The Secret to Successful Affirmations

The Secret to Successful Affirmations

One of the big secrets to successful affirmations is a very simple one. It can be easily overlooked.

Sometimes we're so busy trying figure out the exact wording for the situation or thing we want to affirm into our lives that we forget that it's equally important HOW we affirm it.

ALWAYS STATE YOUR AFFIRMATION IN THE PRESENT TENSE.

So instead of "I will attract more money into my life" or "I will meet a fabulous new soulmate" you should be saying:

"I am attracting more money into my life" or "I am meeting a fabulous new soulmate."

You wouldn't believe the difference this one little "tweak" can make! It can really speed up the rate at which the condition you're affirming shows up in your life.

If you are careful to phrase all of your affirmations in the present, a magical thing happens. You realize just how profoundly your thoughts and beliefs affect the reality that takes shape around you.

And then you can spook yourself because you realize that the world of physical matter is truly this wiggly, inconsequential thing, easily manipulated like drops of water.

If you phrase your affirmations in a future tense, you're manifesting the polar opposite of the thing you are affirming. Because you're affirming that you will have this thing in the future, which means there's no chance in heck that you're allowing it into your life this very moment.

So imagine if you're going around affirming "I will have a million dollars." You really can see it, you completely believe it, you can visualize that million dollars somewhere off in your future just waiting for you to show up. That future you is wearing a great big smile.

Meanwhile, there's a briefcase of money with a million dollars in it sitting right in front of you at the bus stop. It's unmarked, unclaimed, and yours if you want it.

When you're affirming your LACK of a million dollars, your vibration will be such that you literally WON'T SEE the million dollars that might be sitting right in front of you, ready for you to take it home. Even if it jumps up and down, doing a little dance inside its briefcase, shouting "Take me home! Take me home!" you won't hear it, and you won't see it. Your vibration is not permitting that million dollars to join you in the present. You're refusing it entry into your current reality.

Instead, your vibration is affirming the LACK of that million, so that million dollars in that briefcase will remain completely invisible to you because you have shifted your reality to one in which you are 100% POSITIVE that you will have a million in your FUTURE.

Bad news - you're living in the present. That's where you need to affirm having the million dollars. In the here and now.

Perhaps you're not affirming that a million dollars is waiting for you up ahead, but you're telling yourself through your affirmations that a wonderful love relationship will turn up. . .in your future.

What good does that do you now? Don't you want somebody to cuddle up with NOW, in the present? That's a much more effective way of keeping your toes warm. If you want your toes warm TODAY, stop affirming that Mr. or Ms. Right will turn up in the future and affirm that he or she is being magnetized into your reality TODAY. Affirm them right into your current sphere of influence.

What are you waiting for?

So remember - tweak your affirmations very carefully to make sure that they are affirming greater and greater things or more pleasing situations for you IN THE PRESENT.

Because last time I checked, that's where we are all hanging out. Here. In this moment.


Affirmations Today

Affirmations for All of the Astrology Signs

Each astrological sign has its own personality quirks. Depending on which sign you were born under, you’ll tend to have different overall “loops” that play in your head. Think of these as your personal “operating instructions.” These instructions are really spiritual impulses to experience life in a certain way. They can be very powerful.

The trick is to harness the positive impulses and bypass the negative ones. Some of the negative feedback loops that can kick up for my sun sign, Virgo, include:

“I’m not doing enough and my efforts will not pay off.”

“I will disappoint others if I don’t do ____.”

“I will wait to take action until I have analyzed all the facts.” (And then Virgo can get caught up in endless research – like, years of it – before actually taking action to achieve their goals down here on the Earth plane. If you take a survey of students going for the masters thesis, a disproportionate number are Virgos!)

I found an interesting website that has listed three positive affirmations for each of the signs. You might want to experiment with the ones listed for your birth sign. If you know your moon sign, which is often different from the sun sign, you might want to work with the affirmations for that sign, too.

The positive affirmations for Virgo that they list are:

"I accept that I am doing exactly what I need to be doing at all times. I find peace in knowing that this is so."

"I know that I am a good and decent person who is getting better all the time. I allow myself to relax into this knowledge."

"There is unlimited love for me that is unconditional and perfect. I accept its presence, and know that it is now revealed to me."

You’ll find the rest of the affirmations for all of the signs at the website: Circles of Light.

As an astrologer, I like these and think they’re right on track. I often worked with something similar when I did one-on-one astrological counseling with people.

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Getting Consistent Results with Affirmations and More on Increasing Energy

If you'd like to view comments posted after each entry, just scroll down to the bottom of a post and look for the little link that says "comments." If any have been posted, you should be able to click there to expand and read them.

I wanted to quickly respond to two people who commented on my first post. (Thanks for your input, guys!)

From bedhead2:

I like the idea of exploring affirmations as a specific topic. I look forward to seeing more of what you have to say on the subject! And I hope others will share their experiences with affirmations, too. I've had some good results with them over the years, but it hasn't been consistent

From avril:

I tried the affirmation you gave for increasing energy. I still felt physically tired but I noticed my mood got a lot better. Maybe I was increasing my emotionally energy? Could the affirmation work that way, too?

Bedhead2,

Most people report inconsistent results with using affirmations. This is because they hit a resistance point or block and find it difficult to move beyond it. Without a cheerleader egging you on, it's easy to give up.

The same is true with anything in life. It's hard to lose weight without pushing past resistance points. If you're trying to give up smoking, you'll hit some rough patches, too.

With affirmations people report that if just 51% of the thoughts they are having about a given subject are positive instead of negative, this is enough to manifest a big change in their reality.

So while you may go around 49% of the time having sabotaging thoughts, as long as you can raise your awareness enough to have 51% of the messages become positive ones, this can make a huge difference in your reality. So it's all about using every tool at your disposal to get over the hump.

Avril,

I'm glad you reported on your experience with the affirmation I provided. It was about increasing your energy and yes, emotional energy is certainly energy! So while some people might use that affirmation and find that their physical stamina is increasing, others might find that their emotional energy lifts and they're suddenly in a better mood like you were. Other people might find that their mental concentration suddenly increases.

The energy of the universe is limitless, and once we invite it into our lives, it will tend to flow wherever we most need it to be. Some people might need it to increase physical energy, others might need an emotional lift.

You can experiment with shifting the affirmation around to make it more specific. See what happens when you try these three different affirmations:

"My physical energy is vibrant, clear, and happy. I have unlimited energy."

"My emotional energy is vibrant, clear, and happy. I have unlimited energy."

"My mental energy is vibrant, clear, and happy. I have unlimited energy."

Each affirmation targets a specific area. See how they work for you.


Affirmations Today

Join Me in Exploring Affirmations and Visualizations

Welcome to my Affirmations and Visualizations for Success blog! My name is Jennifer Shepherd, and I'm also known as The Lipstick Mystic. You may have read one of my syndicated astrology or spirituality columns in newspapers or in magazines across the U.S. Or you may have seen me doing some ghostbusting on TV shows like the Sci-Fi Channel's Sightings or Fox TV's Real Scary Stories.

I used to have a full-time psychic counselling practice, and I turned up on a lot of radio stations giving my on air predictions about everything from celebrities' love lives to my pick for the next team to win the SuperBowl.

Confession: I was always wrong about the SuperBowl. I soon learned that in order to make accurate psychic predictions about something, you have to have an affinity for the subject. I attended my first football game just a year ago, so I can't say I "get" the game very much!

Now I write and teach full-time on spirituality subjects and I also run a bunch of funky websites on different topics. In this blog I'll be sharing my own personal stories and cool anecdotes from others around the world on the subject of affirmations and how they work. We'll also be looking at how they don't work. Feel free to offer comments in the comments section and to share your own questions or personal stories about working with affirmations in your own life.

In short, an affirmation is a conscious attempt to use words and language to "reprogram" the brain and to rewire human consciousness. It goes a little deeper than mere hypnotism, which can be used to do everything from stopping smoking to losing weight.

Affirmations penetrate on an almost mystical level, and they truly can shift not just our conscious thoughts, but they also have the ability to shift our "vibration" and change what we start to manifest in our daily lives.

"Vibration" is a term that is often misused, so don't be scared about it. You might have heard a hippie dippie New Age healer type talk about "shifting your vibration" or "ascending to the next level." Chances are that this same healer was also packing his bags waiting for the next ship full of ET's to beam him up. I'm not talking about that.

When matter is analyzed down to the most microscopic level, quantum physicists have discovered that these subatomic particles are in constant motion. Another word for this movement is vibration.

Sound healing with the use of instruments like Tibetan bowls, shamanic drums, or other musical tools can actually shift this vibratory rate, changing the way our bodies feel.

The messages we tell ourselves each day also have a big affect on this vibration. Negative self-talk has been proven through muscle testing to decrease the strength of our bodies and to slow down our reaction time. So sports medicine has come to incorporate a lot more of a mind/body/spirit approach because these techniques enhance an athlete's performance so beautifully.

Basically, when you're telling yourself you're no good, you won't be any good.

When you tell yourself you're good, you'll be good.

Now, we all have a bunch of stuff going through our heads. In this world of multi-tasking, our brains have become like Grand Central Station. So many thoughts are headed into the station at the same time. Others are leaving. Some get diverted, interupted, and thrown off track. If you've ever been in the middle of a conversation and suddenly forgotten what you were talking about, you know what I mean. It's like your thought was derailed. The brain is so busy doing so much stuff that it's easy to get off track.

The use of affirmations is just one technique that can allow us to take charge of the brain and start rewiring how mental processes operate. And affirmations can also soak into the subconscious level, shifting the "tone" of how we feel about life and even reprogramming us to become more successful in all aspects of our lives.

Of course, the undisciplined part of our brain likes to resist. So affirmations need periodic tweaking, experimenting, and innovation as we discover these resistance points or "psychic tripwires" within the mind and subconscious.

Let me leave you with an affirmation for you to experiment with. In my work as a healer with individuals from around the world, I often compare notes on cool affirmations that people seem to be having great success with. And sometimes I will "download" affirmation tips from my own higher guidance. This blog will be a place to share some of these. I encourage you to experiment with them, offer feedback in the comments section, and see how you feel, what happens, etc. Think of this blog as a school for affirmations, and we're all part of the teaching staff. Let's focus on figuring out what works, what doesn't work, and some of the potential reasons why.

This is an affirmation I've been working with to replace my multiple daily cups of coffee. I've become a little too used to that caffeine lift and notice that my energy really drags when I get off the coffee.

This affirmation is designed to help you to increase your natural energy levels. It's phrased as being in the present because affirmations are more powerful if we assert them in the NOW instead of in the future.

"My energy is vibrant, clear, and happy. I have unlimited energy."

Experiment with this and let me know how you do with it. Don't judge yourself if you encounter resistance. Simply observe, notice, and keep experimenting with it. Take note of any shifts or changes as you work with it. You can combine this with visualization (picturing positive imagery or colors in your mind's eye.) And you can use sound, too. Usually, to truly retrain the brain, it's good to incorporate sound, color, and language.

There's a wonderful brain researcher from Australia named Jeff Staniforth who has spent years developing a special software program that incorporates all these things. It's a desktop application that allows you to schedule ten minute increments where you display a positive image of your choice on your computer, play peaceful sounds that you select, and work with typing in and looking at various affirmations. You can choose to focus on any area of your life that needs work and the software will guide you through a ten day "mini-program" where you will focus on that particular area of your life, using affirmations to shift your consciousness around that thing. It's powerful stuff. If you're a geek like me and you enjoy doing stuff on the computer, you'll love it. If you're a bit less tech-friendly and don't like being in front of your computer much, this might not be the best tool to aid you with learning more about affirmations. But you can read about it and see some of the cool testimonials and articles at Jeff's site.

Sculptor3 - Powerful Affirmation Software to Change Your Life

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