I spent a lot of this week researching the power behind “strength phrases.” These brief reminders to ourselves, if used consistently, can become our most powerful weapons against fear, doubt, shame and even depression. With potential like that, I wanted to be sure I picked a good one. Something that made me feel both powerful and loving toward myself and my emotions.

Much like affirmations, strength phrases are meant to be repeated when you need them most (or just because you feel like feeling good!). Like when you see a giant spider on your bedroom wall. Or you’re feeling overwhelmed at work. Or someone has falsely told you that you’re unworthy.

Strength phrases don’t need to be complicated. “I am the author of my life” is a perfectly good strength phrase. “I am worthy of love” is another.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what you say to lift yourself up when you’re in pain. What matters is how you feel. If you don’t feel powerful and kind when you tell yourself, “I am worthy of love,” then it’s strength is void.

I’ll be honest with you: I don’t feel strong when I say well-known strength phrases like, “I am loved and worth loving.” In fact, those words often make me cry. In the same way that I learn better from fiction than I do non-fiction, I realized that I needed to create a strength phrase that felt less like a knife to my heart and more like honey for my soul.

And that’s when it came to me.

I will raise this house.

It’s a line from Rebecca Ross’s enchanting debut novel, The Queen’s Rising (and seriously, somebody make that title their strength phrase). And I feel it. Every time I read it/recall it, I feel a kind of miraculous wave of energy and peace flood my bones.

When it comes to strength phrases, though, you’ll want to speak in present-tense. “I am worthy” instead of “I will be worthy.”

The first time I said to myself, “I RAISE THIS HOUSE,” I was instantaneously so happy that I laughed out loud.

And maybe you don’t feel that phrase at all. That’s cool. There’s a strength phrase out there with your name on it, just waiting to make you feel like a beautiful world-conquering beast of a human.

Go find it.

Photo by Tim Rebkavets on Unsplash

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