If you are new to Positive Self-Affirmations, let me quickly brief it for you. As the term itself suggests, positive affirmations are acts that we perform on ourselves to bring about a more positive attitude in the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us.
Practicing positive affirmations is practically training the mind to believe in something that you want to obtain. By being able to control your thoughts, you are in command of your own emotions.
Affirmations assures you of what you need and deserve and is not just a 'fake it till you make it' attitude. Let us take an example of the affirmation phrase “I am worthy," You are definitely in every way, worthy even when you are in doubt.
By repeating to yourself that you are worthy, you are affirming and re-assuring yourself of your worth. Affirmations are more like little positive reminders and in all truthfulness, we need reminders more often than we might think.
Benefits of Practicing Positive Affirmations:
a. Lowers stress
b. Boosts self-esteem
c. Helps cope with negative thoughts
d. Motivates one to be optimistic
e. Overall, a more healthier approach to life.
Choosing the Right Affirmation for Yourself:
To some, positive self-affirmations may come across as absurd, silly and total nonsense. Chanting “I am a winner, I can do anything” might make you feel worse instead of empowering you because there is a conflict in your mind between two realities. In this situation, affirmations will cause more harm to your mental state.
Understandably, we are skeptical of affirmations because of the toxic positivity spread by a few motivational speakers or quotes online that are way over the top, giving us unrealistic approaches in handling our negativity.
The only way then is to find the right technique of practicing affirmations that personally work for you. Adopt this approach to counter-attack negativity:
Step 1. Letting the thoughts sink in:
Constant positivity is unachievable, pretentious, imagined and something that we should not strive for. Accepting your negative thoughts is a significant feat of positivity in itself.
Step 2. Understanding the message that your negative thoughts bring:
Our thoughts are very powerful, we are who we think we are; what we feed our mind. In this light, we must also realize that whatever we think is never always true, that our draining pessimistic self-talk is unbiased of logical fallacies. Take a step back and try to understand why you feel the way you do.
Step 3. Replace the negative thought.
Using this three-step approach, consider a situation wherein you repeatedly, conscious or unconsciously self depreciate yourself for your body image.
First, being self-aware of the negative self-talk, “I am not pretty/good enough.” Then, understanding why you feel the way you do will make you realize the underlying fact that you don’t feel pretty enough because you are trying to fit in the unrealistic beauty standards of society.
Finally, the positive self-affirmation you can come up with is “The societal standards of beauty does not define me.”
Instead of: "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better."
Try: "I have had better days, but I have also had worse. Today I am OK."
Instead of: "I am beautiful, happy and love myself."
Try: "I am working on accepting me as I am."
The art of repetition:
After being self-aware and choosing the right affirmation comes practicing and making it work in our daily life. Allow me to explain to you the art of repetition and its effects.
When you are in a slump, which we all do sometimes and you feel like you are nothing, what your subconscious mind does is make you feel much worse, through the process of repetition.
Don’t you just love it when your mind keeps repeating that one event that makes you feel awful over and over again? That little voice inside you that says “you suck,” “you can’t do it” or “you’re not even good enough”?
If you haven't, at any point in time, had this annoying little voice in your head, then consider yourself God’s favorite child.
Anyway, the point is, this constant cycle of negative self-talk when repeated enough times in your head, gets internalized by the subconscious mind and viola! You become what you think you are; trash.
Therefore, to break this chain of repetitive negative self-talk, you must replace it with the repetitive positive self-talk! I’m not asking you to look at yourself in the mirror and proclaim loud enough for the world to hear: “I attract clear skin and bigger booty” every day and wait for the universe to do it’s thing, no. Although, if it works for you then definitely go for it.
All I’m saying is when you’re regressing into your spiraling negativeness, try to take a step back and notice your thoughts using the three-step approach and you’ll see that we don’t deserve to talk to ourselves the way we do.
Making affirmations work is a constant and daily cycle, an effort you must put into. It is an energy that you need to manifest.
Start slow, choose affirmations that you relate to and work towards it. Be patient, trust the process and see the change it brings because if constant negative self-talk can make you feel shitty then think about what constant positive self-talk can bring.
Written by - Kim Houkip
Edited by - Anusha Vajha
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