How Mantras and Affirmations Changed Sharina Gutierrez’s Life

The 2024 SI Swimsuit rookie and mom of three’s mission is to encourage everyone to speak to themselves with only kind words.

Sharina Gutierrez.Ben Watts/Sports Illustrated

Sharina Gutierrez, a 2024 SI Swimsuit rookie, is the queen of self-love and showering herself in nothing but positive, empowering thoughts. The ’23 Swim Search co-winner’s philosophy is, “If you don’t, who will?”

The 33-year-old is a founding member of Mama Mantra, a newly-launched family brand that focuses on spreading optimism and inspiring parents and children to believe in themselves while breaking barriers.

The model, who is of Filipino descent, wholeheartedly believes that words matter, and the ones that live inside your head are arguably the most important.

Mantras and affirmations as part of her daily routine

“I operate with mantras and affirmations, so everything that I wanted to manifest in my life, and how I wanted to feel, I wrote on a Post-it note, and I placed it on my mirror,” she shares.

Gutierrez prefers this method because the positive messages become the first words she sees in the morning and last thing she reads at night. The reminder of being able to look at yourself and at the same time read the uplifting note or a simple “I love you” is invaluable, she says.

“If you can’t tell yourself ‘I love you,’ then you need to go through the pain of feeling why you don’t love yourself. What is it that you don’t love about yourself? And you have to address those things. Because in the end of the day, somebody who doesn’t love themselves is just looking for love, and they’re looking for love and from all the wrong places,” the mom of three continues. “Because the only person that can love you the way you desire to be loved is yourself. There’s nobody who can love you more than yourself. Not your child, not your partner, not your mom, not your dad.”

Being your own best friend

The California resident adds that she has learned to be her own best friend and shift her mindset to only shower herself with love and kindness. She says that no matter how many wonderful, caring and perfect people you are surrounded by, in your own mind, it’s just you and your own thoughts.

Gutierrez is candid about the fact that her relationship with self-love and thinking positive thoughts about herself wasn’t always as healthy or muscle memory-like as it is today, but she put in the work required to get to where she is.

“You gotta become the bada-- bi--- and bada-- boss and the bada-- everything,” she says. “That's what I had to go through. And that wasn’t [simple], it was ugly and it was not fun, but it was like when I reached that breaking point, that breakthrough, it was like, ‘wow,’ it became easy—like just drinking water.”

Read more about Sharina Gutierrez’s 2024 SI Swimsuit rookie photoshoot here.

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