In my Corporate days I worked with a lovely Training Manager whose favourite phrase was “It’s not WHAT you say IT’S THE WAY IN WHICH YOU SAY IT”.   He was an easy target and we had many laughs – WITH him AND at his expense AND of course he was/is right.

In Kinesiology we have many techniques to erase past habits and reinforce new ones, but blindly repeating affirmations “parrot fashion” simply doesn’t cut it.   The client really has to say what they want, like they mean it, and if the phrase/affirmation isn’t working for them they need to change it to THEIR phrasing to make it truly personal and effective.

Suggesting to a client that there could be some conflict in their thinking or subconscious beliefs is a tricky business, but important if they want to move forward.

I came across a phrase today that I hadn’t heard before – “toxic positivity”.  Linking it to the article it referred to I deduced that it meant turning a situation that had been truly awful into a “supposed” positive which in turn was, they felt, even more abhorrent.

I do believe positivity is crucial to our health and wellbeing but NOT at ANY cost.  One of my own favourite made-up sayings when I’m teaching kinesiology is that “there’s a fine line between positivity and delusion” and I wrote a short blog about it here.

We are all human and sometimes say things clumsily without malicious intent but being aware of our tone and how we express things is an ongoing learning curve.