Making affirmations that work for you

Have you tried using affirmations but found that they don’t work for you?  The other day, in one of my other blogs, I wrote about trying to use affirmations to help me sleep better.  The affirmation I tried was along the lines of “Every night I get enough sleep and wake up feeling rested and refreshed”

 

I said it many times, but it did not seem to help (by the way if you are suffering from insomnia I did find something that did help, to find out about it head over to my chill out spaces blog http://www.chilloutspaces.com/blog ).  When I realised it wasn’t working I took a look at why.

 

The problem was, I have been an insomniac for over 20 years and whenever I said my affirmation, it was overridden by my negative little voice saying things like – “yeah right, you get enough sleep, why are you so tired?  If you’re sleeping well, how come you were awake for hours last night?”  And things like that – Problem was I just didn’t believe it.

 

One of the theories behind using affirmations is that the subconscious mind will start to believe anything you tell it repeatedly.  And I do believe that is true, however you have to make sure you are not doing what I was doing and that is negating your positive statement with negatives ones, and the negatives ones usually have more emotion and therefore more power.

 

When we make an affirmation it is to make a positive change in our lives.  And so we make them for something we want to have or be.  I have found that they work for me as long as I don’t have any hard evidence that goes against them – like 20 years of not sleeping.  So affirmations like “I am worthy of all good things” or just “I am worthy” repeated often have worked for me and have changed the way I feel about myself. 

 

When you start using an affirmation like that, to start with you will probably not believe it and you will get strange feelings when saying it, but if you just keep on saying it something in you should change.  I usually go for a work and just keep repeating the statement over and over and over.  I don’t leave any room for negative statements to occur, and after a while – maybe 100 times maybe more, maybe less, I feel my energy changing and I hear myself saying – “you know what I really am worthy – so what was all that rubbish about not being worthy”.

 

So think about something you want to change and make a positive statement about it.

 

It could be something like “I am now my ideal weight” – Now I know for me that that one would not work – to much evidence in the mirror that proves me wrong.  But there are several other statements that I could turn into affirmations that would work for me.

 

They could be –

“Everyday my metabolism is increasing so I easily burn the food I eat”

“Everyday I am getting closer to my ideal weight”

“I am beautiful just as I am”

“I am now growing stronger and fitter and thinner”

 

Or you could look at other things around weight loss like food and exercise.

 

Telling yourself you love carrots may not work – or it may.  And if you hate exercise you need to start with something to encourage you to actually exercise.  So you could say things like

“I know there is an exercise out there that I will enjoy” this will open you up to new possibilities.

 

Or “I choose to exercise three times a week”

“I choose to eat foods that are healthy and good for me”

 

Using the word “choose” puts you back in control, and lets you feel in charge.  It is empowering and takes some of the pressure off you and there is nothing to rebel against. 

If instead you tried something like “I now only eat foods that are healthy” – (which is the way most people will tell you to make affirmations) You may find that every time you stray you set up a fight with yourself, put yourself down and maybe binge to punish yourself.

The most important thing about your affirmations is that they feel good and make you feel good. 

When using the words “I choose” sometimes you will make a choice that is against your affirmation, but let that be okay – you can tell yourself that I usually choose foods that are healthy but just for now I am choosing something else.  But always make it a conscious choice and again you will be the one in control.

So I quick sum up

Make affirmations in the positive not the negative ie “I eat healthy food” – not “I no longer eat junk food” The problem with making them in the negative is that you are constantly reminding yourself about the things you no longer want and therefore keep them closer to you.

If they don’t feel good, play around with them and break them down until they do ie adding words like I choose – can make a huge difference.

Try out your affirmation for a few days and if it is not making a difference again play around with it, come up with something closer to the solution.

If you want something but you have no idea how to begin you can even start with an affirmation starting with – I know how to ………” this will give your subscious mind instructions to come up with ways that you can do or have what you want – ie “I now know how to earn an extra $1000 a month”

Make your affirmation realistic – that way you will cut down the negative mind chatter about it.  This means you might have to break what you want down into chunks. If you want one million dollars but you have only ever had $10,000 in your bank account, you might need to start making affirmations about having $20,000 and building up from there.  But everyone is different so you have to usually check in and see what feels good to you.

So give affirmations a whirl and see if you can start creating a better life.

If you have something big you want to do and can’t get over the negative mind chatter or just want some help please feel free to contact me and together we can get you moving forward to what you want.  You can send me an email exaltedl (at) hotmail.com – replace the (at) with @ - I do it this way to stop spam

 

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Tags:affirmation,affirmations,beliefs,creating the life you want,insomnia

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