At first I felt a little silly doing this, but it really works. I got the idea from a legitimate study and TED talk. Harvard Professor, Amy Cuddy shares her research that shows “your body language shapes who you are” — take a pose for only 2 minutes and change your life for the better. It actually affects two hormones — when you take one of these poses, your cortisol level (the stress hormone) goes down, and your testosterone level goes up. All this without drugs, and in minutes.
Guess what? Our minds change our bodies.
So I tried it, first thing in the morning and at various times in the day — whenever I felt like I was slipping into the swamp of discouragement.
This works for me at any time of the day. I raise my arms above my head, just as if I finished a gymnastics routine or placed first in the 100 meters. And I say, “I feel good!” I added a mantra to the pose. I need more to keep going.
My daughter texted me today to tell me that her mantra for the day was “Be of good cheer!”
We got this idea of combining the pose with the mantra because we both struggle to keep upbeat and positive all day long. She has a 3-year old that can start the day with a negative outlook, and the more kids you have, the harder it can be to stay above the rif raf. Plus, this mortal life is not our home, our spiritual cells remember some distant land where we lived with our Father and enjoyed His presence and peaceful living. Â It’s quite understandable we get discouraged in the lone and dreary world.
It’s like that I Love Lucy episode where she gets a taste of Vitameatavegamin — Life is a surprise, it’s not always that tasty! We have to fake it til we become it.  We learn to be happy for our experiences and life’s trials, because that’s the process whereby we become a more compassionate person — more Zion-like. So when that spoonful of life is not so tasty, it’s better to say “it’s so tasty too!” — there’s the mantra.
Amy Cuddy recommends  using the motto: “fake it til you become it” — instead of  “fake it til you make it.”
Keep taking your Vitameatavegamin until you get through the whole bottle of life.
This is the TED talk with Amy Cuddy, it’s short and worth watching. She shares a personal story that hits the spot:
I printed this up and stuck it on my mirror:
