The purpose of positive affirmations is to replace the negative ones that have become a habit for you to say to yourself. I’m assuming you have found that your habitual self-talk (another word for affirmations) is not giving you the life experience you would consciously prefer. So here is how I generate the positive affirmations that would be most effective for me.
Self-love is the most effective force in the world. I’m not talking about narcissism here but instead about really caring for yourself and feeling good about who you are. Psychologists call it self-esteem and readily recognize how damaging the lack of self-esteem is to people today. It is so pervasive that most people look in the mirror and, without thinking, have some self-critical thing to say about themselves almost immediately. It represents the damaged world they live in and feel helpless about escaping from.
Positive affirmations build the ladder to climb up from this sad place by working to rebuild one’s damaged self-esteem. These self-critical self-talks are symptoms of the bad feeling we have come to believe are true about us, not only at this very moment but always. You understand that you may be fat at this moment but it is not logical to believe that this will always be true. Things do change in the future and that is wonderful news because you do not have to beat yourself up about what might be. Not unless you are telling yourself you are fat and implying that this will always be the way you will be. How likely are you to begin dieting tomorrow if you go to sleep telling yourself you are fat (and feeling terrible about it) and wake up in the morning and you are still fat, as if nothing would ever change.
Louise Hay says that we are better off telling ourselves that we are the perfect weight rather than doing the low self-esteem thing of waking up and saying we are fat. Being the perfect weight is very pro-active as well as letting you feel alright about yourself now and in the next day when you wake up. It lets you have the possibility of losing weight because you only have to be the perfect weight, whatever that is, and you get to choose that without have to always feel bad about how you are at this moment.
Technically speaking, my advice is to sit down and make up a list of the things you say to yourself and use it to create your positive affirmations from. So ”I’m too fat/skinny” becomes “I am the perfect weight.” Self-talk like “My life sucks” becomes “life is for me” as well as the things you have as reasons for why you believe your life is so bad which can change from things like “nobody loves/respects me” to “people love/respect me.” Look at the things you so often say to yourself and ask if those things are a part of the way you want to live. If they are not then you have the right to change them to what you do want. Changing them to what you do want is no more harmful than keeping saying to yourself the things you are already saying and it might improve your self-esteem.
Make that list of your self-talk and change it to the positive affirmations that reflect the kind of life you would prefer to lead. You will also want to load it with phrases that are full of self-love and acceptance as well such as: “I love and accept myself the way I am” and “I trust myself” and “I am my best friend.”
I am working on a general guided affirmation product that can be used for quick relief from all that negative self-talk and hope to be able to make it available in the next month. If you would be interested in such a product, leave your name and e-mail address as a comment and I will let you know when it is ready. Until then, keep using these techniques to improve the way you treat yourself!
