The media is all a buzz with talk these days about the new craze, positive affirmations. This includes all kinds of things like positive thinking, vision boards, visualization, meditation, etc. Positive affirmation is basically obtaining what we want or desire by feeling that it's already true or we already have it.
On the reverse side there has been an increase in the criticism of positive thinking, expressing warnings and concerns about subscribing to such things.
This article is not about the pros and cons of positive thinking. Scientific investigation from fields like neuroscience are definitely starting to prove its validity. There is truth in what the naysayers claim as well. You'll have to do the research and decide for yourself.
What this article is about is something that doesn't get a lot of attention when speaking about positive thinking. It is the thing that ultimately discourages people from sticking with it and what the proponents are basically warning about. In a word, it is belief or lack there of.
You can positively affirm yourself until your blue in the face. Looking at yourself in the mirror morning after morning affirming something like "I am a good person" or "I am going to meet the person of my dreams" is not sufficient. The problem is, if you don't believe it than the affirmation is pretty much a bunch of empty words. It wasn't just that the little engine said he could, it was that he believed he could.
This is what the critics harp on. The criticism of positive affirmations is that just speaking the words will lull people into complacency. That they will just sit around waiting for the affirmation to kick in. It's not enough to just say the words but one has to live the words as if they were real. It is the belief that causes us to take action. Not just saying the words but acting in ways that back them up.
Without the action, all one is doing is trying to convince themselves that it is true. The difficulty with this is that you are trying to convince the one person that knows the truth, you. It doesn't have to really be true, it's what your mind says is true. That has always been the paradox for me. The thing we need to help fix our problems is the same thing causing them, our brain.
What's a person to do then? I tell myself, "I'm smart" or "I'm happy" to combat the negative views of myself, but these words go to my brain which is the thing that is telling me I'm not smart or happy in the first place. The first thing you need to do is stop believing your brain! We have this inherent problem that just because I have a thought it must be true. We need to realize that most of who we are is the accumulative effect of everything we have experienced. In a nutshell, who you believe you are is learned. The good news is that anything that is learned can be unlearned.
Second, start acting in ways that reinforce your positive thinking. What happens when we act in ways that support the belief is that we get positive feedback from the environment that reinforces the idea we are trying to affirm. This increases the likelihood of acting in similar ways to get yet more reinforcement. Around and around in a big positive affirmation loop.
The third thing is that by acting and believing you will start to feel that it is true. Image yourself on the date with the person of your dreams. Harvest the feelings that you get, bottle them up and use them when you start to doubt yourself. You have to feel it.You have to imagine you already have it and actually "feel" the feelings you get from this mental image. Get giddy, feel the feeling of embracing that perfect person. It's these feelings that you get that will make you believe.
These are the key ingredients to positive affirmations.
So, affirm this, "I BELIEVE!"
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