Many people have a pretty clear idea about what an affirmation is. The use of positive affirmations has been increasingly popular over the past fifty years for anything from increasing your creativity to helping you lose weight. But did you know that an affirmation is any statement of belief that you make? An affirmation can be positive or negative. Unfortunately, most of us tend to have a pretty negative set of beliefs running on our inner self talk MP3 player.

Do any of these affirmations sound familiar?

• “I should exercise more.”
• “I’ve got bad skin.”
• “I shouldn’t eat that”
• “I should call my parents more often.”
• “I’m too fat (too lazy, too boring, too stupid)”
• “I’ll meet my soul mate when I’m thin (rich/more creative/more fun).”

These are all examples of negative affirmations.

The thing is with affirmations, both positive and negative, is that they influence, and help construct, our perception of reality. So say for example, you are a person who repeatedly says, consciously or unconsciously, “I’m too stupid.” If this is a belief that you repeatedly affirm to yourself then your subconscious mind will accept it as fact. You will start focusing on situations where you do not understand a concept, and pass over the situations where you demonstrate that you are not stupid, and are in fact quite clever. The belief that you are clever simply does not fit in with your subconscious world view.

Your subconscious mind does not have a sense of humour.

Your subconscious mind will believe what it’s told implicitly. It will believe what you tell it so completely that it will behave as if the negative affirmation is already true. This will create behaviour and attitudes that then lead to situations where the negative affirmation is confirmed as true. And so the cycle continues.

Many of our negative self beliefs come from what we were told as children; by our parents, our teachers, our siblings and our friends. For example, you might have been told by your parents that money is scarce and hard to come by. You may then carry that negative belief forward in life without consciously realising it, and create a reality for yourself where money is scarce and hard to come by.  These beliefs didn’t even need to be said out loud to a child. A child who sees their parents constantly fighting will develop the belief that adult relationships are full of conflict. This will be reflected in their reality as adults when they too experience conflict in their relationships.

Our beliefs create our reality.

So, an affirmation is simply a thought about belief. And our beliefs inform our attitudes and our behaviours, and thus contribute heavily to our reality. It’s a bit mind boggling when you start to contemplate all the ramifications. The fabulous thing is that we can change our thoughts to positive affirmations, and therefore positively influence our reality.

If you’ve recognised a negative thought pattern you hold, this is cause for celebration. It is a victory of mindfulness. Many people treadmill through their busy lives without noticing the almost subliminal negative messages they are sending themselves. So observe that negative thought. When does it surface? What is it saying? How is it trying to protect you? Because here’s the thing:  our negative thought patterns are not trying to actively hurt us, they’re trying to protect us from harm. But when fear is driving the bus we’re not going to end up at a great destination! An effective way to let go of fear gently is to say “Thanks, but not today.”

You can use your mindfulness to make a fresh, positive start.

Any habit can be changed. The habits of critical or negative self talk can be reframed as positive. Then the more you affirm the positive self talk you develop new healthy habits in how you speak to yourself. One of the best and easiest ways to short circuit a negative thought pattern is to simply say to yourself “I love and approve of myself.”

One of the best and easiest ways to disengage your emotions from a past bad experience is to say “I release the past and move forward into the future with love.”

Of course, saying an affirmation just the once isn’t going to retrain your brain to start using new neural pathways. By being mindful, and repeating the affirmation many times a day, your subconscious will start accepting your new reality. As a result, changes will begin to happen in your life and in your relationships as part of your new healthy reality.

****

At Penrith Counselling women are supported and nurtured by strengths based holistic counselling and Reiki energy healing. Click here for more information. You’re worth it ❤

Alison Howarth is a member of the Australian Counselling Association.