Have you ever heard about affirmation practices that people rave about but every time you tried it,
It felt fake,
It felt forced,
And it felt icky?
I was in this client call and my client was talking about how she was reading a book talking about subconscious reprogramming through the power of affirmation but every time she tried the affirmation it felt fake and she was wondering if she was doing something wrong.
I shared with her two things that I want to share with you today.
Number one is wording.
Number two is landing.
When it comes to wording,
How you word your affirmation is extremely important.
I give you an example.
If you're not feeling healthy and there are health issues going on,
You haven't been taking care of yourself in a very long time,
If you just sit there and say,
I'm healthy,
I'm healthy,
I'm healthy,
Obviously there's this disconnect between you and where you are and how you want to feel.
And the wider this disconnect,
The harder it's going to be for your brain,
For your body to connect with that affirmation.
So the question would be how can we word our affirmation in a way that is closer to our truth?
Maybe I'm not healthy right now but my phrase instead of saying I am healthy,
I say I choose to invite healthy habits into my life.
I find adding the word choose to your affirmation can really turn any affirmation that feels distant into something that can be done or you can open your heart and open yourself to allow the possibility of that to be present.
If you don't feel it possible that I cannot be healthy right now,
That's impossible,
So then we won't be entertaining it.
But if I say I choose to invite healthy habits into my life,
Then my brain starts becoming more creative because I can see the possibility of how that could look like.
The I mean by landing?
When you say an affirmation,
Where does it land when you say it?
For example,
If I say an affirmation that I don't believe in and I take a moment and witness myself in the space as I'm repeating that to myself,
I notice all my energy up in my mind or I start arguing with the sentence or with the phrase I chose as my affirmation and I don't feel anything down in the body.
So this shows me that this affirmation is not reaching what it meant to reach.
This affirmation doesn't feel like truth to me.
I can't believe it.
I can't get behind it.
I can't vouch for it.
Our body is the house of our subconscious and we keep the score in our bodies.
If your body is been repeatedly keeping the score of not being healthy,
It's going to be really hard to land down when we want to talk about these kinds of things.
Sometimes only the practice of feeling the words coming down and landing on your body can be helpful.
But so often,
If you're constantly in a state of stress or you're operating out of your mind,
You need to find practices that allow you to get out of your analytical mind.
In other words,
Bringing the mind back to the body where it belongs.
So you're practicing these practices from a place of wholeness rather than from a place of tick box exercise,
Just saying something for the sake of saying or saying something out of desperation.
So I want you to think about an affirmation that you want to embody or you want invite into your life and begin repeating that either out loud or silently to yourself.
And notice when you're repeating it,
Where is it?
Where is it in the body?
Do you feel it all up in the air or do you feel it in your heart?
Probably you often operate your affirmations out of your head.
So I want you to see if you can bring them down,
Maybe soften your breath.
And with every breath you take,
Repeat the affirmation to yourself and let it land on your body and then exhale out.
And then keep doing that.
If breathing practices is not something that you're ready to experiment with,
What you can do,
Go for a walk.
For a walk outside,
Maybe swing your arms,
Just really get into a flow.
Have your body temperature increase,
So feel the movement of the energy,
And then test out your affirmation.
And then based on whether or not you can bring that affirmation down into your body so you can feel it,
Decide if that affirmation is the right affirmation for you.
Otherwise,
Reiterate,
Reiterate over and over again until you can really feel it in yourself.
Hope these two tips of wording and landing help you.
So give yourself permission to change up your affirmation and make it work for you.
Just because in my meditations I repeat certain things,
It doesn't mean that you have to feel it.
You can choose what works for you.
And then landing,
Noticing where the affirmation is landing,
And can you let it land on your body,
On your heart,
And connect with your body,
Relax into your body as you're practicing it.
