Affirmations are the truths of our hearts and souls
I like to start my journaling practice with a word of the day and an affirmation. This is a simple yet incredibly effective way to change state and create a flow towards positivity and seeing things from another perspective.
The mind is a powerful thing, and what we tell it becomes our truth. Imagine that we can tell ourselves stuff, and it becomes real. The main problem is as you already know, is that we often tell ourselves rubbish things.
Things like I have fat knees, my arms are ugly, who would love someone like me, people are judging me, I am unlovable and many, many more. I know how harmful these things are because I hated my body for years. I thought I was fat and ugly, and my arms were horrendous. I really did have an arm thing (don’t ask…).
None of it was true, but I believed it.
After many years of living like this, I was woken up, and I embarked on a massive self-love journey that supported me when my spine fractured and I needed to heal myself.
Two of my big affirmations or mantras as they are also called when I was healing my spine was, I have strong, healthy bones, and my bones are healed. I would write these on my fridge with magnetic letters. Using one of the words to count my daily glass of water – which kept me focused.
Over this period I used daily affirmations in a range of ways. One year later, based on my work, I created 101 days of being me (you can sign up here) which uses quotes and daily affirmations to help me and now countless others to get better connected to who they are and to enjoy being their beautiful, wonderful selves.
What are affirmations?
Affirmations are things that you affirm to be true, in other words, positive statements. These statements describe something positive that you want to achieve. They are usually short sentences and are something that you can easily repeat during the day.
What they do is to tell your unconscious mind that something is real.
Your unconscious mind will see these positive statements and it will be triggered into action.
Try this – I have a beautiful smile.
With any luck, you immediately smiled and forgot that perhaps you didn’t like your teeth, for example. It’s that simple and so infectious.
When you repeat affirmations, your mind finds these motivating and inspiring and trots off to obey you. Like the excellent computer that it is, it will embed these programs into its every day ‘you’ code, and it becomes true.
Affirmations are lovely for designing and building new habits, changing thoughts and beliefs and healing the mind and body.
I am open to receiving [insert something you want)
Surprisingly people use affirmations every day without realising it. Usually, these are the not so useful ones.
You may have heard others talk about limiting beliefs? That’s what these are. You tell yourself that you are can’t do or be something often enough your mind says oke doke, I’ll add that to the program, and it will be true, and before you know it you can’t do those things, or you procrastinate.
Call something to mind right now that you know you always say you can’t do, what if you said I can? Feels weird, right? It does take practice. One of my favourite journaling exercises is to turn I can’t into I can. It is very revealing.
What we know about negative thinking is that it reinforces an internal belief that we can’t change. This means that we are almost destined to continue to repeat what might be potentially self-destructive behaviours. This leads to a vicious circle of more yukky unhelpful thinking.
Take a moment to imagine (see, sense, feel or know) how your life might be if you turned these around and used affirmations to reinforce the more positive aspects of who you are.
It’s all about choice. You can choose to change your thinking or not.
Ok, I know that years of negative programming can mean that you have a bit more work to do. But here’s the secret sauce, while you may struggle to start off with, guess what, it won’t take long before you are smiling to yourself as you catch those words daring to come out.
Soon you will find yourself looking in the mirror and saying yes, I know I did it again, here’s what I meant to say. At least this is what I do. I find staring at myself in the eyes and confessing rather amusing, and it really gives me the kick that I need.
When I worked in an office and found myself in a situation that meant I was repeating negative stuff, I’d head off the bathroom and look myself in the eye and say something positive. I’d also pull faces, as long as no one else was around. The face pulling was to make me laugh and then I could say an affirmation, anchor it in and go back to face the day.
Journal it: Ask yourself right now what would it be like if I told myself positive affirmations more often? How would it be if I did this daily? What is the first affirmation that I would choose? Write it out and say it. How does that feel?
How to make affirmations work for you
- Keep them short
- Choose words that cannot be seen as negative
- Make them as if they are real – instead of saying I am going to/ I will try – say I am
- Repeat often
- Notice your breath and use your breath to help you relax with the affirmation
- Place your hand on your heart as you say them
- Chose to believe your affirmations
- Enjoy the process and make it fun
- When you have journaled turn what you perceive as a problem into the affirmation for the day
- When you answer a daily journaling prompt end it with an affirmation
- Write today I am and then your affirmation so that it is in the now
- Use your journal to record what happens and remember to celebrate your successes
Try these affirmations
- I grow more confident and stronger each day
- I am the architect of my life. I design its structure
- I build my life’s foundation and choose its contents
- I love myself and feel great about myself
- I accept myself unconditionally
Next steps
Sign up here for journaling prompts and daily affirmations
Buy the book The little book of 101 affirmations to get you through the day – available on Amazon
