Affirmations; why they don't always work.

The concept of affirmations have been around for some time now and there are many proponents of them saying you can change your life using them; that thought creates form.  To a certain extent I agree and I have used creative visualisation to manifest some amazing things in my life.

However, using affirmations isn't as simple as it sounds.

Firstly you have to follow a set of rules that guide you to building the right sentence.
** The sentence has to be worded in the now: "I am" as opposed to "I will"
** The sentence has to be positive: "I am attracting wealth" as opposed to "I am no longer poor"

With this we can create affirmations such as "I am loved", "I have all I need" or "I am happy".

It sounds simple doesn't it?  Unfortunately this is not the case.


I discovered this when I was working in an office with a person that clearly didn't like me.  I recorded the affirmation "I am loved, I am loving, I am love" and repeated it over and over on my way to work.  By the time I got there I was so distressed I walked into work a complete mess.  It was time for me to look at what was going on.

What I realised was; inside we have an internal saboteur that will hear these statements and argue against them.  As we state "I am amazing" the silent voice says "no I'm not" and this creates internal conflict.  As we keep repeating the phrase the inner saboteur gets louder and louder and overrides our attempts to change our thought patterns.

This shows that affirmations are more complex than first thought.

When forming an affirmation we have to listen to our inner voice, if "I am loved" triggers "no I am not" then we have to take a step backwards and reword the sentence maybe to "I am open to being loved".  This in itself might trigger a new response that we need to consider, maybe we realise we aren't open to being loved.  On reflection we may find we don't believe we deserve love.

We would think that in this case an affirmation of "I love myself" would work, but in reality that is likely to trigger "no I don't".  Another step backwards and we find ourselves with "I am learning to love myself"... aaaah, that feels better, no voice arguing. We work with that one for a while and then test the "I love myself" to see how we are doing.  In changing the affirmation we can grow gently and with self care until we can boldly state "I AM LOVED"

Affirmations are great and they can bring about great change, but we have to work with them on a deep level, listening to our inner voices until we find the right one for us.

Visit my website to learn about my healing practice  

http://www.crystaloak.moonfruit.co.uk/