Be Careful What You Tell Yourself…

We’ve all heard the saying ‘attitude is everything.’ But sometimes it can be hard to look at a major life change like deployment as anything but negative. Watch Out! It turns out that telling yourself deployment will be a horrible experience could actually make it worse.

“The subconcious mind does not know the difference between real and unreal,” says Dr. Maxwell Malz, MD. “It accepts what you feed it.”

That means a positive attitude – even if you’re “faking it” – can actually make you feel better and make it easier to pass the time.

Kiera DesChamps, a certified professional life coach and owner of Aha! Coaching, says if you continue to tell yourself that you will come through the deployment with flying colors, you will eventually reach your subconscious mind. “You’ll get really comfortable with your goals and avoid self-sabatoge – making it easier to reach them!” She suggests making a personal vision statement – written in present tense, as if your deployment goals have already been achieved – and reading it to yourself for 20 minutes a day, preferrably first thing in the morning. “When you’re quiet and most receptive.”

Kiera says to try closing your eyes and repeating something like ‘my soldier has returned safely from deployment and we are a family again,’ and focus on the way picturing that reunion makes you feel. “Daily affirmations can be powerful tools – they are easy, effective and you can do it yourself!”