I love using affirmations.  I have them on sticky notes all over the place around my office and at home.  I even have one stuck to the side of my dresser next to my bed for when I can’t sleep.  Over the last handful of months I started using my affirmations along with EFT, which I love doing.  For years I’ve used them on their own, but like a lot of people, I had some that worked great and some that just didn’t do anything to help me.  I’ve now come to the realization of why some affirmations don’t really work for us.  I bet you’ll have to same “ohhhh yeaaah” reaction to this that I had because it just makes so much sense when you think about it.

 

[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Original Surfer” size=”22px” lh=”22px” color=”#008050″]The Plain + Simple Truth:
We aren’t creating our affirmations around the right problems.[/fontpress]

 

First we need to really understand what an affirmation is, or more to the point, what it’s meant to do.  We know they should be positive statements of some kind, but their function is important.  Affirmations are used to reprogram the mind in order to reframe a thought, belief, or concept that we have about ourselves.  We usually take something that we hold as a truth that is merely just a perception, usually a negative one rooted in a fear-based belief, and use our affirmations to try and turn that around into a positive.

Basically we’re taking our “stinkin’ thinkin'” and turning it on its head so we have a more positive outlook on ourselves and our lives.

Pretty simple right?  It is and it’s not all at the same time.

It’s important to understand how our mind understands all these things.  Your mind doesn’t actually know the “correct” concept that it should be reinforcing or focusing on.  So if you say to yourself all the time “I’m fat”, when in physical reality you aren’t actually overweight, your mind doesn’t understand that the statement “I’m fat” isn’t factual.  Your mind only knows what you reinforce in your thinking; it only knows what you resonate and empathize with.

Think of it in terms of watching a movie or a TV show that has an affect on you.  You know rationally that what you’re watching isn’t real – it isn’t actually happening – but you become emotional and have a strong reaction to what you are watching.  You might cry, laugh, or get scared.  All of these are reactions on an emotional level, not a rational level.  The killer in the horror movie isn’t going to jump out and get you but if there is something about what you are seeing that instills fear in you and you become scared, you’re going to have an emotional and even physical reaction.  Your mind doesn’t know that this isn’t really happening to you and it only knows what you’re resonating with in the moment.

This is an important thing to understand about how our mind works because it can help us with creating and using affirmations.  Just remember that whatever concepts your mind creates or hangs on to, and reinforces over and over, becomes a rooted truth in your mind.  We always think of this in terms of negative thinking but we can turn this around and use it with affirmations.

 

[box style=”light” title=”Food For Thought…” color=”#ffffff” bgcolor=”#008050″ header_color=”#008050″ header_bgcolor=”#ffffff” header_bordercolor=”#008050″ rounded=”true”]It’s also important to remember that, by the Law of Attraction and the Law of Resonance, “like attracts like”; if you’re thinking negative thoughts you’ll ultimately attract negative energy into your life.  But PLEASE don’t beat yourself up wondering if you’ve attracted or created every unpleasant situation in your life!  That doesn’t help you heal anything, and can only make matters worse.  Just think about how you can take this powerful concept and use it to make everything better moving forward![/box]

 

Here’s the big secret…ready?

[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Original Surfer” size=”22px” lh=”22px” color=”#008050″]Our affirmations can fail us when we aren’t focusing on turning around the ROOT EMOTION of all our negative thoughts.[/fontpress]

Many of your negative thoughts have become negative affirmations over the years.  We might be told something over and over by a parent or teacher as a child that becomes something we tell ourselves as we grow up creating a strong, rooted belief about ourselves in our mind that may very well not be factually true.  Then as time goes on that thought spawns more negative thoughts.  In the end, when we look at all our negative self-talk together we can find a theme, the root, which is what we really need to work on.

If we can uproot this deeply running negative thought the other small thoughts will be easily released.

Here’s how we do it…

[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Cabin” size=”20px” lh=”24px” color=”#000000″]1.  Find the theme in your negative thoughts.[/fontpress] Take time to sit down and really get into the negative thoughts, emotions, and beliefs that you have about yourself.  Think about what the negative things are that you tell yourself when you’re upset, angry, or sad.  Things like “Nobody is ever going to love me,” “I’m ugly,” “I’ll never be successful”…remember them all and write them all down.  Make a list of everything you can think of.

[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Cabin” size=”20px” lh=”24px” color=”#000000″]2.  Look over this list and see what the theme of these are.[/fontpress] Is the theme about love, success, health, or worthiness?  Let’s say these are five of your negative thoughts you’ve written down:

I’m unlovable.
I’m ugly.
I always end up with people who cheat on me.
I’m going to end up alone.
I can’t get comfortable with anyone.

The theme here is clearly love.  Take all of these and think of a negative affirmation that sums up your theme.  You might come up with something for this like:

I will never find real love.

You may find that if you have a big list of negative beliefs to work through that there are multiple themes.  That’s fine, and it’s more likely you’ll have two or three themes and not just one.  Do the same for each theme you find, but keep in mind that it’s a good idea to work with just one set of new affirmations at a time.  You’ll want to pick which area seems to be impacting your life the most right now to start out with.

[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Cabin” size=”20px” lh=”24px” color=”#000000″]3. Take your negative affirmation and create a positive affirmation that turns this all around. [/fontpress] So instead of:

I will never find real love.

You can use things like:

I open my heart to love in all forms.
I am finding new love every day in many ways.
I am getting closer to finding my ideal partner every day.

You can also examine your negative beliefs even deeper and find how deep the root goes.  Is your issue with love more about you not feeling worthy of love or about how you perceive love with others?  Is it romantic love or another form of love?  Is it that you aren’t worth loving or that other people aren’t worthy of your love…or have you closed yourself off to finding someone new?  You can dig deeper and deeper with this if you wish, but anything that starts this process of finding the root and pulling it up and turning it around is a start!

[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Cabin” size=”20px” lh=”24px” color=”#000000″]4. Use your affirmations daily.[/fontpress] Using affirmations effectively takes work.  Saying your affirmation once or twice a day a few times a week isn’t going to have the same impact as making them a big part of your daily life.  Say your affirmations, out loud, at least three times a day repeating them for a few minutes each time.  Saying them out loud is important because the power, resonance, and vibration of your voice helps with the energy shift that needs to happen.  You can also write your affirmations down and put them on sticky notes around your home and office {like I do} or you can even create reminders that will pop up on your phone during the day to keep you thinking about your new positives beliefs.

As for how many days to use your affirmations for, there are a variety of ideas about this.  Different teachers have different beliefs about what works, so I say experiment.  Anywhere between 20 and 40 days is the target range to work in because it is in this amount of time where new habits and new, rooted beliefs take shape.

[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Cabin” size=”20px” lh=”24px” color=”#000000″]5. Take notice of how your body feels.[/fontpress] When you say your affirmations, how do you feel physically?  Is there an area of the body or a chakra point that seems to tense up or feel uncomfortable when you say them?  This can give you an indication of where energy healing could be helpful.  There may be blocked energy in a chakra that, if released, could help move the progress of your affirmations and healing along faster.

[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Cabin” size=”20px” lh=”24px” color=”#000000″]Bonus Tip:[/fontpress] Have a friend say your affirmations to you. Find someone that you feel completely safe with that can say your affirmations to you, turning them into statements to you from them.  So for example they would take:

“I am getting closer to finding my ideal partner every day”

and say:

“You are getting closer to finding your ideal partner every day.”

Having someone else say to you the things that you are trying to believe about yourself can be a huge game changer for some people.  Give it a try!

 

[fontpress type=”webfonts” name=”Cabin” size=”20px” lh=”20px” color=”#000000″]What do you think about using positive affirmations?
Have you used them before and found them to be helpful or have you had problems with seeing success with them?
What kind of negative affirmations are you holding on to?  How would you like to turn them around?
Do you have any positive affirmations that you find particularly helpful for you? [/fontpress]