions go, once they start rolling, it takes, it takes an equal reaction to stop it from going there. And it takes a lot of effort once to pull back your emotions once they're already let go. We see this with our our 9-year-old daughter all the time. If she gets upset, and if you know kids, you've had a kid that acts like this, once they get in their bad mood, then it's impossible to pull them out of there. It's better to keep them from going to that bad mood. And the same thing is with us. And I know how hard that is because most of you are faced with unimaginable pain and suffering every day you wake up. But it's not— it's not— and for you to not acknowledge that is not reality. And I understand how you have to acknowledge that. But in order to get past that, we can use our words. Even if something isn't true, stating something that you want to be true is way better than giving in to the sorrow and the trauma and the pain of it all.

Yeah.

So I don't feel great today, but I am going to feel better tomorrow. I'm getting better quickly. I will defeat this disease. Those are just positive things that you can say. So when a negative emotion, a negative thought comes in your head, you can kind of just say something. I will beat this disease and I will prevail past this. I will have a good attitude today. Those are all just a whole different way of thinking that really works. And I know it's not going to feel natural at the beginning. I know it's not going to feel nice, but we're standing on the other side to tell you that it does work.

Yeah, we're going to get into more specifics. Let's go to a quick commercial break and then we'll be right back with a couple examples. Great. For nearly two decades, Invita Medical Center has been leading the way with the latest in personalized treatment options designed for patients dealing with Lyme disease complex. At Invita Medical Center, they offer a team-style approach and the latest technology regarding treatment and testing at an unmatched radical love and care environment for their patients. Call to speak to one of the patient care coordinators today to learn why hundreds of patients choose Invita Medical Center each year. You can find them online at invita.com. Hi guys, I want to let you know about a book I wrote called Little Bite, Big Trouble, and I'm going to read a review that recently came in. This is from Carolyn, and she says, thank you so much for writing your book. It has become the means by which I have explained Lyme to my 4-year-old. They asked for it to be read as a bedtime story over and over again and love that the mama birdie does yoga and juicing like their mommy. I can't thank you enough for writing this book. It has helped my family so much. You can find it today at Amazon.com. Little Bite, Big Trouble. We're back, and I want to give you a couple examples of things that have come up in our lives that we have changed our negative self-talk to positive self-talk. And because these— this really was— we want it— we've wanted to do this podcast episode for a long time because it's really, really a valuable tool. And I don't see people getting better if they don't change this aspect of their recovery. And one A small example is Aaron loves to snuggle at night and he always wanted me to snuggle with him. And I was just in so much pain to move at all for so many years, hurt so bad. And I remember just saying like, I'm just in so much pain, I can't snuggle with you, I can't lean up against you, I can't have your weight on me, I just can't do it. And I consciously started saying, I can't wait until someday I don't have to say I'm in pain anymore when I snuggle with you. And then it kind of progressed through the recovery.

Yeah, which is, Your statement right there, say it again. I can't wait until—

I can't wait until I'm not in pain anymore. I can't wait until I can snuggle with you and not have to say I'm in pain.

Not the greatest affirmation.

Not great.

It's not great, but it's a start.

It was. And it was just framing this, instead of saying I'm in pain, I was saying I can't wait till I'm not in pain or someday soon I'm not going to be in pain. And they were so tiny.

You have to achieve and grasp onto hope, and you have to strive for hope. Hope doesn't come easy. You have to achieve hope. You have to believe in hope. And that's exactly what you were doing with that statement, "I can't wait." You were providing yourself a goal of hope instead of a goal— I mean, if your only hope is death, I mean, that's— That's not great. Like, we have to have a higher—

No, we have to consciously choose. And I mean, I've done this repeatedly. It's so easy to get discouraged with the longevity of this illness. It is. It's horrible. Even these last 3 months, I've had a hard 3 months because I came off my final medication and really haven't slept much, which was a sleep med. But then also one step forward, 3 steps back, dealing with some reemerging anxiety and different things. And I had to go back to that and be like, oh, remember when it used to be, I used to be in excruciating pain and I couldn't even snuggle at night. Like, okay, we've come so far, but it's easy 22 years into it to be like, oh my God, this is never going to end. And so for me, I just have to constantly keep filling my mind with stories, books, authors, physicians who have gotten better.

And one of the things that I think works for those husbands or significant others, the helpmates, the ones that aren't sick, people like me who are helping someone through, you have to be careful in correction. So when Sarah was going into bad places, and I, I would, I would hopefully, you know, I would hopefully intervene and try to coax her out of those bad things. And one of the best things you can do is don't correct that person. Encourage them. Talk about things that are good. Yes, I understand you're sick, and yes, you feel crummy, but look, the kids are all dressed. Nobody's running around the yard naked. Everybody got to school today. You know, and, and I would just continually gently pelt you with good things. And I think we can do that. I mean, and you've done the same thing for me.

But I don't think you could build me back up until you got ahold of this positive self-talk.

Yeah.

Like you could at times, but it was like wishful thinking. All you would say is it'll get better. Mm-hmm. Which there was no evidence or proof that it was gonna get better.

It wasn't specific enough either.

We weren't doing anything. Right. And so I feel like in addition to developing a fighting mindset and understanding that there is responsibility on our part and we have to operate outside our insurance and there's all these other things, I think for you, you were able to build me back up when I kind of started spiraling downhill emotionally after you understood this.

Right.

And then another, another example that sometimes this stuff takes years to play out. We had been doing these positive affirmations and daily declarations for a couple of years, and when we were getting to the end of publishing Little Bite, Big Trouble, the book about Lyme that we did about chronic Lyme disease, I really struggle with transposing numbers. So things get— appointments get messed up on my calendar and different things because I transpose numbers a lot, and it's very frustrating. Anyways, when I had worked with the designer to get the images for the book set up, I transposed in my head the numbers that I gave the illustrator. Yeah, and photo size numbers, the photo size numbers, and I just kind of in my head was like, oh, 8 by 10 is the same as 10 by 8, and just did a very simple miscalculation that cost— ended up costing us 2 weeks of time. And, um, I was sitting there with the designer trying to lay out the book, and it was not going to be laid out the way we envisioned. And I remember after literally 2 weeks of sitting at her house trying to figure it out, we had just kind of— like, I left her house knowing I'll probably never hold this book in my hand this— the way I envisioned it. But when I got in the car and all I— I was so mad at myself because I had— it was self-inflicted. Like, and I tried so hard not to I screw it up. Like, I took a ton of time, I still screwed it up. When I got in the car, I began— I did not say anything negative. I had tears rolling down my face, and I began to say, I have talents, skills, and abilities I don't even know about yet. Everything I put my hand to prospers. I have the mind of Christ and know all things. Like, I started spouting out those daily declarations, and there was no hope, but I wasn't going to utter anything negative. And it took another 2 months. Like, nothing happened with the book for 2 months. We didn't know I didn't know what to do with it. And then 2 months later, all of a sudden we figured some things out and the whole game shifted. But I felt like during that time when I got in the car and I cried the whole way home, but I didn't utter anything negative against myself, I felt like that was a turning point for me emotionally, professionally, where I understood something on a level I hadn't before. And it didn't pan out right away. That was the intriguing thing. I didn't have answers and solutions, but during those next few days, I continued to stand and claim like, okay, this will work out. I don't know exactly how, but it's not lost. And those principles have carried over. And I mean, we're not talking about anything new. There's hundreds, probably thousands of books on self-talk and the power of your words available all over. Yeah, but I think in the chronic illness realm, it's just harder because of the oppression that you face. Because you do have to say, I'm sick.

Let's talk about the dangers of negative self-talk too, because I think this is something that applies specifically to the people that are sick. You're in so much pain, you're in— you're, you're so negative. I mean, you're, you're— you are not negative, but the situation is negative. Yeah. And here's what I see happening in so many groups or of people is they then either— the two things— they internalize it is what You and I both did. Yeah. But there's some people that ex— what's the word? Externalize it. Is that the right word? They force it out on other people. Go into Facebook pages online and you will see a lot of negative people that are just very aggressive with their words. And really, I look at that now not as just ugly people. It's people that are being plagued with this ugly disease, and that is shaping the thoughts and the actions. And your attitude shapes your actions. If you want to move past this sickness, you cannot be thinking negative. You cannot be thinking sick. That's exactly what the disease wants. It wants to drag you down. It wants to keep you in bondage. It wants to ruin what was once beautiful. And you can power through that by simply standing and saying something positive. Instead of negative. And that means to others too, because, you know, you and I— Sarah and I struggled with being negative, but when I was being negative, it was way easier. When I'm being negative to myself, it is way easier to be negative to Sarah and my kids.

Right, right.

Because you're already in that negative mindset. And then what happens? I, I blow up at one of my kids, they in turn blow up at the next kid and the next kid and then the mom, and it just goes in this horribly ugly circle of negativity. And you see, I had to own that. I had to look at the reason why this was all starting. If I had the right or not really doesn't matter. I'm going to be truthful with you guys. It's not your fault that you're sick. It is not your fault that you're feeling terrible. But the honest truth is, if you're imparting the negativity that you're dealing with, the sickness you're dealing with, if it's coming out in your words to those that are around you, it doesn't help. It only takes you down further. And I understand why you feel so bad and that it comes out in words that way. But there is a point where we have to own our own health. And owning our own words is part of that. If you're involved in negative self-talk, in negative talk of any sort, even on Facebook— yes, we understand that the insurance companies suck. We understand that the CDC has raked people over the coals. We understand that our medical system is terrible, but we try not to focus on that too much because of the way it makes us feel. Yeah, we're not in that position to fight those battles yet. Right now, we have to just fight the battles we're dealing with. And that is one of them is being positive in this horrible situation that has robbed you in so many ways. You had no idea that you could be taken advantage of in so many different ways. It's horrible. We understand that. But you have to own your words. If you're being negative, if what is coming out of you is more negativity it doesn't help your healing. Yeah, I don't mean it to be too harsh, but that is the reality. And if you want positive affirmations to work, I think the first, absolute first step, especially for the sick person, is to eliminate the negative self-talk. Even if you don't blame yourself, if you're just talking about how terrible it is, there is— like we said earlier, we, we understand you have to acknowledge it. But when you stay there and you don't move past the acknowledgement, when you just focus on how horrible it is, it doesn't help you move forward.

I'm reading a book by psychologist Jordan Peterson called 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. And he specializes in critical thinking, intelligent learning, growing yourself as a person, taking responsibility for every aspect of your life. And he, he has a lot of really great things to say about self-talk. And it's not his quote, but I had not heard it. And he said, the best way to learn about anything is to talk about it. And when he said that, it just totally made me think of Lion Voice and how much we have learned through having all these discussions. And we get to talk to people way before we press record and significantly after, usually. Right. And but they're all saying this. Yeah. They're all saying some variation of this. And it comes out in different forms.

It's interesting that the negative self-talk, regardless if you're trying to get rid of a disease or you're just trying to be successful in life, like your, your self-help gurus, this negative self-talk and, and what to say to yourself is very important. And it's a key theme that runs through all of these groups. In fact, most successful people will tell you how they overcame this negative self-talk. It's whether we like it or not, it works well.

And I think one of the things is it's foundational for all these other aspects of life.

And it's definitely a foundation.

And that grows. And I feel like what we've seen in the last several years of as we've been implementing these things, again, kind of on blind faith of like, we can't stay here. Like our lives are being crushed. What we're doing is not adequate. We have to change what we're doing, how we talk, the way we earn our income, like We have got to figure this out so the boat doesn't sink. Yeah. And yet, like, all these truths and principles that we've learned about self-talk in regards to illness have completely transferred into business, have completely transferred into helping our kids.

Yeah. So you've heard us talk about fight, heal, live, fighting being a mindset. I think negative self-talk is counterproductive to a fighting mindset.

Oh, totally. I'm— I am my own worst enemy.

Yeah. And we know that. And in order to fight a battle, you have to defeat your enemy. And if you are the enemy, then something needs to change. And it's not that it's all blamed on just negative self-talk, because you're— you have Babesia, you have all these co-infections and things that are just wiping you out. But here's one area that is very effective. And we know because we've been through it.

I used to hate when, you know, years and years are going by and I'm still sick and I would hear things about positive self-talk and I hated it because it felt like they were implying that the reason I was sick was because I had said something or the reason I— I don't know, it just bugged me on a lot of levels.

And that's definitely not where— that's not— you are not sick because of your negative self-talk. That's not what we're saying. There's lots of reasons for being sick and I'm not sure negative self-talk But for getting out of it.

But for getting out of it. Yeah. And that's kind of the conclusion I came to. Okay, you know what? Stuff happens. I'm in this situation. How do I get out? Yeah. Yeah. T. Harv Eker says, what you focus on expands.

And that's true.

Yeah. If you focus on the problem versus the solution. Right. And Brittany Goff said this in one of our previous episodes, Lyme disease counseling. She said, if you focus on the solution, you have a very different outcome than if you focus on the problem. And we've just found that to be true in so many areas of our lives. And What to Say When You Talk to Yourself is a great book, but there are so many.

There is so many.

There's so many.

It's a common theme through, through, through a lot of these help books, through a lot. I mean, Katina Makris has the same type of thing. She talks about that in depth. Um, you know, there's, there's many authors. I'd be surprised if that didn't get addressed in most of the, in most of the Lyme health health things. And I think what we really wanted to communicate to you guys today, positive affirmations are very good but ineffective if they are complemented or sprinkled with negative self-talk. If your negative self-talk is there, it counteracts positive affirmations. And I think the first step into realizing how powerful positive affirmations are is to get rid of the negative. Do this as an experiment. For the next day, write down some of the most prevalent negative self-talk things, the most negative things you think about yourself. Most of us would never use that kind of language with people we love, right? And it's just, you know, you wouldn't talk to people as bad as the way you talk to yourself.

Well, and when I did this, what I realized is that my predominant thought is that I'm a failure. Right. Like, at the root, there's some, there's some higher level thinking, but at the root of all those thoughts, those negative thoughts, that's the root of it. And kind of once I identified that, which isn't true.

Yeah, because if you—

and I don't think that about other people.

Right. How would you ever succeed if you keep telling yourself you're such a failure?

Right. I become my own worst enemy. Yeah.

Yeah. It doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

Yeah. And we say this all the time because it's true that healing consists of choices and this is just one aspect of it. And yet words are the most powerful force in the universe. And so in a sense, something that is almost effortless becomes one of the most powerful things in your life. And another big breakthrough for me was in realizing that I didn't need to say this to someone. Yeah, I could just say it to myself.

You didn't need to write a book, write a, you know.

No, I mean, I talk to myself all the time, especially when I'm in the car or by myself, because I can say, you know, I've got a list of about 100 declarations that I go through on a regular weekly basis, and I can just say those out loud. And the thing is, is when you say them out loud, and this was a big thing, I would correct myself internally but not externally. I wouldn't voice voice the positive. And when I started voicing the positive, that has a bigger effect. It does, because eventually you will believe it. Yeah. And that's what happened for me that day that I was in the car when I thought that they're magic words.

It's just you start listening to yourself. Yeah. And it works the same. You start listening to yourself when you're being negative. Yeah. So why wouldn't it work that if you start saying positive things?

Yeah. So I want to get into really some specifics of self-talk. And again, go find a book, go find a documentary. But there's 5 levels of self-talk. And when I saw these 5 different levels laid out, it was a big aha for me because then I realized where I've been stuck. So level 1, and I'm just taking this right out of What to Say When You Talk to Yourself: Powerful New Techniques to Program Your Potential for Success.

We will have the links on the show notes.

All right. 5 levels of self-talk. And their definition of self-talk is just a practical way to live out your life by active intent rather than by passive acceptance. And illness contains a lot of passive acceptance and coming out of that requires different skills, different programming. So level 1 of self-talk is called negative acceptance when the main phrase is, "I can't." So the 5 levels of self-talk start at the lowest, least beneficial level. At the bottom of the list and the most harmful self-talk we can use is level 1, the level of negative acceptance. That is self-talk by which you say something bad or negative about yourself and you accept it. So these are things like, "I can't," "If only I could," "I wish I could, but I can't," "I just don't have the energy," "I could never do that," "I can't seem to lose weight," "I just don't know," "Today's not my day," "I can't adult." blah, blah, blah. And I think for Aaron, when I read that, I realized that that's where you get stuck a lot of times before we understood this. Yeah. And for me, I get stuck at level 2, which is the level of recognition and need to change. And this level is about beguiling. On the surface, it looks as though it should work for us, but instead it works against us. In this level of self-talk, we are stating to ourselves and others our recognition or our need to change. But it's characterized by words such as, "I need to," or, "I ought to," or, "I should." Why does that work against us? Because it recognizes a problem but creates no solution.

We call it shoulding ourselves.

Shoulding ourselves to death.

Yeah. "I should have done this.

I shouldn't have done that." And I think when you are forced with an illness that requires you to become your own physician, your own researcher, your own nutritionist, there is always something you should be doing. When you have kids who are sick, there's always something you're learning or researching that you want to implement or are planning on implementing.

When you're living on trauma, in trauma, every decision is traumatic.

Yeah. And yet it doesn't create a bridge. Yeah. And that's— and when I get negative or overwhelmed, that's— I start saying, I should have done this, I should have done that, blah, blah, blah. But then that doesn't give me anywhere to go, right? So this was huge for us. And level 3, level 3 is the decision to change. And it's the first level of self-talk that works for you instead of against you, which is very similar to healing is a choice.

Totally. You're making the choice to heal. You're making the decision to change.

Yeah. So in this level, you recognize the need to change, but you also make the decision to do something about it, and you state the decision in the present tense as though the change has already taken place. And so I'll give you a little bit more definition and then an example. Level 3 is characterized by the words "I never" or "I no longer." In this level, you say, "I never smoke." "I never have a problem dealing with people at work." "I never eat more than I should." When you move to Phase 3, you are automatically beginning to rephrase old negative cannot putting them behind you and stating them in a positive new way that tells your subconscious mind to wake up, get moving, and make the change. And when I was at treatment out at Invita back in 2013, my doctor, who I really, really liked, Dr. Tyler Tallman— I'm sitting in his office, I am totally disabled, in excruciating pain, in a wheelchair. My dad is taking care of me. Aaron and my mom are here taking care of all 5 of the kids. And he was right away telling me about positive self-talk. And I'm looking at him like, you're nuts. Because he wasn't— I mean, we had this like 3-hour conversation where he's talking about self-talk and he tells me, Sarah, he said, just start with saying I'm perfect, whole, and complete just the way I am. And I'm sitting there in the wheelchair and I'm looking at him and I'm like, I can't do that. Like, I couldn't utter the words I'm perfect, whole, and complete. Because I didn't feel that way, right? And I get it. I'm like, okay, if I say it enough, then I'll start to feel it. Like, I got it. I understood what he was saying, like, don't dwell in the past. But I could not at that time say those words.

And one way you can start is by stating your intent. I want to be healthy and whole. Someday I will be healthy and whole. Sometimes that can be a good— if you're brave enough to say, I am healthy and whole, Good for you. But if you can't quite get there, start with this one. And then it'll become a little easier to start believing it.

And that's what it was. And a couple years later— yep, maybe not quite that long, maybe not quite a year, pretty close— I could then say, I'm perfect, whole, and complete just the way I am, knowing that these seeds that we had been planting all these years were starting to show some fruit and our circumstances were starting to change and And yet again, it kind of seems like the whole power of words is again this walking out. It's a journey. You walk it out. It's not instantaneous.

No. Say these 5 words and magic will happen and all of a sudden your disease will be gone. That is not going to happen. But after a period of time, after distance, after continually focusing on positive things, you grow stronger. Outside influences. Should we talk about that for a little bit?

Yeah, let me read level 4 and then let's talk about those outside influences.

I have some good tricks for you. Wait till we get there.

Level 4 is the level of the better you. And this is the most effective kind of self-talk we can ever use in our self-talk vocabularies. Level 4 is the kind of self-talk that has been used the least and is needed the most. It is at this level that you are painting a completely new picture of yourself, the way you really wanted to be, handing, handing it to your subconscious and saying, this is the me I want you to create. Forget all of the bad programming I gave you in the past. This is your new programming. Now let's go and get to work. And this was a harder place for me to come to, and I'm still not there in all these different areas that we're working on. But for me, when I could claim in the present that these things were true, doors opened on totally new levels that we had not experienced.

Yeah. And I think part of that is just by— those doors may have opened without the words of the affirmations that we were speaking. But if you're not looking for that, right, you're never going to see that door.

And you don't have the confidence to walk through it when it does open.

I mean, use the example of driving. If you're driving through the city of Denver or a huge city and you know you're supposed to get off on an exit, but you didn't know you should be looking for it, you will pass it up. I mean, it's— but if you know, if the alert says the turn is in 1 mile and you're looking for it, you will find it. You will see it. And I think that's where affirmations are so huge in that if you're stating it, expecting it, and looking for it, you will find that door when it's open. If you're in the negative, you're gonna miss it. Yeah, you're right. We missed a lot. You think? At first, yeah. I think at first, until we started to get it, and then we started seeing the possibilities of getting away from this, of getting out of this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Easy self— easy tricks to eliminate outside influences that are negative. First thing you do, you ready for this? Turn off the news. If you are irritated by Trump, don't be irritated. Get rid of it. Get rid of Trump. Don't watch the news. They only agitate it on. I mean, you turn to Fox and they're all Trump supporters. You turn to CNN, they're all Trump haters. That kind of back and forth is not good for your spirit. I mean, it irritates me just to hear two talking heads going back and forth. I don't want to hear arguments. Like, that doesn't help my overall disposition. It doesn't. Look, there is a point to that, and then politics are important, but if you're sick with Lyme, deal with it another day and only deal with Lyme today. You can't change Trump and you can't change the liberals. Like, deal with yourself today and don't worry about that. Turn off the news. Another school shooting is is not going to help you get better. Hearing about it, dwelling in it, is not going to help you get better. It's a tragedy. We're super sad about that. Something needs to be done. We get that. But for your Lyme health, it's not going to help. Put it to the side. Eliminate news.

Give that energy to something else, something healing.

I did this about 2 years ago. Not that I don't keep up with the news, but I don't sit there and watch it every day. I don't sit there and put Fox or CNN on and listen to it all day long. Even news talk show hosts, you know, there's some Lyme podcasts that I won't listen to because all they do is harp on the CDC or they talk about how ugly things are. I know I hear their acknowledgment, but we can't sit there with it and just sit in that sewage.

Yeah. And I mean, again, we're going back to things we've talked about, but they're so key. Is really, we're talking about establishing boundaries around your words. And the news was a boundary for us that didn't give us anything. It just took from us in ways we didn't want to let it do anymore. And if you don't understand boundaries, I've talked about it before, but Dr. Henry Cloud wrote a book called Boundaries. Huge. Yes. And yeah, it's just a huge book. Just huge.

Not in size, but in content. It's awesome. Yeah, definitely check out that book. It's, it's an, it's an excellent book. It will help you, I guarantee. And on the topic of boundaries, one of the other things, you know, we, we put a boundary around the news, negative people. If there's someone in your life that is so negative, uh, oh no, this is huge. You might have to put a pause on that. It's not that you don't love them, you can just simply withdraw yourself from those situations. And I know this is easier said than done, but do your best. Try to eliminate as many avenues of negative influence as you can. I mean, if it's that soap opera or whatever, it doesn't really matter what you're watching. If it's negative, it's not going to help you.

Like, people still watch soap operas.

Isn't that all daytime or all evening TV?

Yeah, that's the form of it.

They're all soap operas.

Yeah, that's true.

And honestly, TV is not good. Comedy. Watch comedy.

Laugh.

Yeah, laugh makes you— I mean, I remember you and I intently sitting down and only watching comedies because we didn't want to cry anymore. We wanted to laugh. And we started to see that just— I mean, I remember a point in my life during your sickness thinking, hey, look, I'm smiling. Oh yeah, first time I've done that in a long time because I was intentional and started. I didn't feel like smiling. I didn't feel like laughing, but I watched a comedy. And we eliminated Walking Dead or whatever and started watching, you know, the dramas, the NCIS, and all those where ugly stuff is happening to people. Eliminate that and watch comedy.

Well, you just have to watch stuff that makes your spirit happy. And for me, like, I realized a long time ago that, like, dramas and stuff just kind of drained me and sucked the life out of me. I'm like, why am I— and I think with the vulnerability of being ill is you feel things. You become this empathic person who feels the weight of other people's hurts. And I was like, oh, I get it.

It's just like having a sore body part. If you touch that body part, it hurts more than it should. Like you were describing earlier, me snuggling with you, me putting my arm over you in bed at night shouldn't hurt, but because you were aggravated— and in the same way, our emotions are aggravated They are just— they've— they're hurt, they're damaged. And when you add in the negativity of even just a simple drama, you, for instance, Sarah, you had a negative impact. You could feel that negativity. And, and honestly, this disease is evil and it feeds off of negativity. It's an evil, evil thing. It wants to create negativity. It wants to create death. Don't give it to it. Don't feed that disease anymore.

Yeah, it was really interesting. I was talking to a friend of mine and, um, said the other day, she said, Sarah, you know, she's been sick for a lot of years, and she said we need to start having fun. Like, we need to bring happiness back into our home because her kids had come to her and said, like, this house isn't a good place to be. Like, I love you, but I don't love this environment that we're living in. And I told her, I'm like, yeah, that's, but that's been what we've been digging out of. Mm-hmm. Like where there isn't emotional chaos and people are happy and creative and productive. And, but it's taken us, this has been one of the keys to recreating the home environment we need, the home, the work environment that we need. And honestly, we didn't have it for about 8 years. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And I think the way we got it back, one of the ways, is eliminating negative self-talk, eliminating negative talk of any sort, and trying to be positive. That is one of the ways you can—

not just positive, but proactive. Proactive. Yeah. And especially when we both got on board.

And like singing, the sun will come up tomorrow, that ain't gonna work, per se.

Do you remember when you made the— when you played on the radio in the house for 24 hours straight, that song Happy? Yes. Because I'm happy.

I don't even remember. And it was—

we— it was desperation. We were so desperate.

We had been going through the worst, and I'm like, I am so sick of being in the worst situation imaginable. And I mean, the kids still hate that song to this day. I kind of ruined it for everybody, but I had to hear the words be happy. And, and I highly suggest it if you're in a There's 24 hours of that same song over and over as he walks through LA, but he does it for 24 hours. It's actually kind of interesting, playing the same song, different people singing along to it. I'm happy, whatever. It worked. Try it, it's free, it's on YouTube.

And everyone's gonna find things that work. Like, um, Tony Robbins' I'm Not Your Guru, it's on Netflix. I've watched that show so many times because he's He says, "This is not who I am. This is the person who I built myself up to be to overcome what he had dealt with as a kid." And for me, like even Food Matters TV, I talk about that a lot. That's so encouraging to me. I just watch story after story or read book after book of people who have overcome, gotten better, and just pull out little nuggets of what they've done and try to implement it.

Yeah. I mean, it's so hard. Why would we— I mean, it just kind of makes sense after a while. Why would we keep adding negative things to our life when it already is so hard to get through every day? Like, give yourself a break and eliminate some negativity. Yeah. Turn off the TV, put on a comedy, just have a list of words that are positive and read those. Even if you don't feel like it, play happy for 24 hours straight. It doesn't matter. You have to— you want to beat this thing. We have to pull out the stops and do it.

And it's just reprogramming your mind. Reprogram, you know, our minds give us what we've fed it. And so if you want a different outcome, you have to change the programming. And unfortunately, with a chronic debilitating illness, that's harder than it is for someone— yeah, a normal, a normal person.

Yeah, you have to be bigger than the disease, and that's a lot. That is really hard to do. And one of the ways you start it is, it's the old adage, you can't eat an elephant all in one bite. You can't destroy this disease in one day, maybe someday, but you can't this day. And this day, you have to eat that elephant one bite at a time. And it's going to take a while, but it can be done.

One of the things I remember so many times having no clue what to do next, like just overwhelmed, out of money, not knowing what to do. And I had this list of things that were healthy life choices. And on that list was like an Epsom salt bath or juicing or going on a walk with daily declarations. And that's one of my things, like when I would feel totally overwhelmed and wouldn't know exactly what to do, I would just go to this list. I have about 10 things that I'm like, okay, at least if I spend the afternoon doing this, I know I'm making a healthy life choice. Yeah. I don't know what tomorrow's gonna look like, but this is the best I can do for now with the resources I have. But those pave the way to the next thing. And even, you know, we have a hurdle in our lives at this moment right now. The way we've learned to deal with things is shaping the way we're speaking about this specific thing. And I don't know exactly how it's going to unfold, but I have no doubt that it will.

And yeah, and there's so many ways to do this. I mean, Turn on— turn off the negative music and put on reggae. I used to listen to reggae all the time just because it was happy and joyful.

Audiobooks. Oh yeah, audiobooks are huge.

Even if you can't listen to it, if you fall asleep to it, some of it might stick, and then you just hit rewind and do it again. We've listened to some of our audiobooks time and time again because they're positive. The Bible. If you read the Bible, there's so many encouraging things in there. Read Psalms. There's some great things in there. I mean, that is the book for positive affirmations.

Yeah, some of you guys know, depending on how many episodes you've listened to, that we moved up to Colorado to attend Charis Bible College, which will be starting in the fall. And Andrew Wommack is— you can look him up on YouTube, all his stuff is free, but he's got some great ones like on controlling your emotions, changing your self-talk, and it's life transforming. And that's the thing is if you wanna get out of this and you wanna see success, there's a lot of people who are doing that and this is one of their tools. Yeah. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Lime Voice. If you are interested in an environment, a safe environment, Lori Dennis and I, who author of Lime Madness, we have been working on a project called Let There Be Light, and we have a Facebook group that will be launched here in the next couple of weeks called Let There Be Light.. And the emphasis is on specifically positive declarations, no negative self-talk, uh, focusing on solutions and not the problem. So if you're interested in being part of that group, we're opening it up to about 100 people initially, and just send me a message on Facebook and I will add you into that group. It is based on a course that we wrote, and that course will be available for free to everyone in that group, um, initially, and then we'll and we'll open it up to the public later on. So if you are interested in being in a group of like-minded people, send me a message about Let There Be Light and we will get you added into that group.

Yeah, awesome. I know we could talk about this subject for a lot longer, but I think what we've given you today is some of the highlights of really what we— what worked for us.

So thank you. Wishing your doctors could communicate and come up with a cohesive plan specific to your medical needs and genetics? At Invita Medical Center, they offer a team-style approach, giving you the opportunity to heal. In addition to a commitment of providing radical love and care for their patients, they are strategically located in sunny Arizona because Arizona offers the best integrative medical laws in the country. Call today to speak with one of their patient care coordinators. You can find them online at invita.com. Disease is contrary to life. Therefore, wherever disease exists, life must also fight to exist.

Good job fighting, Lyme fighters. Keep it up. We'll see you next time. Lion Voice contains general information about medical conditions and treatments. The information is not advice and should not be treated as such. Okay, Lincoln? Okay. The medical information on Lion Voice is provided as is without any representations, warranties, expressed or implied. Okay? Okay. Lion Voice makes no representations or warranties in relation to the medical information on this podcast. You must not rely on the information on this podcast as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you have any specific questions about your medical matter, you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. And for you, you consult your parents. Okay? Okay. If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition, you should seek immediate medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of information on this podcast. Got it, Lincoln?

Got it.