If You Could Find A Way

The technique of playing with words in such a way as saying silently or verbally a statement to our self is commonly said to be affirmations. In Napoleon Hill’s classic book it is known as auto-suggestion. T Harv Eker calls them Declarations. Other teachers call them other names such as incantations. I learn a new name for them as Proclaimations from my mentor Dov Baron. I only heard that this year but I like this one the most as it gives it a sense of ownership and proclaiming something as truth for me personally. I was listening to an audio yesterday of Louise Hay when she was celebrating her 80th birthday. I heard her say every word we say and every thought we think is an affirmation. Nevertheless the affirmations of harnessing our own mind power to create our reality I consider powerful when it is focussed, concentrated and repeated often. Scatterred thoughts are weak and scattered forces. Strong and concentrated thoughts are strong and concentrated forces. Consider the force of sun rays. Scattered over a piece of paper a force is ever present but maybe not so readily observed in our world. Gather a magnifying glass and harness those sun rays on one spot on the paper and you will see the power present. Those rays of sunlight when concentrated in one direction can burn a hole in that same paper. Remember this is energy at it’s most fundamental level. Similarly our thoughts are energy at it’s most fundamental level. We get to direct those thoughts and are able to harness our thoughts using our mind like a tool similar to using the magnifying glass to harness the power of sun rays.

I was just reading about affirmations in John Kehoe’s book called “Mind Power Into The 21st Century”

In his books he says “Affirmations are simple statements repeated to yourself silently or aloud, whatever feels most comfortable and practical to you at a time.”… “You decide upon a statement that represents what you want to have happen to you, and you repeat it to yourself over and over again.”

This is a habit I believe all of us with any level of interest in creating our reality can start to bring into our life more consciously. I agree with Louise Hay. I’m sure we are affirming truths to ourself all the time. The challenge is we do most of these unconsciously and may have many disempowering affirmations and rarely do we take the time to focus on consciously directing our mind to affirm a positive empowering statement for ourself. Listen to the conversation of a stranger or friend and observe how many affirmation a person says to themselves subtlely within 5 minutes. We humans can be amazing how asleep we are to the power of our own words. They can cause us harm or help.

When done consciously affirmations give our mind something to focus on for our own benefit. As John Kehoe writes in his book “Your mind can hold only one thought at a time, so an affirmation works by “filling” your mind with thoughts that support your goal.”

An affirmation sculpted well, in the process of affirming, your mind ” effortlessly picks up the implications and message of your affirmation”

I highlighted a few things John Kehoe advises in his book to remember when doing affirmations.

” Don’t worry about believing, just keep repeating.”

I think his point here is like the Nike slogan.. Just Do It!
The believability factor is not needed to be there in the beginning.
Getting started is what matters. Improve on believability can be worked on once you atleast have begun in direction of your desires.

“The conscious mind will quite naturally pick up the content of whatever you are affirming and the correct thoughts will seep into your consciousness. You don’t have to force anything”

His second point I highlited was “Always affrim in the positive. Make a positive statement, not a negative one”
I want to get into this one quite a bit here.
His point here is when sculpting afftirmations go for the way that gives an image in your mind directly going for what you have as desired outcome. Using words like “Not” and “Do Not” are not part of consciously designed affirmations.
Meaning, an affirmation that you desire to bring you more relaxation and calmness is sculpted in a way that gives the mind only possibility of seeing images that represent this to ourself when saying the affirmation. A good example is in John Kehoe’s book of an affirmation sculpted the incorrect way would be “I’m not going to be uptight”
You actually want the affirmation sculpted in a way that directs the mind *towards* images of what you want rather than the indirect manner of moving away from what you do not want. Comparative use of words to get you away from what you do not want in the hope of getting what you want is not how our more powerful subconscious mind powers work effectively. If your desire is to feel relaxed and calm then create an affirmation that direct the mind *towards* this.. “I feel relaxed and calm” would be a good simple one rather than “I’m not goiing to be uptight”.. the important thing to get here is be directly *towards* what you desire with your affrimations… do not make the mistake of using affirmations that are moving you away from what you do not want. Give your mind the job of focussing *towards your desires*. Using affirmations in a comparatives sense is not a good way to use affirmations. Directly *for* your desired outcome is the best way to use affirmations.

John Kehoe’s third main point I highlited was: “Keep your affirmation short. An affirmation should be like a mantra: short and simple, easy to say and easy to repeat. I like to keep my affirmations to ten words or less.”

My personal suggestion is it is alright when designing your affirmation getting clear on what you want to write down lots of words but when it comes to actually using them as a habit to say to oneself find as few as words as possible to represent to yourself personally the essence of what you want to imprint into your own being. Fine tune it and make the affirmation you are actually going to use conscise and meaningful to you personally. This might take some work but you are worth it, right ? If it is worth doing, it is worth doing well!

Finally on this point John Kehoe writes “Repetition is what will imprint your affirmation into your consciousness, so the shorter the better. I repeat: make it short, make it rhythmic, make it easy to say.”

Hope my bit of sharing in this blog on affirmations is helpful.
take care and create a great weekend.
You are worth it!