Affirmation

Affirmations, as a practice, are an offshoot of the New Age movement. Rebounding from lifetimes of fear-based living and cultures and families that often championed our limitations through negative statements, early practitioners started creating positive statements to affirm life and begin the process of reclaiming a sense of value.

Shakti Gawain, in her groundbreaking book, Creative Visualization, started it off for me. Just saying statements of positive nature felt so good that I kept saying them. Soon, life began to show up differently. Because, truthfully, the Universe always says “yes”. Our words spoken make manifest the world we experience. Statements like, “I am so sick of this” will receive support and an ongoing stream of opportunities to affirm the reality…until we stop affirming it.

This is where affirmations come in. They have been parodied on Saturday Night Live even, “I am good enough. I am smart enough. And, gosh darn it, people really like me!” Yes, in the beginning they seemed pollyana-ish, sappy, and phony. But the proof is in the pudding. As people began to see that their life was showing up differently, the rush began.

Now in these times, language is actually different. The way many think about and talk about themselves has become more positive and celebratory. Let’s look at some characteristics of effective affirmations:

Some examples: