Adding Power to Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations on their own can eventually work, but it is far more powerful to combine them with other tools. Even if we get the wording, positive and present, words are a left brain function and predominantly in the conscious mind.

Most of our beliefs have been built layer by layer unconsciously. Usually driven by whether or not our basic needs have been met, and then our emotional reactions and decisions as a result of that. Then we reinforce those beliefs by the stories we constantly tell ourselves.

Visualization and Positive Affirmations

One of the most powerful ways of using affirmations is to combine them with visualization.
Visualization is basically creating for yourself a little mind movie using the imagery and inner pictures that evoke an emotional response in you. By attaching positive affirmations to the mind movie you are reinforcing the new belief. Manifesting what you want, only happens when you are vibrationally lined up with it. So you have to get clear from the limiting beliefs that hold you back.

You can also use these techniques with your children. Kids are great at imagining a positive future - they don't have so many years of reinforced beliefs! Say your daughter is worried about a test at school, come up with several simple clear positive affirmations to start:

• It is easy for me to focus and remember all that I learn
• I always do well in exams
• I relax and recall information easily.
• Tests are fun!

Then get her to create an image or series of images seeing herself writing happily and with the answers just flowing out of her.

Adding Emotion to Positive Affirmations

By using visualizations and affirmations together you are already creating a powerful vibration. The rocket to send it all off, is to add positive emotions to the mix. The more you can feel yourself the way you want to be, the more power you are attaching to the positive affirmation.

If you are finding it hard to feel into the future, then find a time you felt really good about yourself (You can do this with your kids too) and overlay that feeling into your visualization and positive affirmations.

In a previous article on affirmations I talked about a client, Julie. As a tiny child Julie was always told to shut up. She never felt respected or heard, and so had constantly reinforced the belief that she isn't respected - and had to yell very loudly to be heard!

Using affirmations and clearing techniques was a powerful way to help heal her inner child. She had great difficultly feeling what it would be like to be respected and listened to, but when we found other things that she felt good about herself, she was able to overlay that into her vision.

I'll cover visualizations in greater depth in a future article - click on the rss feed link above if you want to be notified when I add new articles.

Don't know what an RSS feed is? Neither did I! For ages I kept seeing the buttons but had no idea what to do - click here to find out more - you'll love it!

Positive Affirmations as a Mantra

Another way affirmations can be used effectively, is as a mantra. A mantra is basically a statement you use to focus your mind. Many ancient spiritual traditions have used mantras as part of their spiritual practices.

You can use a simple affirmation to chant over and over, or even a little rhyming poem. You can use it when you walk, whenever you are doing mundane activities, such as the dishes, or in the shower. My neighbours are used to seeing me wandering around the neighbourhood muttering to myself!

Using them as a mantra is particularly powerful if they are core affirmations, such as Julie's, I love and respect myself.

Even the simple, I love you Annie (substitute your name) over and over as a mantra, has a three fold effect. Firstly it is placing a loving thought in your consciousness, and secondly it is stopping some of the mind chatter. You do need to do it consciously though, I have caught myself sometimes chanting away on auto pilot, then realizing my brain was chattering away at a million miles an hour and was not engaged or present or receiving the lurve at all!

The third benefit, is it can release or bring to the surface, your negative beliefs about yourself. When you notice your mind is wandering, just check how you are feeling. Positive Affirmations as bandaids - negative lies as my Uncle used to say, won't work very well. If you are saying one thing but thinking another, then that is a good time to become present with yourself. What is really going on inside?

Many people are looking for affirmations - or any tool for that matter - to magically fix everything. But the real journey is a process, of learning to love and respect yourself, warts and all! By allowing our negative thoughts and feelings to come to the surface, we can then make conscious choices about how to make a change.

It is our judgements about ourselves, a situation, or others that causes most of our problems. When we judge ourselves as not being a good parent, or that we should be more positive, we are taking ourselves away from our source, which really is just pure loving energy.

Positive Affirmations Post It Notes!

I have little cards and rainbow coloured post it notes all over my house. My toilet is covered in positive affirmations or messages I find powerful. This means my subconscious is being programmed bit by bit. I make sure I change them or move them around so I become more conscious of them, or make a point to read one, stop and breathe it in.

When my kids had friends stay over they used to take ages in the toilet! We even had a basket with little cards and a pen so they could write their own affirmation. We also used them on the table like a kind of grace - at dinner time, one person would randomly choose a card from the box and read it out before dinner. Many of them the kids wrote themselves.

Have fun using positive affirmations with your kids, make it a game, stick little notes on each other, have a chanting session together all saying each other's affirmation.

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Want some extra coaching on using positive affirmations? You can either have a Personal Coaching session with Annie, or use the online Ask Annie coaching. (It doesn't have to be parenting questions)

Find out about the Grandmother of affirmations - Louise Hay - one of my early inspirational teachers. She has also written a lovely book teaching children how to use affirmations.

Do Positive Affirmations work? I've used affirmations with myself and my clients for years, but they are only effective if you set them up correctly.

Law of Attraction and Positive Attitude: This article looks at Victor Frankel's amazing attitude despite terrible experiences, and how we have the power to choose our thoughts.

Find our more about Conscious CreationThe 7 Laws of Attraction and how to apply them in your life.

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