Holistic Feathers

Using affirmations to activate energy

* Affirmations are an attempt to change behaviour and belief patterns that are causing us to be ill or creating other life problems. Belief patterns arise in the mental body and have a strong effect on the emotional body as they cause us to have distorted emotional responses. These can filter down to the physical body in the form of physical disease or psychological distress.

* Affirmations influence the subconscious. They are positive statements, made in the present tense, that aim to change your health, lifestyle, or inner qualities to something that you desire, but do not yet have. Affirmations are invented in our waking, conscious minds, which, in spite of constant belief otherwise, can change very little. The idea then is to get the subconscious mind to accept the affirmation.

* There are various ways to get the subconscious to accept the affirmation effectively. Firstly, wording is important. The subconscious does not work with words, but with images, feelings, body sensations, fears, and desires that words evoke. So wording must not include negatives as the subconscious will form an image of that negative, without taking into account the negation. If someone says “this will not hurt” your mind latches on to the word “hurt” and you expect pain, despite what you have been told.

* The affirmation also needs to be made in the present tense, otherwise the subconscious will take the statement at face value and assume at some time in the future that this problem will need solving. So an affirmation about asthma needs to be stated as “I can breathe freely and easily”, rather than “I am going to be able to breathe freely and easily”.

* An affirmation should be phrased as a suggestion rather than as a command, which will irritate your subconscious because the affirmation is not – as yet – true. It is these very beliefs that have caused the problem in the first place, so they are already strong and will easily undermine your new way of being unless approached with care. So jn the affirmation for asthma you would not say, “Lungs, breathe in and out freely”, but rather; “I choose to breathe freely”. What is important about an affirmation is the emotion you invest in it.

* Fear is undermining and is a common reason for failure, As this will reinforce negative beliefs. Desire is good as long as it does not become a craving. This is another way of expressing fear; that the positive outcome of the affirmation will not happen. Love is an extremely good emotion to carry the affirmation on.

* Another way to increase the affirmation’s access to the subconscious is to use it when the subconscious is more readily accessible to the conscious mind. Just before sleep and just after waking are good times. Using the affirmation during a period of relaxation, such as in an autogenic training session or a hypnosis session, are other powerful ways.

* There are two chief reasons why an affirmation fails. The first, where the negative emotional patterns that made the affirmation necessary in the first place become reinforced, should be overcome by performing the affirmation correctly. If you are still having a problem with saying something you feel is untrue, you probably need to look more deeply into the habit patterns or beliefs themselves.

* The second common reason for an affirmation to fail is if it is being used to change something inappropriately. This is more difficult to overcome. Miracles do happen, but in the long term the use of affirmations to get what we want is not constructive.

* We have all had experiences in getting what we want and then finding that we do not like it after all, or that it does not satisfy our needs. This is because our desire was originated in the emotional or mental body and did not come from the causal body. Indeed, in subtle body understanding a major cause of illness is not listening to this divine aspect of the self. The way to true healing is the realignment of the lower subtle bodies with this part of our being. Healing naturally follows. An affirmation that focuses specifically on this re-alignment is a type of prayer.

Acting “as if”
Affirmations are probably an adaptation of an ancient magical practice known as acting as if, in which the desired quality is assumed to exist already and you live as if this were true. This practice is often done naturally and is part of how we learn as we grow up. “Let’s pretend” games are an example. Acting out affirmations can be an excellent way of activating them, though this must be realistic. An asthmatic who stops taking medication as a way of acting as if he or she did not have asthma would obviously be behaving inappropriately, though changing habitual posture to that of a non-asthma sufferer would be of benefit. Methods such as Alexander technique can help in such cases.

How to make an affirmation effective
The way you present your affirmation is very important. Don’t write it down hundreds of times, remember it every hour, or post it up everywhere. Like a truculent child the subconscious is bright and capable, hut hates being nagged. It views this approach in the same way as commands and starts to ignore the affirmation. Instead, help the subconscious accept the affirmation by tapping into its creative tendency. Write the affirmation in decorative script or illustrate it with drawings or cut-outs. Make a song or poem or dance to accompany it. This creates a sense of expansiveness, fun, and joy that the subconscious naturally responds to.

Asthma affirmation
If you have asthma you might use the affirmation, “I choose to breathe in and out with ease and freedom. I have all the air I need freely flowing in and out of me”. These are not true statements, but this is how an affirmation works; what is desired has to be assumed to already exist.

Extracted from The Complete Book of Energy Medicine by (c) Dr Helen Dziemidko
Article discovered on: The Good Web Guide