Should I Use Affirmations?

Thinking is the structured use of mental reasoning, where we verbalize or talk to ourselves inside our head. Affirmations are a specific type of thinking. In an affirmation, our intention is to create thoughts that strengthen and affirm a particular belief, emotion or course of action.

For many people, thinking dominates their conscious experience and may even feel intrusive and uncontrollable. Affirmations often enable people to regain control over their thinking, and using willpower and repetition, attempt to rewire their brains with positive, deliberate thoughts.

When we create affirmations, we are directing our attention to making our thought dialogues much more deliberate than usual.

Affirmations Can Guide Us Deeper inTo CONSCIOUSNESS

When we use our consciousness more deliberately, we become more aware of everything, not just thinking. Using affirmations can be used to create more awareness of other senses as well. For example: "My mind is becoming calmer with every breath I take" is a clever affirmation because it directs what is happening in your mental space by linking it to a physical action we are doing anyway.

Affirmations can work very effectively for attention management. An example: "When I direct my attention to the sounds I hear, I become totally absorbed in those sounds" instructs the brain to focus on specific sensory experiences.

When designing affirmations that include emotions, the outcome of the affirmation should be to generate the actual feeling described, rather than merely verbalizing the name of the emotion. The affirmation is an instruction to the mind, not the experience that the affirmation describes.

Affirmations and Mysticism

Many affirmations rest on faith-based assumptions that external universal forces listen to and manifest requests. Prayer exemplifies this approach, assuming some external power is 'listening' to your affirmations and will respond. Mystical beliefs deliberately create ideas that cannot be verified in reality. Consciousness work is about perceiving reality exactly as it is through careful, honest observation. Observing whether your affirmations rely on mystical intervention is a useful skill.

The Right Tool at the Right Time

Affirmations are a powerful tool to explore consciousness. Carefully constructed and used, they can direct our attention in ways that accelerate our progress and allow us to deeply explore consciousness. The key is honesty and clear perception - knowing which layer of consciousness you are working with, and why.