Blooming with Self-Love: How to Reclaim Your Worth | with Aneta Waclaw

Michael Unbroken: We live in a time right now where I think people are so disconnected from themselves. They're suffering daily, not only with the conversation in their own head, but because of the way that the world works today. I think people are lost in. They're not enough. They don't matter that other people are doing it better or even when they move towards their goals and aspirations, that it's not for them.

This is something that when I was young, I certainly felt victim to. I think it's, um, a pandemic, if you will, that that's impacting millions and millions of people, and that's why I'm so excited to have Aneta Waclaw on the show today to talk about her amazing book called Blooming with Self Love: 31 days of positive affirmations and self-love journaling.

I actually was able to read the book on a flight from the US to Asia, and it's just full of just power and beauty and grace. And so with that said, welcome to the show, my friend. 

Aneta Waclaw: Thank you for having me, Michael. It's an honor to be here. 

Michael Unbroken: So one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot recently is the reality that I think that a lot of people need self-love. They need affirmations. They need a framework and a game plan. I. I come to find that for some people, some things work, and for some people, some things don't.

And I think ultimately, it's about finding the tools that work for you best, where you're at in your journey, and what it is that you need at this time in your life. Walk me down the path to creating these 31 days. What was the experience like for you and why did this become an anchor in your life? 

Aneta Waclaw: Yeah, I'll start by taking you back to where it actually started for me. So I have a background as a dancer. So I grew up in the dance studio as a ballet dancer, and I was there all the time, and I loved it because it was my numbing point from all the childhood trauma that I had. If I was running from my emotions, I was running from. Who I was because I didn't have a self, a good self-confidence, and I didn't entirely like who I was at the time.

And when I was in middle school and high school, the way that I looked, the way that I dressed, I didn't know how to do my hair and I didn't know how to do my makeup. So I struggled and lacked in a lot of those areas. And then I remember one day we were at dance camp. And they brought in somebody who was teaching us about self-love and positive affirmations, and she told us that.

We should get a stack of post-it notes and we should write down one positive affirmation on it a day and stick it on your bathroom mirror. So then the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning, you would see that affirmation. And the last thing you see before you go to bed when you, after you brush your teeth, would be that positive affirmation as well.

And it was adding one every single day. And that's what I did to start accumulating a more positive mindset about myself And. Honestly, I didn't believe them at first, but I kept doing it. And the more that I started to do it and the more I started to repeat it to myself, I started to believe it more. I.

And then a little bit later on, a few years later, after I stopped dancing, I actually got into a really unhealthy relationship with a guy and things spiraled backwards. Like I stopped working on the personal development aspect and I stopped the positive affirmations and I noticed, and I saw myself spiraling backwards.

And then it wasn't until I left that relationship where I started to. Do the positive affirmations again and start to fall in love with who I am and who I've created myself to be. And that's when I wrote the Positive Affirmations book because, and gratitude journaling, because it starts with, you have to like who you are and you have to be grateful for who you are because I believe that we are all given a purpose and we're all beautiful in our own way.

But we have to believe it first. So that's essentially where it's came from and. I did 31 days because it takes 21 to 30 days to create a habit. So it's really just getting into the habit of being kind to yourself. You know, so many times we are so kind to other people. We're kind to strangers. We're kind to our neighbors, but why are we not kind to ourselves, and that's where it started from. 

Michael Unbroken: Why are we not kind to ourselves? Where does that come from and what do we do about that? 

Aneta Waclaw: I think we're our own worst, biggest critics, and it's a tough pill to swallow because I think we're always taught. Be a nurturer, be there for other people When we're younger, when we're young, we're taught self-care is selfish.

Self-care is not selfish. It's selfish putting other people's needs before your own needs. And that's also what has. Led me into such an unhealthy relationship in the past is because I was constantly putting that other person's needs over mine no matter what. Whether it was emotionally, physically, or materialistic things.

I always put his needs before mine and I wasn't able to fill my cup. So we get into this habit of thinking, self-care is selfish and we have to be there for others. So. It's a natural instinct to be kind to others instead of ourselves. But the reality of it is, is that if we can't fill our cups, then we can't fill anybody else's, and it all starts with us. 

Michael Unbroken: Yeah. It does. And I think that a lot of our experiences growing up, kind of formulate and frame who it is that we're going to become because you're in this position where you don't know what you don't know and what you don't know, you know, could fill up a stadium and, and I think it's really interesting depending on the dynamics of your household, like a lot of it is about being a lesser version of you for the benefit of other people. It's performative in a lot of ways, in so many ways because it's looking at life through the scope of, if I'm this, then I will get that. You see that a lot in athletes. You see that a lot in people who come from traumatic backgrounds. I mean, hell honestly, you probably see it in everyone.

And the thing is, it's sitting in that and recognizing that you have the choice to be who you want to be. Now, this is where it gets difficult though, because while you have the choice to be who you want to be, most people don't know where to start. Most people don't see the path with, you know, these guided journaling’s and meditations and affirmations.

Instead, we're trapped and lost in this idea of. Well, if I go make money, if I go get a super hot spouse, if I have a great body, then I will love myself. And then people in turn will love me. And I've come to find time and time that's not again. And the concept of self-love really begins with self. So if I'm listening and I hear this and I'm like, yeah, sure, I hear this all the time.

I get it. Self-love, affirmations, blah, blah, blah. But I've never been able to stick it through. I've never been able to show up for myself every single day. How do, how does somebody do that? How does someone go from day zero to day 31 to day 8 million? Like what do, what do people need to do to start creating frame for themselves in a daily basis that they can begin these ideas and practices of self-love?

Aneta Waclaw: I always encourage people is to start to get comfortable with who you are. You know, I think a lot of times we project ourselves onto who we could be or who we could be if this didn't happen in our past. But at the end of the day, we don't have the past anymore. We don't have the future at the moment.

What we have is the present moment and what can you do in the present moment, and it's once you learn to. Enjoy your own presence, then you're no longer looking for fulfillment in people, places, and things. And I say that because when I was 21, I ended up getting married to a guy who completely hated me.

Why? Because I had a bad self-image and I was looking for fulfillment in people, places and things. I was drinking a lot, smoking a lot. I was begging him for his attention. I was people pleasing everybody, and I was burning the stick at both ends, and it wasn't until three years after. We started dating and got married.

When I was 23 years old, I decided that we needed to go our own ways and we ended up filing for divorce and figured that out and moved on. But I still felt a void and I thought I was healing, but I wasn't. I was still partying. I was still numbing myself by going to work, and it wasn't until. I cut off all distractions.

This is what has worked for me, and this is my personal story, but I cut off all distractions. I lessened my hours at the salon as much as I loved working there, it was also a toxic environment because you're always running around being a people pleaser to everybody. It's the nature of the business. You wanna make your clients happy.

And then on top of that, you're working so many extra hours on your feet. So when I lessened my hours at the salon, I started to take myself out to go get my favorite cup of coffee or take myself out to lunch and. I wouldn't take my phone, or if I did, I would just not be on my phone. And just really enjoy that present moment because when you learn to enjoy your own presence, then you no longer seek approval from other people.

I was constantly seeking approval from my clients. Oh, do they like their hair? Are they gonna come back? I was seeking approval for my parents. Are they gonna be proud of what I'm doing? I was seeking approval for my ex-husband. Is he gonna love me the way that I want to be loved? But at the end of the day, nobody is gonna spend more time with you than you, and nobody is gonna love you more than yourself.

So I always encourage people as learn to be comfortable in your own presence, so that way. When you come across people, places and things that bring you joy, they're adding to your joy and they're adding to your peace, and they're not just filling a void. 

Michael Unbroken: Yeah. I think a lot of things, it's that you, you mentioned distractions and I think that's so true. I have these really intense moments of clarity when I was younger. In silence. Like I, I teach my clients this all the time, that the peace is in the pause. And the reason why is because when you can't escape your own shit, you have to deal with it. And I think that dealing with it is arguably the most difficult thing that you do because life a, a lot of life is you versus you.

So much of life is standing in front of that fucking mirror and being like, Hey, you need to check yourself. And it's difficult because we live in the self era, the self-care, age and era of which this idea and notion of love yourself exactly as you are. Exists, and I don't think it's for the betterment for people.

In fact, I think it's a deterrent of success. It's a deterrent of, potential. It's a deterrent of the idea of you being able to fully live into the person that you're meant to be. Because as humans, we require challenge. We just do. I mean, it's, it's in our nature. I've seen it too many times to know that, to be fact.

And when I think about the idea, I'll give you a great example. When I think about the idea of being okay and accepting yourself as who you are, I think often it can have daily consequences. When, when I was 25, and I've mentioned this on the show about 10,000 times, so everyone knows this, but I'm making a point when I was 25, I was 350 pounds, smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep, and getting high every single second of the day.

A person like that who accepts this idea and notion that self care is as simple and loving yourself is as simple as accepting your own bullshit is doomed. And if that would've stayed the course now, 15 years later, I'd honestly probably be dead. Like I don't see a path to not being dead. And so how do you, because I, I think that this is a part of the Journey two and something that I picked up as I read your book, but how do, how does one not only walk the path of the self-care and the self-love and the, the sitting and the silence and taking care of themselves. But how do they do that in a way where they also challenge who they are to become the best version of themselves? 

Aneta Waclaw: Yeah. Something that has helped me is honestly traveling. Traveling has given me the opportunity to see my strength and see how resilient I really am. And if somebody doesn't like to travel, I always recommend go check out a new city, go to a new state. You don't have to leave the country if you don't want to, but go somewhere where it's unfamiliar to you and you don't know anybody there because then it gives you the opportunity to figure out what you're made out of and it gives you the opportunity to look at your problems that seem big at the moment. They all of a sudden become minor because for me personally, when I left my ex-husband, I stayed in Chicago 'cause I'm from Chicago, so I stayed in the city for about a year and a half after that.

And I started working at my dream salon and I worked there for about eight months and it was great, but then eventually I got let go and I just really needed a break from pe, everything that was familiar. So I ended up moving to Mexico and I lived there for about a year. And all of a sudden I need us to figure out where am I gonna do laundry? Where am I going to eat? Where am I gonna sleep? Who am I gonna talk to? All of those real life situations just became my focus. So like my problems that seemed so big, like my ex-husband was so mean to me. I just got fired from. My dream job, my best friend took advantage of me. All of that became so minor.

And then you also learn to enjoy your presence more. Because also when you're solo traveling or you're going somewhere unfamiliar by yourself, you really get into your thoughts more. And that's when I recommend more education about listening to self-help podcasts, reading books that. Self-development, whatever it is for you, and you start to fall in love with who you are again.

And you start to understand, oh, maybe I don't like lattes. Maybe I like cappuccinos. Maybe I like going to the beach more than what I thought maybe I like. Buying the, wearing these kinds of clothes versus these kinds of clothes. I worked at the salon. My whole wardrobe was literally black clothing because that's what I was taught to wear at the salon for the past five years. But I actually like colorful clothes. So you really get the opportunity to rediscover a new version of yourself. 

Michael Unbroken: Yeah, and I think a lot of that points to the side of presence. You know, I've traveled the world, I've been to more places than I can even begin to count, and it does require you to, at times figure out who you are.

As strange as it sounds. And I know people have a hard time connecting that if they've never done it, but a lot of it is, is about getting into the present moment. A lot of it is sitting in and understanding who you are. And then in that taking ownership because you have to like. I remember I was, I'll just sit on this for a second. I was 29 getting ready to leave my home. I grew up in Indianapolis, just chaos. I hated all of it. And life was in a pretty dark place at 29, and I sat down with my friends and I said, Hey, I'm leaving. I'm going to do this thing over here. I'm never coming back. And. They were like, what are you running from?

And I remember sitting with my friends and being like, guys, I'm, I'm not running from anything. I'm running towards me. And I think that, I tell my clients this all the time. I'm like, if you can fucking move, move. I. Leave, leave that place. That place has nothing for you anymore. There's nothing for you. You have to go and discover because also, one of the things I don't think people consider enough is how triggering your current environment can be for you.

The smells, the streets, the people, the familiar, the familiarity of it all. That's where that thing happened. That's where that thing happened. That's that experience right there. And giving yourself the freedom to create a new environment is very, very powerful. Um, there's in, in my first book I wrote this idea about create you well, you can only create you by going and creating you.

Creating you also requires you taking ownership over yourself. That's both your good things and your bad things, and the things in the middle. And being okay with who you are. I think so much of self-love is about walking this path, right? How do you be okay with who you are? And so, as you're reading this book, one of the things that I thought very striking is it, it starts to challenge these ideas and these notions about who you are, how do people, as they're on this personal development, self-love affirmation journey. Because I think it's necessary, how do they take better ownership of the truth of their life and of becoming the person that they want to become? 

Aneta Waclaw: Well, first I wanna go back to what you were saying. I wanna add onto it. You said that when you were leaving Indianapolis, your friends said, what are you running from? And that's exactly the response that I got when I told people I was moving to Mexico and they said, you don't have to run. Like my parents said, you don't have to run away Anta. And you can come stay with us. And I said, I'm not running away. I'm going to go heal and I'm gonna go figure out who I am. And I remember the first time, like I was so happy there.

I had no idea what I was doing. gosh, I lived in hostels for two months. I didn't know anybody. I didn't know the language. But I knew that's where I was supposed to be for the time being. And then when I came back to visit a few months later, I completely lost it. I was just crying and crying because I no longer felt happy in the places where I grew up.

And it's okay that you to go rewrite your story somewhere else. So I always tell people it's like just because you grow up in a certain city or a certain town. You don't have to live there forever. There's a whole world of opportunities and a whole world of people who want to accept you and to help you grow into the person you have been called to what your past says you are? Also the biggest thing was I wanted to go somewhere where nobody knew me based on my past, so I can. Put it to the side and to stop going backwards to it. So I'm actually really glad you brought that up because we're not running, we're going to a place to heal and to evolve into the person that we are.

Michael Unbroken: Here's what I think, and it might spark it for you. You know, one of the things that, that I've realized and it's very simple, I just call it, I don't give a f*ck. and that has helped so much.

And I don't mean necessarily outwardly where, you know, from an appearance or a look or this or that, that I label myself in this or, or I create this notion of not caring, but it's even about the things that are truly innately me. I'm like, I've been able to sit in them. By just being like, yeah, this is it.

And I don't give a f*ck that. Even my own narrative for myself has changed. I'm like, because you, you have to recognize if you're going to walk the path of growth, you are going to change. I. You have to be okay with that because even, here's what's crazy. You can even be dogmatic about your own personal development and it's like, well, are you developing if you decided that this is who you are?

And so that's a whole other narrative that you start to walk down this path of, and so it's like you can sit and have these ideas about who you are all day long and you could care about them so much. That when it comes time to challenge yourself and take ownership, you can get lost in it. And so when I think about this ownership element of it, for me, so much of it is just being like, this is who I am. I accept all of it. Sometimes I'm an asshole, sometimes I'm super nice, sometimes I'm this, sometimes I'm that. And I just go, okay, yeah, it's true. I don't necessarily care that it's that, but I care about owning it, if that makes sense. 

Aneta Waclaw: That's a beautiful place to be because then you're no longer people pleasing. That's right. That's a really bad habit of people pleasing and I would try to look a certain way or talk a certain way around certain people, and it's such a bad habit to be in, but when you can look at yourself and say, I love you for who you are, and the past may not have been perfect, but all we have is now. And I love you for the mistakes, the strengths, the weaknesses, all of it. That's when your true power comes out, because exactly like you said, you no longer give a fuck about what other people are saying. People are gonna talk about you regardless whether you're doing good things or you're doing bad things, so you might as well do whatever the fuck makes you happy.

It's not. It doesn't matter what other people think. What matters is that you are happy and you are making a way for yourself. 

Michael Unbroken: Yeah. Well, and you're not gonna be happy all the time. And that's just the nature of life. But without the, I wrote this the other day with, to be a phoenix, you must rise from the ashes and in that there's darkness. you have to kill off parts of who you are. And this is why from my con, again, I know this is different for everyone. I've been doing this for a decade. For me, affirmations do nothing for other people. They're everything. And I think that so much of it is about finding the tools that work for you.

And then doing something with them. Most people just don't do anything with all the information. They're mentally masturbating all the time. They're just packing their brain full of dopamine and taking no action. Because as much as I, a great example, you could talk about the idea of like, Hey, go travel the world or leave your city or do this or do that because it'll change your life and be behind a keyboard in your basement at your parents' house.

Right And have never have done it. Have never lived it. Have never experienced it. And I equate that also to this self-love and affirmations journey. It's like if you want to love yourself, you have to do the thing you know that you're supposed to do at 3 52 packs a day, drinking myself to sleep. You don't think I know.

Right, and I see this in other people. I'm like, you know, your marriage sucks to the point that it's irreconcilable. You know, you're not taking care of your health to the point that you're sick. You know, you're in shitty friendships to the point that you're being taken advantage of the actual question that I've come to find becomes the kind of the marker for the shift in life is how long are you going to put up with it? Yeah, and how long are you going to wait until you take action? Where? Where's the intersection here between the. The affirmation and the self-love and the action required. Like how do, how do people actually take those steps? How do they actually create action, build momentum, and have transformation? 

Aneta Waclaw: One of the biggest things that has helped me is training my brain to see the good in everything. You know, nobody's perfect. We all go through shit. We all go through trauma. I can sit here and, and self pity and tell you and cry about how my ex-husband was a manipulator, how he abused me emotionally and mentally, and sometimes even physically.

But at the end of the day, I chose to find. Good in that if I always say when you want something, it comes. It doesn't come to you on a gold platter. It comes to you in the form of challenges and as toxic and as unhealthy. The marriage and the whole relationship was, I wouldn't change it for the world, but I wouldn't go back.

And I say that because I grew up in a household where my parents, uh, were born and raised in Poland and then they came to the States when they were around 18 years old and they figured it out. And then they had my brother and they did everything that they could to provide for our family and in the physical.

But when it came to communication emotions. All of that was completely non-existent. So I was an emotional being. I didn't know how to communicate. I had anger issues, all of it, you name it. And then when I was telling myself, I was like, God, I want to be more emotionally stable and I want to communicate better.

And when I said that I was introduced to my ex-husband at 20 years old and. He completely tore me apart, and it wasn't until about a year of being with him I knew I wasn't supposed to be getting married to him. I knew I wasn't supposed to be moving in with him. I knew I wasn't supposed to be with him for the long term, but eventually I learned that he was the answer to my prayers because he was.

Ripping me apart, so I had the opportunity to rebuild myself, and when I started to be grateful for that, I always encourage people, be grateful for everything, because you will not be given anything that you can't handle, and don't be surprised. If you ask for flowers and you get rain because you can't have flowers without rain.

And that was the same thing. I couldn't learn how to control my emotions if my ex-husband didn't completely blow up my emotions every day. I couldn't learn how to be mentally resilient. If he didn't try to manipulate me every day into thinking I'm a terrible person. I'm ugly, I'm stupid, I'm fat, all the whole nine yards, and being grateful for those challenges.

I know it can be hard to look in the moment and say, this shit sucks, but one day I am gonna be grateful for it. Because you should be thankful that you're not where you used to be. And I always tell people, be grateful you're not where you used to be, because the future ahead is brighter if you choose to view it that way.

Michael Unbroken: Yeah. And it's hard in the moment, you know, I look at it and yeah. I. Growing up in such a traumatic household and all the abuse, all the neglect, being homeless as a child, the f*cking chaos of all of it, I'm grateful for it. And that's such a crazy thing for people to like rationalize, which sometimes it is for me too.

But I look at my life, I look at the experiences I've had, the impact I've been able to make, and then I just look at my own journey and I'm like. I would probably have done none of this. in fact, I can probably guarantee I would've done none of it. Had I grown up in a different environment, maybe I was never in an abusive household.

And because of that, I never traveled the world. I never found love. I never experienced some of the craziest things you could possibly imagine. Never felt resilient, never became emotionally stable, never. You know, and so the gratitude element of it's really difficult though, because. Accepting suffering is not something that we innately want to do, and as humans, the one thing that we really want to do, probably more than anything, is to avoid and ignore suffering and to put it to the side and to make sure that we don't have to fill it.

But in the feeling it like that's where we exist. And that's why I think it's really important to feel and acknowledge and have ownership over who you are. Especially the shit that you're not into that isn't working for you, that, that you're not proud of. Because that's how you change your life. You sweep it under the rug on a long enough timeline, it's gonna catch up on you, which is gonna really suck. But the thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna be living a false reality. And I think that is a more vicious punishment than anything. when I think about gratitude, 'cause I want to go a little bit deeper when you're in the moment, you're never going to appreciate what is happening. I just don't think it's possible. It's just too deep. It's too much. Sometimes it's too harrowing. When you're on the backside of it, generally there's a process, much like the grieving process versus there's denial and then there's anger and there's blah, blah, blah, right?

But then eventually there's that turn, that moment you turn the corner. And you come to appreciation. I don't even necessarily need to call it gratitude, but appreciation. Like, fuck, man, I'm glad that happened. Now what do you do with that? Right? So you have the gratitude, you have the moment, you have the recognition. So how do you really leverage it in your life? 

Aneta Waclaw: I've learned to know that you're at the right place at the right time, and I think that's also a big key factor is that when you know you're at the right place at the right time, it gives you gratitude. Because a lot of times it's so easy to look at other people who have what we want or have things that we're working for.

And it's easy to compare our chapter one to somebody's chapter 10, but at the end of the day, it gives you gratitude for where you are, because you may not be exactly where you wanna be in life, but at the end of the day, be thankful for everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. I remember when.

I got fired from my dream salon, like I wanted to work there five years before I went to beauty school. Five years before I went to beauty school, I worked as a receptionist at a salon in the local neighborhood and everybody raves about this one salon. And I said, if I ever go to beauty school and I become a hairstylist, I wanna work there.

And that was the last salon that I worked at. And I remember I had a conversation with the CEO. And maybe we were on the same page, maybe we weren't on the same page. It doesn't matter because it's in the past. But the next day they ended up letting me go and the first thing I literally said was, thank you.

And they're like, what? And I said, no, seriously, thank you, because I'm ready to move on as well. And I packed up my stuff and I said, thanks guys. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. And I looking back at those three years prior, I would not be able to do that. But because of all of. The abuse and all of the unhealthy shit that was happening in my marriage.

I've learned to just be grateful and go with the flow. You don't always have to go against the grain, but if something sets, if a setback happens for you, it happened for a reason. So instead of trying to fight it or trying to be angry that you have a setback, just say thank you. You don't even have to understand why.

You're saying thank you, because later on it will make sense. The way that I like to frame it is that imagine having a bow and arrow in your hands. You pull the bow or the arrow back. Once that's a setback, you pull it back again. That's another setback. You pull it back just a little further, that's another setback.

And when it's ready to go and the arrow goes forward, it's gonna go a lot further after the third setback than the first one. So know that if you're being. Facing setback after setback, you're getting set up for a great comeback. So just every time you get faced with a setback, just get into the habit of saying thank you, whether you understand it or not in that moment.

Michael Unbroken: Hmm. No, it's actually more powerful than I think people will overlook what you just said and not understand the power of it. One of my mentors and very close friends, David Meltzer, taught me the power of that. Like just saying thank you to even like the worst things that happen.

And so every single day on my phone, I have alarms set that just literally only says say thank you. and it's because it's this frame and reminder. I mean, you know, we, we kind of. What is the old phrase? Be careful what you ask for 'cause you just might get it and it's like in order to get it, like yeah, you're probably going to go through some shit.

It's probably gonna suck. It's probably gonna be very, very, very hard at times. But that's where it comes from. you'll look back and go, man, I'm super happy that I went through all the pain and the hurt and the suffering, but you don't get to become that. especially, you don't become that version of yourself without doing what is responsible and what is required.

And in that, one of the things that I was thinking about, you know, as you're writing this book, what do you think is one of these affirmations or one of these daily practices that people can add to their life? And again, I mean this is obviously bias because it's you, but what do you, what do you think is one of the affirmations where you're like, if you just held onto this, your life will be different forever. 

Aneta Waclaw: There's a lot of different ones, but the biggest one, I would say is the first thing you do in the morning. Say thank you. Thank you for another day. Whether you believe in God or creator source, whatever, just say thank you.

One of the biggest things that's helped me is build my faith relationship as well through such difficult times, and I know it can go so many different ways. Some people have a bad taste in their mouth about faith and some people. Live by it. And I'm somebody who has been able to grow my faith through those difficult times because at the end of the day, I'm a firm believer that you won't be given anything you can't handle.

And we are fulfilling God's purpose that he called on our life. But we have to pass the challenges. We have to pass the test, and once we pass the test and once we pass the challenges, we'll be ready. So just being grateful that you have another day. You know, your worst day is somebody's dream, so be grateful for that.

So when life gives you problems. That's an amazing thing because you now have the opportunity to create a solution and it may not even just be for yourself.

It can be for somebody else. Because something that I've also noticed is that. A lot of people have big dreams and they have big goals, but they're waiting on somebody like you to step outside of your comfort zone to show them that they can move forward, that they can do it, and it all starts with you, be the example that you once needed.

So be thankful for everything. Just say like, I am worthy, I'm grateful, and I'm an overcomer. I love the person that I am becoming. Those are like my top ones. 

Michael Unbroken: Yeah, they're powerful and if you can reinforce the words with actions, they will bond, they will glue. Right, because I look at, for lack of a better way to phrase it, there's the polarization of it.

So you have a positive negative magnetic draw, right? I'm not calling either positive or negative. I'm just saying that in this context. So you have this idea about self and affirmation. Right. So that's one polarity, and then you have action. Without those two things coming together, the shift doesn't happen.

And so I've even found that just with the action, right? You know, growing up and having no money, I chased money desperately as a kid, right? And then I got really, really successful, really young, and I lost it all. Because over here I didn't have the mindset thought. I didn't have the thought process. I didn't have the belief systems.

I didn't have the affirmations about what I do with the money. And so they pushed away from each other instead of attracting, they pushed away. And I think that if you wanna attract and create the bond. It requires you doing both. You have to think it, but you have to do it because if you only think it and you don't do it, you won't believe it.

And if you only do it and you don't think it, then the thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna be in misalignment. And with misalignment, you're gonna waste a lot of time. And that's always the thing that I think is the most detrimental about life is this place in which you have just spent. Four months, four years, 40 years, not being yourself, not doing what you needed to do and then not believing that you're capable of doing it because you haven't done it.

And so when I think about these affirmations, and I think about the 31 days like you wrote in the book, like it's like, I dare you to cross the finish line. I dare you to start day one and then go through the process step by step by step, because that's where you're gonna discover who you are, not in the thing where you're like, well, I'm gonna give it a try.

No, you decide. What role does like just making a decision play in your life? Because I think for so many people, they're just fucking oscillating all the time. They're always left and right and back and forth and indecisive, and they're teetering and life time is ticking. It's wasting away. What role in all of this does decision making play? How important is it? 

Aneta Waclaw: Decision making is everything. You have two choices every single day from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. You can choose to see the positive in everything, or you can choose to see the negative in everything. You can choose to make a healthy decision or you can choose to make an unhealthy decision.

And we all have those same two choices every single day. If you are driving home from work at 5:00 PM and you commute 30 minutes typically and you end up stuck in traffic, you can be thankful for the traffic or you can sit there and bitch and complain. And guess what? The first option, if you're thankful for it, what can you do? Can you call somebody that you haven't talked to in a while? Can you listen to a podcast that you've been meaning to? Maybe there's something ahead of you that you don't even know that you're being protected from. So show gratitude, even for the delays, like in traffic. Or you can sit in traffic and you can be negative.

Oh, this is so bad. I'm so annoyed I have things to do. The sun is going down. It's almost dark. You are gonna sit there and wallow in self pity and then it's gonna ruin the rest of your evening because that's all you're gonna think about is the continual spiral of the negative things. So I always recommend people and encourage them is always choose to see the good in everything.

It's easier said than done. I understand. But if you try to. Pick at it at one thing at a time, then it's going to eventually become a habit. And to put it into a visual. Um, back to what you were saying about habits and decision making, is that if you're looking at a 30 flight step staircase and you're at the bottom at the first step and you wanna go to the 30th step, you're not gonna jump there, you're gonna go.

One step at a time, and that involves you becoming 1% better every day. A lot of times people will say, well, if I'm only becoming 1% better, what is that actually doing? It's giving you the resilience to build something solid. It's the same thing as building the foundation of a house. Like I can give you a million examples.

If you build a shitty foundation on the house and then try to decorate it, everything's gonna fall apart. But if you build. Take the time to build solid foundation of a house on healthy habits, positive thoughts, good relationships, self-love to yourself. Then you're gonna have a solid foundation and you can redecorate the interior as much as you want.

You know, I worked at the salon for four or five years. People look at, many people, look at self-care as getting your hair done, getting your nails done, your eyelashes, all of that, and it's a form of self-care. But that's not the whole picture. It's. Are you drinking enough water? If you wanna drink more water, can you drink one extra cup of water a day?

That's becoming 1% better. If you want to spend some more time with people who uplift you, can you schedule an extra dinner with people who uplift you and vice versa, every week or every month, it's becoming 1% better in choosing to see the good in everything instead of the negative. 

Michael Unbroken: It's beautifully said, and I think you're spot on. One of the things that, that I'll lead with here or leave with, I should say, is like, it also just takes time. You know, you have to be patient, in patient in this journey. you're unraveling decades and decades and decades of. Self, a lot of that understanding and narrative of self, not ideally being the best and, and you have to be patient because you'll have days where you fall backwards even in taking the action.

And it's like, I would rather you fall backwards and land on your ass. Attempting to become you than to never move at all. And I think that having patience and grace for yourself as you walk is, is one of the most important things that you can do as you're deciding to become you. 'cause becoming you is fucking very, very difficult.

It's the hardest thing that you'll ever do because you're unraveling what was known to create what you want. One of the things that I found really powerful in your book is a lot of this is giving people that permission to like walk this path and to have support and know and see who they are. And so before I ask you my last question, can you please tell everyone where they can find you, learn more about you, connect with you and read the book.

Aneta Waclaw: Yeah, so you guys can connect with me on Instagram at Annetta wla, and then my podcast is called Nourished Inside Out, and I also write on Substack at Nourished Inside Out. That's where I do like my blogs and my weekly newsletters. And then I'm also offering a 12-week one-on-one coaching as well. So those would be the best ways to stay in touch.

And then two times a year I host live virtual summits as well because healing, it's not a linear journey. But it's better in a community and you don't have to do it alone because a lot of times I felt so alone in my journey before that I was striving and looking for a community where I can grow with people who are serious about these things. So I've created a nourished inside out community as well. 

Michael Unbroken: Brilliant. And guys, go to thinkunbrokenpodcast.com for that and more in the show notes. My last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken? 

Aneta Waclaw: Have the resilience to get up just one more time. You know, we get. Pushed back so many times, but for me it's if you're willing to get up one more time, you never know what difference that one more time can make for you or somebody else.

So don't stop until you get where you wanna go, until you get where you're going and be resilient to just get up one more time, because that one more time just might be the breakthrough that you've been waiting for. 

Michael Unbroken: Yeah, brilliantly said. Thank you so much for being here. Unbroken Nation. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you got value in today's show, share it with someone in your life who needs a little bit more self-love, a little bit more gratitude, and a little bit more action. Take care of yourself, take care of each other.

And Until Next Time.

My Friends, Be Unbroken.

I'll See Ya.