The Power of Positive Affirmations

Meet the author...

This amazing blog article has been created for you by Lisa. 🖐️ 😊 😊

We often think - or at least I always thought - that the way we think is something which is fixed. That our thoughts are who we are - our personality that we're born with, something that can't be changed.

As it turns out, we're not born with our thoughts.

The way we think is something we learn over time from the people around us. And the good thing is, just as we learn our thought patterns from the people around us, we can unlearn those thought patterns, and replace them with more positive and helpful thoughts.

Thoughts that help us to become better versions of ourselves. Thoughts that empower us, give us confidence and a give us a greater sense of self-worth. Thoughts that make us kinder, more forgiving, more at peace with ourselves and with others around us.

What are positive affirmations?

Positive affirmations are simply positive statements that you say about yourself, always in the first person, always in the present tense, and always as if they are true for you right now. Positive affirmations are things such as:

★ I can do anything I set my mind to!
★ I have the courage to chase my dreams!
★ I love myself exactly as I am, right now.

When we start to really believe and internalise positive affirmations, they have the power to make us feel so good about ourselves. Positive affirmations can transform a negative inner voice into a positive inner voice. They can boost our confidence and help us to feel inspired, and this in turn, can lead us towards taking positive action in our actual, real lives, outside of our heads.

Positive Affirmation - I can do anything I set my mind to.

Do positive affirmations really work?

You may be thinking that all of this positive affirmation stuff sounds a bit too simplistic - how can simply saying positive statements make any real, lasting and meaningful change to something as deeply rooted into our being, as the way we think?

And you would be right. It's not enough to just say the affirmations.

For affirmations to really work, we need these three things: a seed of belief, daily repetition and active engagement.

A seed of belief

Firstly, it's important that there's at least a seed of belief within you when you say an affirmation. For example, let's take the positive affirmation, "I can do anything I set my mind to." You may not feel that this affirmation is true for you right now, but you need to be open to the possibility that it could be true for you - that it can be true for you in the future. You need to be open to the idea of growing your belief, and growing the strength with which you really feel these words to be true for you.

Positive Affirmation - I have a beautiful, massive heart, which is always overflowing with love and kindness.

Daily repetition

Secondly, as is the case with most things in life, to make any sort of meaningful progress you need to be dedicated. You need to keep working with your affirmations in a regular and habitual way. In the same way that a plant needs daily sunshine and water to blossom and grow, positive affirmations need daily contemplation and repetition to grow.

Positive Affirmation - I am growing my confidence, little by little, every day.

Active engagement

Finally, in order to strengthen the depth of our belief and trust in the affirmations, we need to actively engage with the positive affirmations in different ways. We need to work through each affirmation in a conscious way, dealing with any negativity or resistance which may come up - questioning why certain statements make us feel uncomfortable, and thinking about how we can perhaps take small steps to start changing that.

Active engagement also means finding ways to really feel the truth and meaning of the words you're telling yourself - finding ways to engage with the positive emotions that these words evoke. When we start to associate strong positive emotions with the words we are telling ourselves, these new thoughts and beliefs start to become a much more deeply ingrained part of who we are.

Positive affirmation - I love myself deeply

How to work with positive affirmations

When we start to combine positive affirmations with other activities which make us feel good, we start to build new, positive associations with the words and stories we are telling ourselves. Below are some of the ways we can engage with and work with positive affirmations.

1. Combining yin yoga with positive affirmations

Combining yin yoga poses with positive affirmations is a unique way of working with affirmations, created by Kassandra Reinhardt.

Kassandra often says in her yin yoga classes that, by gradually stretching and opening up our physical body, we're gaining deeper access to the emotional, mental and spiritual layers of our self. Indeed, it's a widely held belief by yoga people generally, that emotions are stored physically within the body, and that by stretching out and breathing into those areas of the body where painful or repressed emotions are stored, we can work on releasing and letting go of those emotions.

Combining positive affirmations with yoga

So when combining yin yoga poses with positive affirmations, we're both working on releasing painful and repressed emotions, whilst simultaneously filling ourselves with new, more positive ways of thinking and being.

The video below is a great introduction to using yin yoga with positive affirmations. It is one of Kassandra's shorter yin yoga videos at only 30 minutes long, and it contains some beautiful affirmations to work with, on the theme of self-love and healing - affirmations such as, "I forgive myself and I set myself free" and "I love every cell of my body."

I also highly recommend Kassandra's 30 day Evening Yoga Challenge set of yoga classes for some 'shorter dips' into yoga with positive affirmations. Each class is only around 15 minutes long. Each class is a gentle and easy slow flow, designed to help you wind down before bed. Finally, each class is also paired with a positive affirmation.

It is three years since this yoga series was released - and I still regularly dip into these videos most evenings - I LOVE them! 😊

2. Listen to audio recordings of positive affirmations

Another simple way to get going with positive affirmation work is to listen to positive affirmation playlists and audio recordings. There are plenty of free options available on the Internet. YouTube is a pretty good place to start, and of course Kassandra has plenty of positive affirmation meditations to listen to. Also, anything by Louise Hay would be another good starting point.

The great thing about audio recordings is that they're so easy to integrate into a busy life schedule. Simply put the recordings on in the background whilst doing other things: put them on whilst driving, whilst cooking dinner, whilst taking a bath, whilst falling asleep at night, whilst out walking or jogging, and so on and so forth...

3. Exercise and positive affirmations

...and talking of jogging, combining exercise with positive affirmations is a great way to take things up another level. By combining exercise and affirmations, we're learning to associate our positive affirmations with those elevated feelings of wellness and happiness that exercise brings.

On positive affirmations and exercise, Kassandra says, "there's something about being physically active, and getting your endorphins running, and listening to those positive statements, which just makes me feel like I'm on top of the world!"

So whether you love to go out jogging, prefer to work out at the gym, or perhaps prefer to go crazy dancing in your bedroom, whilst jumping up and down on your bed, just make sure you do it to a backdrop of listening to, and chanting along with your favourite positive affirmation themed playlists.

Positive Affirmation - I have the courage to chase my dreams

4. Create your own playlists

Whilst it's a great first step to listen to recordings created by other people, it's even better to create and record yourself saying your own unique list of positive affirmations - based on your situation, and the specific goals and outcomes you desire.

It is so much more potent and powerful to hear your own voice stating these positive things about yourself, rather than just listening to someone else tell these things to you. The more we can personalise the work we're doing, making it unique to our own individual needs, the more we will ultimately gain from the process.

5. Journaling around positive affirmations

Journaling is a form of shadow work, allowing us to bring to the surface any repressed thoughts or feelings, which may be holding us back. It is a great way to dig deeper around and positive affirmations that raise feelings of resistance within us.

I used to believe it was enough to just think things through in my head. Now though, I realise there's something immensely powerful about the process of getting thoughts out of the head, and down onto paper.

It feels so good to journal about my thoughts!

I now find myself journaling not just around the affirmations I'm working on, but also whenever any feelings of unease or anxiety arise within me. It's amazing how writing things down brings peace and clarity to your thoughts and helps to release those anxieties.

If you're looking for a way to get started with journaling you may like to download our nightly gratitude journaling sheets.