Affirmations are really potent, positive, powerful ways that we can change our lives and our mindset. And I really believe that affirmations are a really helpful way to create change in our lives and create what it is that we want. Affirmations are intention setters, they really can help us to manifest any outcome that it is that we want.
Feeling and Thinking
What’s important is that we feel positive, that we can embody the feeling of the affirmation in our body. The feeling is much more important than the thinking. For example, you can spend your whole time thinking, I am calm, I am calm, I am calm. If you don’t feel calm – then as much as you say, I feel calm it will never produce a calm feeling. Likely what will happen is it will only demonstrate and amplify how uncalm you feel and you may experience uncomfortable feelings in your body when your thinking and feeling are out of alignment.
There’s lots of information out there about the Law of Attraction and about how it works and certainly get into it and Google it. And I believe very strongly that what we think we can manifest, but we have to think and feel, and that’s where affirmations often go wrong.
Writing Affirmations that Work
Sometimes it’s the way that we’ve worded them. If we’ve worded, “I am calm”, then maybe that’s not the right way to word it. We can be change and alter that wording – a much more appropriate wording would be something such as, “I’m open to feeling of calm”, “I’m open to feeling happy”, “I am open to feeling relaxed”, “I am open to….” whatever it is that you’re trying to create in your life. This is a much better way to write affirmations.
I also really like affirmations which bring out the good in me – “I am on a mission to improve the lives of 500 mums”, “I am kicking ass”, “I am honouring my needs”, “I am grateful”, “I trust that everything will work out”, “I am open to learning”.
Removing Internal Negative Chatter
In addition to the words, it’s important to work through that negative internal chatter. I love, love, love emotional freedom technique, EFT. In my experience, it’s a really powerful way to work with that internal chatter and work through those negative emotions that we’re feeling. I find EFT is a really powerful tool to use around that time and I would absolutely recommend using EFT.
Using EFT, we can work through any of that negative chatter, any of that negative self talk. People can find EFT difficult because we are connecting with that negative/uncomfortable feeling. When we’re tapping, we’re tapping on that negative feeling (i.e. I’m feeling stressed) and removing or reducing the intensity that we feel around that negative emotion and people can find that really uncomfortable because we’re actually connecting to that negative feeling and those negative thoughts.
Don’t Paste Over Negative Feelings
We can try and paste over those negative feelings with positive thoughts and affirmations as much as we want, but actually the more we paste over those uncomfortable feelings, the more we’re compressing them and the bigger they get. Tapping/EFT on them isn’t putting negative thoughts into you, what tapping is doing is is allowing you to connect with it and reducing the emotional intensity you have connected with them, because those negative thoughts are already there. There are other ways to work through those negative feelings but EFT is the tool that I am most familiar with, is what I use with my clients and is super effective.
How many affirmations can you use?
I would use around three to five affirmations at a time to remain focussed on creating the changes that you want.
How can you use them?
I would use them in different ways. When I’m using them I put them on the back of my wardrobe door so when I open my wardrobe door in the morning, I read my affirmations. I write them out often in my journal, I say them out loud often. I try to feel them and visualise what it would feel like to be that way.
Challenge
I’d love you to choose 3-5 affirmations and use them for a week and then let me know how you get on and what changes you’ve noticed. I’m going to set this as a challenge this week in Overcome the Overload community.
Need More Help?
I use affirmations with many clients who are coming for birth preparation, parenting coaching and we use affirmations all the time in conjunction with EFT. If you’d like to know more then do get in touch.
Stressed out mum?
I’m really delighted that Overcome the Overload community is reopening again in June. If you would like more information about that then do feel free to get in touch and I’m really happy to help you. In the meantime, you can get access to these videos which will reduce your overwhelm by clicking here.
Much love, Tricia xxx
