How To Use Affirmations Effectively?
Affirmations can change your life
In a previous post, I have discussed the malleable nature of our brains. The mind creates neural pathways as a kind of recording for every action we take. The connection is strengthened with practice. Whatever you practice will become an integral part of your life and daily habits. Therefore, it is possible for us to consciously, deliberately create a neural pathway that benefits us.
Simply put, we can decide how our life is going to play out. It has been said so many times, but I don’t think it has truly sunk in. People complain so much about the problem of procrastination. Procrastination doesn’t have to be a problem if you just learn to focus your mind better. The same applies to every other habit that hurts your productivity and pursuits in life.
Read my post on Brain Training
Whatever we focus our mind on (people, places, things), whatever we act on gets access to our mind. It gets access to our energy, and to a certain extent, has power over us.
Whatever follows I am will follow you.
This is where affirmations come in.
An affirmation is you affirming the information you want your brain to have. It is a dialogue between you and your mind. You are letting your mind know that this is the truth of your life, and this should be granted a degree of control.
This is such an important thing for us to understand. I truly believe that if more people understood this, there would be more talent and better human beings in our world. It would massively improve the standards of collective humanity. We have taken to believing that we are all victims in this world – things happen to us, and we have very little control over them.
If you understood the first part of the post, you know that that’s not true.
We are all responsible for our own actions, and we can be whoever we want to be. Having said that, none of this is easy to do. Simply repeating a bunch of positive sentences isn’t going to work. It requires immense focus, and it’s not an overnight job.
Here’s how affirmations can help -
We know that our mind can be shaped by what we choose to focus on because it will form a corresponding neural pathway. If you are chanting a particular affirmation over and over again for days and weeks, the connection in your mind is going to get reinforced. Your mind will gradually accept it as your reality, and then, your belief system will realign itself to accommodate this shift in your mindset.
How does that help?
It will change how you act and react in life. If your affirmation was about being confident – you’re going to make choices out of confidence instead of fear, as it may have been because something must have led you to choose this particular affirmation. This isn’t magic! This is you changing your own self.
Another thing that will happen is that you get onto a different frequency. Now, you attract things that are on a similar frequency. If your affirmation is about being a more loving person. You will attract people who are of a similar nature.
The energy you generate will attract people and things vibrating at a similar frequency as you.
This is why visualising a certain lifestyle works so well. You affirm the riches in your life, and then gradually you start to manifest a materially rich life.
Now, how do you make the affirmations work?
There are three elements to it –
1. Simple, concise choice of words starting with ‘I’
2. High energy level
3. Vibrating at the right frequency
Simple, concise choice of words starting with ‘I’
Now, I know some of you don’t just say one sentence, but a bunch of sentences when you practice your affirmations.
Here’s the reason why they haven’t been working for you -
We have a finite amount of energy and when we affirm something in our mind, we must do so with a lot of focus and that requires energy.
When you repeat several affirmations, your energy is getting divided among all of them. So, if you are frustrated, reduce your affirmations to perhaps 1 or 2. I only do one affirmation.
Another thing is to use a simple sentence for your affirmation. It should be like a simple mantra, the repetition of which requires minimal effort. Also, it should start with the letter – ‘I’.
When you start a sentence with ‘I’, you are letting your brain know that this is connected with you. Think of your mind as a child trying to understand a complicated concept. Your job is to simplify it and make sure there is absolutely no confusion!
High Energy Levels
There is a reason why you’re told to meditate first thing in the morning. It’s because you’ve all your energy, and it’s at it purest, uncorrupted by the chaos of the rest of your day.
So, try and do your affirmations first thing in the morning with your meditation session. If you don’t already meditate, start now. Honestly, I think that’s the best to go about doing your affirmation.
Every morning, I sit cross-legged on the floor, and I repeat the same mantra over and over again. My meditation is usually preceded by my gratitude exercises because it puts me in a positive, more receptive frame of mind.
So, express gratitude as soon as you wake up, and after you’ve washed your face and brushed your teeth, tap into all your energy, and focus as you repeat your affirmation over and over again. I like to do it for 10-20 minutes.
Vibrating at the right frequency
Repetition of an affirmation without the accompanying feeling isn’t going to work. Everything in the world vibrates at a certain frequency. Your job is to get your mind to vibrate at the same frequency as the object of your desire. In order to do that, you can visualise your desire.
If confidence is what you want then, visualise a scenario in your head that plays out with you in the starring role of a confident individual. As you visualise, feel how you feel if you could accomplish things with complete confidence. How would it make you feel? Saturate your mind with that feeling.
The visualisation helps us give the confused child (our mind) an exact picture of the subject under discussion. The feeling helps us drive the point home.
So, clear visualisation and the right kind of feeling vibrating through your body and mind is necessary for the affirmation to really take hold.
So, get the three elements right and the magic of affirmations will kick into gear.
Also, refuse access to people and things that take a toll on your energy. Practice generosity with most things in your life, but don’t be generous with your energy. Be very, very selective about who you allow access to your energy and therefore, your mind!
The Brain Behind The Blog
Hi! I'm Krati Mehra
I know what it’s like to fall apart and gradually put your pieces back together to build something better than what you had before and I share all my lessons in this space hoping that you will share my learnings without the struggle.
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