Things You'll Need:
- a little time & patience
- a routine
- sticky notes
- dry erase marker
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Step 1
Why do I refer to 'positive' affirmations and not just affirmations? Well, for starters many of us have years of negative self-talk built up in our heads. These are basically negative affirmations. “I’m stupid.” “I’ll never amount to anything.” Many of these thoughts come from things we were told as a child, but they stick with us and become so normal we don’t even notice the limitations we have put on ourselves. Everything we say to ourselves is some sort of affirmation, but most of them are not positive.
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Step 2
Positive means focusing on what you want, instead of what you don’t want. It may be difficult in the beginning, but it is important that you do. If you have studied the Law of Attraction you know that your subconscious mind does not distinguish between positive and negative. If you are in a hurry and keep saying “I don’t want to get red light” your mind doesn’t register the “don’t”, it registers “red light” and the next thing you know you are getting all red lights. So you need to flood your mind with the positive so as to not leave any room for confusion. An example: Instead of saying ‘I am no longer anxious’ you would say ‘I am confident’ or something else more specific to your particular situation.
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Step 3
1. Positive affirmations need to be present tense. Present tense means that you should write your positive affirmation as if what you are affirming is already a fact. An example: If you would like to be more confident, you would say ‘I am confident’ rather than ‘I will be confident’.
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Step 4
2. Positive affirmations need to be personal. Personal means using the word “I”. You do not want to refer to an indefinite article, you need to refer to yourself. Many, but not all good affirmations start with the word I. There are cases where this isn’t appropriate, but prefixing your affirmation with ‘I’ is usually a good place to start.
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Step 5
3. Positive affirmations need to be specific. Specific means that you should not use general affirmations. Think, “How could this be more specific?” If your particular issue is that you’re voice wanes when expressing your opinion then the ‘I am confident’ affirmation might work, but the positive affirmation ‘I share my opinions confidently’ might be more effective. The more specific you are the easier and quicker it is to see results.
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Step 6
If you want your positive affirmations to be effective you should use your positive affirmations whenever you can, at least a few times every day! You can use a small notebook and carry it with you wherever you go. Whenever you have a spare five minutes take it out and either re-write them or read them to yourself. Use your positive affirmations every morning as a ritual. This can be the morning jump start that sets the standard for the rest of the day. Also read your positive affirmations at night before you go to bed. Hang them on your closet door, or bathroom mirror, computer monitor or fridge. One particular situation where this might be useful is on the way to work in the car.
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Step 7
A really important time to use positive affirmations is when you need them. If your current positive affirmations are intended to resolve a confidence issue then you should use them whenever you feel your confidence wavering. No-one else needs to be aware of this! Take just a few seconds, take a deep breath, repeat your positive affirmations to yourself in your head, then address the situation with increased confidence and control.
Comments
vikki9 said
on 8/25/2008 Wonderful ideas on writing affirmations. Thank you.
HealthCoach100 said
on 8/3/2008 Suz, Great feedback. I agree that it is important to recognize all of our emotions and actually give ourselves permission to feel them. Especially grief and anger, which are looked down upon in our culture. All of our emotions deserve to be heard & felt. So doing positive affirmations serve a purpose, but are not the end all and be all. There are many other important steps to getting in touch with our true natures and healing and growing. The journey is different for everyone, but I highly recommend journaling as another way to explore emotions. Thanks for pointing out some of the dangers of affirmations if used incorrectly, without a deeper understanding of self. It is often hard to balance being present and being positive in order to attract more good.
SuzDoyleMusic said
on 8/1/2008 (continued)
How can I take better care of myself next time?; and how can I understand why I agreed to something I didn't really wish to do."
In that way, rather than forcefully affirming something that simply doesn't feel true in our bodies, we instead honor the information inside the emotion, without resistance or judgment. With this kind of mindfulness, it becomes easier to trust ourselves, which in turn, leads to having more intentionality as we create our lives.This kind of deep listening to and honoring of what our emotional bodies tell us seems to me to be a powerful way to shape one's life. Perhaps conventional affirmations are us trying to talk ourselves into something -- while focusing on the emotional wisdom in our bodies is more about listening our way into healthier intentionalities.
SuzDoyleMusic said
on 8/1/2008 I agree that is important to pay attention to the stories we tell ourselves, and to have a clear intention for creating healthier habits and experiences.
One perspective about affirmations that makes sense to me is in the book "Emotional Genius by Karla McLaren. In it, she writes that our bodies always know what is true for us in any moment (Eckhart Tolle says the same things in "The Power of Now"). If we feel sad, saying an affirmation that we are happy actually creates a dissonance between what is true in our bodies in that moment and what we wish to create. McLaren suggests that rather than try to impose the will of our mind over what our body feels is true, we instead honor what we feel in that moment, and seek to understand it. For example, "hmm. I feel angry right now. What caused that? Oh, I said "yes" to something when it was really a "no." How can I take better care of mysel
KneadWellness said
on 8/1/2008 I love step 5 about being specific with your affirmations. It is so true that when you're focused, the law of attraction will work for you!