What makes an Affirmation feel more truthful? Instead seeking outside of yourself, the path to a more truthful Affirmation is found in how you feel alignment with your personal power.
Shift and change is not always easy or straightforward. Courage is needed to examine challenge and disappointment. Courage is also needed to release an open space for the new and the unexpected.
From one perspective, the answer would seem to be finding an exact set of steps to follow time after time to bring some reassurance and could lighten the load. This is the idea that somewhere out there is the truth you need.
However, because there’s no one way to accomplish personal transformation and integration, from the beginning you are encouraged to follow your sense of self. Plus, always looking outside of yourself for truth is a huge limitation.
Instead, the lack of a perfect protocol opens the door for you to learn to trust yourself and to find your own truth from within. This approach is how you can go deep and go beyond.
Effective use of affirmations reinforces inner truth from the beginning. How?
You learn from the beginning that the way to get to your most useful affirmations is to focus on how you feel when you say the affirmation. You are relying on you and your sense of personal truth.
Thus, when you say an affirmation, you feel its truth. You also can feel if it is not in alignment or in balance with you.
For me, when an affirmation is not right, I hear the affirmation like it’s a song out of harmony. My my teeth clenched, my fingers tightened, or I feel a bit lightheaded. It just doesn’t feel right inside of me.
Whereas when it’s a truthful affirmation for me, I feel lighter. I feel balanced. I feel a door open as something unneeded drops away.
I know when I first began, I wasn’t as adept as I am now in recognizing my sense or feeling of inner truth. I know though that affirmations which I stuck with for 30 days were the affirmations which made me happy to say and repeat. I felt better in the repetition and in the remembering day-to-day.
The more I say my affirmation, the more I feel me and become comfortable focusing on me and what is important for me in my life.
I remember one which had a huge effect on how I looked at myself:
I no longer believe I’m selfish by being self-interested.
Notice the no-longer. The addition of no longer to a negative self-belief is truly transformative.
I no longer need to be disconnected from my emotions.
I no longer believe I’m stupid.
I take the words exactly as I hear them inside my head and add I no longer ….
What’s inside your negative self-talk you no longer want to tolerate? Maybe:
I am not good enough.
I’m too slow.
I’m selfish.
These can shift and become especially powerful when you add some attitude.
I no longer worry I’m not good enough.
I’m done with believing I’m too slow.
I no longer do guilt trips on me.
Hell no, because I can!
The other shift I have found effective is to add I am learning before any affirmation which feels like you’re not quite to the truth of the affirmation. You have the feeling that you want to get there but you’re not quite there yet.
Take an I-statement affirmation which you feel is right but when you say it you feel either you’re not ready or not up to what feels like feels like too fast a switch.
I am learning I feel safe connecting with my emotions.
I am learning I can trust myself.
I am learning I am whole and worthy.
Say your affirmation this way until one day you forget the I’m learning part and say the I-statement with conviction and heartfelt truth.
Also, you can combine these forms into a helpful group:
I no longer need to be disconnected from my emotions.
I am learning I feel safe connecting with my emotions.
I feel safe connecting with my emotions.
Remember there’s no one perfect path.
Instead, choose what feels truthful to you.
This is a short piece I have written for a new book on Affirmations. Read more in this column: A View from the Boundlessness.
