Let's start with the question, what is an affirmation?
To
put it quite simply, an affirmation is a thought, silent or spoken,
either positive or negative, which is repeated throughout the day. Most
of us tend to think of affirmations as always positive, as in "I am
confident and successful!" But the thought "I am useless!" is also an
affirmation.
It is said that we have around 90,000 thoughts a day
and that most of them are always the same, repeated over and over. If
you watch your thoughts, you will begin to recognize recurring themes.
And you may well find that your thoughts are mostly negative: "I
can't...," "I'm no good at...," "I don't want...," and so on. I'm sure
you can find quite a few more that are particularly relevant to you.
These
thoughts have become a habit, and as with any habit, these thoughts can
be changed. And what we are aiming to do is to change the negative
thoughts or affirmations into positive ones.
What prevents successful affirmations?
We
could just spend all day repeating "I am confident and successful" and
come to the conclusion that affirmations don't work. And in a way,
that's right, because there is much more to it than just repeating the
words.
To start with, if you think again about the thought "I am
useless," it may well conjure up pictures from our past of being
criticized or ridiculed by a parent or teacher. Maybe we remember not
being able to do a task perfectly and feeling foolish. And these
pictures reinforce the words, making them much more powerful by
recreating the feelings of being useless, and so we come to believe
these words.
So it seems that the important part of an
affirmation is the feeling we associate with the words. And therefore
it is key to realise that it is the feeling the words conjure up that
can affect the power of an affirmation. If we can change our feelings,
we can change our thoughts and therefore our beliefs.
How can
I get affirmations to work for me?
Let's
look at our example affirmation, "I am confident and successful." As we
have discovered just saying these words over and over is not going to
help us to feel confident.
But, just for a moment, close your
eyes, quieten your thoughts, breathe slowly, and see yourself in a
situation where you would normally lack confidence. Now change the
picture: see yourself standing tall, people looking to you for advice,
smiling at you in admiration; you are in charge of the situation, you
know what you have to do, you feel confident and it feels good. Enjoy
and delight in feeling good.
Now each time you repeat this
affirmation, "I am confident and successful," conjure up those feelings
again, lift your head and feel that confidence.
For many of us,
there is another barrier to successful affirmations in that we hear a
naggy little voice that is constantly contradicting any positive
statements we make. If we affirm "I am wealthy," this little voice will
instantly reply "But your bank balance is at zero!" This contradiction
sets up a conflict inside, not allowing any positive feelings and
effectively canceling out the affirmation.
But there is a good
way to outwit this inner critic by not giving it the opportunity to
contradict. So instead of saying "I am wealthy," we alter the wording
of the affirmation to "Wouldn't it be wonderful if I was wealthy?" Now
this allows us not only to visualise just how wonderful it would be but
also makes it so much easier to have those positive feelings we need
for effective affirmations. Our inner critic just doesn't have a chance
to argue against that!
Changing our negative beliefs into
positive beliefs through affirmations may not happen overnight. But if
we can choose to conjure up those joyful feelings, either with
visualisation or through altering the words we use, then we give
ourselves the power to change our lives through effective affirmations!
