This was originally posted as an on-line article but I thought that it would be useful to repeat here as a follow on to my previous blog on stress and anxiety.Affirmations or auto suggestions are simple positive statements that can be repeated each day to strengthen your resolve and make positive personal change. They are (or should be!) healing, positive self-scripts you give to yourself to counter your negative self-programming (or the programming of others). They are vehicles by which you can free yourself from the over-dependence on other's opinions, attitudes, or feelings about you and so lead to you feeling great about yourself.
Émile Coué (pictured above left) was the French Psychologist and Pharmacist who came up with the expression "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better". Coué began by noticing that in certain cases he could improve the efficacy of a medicine simply by praising its effectiveness to the patient.
He realised that those patients to whom he praised the medicine had a marked improvement over those patients to whom he said nothing. This began Coué’s exploration of the use of hypnosis and the power of the imagination in the earliest decades of the 20th century.
The use of Auto-suggestion or Affirmations is a way for you to take personal responsibility for your health and emotional stability. Affirmations provide you with a way to let go of negative emotional baggage you have been carrying. Affirmations are a way to give you permission to grow, to change, to take risks, to really create a better life for yourself.
An affirmation is always a positive statement of what you want to happen. It is a “success prophecy”. (The use of negative words like won’t, don’t and can’t in your affirmation tend to lead to weak changes or no change at all; phrase the affirmation only in the positive for the very best effect.)
Some books suggest always using the term “I am …” when starting with an affirmation but I have found this can be counter productive. Saying “I am getting thinner each day” whilst staying the same size tends to lead to disillusionment.
I have found it more helpful to begin for the first few days or even longer with “I will…”.
“I will” examples might include:
- I will like myself better each day.
- I will gain emotional strength each day.
- I will lose half a pound in weight each day.
- I will choose to be a natural non-smoker.
- I will avoid spending time around smokers
- I will control my temper today.
- I will grow emotionally stronger each day.
- I will praise my children today.
- I will feel good things about me today.
- I will sleep easily tonight.
- I will feel less guilt each day.
- I will face my fears with courage today.
- I will take on only what I can handle today.
When you actually start doing that new thing, being a non-smoker for example, you can use the “I am” version as in the examples below.
- I am a natural non smoker
- I am living a healthier and happier life.
- I am choosing to eat more healthily.
- I am choosing to exercise regularly.
- I am dealing easily with the stress in my life.
Use the quiet times in your life to say the affirmation. Take an extra couple of minutes in the bathroom in the morning to look at yourself in the mirror and say your affirmation. If mornings are too busy, make some time for yourself in the early evening when you will not be interrupted. Unplug the phone, turn off the mobile and make some time for you!
Yes, it might feel silly the first time you do this, but no one is looking or listening so go right ahead and say the affirmation. Say each affirmation ten times. In the beginning, you will probably struggle to say it with meaning, but that’s still OK. It will impress the idea on your subconscious where through the repetition the idea will be absorbed and acted upon.
Choose simple statements like:
- I feel calm and confident at work
- I am free of smoking forever
- I have all the confidence I need
Repetition has a power to carry a positive message deep into your unconscious part of mind. Stick with it and make affirmations part of your daily routine, you'll find that the changes you want will happen.
Posts
If I may point out one thing: autosuggestions need to be well-formed so as to be unambiguous, since your subconscious processes them and there's no way to reason with it if it misunderstood - simply, because to reason it would need to pulled back to the conscious mind first.
ReplyDelete