Building Loops of Love

My sister-in-law recently started working with a health coach to tackle some of her fatigue and energy issues. After a week, we were curious about how it was going. She shared that he told her she was “perfect”.

We laughed and said, “Yes, you are perfect if your definition of perfection is your weight on a scale for a woman your age.”
But when you look at her overall health and eating habits, which have led to multiple hospitalizations over the past year, perfection might not be the right word.

Then my mother-in-law chimed in.
She said, almost dismissively, “Yeah, you are only 10% better energy-wise. Your overall habits are still bad.”

That is when I snapped.
Not just because of this comment, but because of a pattern I have seen many times before.

I told her, “If your goal is to motivate her to do better, you have to focus on the positives. Change is already so hard. When someone gets affirmations, they gain motivation to continue. It builds a loop: positive feedback leads to a positive attitude, which creates positive results, which fuel more positive feedback.”

When the feedback is negative, especially while she is working so hard to improve, it creates the opposite loop. Negative feedback leads to a negative attitude, which leads to negative results, and the cycle keeps feeding itself.

That is partly why my sister-in-law latches onto extreme validation from her coach. His job is to make her feel better, and compared to his other clients, maybe she is doing great. But giving his words so much weight tells me she might be missing that validation from people who actually matter, like her own family. Instead, she mostly hears criticism.

Later that night, I was in my own little ritual. I had finished my skincare routine while higher frequency sounds played softly in the background. Everything felt clean and calm. I had tea and a book waiting by my bedside.

My husband works nights as a nurse, so I decided to send him a playful selfie of me in pajamas with a face mask, captioned: “Bringing sexy back.”

He replied instantly:
“You are very sexy.”

It made me smile, but I responded, “I would love more compliments that are descriptive because they help me continue to do better.”

In that moment, I realized something.
When I stood up for my sister-in-law earlier, I was also standing up for myself.

We all need positive loops.
We all need words that lift us up, not drag us down.

Positive feedback → positive attitude → positive results
Negative feedback → negative attitude → negative results

It starts with you.
That little voice inside your head must be kind.
When it is positive, everything else follows.