Affirmations, Your Easy Button For Your Best Life

My mother,  Joan Kennedy has been saying daily affirmations for, gee, 50+ years, she’s been speaking and writing about the benefits of daily affirmations for 40+ years, I always listened to my mom and have been wowed by her public speaking talks for 30+ years. How long do you think I’ve been saying daily affirmations? Less than 1 year. Yup.

How does that happen? I liked what I heard and read from my mom (and others) and I saw firsthand how saying daily affirmations changed her life, and yet, I never made a habit of affirmations for myself until December of 2016. I think it was for a number of reasons:

1. Why say them when I know how I wanted my life to be?
2. What if I come up with WRONG affirmations?
3. Tra-la-la…life happening, forget all about intentional living and affirmations…
4. I’ll feel stupid saying them out loud–someone will make fun of me.
5. What if I affirm something and nothing happens?

Honestly, there were probably more “reasons”–I can think of millions of reasons NOT to do something beneficial–but what finally convinced me was an idea I had about blogging on “My year of living affirmatively.” Welp, if I were going to blog about that, I had better start affirming. I’ve written a little about this, deciding to start, writing the affirmations, not doing anything with them, finding them again, re-writing them, and finally, finally starting to say them.

I found the easiest thing for me, was to say them in my car every morning on my way into work, and yes, I say them out loud–and no, I don’t feel stupid, turns out I don’t care, I mean, what do I care if the person in the car next to me thinks I’m talking to myself, I am! I started with maybe 5 affirmations, I did have a cheat sheet, but it didn’t take long at all to memorize them. Once I had the five down, I started adding on, it was an organic process to add affirmations (either ones I’d read from someone else, or others I’d created) and to let some go.

One of my favorite affirmations is: “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” This was created by French Psychologist Emile Coue (1857-1926), at the time, it was called an optimistic autosuggestion. It pretty much encompasses everything, which is why I like it! It was one of the first affirmations my mom told me about, another favorite of hers was/is: “I like myself unconditionally.” Which, some days can be a hard one to believe…on those days, I say: “It feels good to like myself.” Much easier.

The subconscious mind is funny and amazing, which is why affirmations should always be said in the present tense, as if it’s already happened and in a positive way, otherwise your subconscious will be all, oh, you want this thing someday? Errr, I don’t know what that means, must mean never. Instead of: I want one million dollars, say: I am grateful for all the money I have and could ever need in my bank account now. The first example will have your subconscious being all, fine, you will WANT this forever. You’ll be in a perpetual state of “wanting.” Whereas the second gets you in gratitude and opens yourself up to all possibilities.

As for the positive aspect, say: I am an excellent salsa dancer, rather than: I am not a klutz. Your subconscious puts a big red line through that word “not”–it only hears: I am a klutz. I don’t know why, besides I’d rather repeat something positive than something negative.

My favorite affirmation at the moment is one I took from the Brandi Carlisle song, That Wasn’t Me:

I make myself a blessing to everyone I meet

Saying this one five times everyday cements it in and in moments when I might not “make myself a blessing…” it’s as if my subconscious slides it into my conscious mind and I remember the me I am trying to be.

supporting oils: Frankincense and Valor

Do you say affirmations? Do you want to start?