Diana Alghoul

Honestly, I don’t know where to begin. Life taught me this lesson the hard way. Thinking back to how I got to where I am is so traumatic but at the same time I am so thankful because God knew the only way I could learn this is if he put me through so many trials. I was always told that I am what I think I am, but I never believed it until I hit rock bottom and had no choice other than being positive. I had nothing to lose and was already used to disappointment, so whatever if this whole thing ended up fake and I disappointed myself even more.

It wasn’t fake.

I’ve proven this to myself time and time again – we all have. It’s just, our confidence came naturally and things started working out for us. The trick is when you’re feeling down and you have to get yourself out of a spiral through affirming what you ultimately question or don’t believe about yourself.

Trust me, I know how shit it feels to tell yourself you’re successful when you feel like you’re at the bottom of the pit. I know how it feels to tell yourself you’re loved when you feel lonely. It’s a joke. But the irony in which is beautiful because the joke becomes your reality.

This is the power you have.

Your words have matter and have the ability to quite literally change your life. Your words dictate your relationship with God (or the universe or whatever source of life you believe in). It’s not a coincidence that everything you’ve faced difficulty with are the things you told yourself would be difficult, or have shown a form of lacking in. It’s no coincidence that when you tell yourself money, love, etc are hard to come around, they become and remain hard to come around.

These views are not something that come out when you face difficulty. These views are embedded in you from past traumas, events and experiences that have shaped your life experiences. They are a product of things you have been told from childhood. You know yourself, you know where your insecurities lie and you know your own story. Stop running away from all of these things — face them head on and defeat these thoughts. Fight them. Tell yourself you are worthy of love, you are worthy of abundance, you are worthy of financial stability, you are worthy of your customers/clients taking you seriously.

It can be as simple as affirming your professionalism if you are a businessperson and you want a friend to take you seriously and not expect discounts from you because of a service. Before seeing this friend, you will refer to them as a client in your head. You will keep reminding yourself that your products/services are worthy to be sold. You will keep reminding yourself that you are professional and you will act on all of these things. Yes, you may want to go into gossip mode during the meeting, but that’s your insecurities telling you to do so because you’re afraid of not being taken seriously enough if you do attempt at putting on a more strict mask.

Hence, affirmations.

I know I’m always banging on about these, but they are so important. Be kind to yourself. Fill your personal internal space up with kind words. Even if you don’t believe the kind things you’re telling yourself, even if you feel like everything is spiralling away from you; be kind to yourselves and believe. Eventually, what you want will manifest.

Take each day and each moment as it comes. Be thankful even when you’re in a rut, not because it’s the “positive” thing to do, but because you know you will come out stronger no matter what.

Last week, I was walking from the gym in Strand and I thought to continue walking until I got to King’s College (my old University). I kept walking towards Temple Station and I remembered all of the times I took this route with heavy weights on my shoulders, considering dropping out, fearing failure and feeling like an incompetent piece of shit. It never occurred to me that four years on, I would have passed my Masters, I would have been in a job that I’m happy in, yet still managing to blog and I would never in a thousand years considered myself a failure.

Moments like this will keep happening. Things will recycle and repeat themselves. You’ll find yourself walking paths you currently walk, weeks, months and years down the line and smiling at how things panned out.

But to trust that this will happen, you need to trust yourself. To trust yourself, you need to be kind to yourself.

If there’s one thing we underestimate, it is the power of repetition. Because our minds register absolutely everything, without realising, we absorb information that our conscious doesn’t know exists on a daily basis and unfortunately, whether we like it or not, have a huge role in forming our opinions.

I noticed this in myself recently when I saw myself giving into a form of pressure without realising. With everyone around me wanting me to “hurry up and get married before I expire”, and me being told by various people on an almost daily basis that I am going to end up alone if I don’t take advantage of my beauty and youth while I still have it to secure that part of my life, I almost felt myself starting to believe them and panicked for a tiny bit.

Why? I don’t believe in their crap. I never have and I never will. I believe naseeb is naseeb and I believe that we should never turn such matters that are out of our control into something we stress about.

The reason their mentality started to creep into my mind is because of how often I hear their reasonings and the conviction they use to express them with.

Essentially, repetition is key.

Thankfully, I unlocked that quite fast because the thoughts that have begun to creep into my mind are so out of my actual opinions and have a clear source. So why not use the power of repetition to my own advantage if it’s this powerful?

What we tell ourselves is so important. The inner dialogue we have with ourselves not only manifests itself because the conversation dictates the kind of energy we put out to the universe, but because it tells us what we can and can’t do. We physically limit ourselves based on the limiting beliefs we impose on our mind.

Dictate your own story

We’ve been telling ourselves the same story about ourselves for years; some which we can trace the source of, some we can’t. Some that we’ve had since childhood, some because they’re just comfortable to say because we’re too scared to set ourselves up for disappointment. Ironically, this is what holds us back.

Make conscious decisions to leave your mental comfort zone and tell yourself stuff that you don’t usually tell yourself. The power of repetition has been used against us since birth, telling us that we aren’t good enough in so many ways. This only proves how powerful repetition is, so use that power to your advantage instead.

It’s easy to tell ourselves that we’re unfit when the evidence is in front of us, but it’s painfully difficult to tell ourselves that we are fit and we are getting closer to our goals every day, especially if we don’t feel it. Why? Because we lean to what is comfortable and the discourse that we’re used to. Deep down, we don’t believe we can reach our goal, which is why it’s so hard for us to affirm. Let go, take the risk of being kind to yourself and watch yourself move forward.

Tell yourself amazing things, even if you don’t believe them. Allow yourself to feel silly telling yourself that you’re beautiful, fun, fit, radiate attractive energy etc and watch everything manifest into your life.

When you affirm your positive attitude to yourself through repetition, not only do you eventually start to believe what you affirm to yourself, you become more patient in attaining what you want. You know it’s coming, so you won’t resist it as much. You know you deserve what you want and you know you’re not standing in your own way. You know you’re good enough for it, so it’s just a matter of receiving it at the right time. You know a kind, merciful omnipresent higher power dictates such timings. It always turns out okay.

Self-sabotaging blessings

One of the reasons we self-sabotage our blessings is because we believe we don’t deserve them. We don’t think we’re good enough. We believe we don’t have what we want because we think don’t we deserve what we want – the moment we get it, we ruin it because we don’t think we deserve it.

This is how powerful our thoughts are. Not only do they dictate what we manifest in our lives, but they dictate the course of how they manifest. Prepare yourself for your blessings by not only believing they will come, but believing you deserve them.

Honestly, relax. This moment can’t hurt you. When you feel yourself regretting the past or worrying about the future, reconnect yourself with your breathing and absorb the moment. We may not always be able to control how we feel, but we can control what we tell ourselves to dictate our future later on. Even when you’re feeling like shit and you would never believe the positive stuff you’re telling yourself, while you’re connected to your breathing, affirm as you breathe in and feel the release of your tension when you breathe out.

In the morning, even if you don’t believe it, just tell yourself that you’re going to have an amazing day. Keep doing it even if you don’t actually have an amazing day.

Forgive your past self, be kind to your present self and know your future self will appreciate it.

Good luck xox

Hey! So, I’ve had a few people for many reasons message me after my last blog post and tell me that they don’t have access to a gym and want to start implementing their fitness routine at home.

So, I think if you don’t have access to a gym for one reason, you’re most likely not going to use it anyway. If you’re a student and can’t afford a membership, you probably wouldn’t have time to take some time out of your day to go to the gym. Exercising from home is a lot more efficient and you don’t need to waste time travelling back to study or go to work or whatever.

Some YouTubers I love: TiffanyRothesWorkouts, Blogilaties, Bexlife, YogaWithAdriene, XHIT Daily, Lucy Wyndham-Read, FitnessBlender, Popsugar Fitness, Yoga With Tim, PsycheTruth, Elliot Hulse, The Body Coach. Share yours!

If you have just had a baby and can’t gym it, maybe you’ll overdo it. If you have kids and you have no time, maybe quality time taking your kids out to the park to exercise with them to help them lead an active lifestyle.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. With something like exercising, you don’t need a gym. I’ve frozen my membership during Ramadan and I am currently relying on at-home workouts, along with going to my local park.

For motivation, find out why you can’t get a gym membership and see the flip side to it to help you feel mentally adequate. If you’re bummed out by not having a gym membership, you’re literally only making excuses for yourself. It’s the equivalent of having one and not being bothered to go. Get into the mental headspace of being fit and healthy, set your goals and just do it.

Act like you’re working out
You just got out of bed feeling crap, you washed, drank a glass of water and ate something and decided to do your first workout. You’re still in your pj’s. You go to your room and start a video. You get demotivated and shut it off, or you complete it but don’t repeat.

Sound familiar? In order to have a proper workout, you shouldn’t treat your workout at home any different to the gym. Put on your exercise gear, tie up your hair, have your amino acids with you, eliminate distractions. Your workout time is yours. Unless there’s an actual reason to, don’t do a yoga video with no bra.

Your workout time is yours and you need to respect it as such.

Intend a good workout
I won’t get into the spiritual aspects of this, but if you don’t intend to have a good workout, you won’t. If you feel like you’re lacking because you don’t have a gym membership, it’ll show up in your workout.

There’s a huge misconception among aspiring fitness buffs that you need a gym to be healthy. Okay, gyms do have their advantages, but they also have a lot of disadvantages – especially if you’re paying for a membership that you don’t have time for. If you enter your workout with a lack, you will come out of it with a lack. One summer, between my last year of school and first year of university, I lost a lot of weight with absolutely no membership. Only dedication to look better so I can find a husband at university (lllloooooolll @ my 18-year-old self).

Use what is around you
Buying equipment, resistance bands, etc is really helpful but only if you use them properly. If you have stairs, or even a few steps, use them (I did non-stop running up and down the stairs until my chest hurt for my cardio – the stepping machine at the gym that simulates this exercise). Best thing to do is to start off with working out without equipment and when you have an idea of what equipment you need, head out to buy them.

Research if you don’t know. Type in “workouts using a chair” on Google and I guarantee you’ll find a lot. But don’t get wrapped up with choice and actually plan your workouts. Plan doing a specific video, or plan doing four exercises, three sets and 15 reps of each, or whatever else you’re thinking. If you want to do an hour and you finish quicker than you expected, do more sets, or take that time to do some HIIT training or stretches.

Calisthenics!
This is where real strength lies. Your own body weight. Take advantage and learn calisthenics. There are books, videos, apps, etc that can help you. Research what works for you and go for it. You’ll probably at some point find yourself being able to plank for longer than someone who goes to the gym 5x a week.

The great outdoors are amazing if you want to get a good calisthenic workout. Take advantage of the monkey bars at the park while the weather is still nice. If it’s raining, get yourself some outdoor workout gear and goooo!!!!

Exercising is a beautiful thing. It’s your own journey. Don’t let capitalism fool you into thinking you can’t get fit without a gym membership. Yes, gym memberships are helpful, but only if you use them properly. Trust the fact that you can’t get a membership because it’s better for you to workout somewhere else and take advantage of that extra time spent travelling or being in nature.

Good luck my loves!! xoxox