Affirmation
Affirmations, as a practice, are an offshoot of the New Age movement. Rebounding from lifetimes of fear-based living and cultures and families that often championed our limitations through negative statements, early practitioners started creating positive statements to affirm life and begin the process of reclaiming a sense of value.
Shakti Gawain, in her groundbreaking book, Creative Visualization, started it off for me. Just saying statements of positive nature felt so good that I kept saying them. Soon, life began to show up differently. Because, truthfully, the Universe always says “yes”. Our words spoken make manifest the world we experience. Statements like, “I am so sick of this” will receive support and an ongoing stream of opportunities to affirm the reality…until we stop affirming it.
This is where affirmations come in. They have been parodied on Saturday Night Live even, “I am good enough. I am smart enough. And, gosh darn it, people really like me!” Yes, in the beginning they seemed pollyana-ish, sappy, and phony. But the proof is in the pudding. As people began to see that their life was showing up differently, the rush began.
Now in these times, language is actually different. The way many think about and talk about themselves has become more positive and celebratory. Let’s look at some characteristics of effective affirmations:
- In the first person, as I statements, so that when they are spoken I am claiming it
- In the now, claiming it to be so even as I speak it
- Use power words like I Am, I now…void of words like should, try, can’t
- Statements of intention of what is desired, not what is undesirable
- Know that whatever follows the words, “I AM” is made manifest by spiritual law…so be aware
- As affirmations are intended to reprogram the conscious and subconscious mind they require repetition and visceral belief that it is already so. Feel it, live it.
- Writing them down , read them, speak them, sing them. It really does help to create a new experience of living.
Some examples:
- I Am That I Am
- My supply comes from God, and big, happy financial surprises come to me effortlessly and endlessly under Grace.
- I am the perfect manifestation and expression of joy, abundance, goodness, money, and health automatically in unlimited quantities.
- I Am, in all my energy bodies and, in all dimensions, safe, protected, abundant, peaceful, and cared for. And so it is.
- I now fully allow the Earth to support, sustain, nurture and empower my foundation in all my moments. And so it is.
- I now release, on all levels, in all dimensions, and in all my energy bodies, any vibration of the past, present, and future, that is lower in frequency than my own I Am THAT I AM. All frequencies unexpressed from my life moments are now fully released. And so it is.
- On all levels, in all dimensions, and in all my energy bodies, I now release the blockages to my free verbal expression. I set free all energetic residue contained in the unexpressed soundings of any woundings, dishonorings, traumas, abuses, and devaluings I have experienced in all my incarnations. I affirm my right and ability to speak and claim my truth. From this moment forward, I Am free to express in the world. And so it is.
- In this moment, on all levels and in all dimensions, I choose to be fully in my body. As a spiritual being having a human physical experience I embrace my multi-dimensional self to expand into the magnificence of life in the Now. And so it is