What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you see how great you are, or do you look for the things that need to be fixed?

Like many people, I often notice what’s wrong instead of what’s right. I lament over a new zit or a sudden sprung hair. I check to be sure my hair looks OK and look to see if I messed up my make up.

Rarely do I just look in the mirror and smile and say to myself, “you look great.” I have long struggled with thoughts that I’m not good enough and that often translates over to what I see when I look in the mirror.

I heard a powerful keynote speaker last month who reminded us that we need to like what we see when we look into that mirror. We need to tell ourselves that we like what we see and start our day off on a positive note.

That resonated with me, especially as I was working on a workshop about positive affirmations that friend Annie and I would present at a stuttering conference in early October.

Annie and I worked on our workshop for 6 weeks, trying out different affirmations that we would encourage people to use when looking in a mirror, both generally and about their stuttering as well. We caught ourselves saying things to ourselves and each other that were not affirming and found out how loud our inner critic’s voice can really be.

We did our mirror workshop on Saturday at the NSA regional conference in Anaheim. We were both a little nervous, worried that people wouldn’t get “into it” and that we were not well prepared enough.

We were prepared enough and people did get into it. We handed out small mirrors and asked people to look deep into their eyes while we took turns gently reading positive affirmations. We then invited people to come up and sit in front of a large mirror and say something aloud, affirming their self and their stuttering. Several people took the risk and we then shared out at the end how all of this felt.

It was a powerful workshop where we were present with each other. We ended by sharing this with the group, which everyone read aloud together.

I AM STRONG

I AM KIND

I AM BEAUTIFUL

I AM SMART

I AM IMPORTANT

I AM FEARLESS

I AM AMAZING