A Radical Approach To Gratitude & Positive Affirmations

Gratitude and positive affirmations can feel really nice, but they can also be unkind and disrespectful towards ourselves by suppressing parts within us that don't agree with the affirmation. In this way, the affirmation can support one part of ourselves while really hurting another part. This talk will help you to be kind and supportive to all parts of yourself.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Noah Elkrief,

And today I would like to share with you a radical approach to gratitude and positive affirmations.

So typically when I hear people talking about positive affirmations and gratitude,

They are trying to affirm it.

So we are saying,

I am abundant,

I am healthy,

I am taken care of,

I am enough,

I am worthy of love,

My life is great,

People are so kind to me.

So we are saying something positive about ourselves or our life.

That can be helpful,

That can feel good,

But there is a way to like supercharge that,

That is way more honest and real and deep,

Yeah,

Embodied.

And the start is by being honest,

Yeah.

So if I am saying,

I am abundant,

Instead of declaring it,

So all of those affirmations,

These positive statements are declarations,

Affirmations,

This is what's true.

But is there any part inside of you which doesn't feel that's true?

Let's be real here,

Let's be authentic,

Let's be honest with ourselves.

People are kind to me.

Is that true?

I am wonderful and worthy of love.

Is there any part of you which thinks you're not?

Is there any part of you which feels unworthy of love?

I am abundant and I always have enough.

Is that how you feel,

Truly?

Maybe a part of you feels that way and is there a part of you which feels I never have enough?

Yeah,

Or when you want to go somewhere,

Do something,

You feel scared,

Maybe I won't have enough.

Now when you tell yourself something positive,

If there's any part of you that believes it or wants to believe it,

It can create a nice high.

Like if I say I'm so great,

Then I feel a little high.

But that's not embodied,

That's not,

You can't then live with that,

That's not something that just then takes you over and you're,

That's how you walk around life,

I'm great and nothing,

Nothing can touch me and I just feel relaxed and secure in that,

That needs to try to like maintain it because you're fighting against something else.

You're fighting against something that's going against it,

That's buried inside of you.

So I like to use a positive affirmation or a gratitude statement as a checkup,

As an assessment if you will.

So if I say I'm healthy,

How does that feel in my body?

Is there any part of me,

Let's do a little test.

I'm going to say some statements out loud about myself and my life and let's see how it goes.

Yeah,

Let's feel,

I notice a little insecurity coming up like uh-oh,

What are they going to see in here?

But let's be real,

Let's be real.

So I'm going to say some positive statements about myself and my life and I'm going to feel,

Right,

It's about being really sensitive to your experience when you say it,

Does it feel true fully,

A hundred percent or is there a part of me which is like no,

Yeah?

So I'm going to say them and I'm not going to try to fool you,

Maybe I'll allow,

Let's see what happens,

Yeah.

So I'll start with I'm healthy,

I'm healthy,

Feel healthy,

Don't feel so much resistance to that.

How about I'm extremely,

I wanted to say I'm extremely healthy but I feel like even when I just said it there,

I'm extremely,

I feel this like block in there,

Yeah,

The block in my throat,

Like a tension in my chest,

Like I don't believe that,

I don't believe I'm extremely healthy and I feel even like you can see how I'm responding.

I don't feel I'm extremely healthy,

I'm healthy,

Yes,

I'm very healthy,

Yes,

Extremely,

No,

Makes me a little sad.

So why do I feel I'm not extremely healthy?

So if I was to just make it a statement,

I'm extremely healthy,

I'm burying and denying,

Ignoring,

Abandoning,

Suppressing,

Fighting,

Disrespecting the part in me which feels and believes I'm not extremely healthy,

I'm not,

Yeah.

Let's take another one,

I'm wise,

That feels pretty embodied,

I'm loving,

I feel like a little like 10-15% in there,

I'm loving.

I can say it,

But I'm not like,

I feel a little like,

No,

I'm not,

I'm not,

I'm not fully loving.

Feel me when I say that,

I'm not fully loving,

So a part of me feels sad about that.

Why aren't I loving?

I have to explore,

Why don't I believe I'm loving?

I have to explore,

Maybe I am loving,

But there's just a part of me that believes I'm not.

Yeah,

How about I'm abundant?

I am massively abundant.

Nope,

Lie,

Lie detector,

That's what we're doing here.

So we're using this like positive affirmation gratitude statement as a lie detector,

As an assessment to tell us where we are.

How is our actual embodiment feeling belief about ourselves in our life?

I'm abundant,

But I'm massively abundant goes like contracted.

There's nothing wrong with any of that,

There's nothing wrong with,

There's no problem with having parts within you that believe I'm not abundant,

I'm not fully healthy,

I'm not fully loving,

I'm not fully wise,

I'm not fully whatever,

Or my life isn't fully great.

You understand?

There's nothing wrong with that.

We have to be honest,

Honest with ourselves,

Authentic,

Real.

What do I actually feel about myself?

And that's the doorway to healing,

That's the doorway to embodying what we want to embody in genuine gratitude,

Right?

So I can feel grateful,

Like I'm super grateful that I'm healthy.

I feel really grateful that I'm healthy,

And that feels genuine.

But if I were to say,

I'm extremely healthy,

Yay,

That feels so great,

I'm so grateful for it.

There's a part that's covering up,

There's a part that's a lie.

So my system isn't allowing,

It's not penetrating every cell of my body.

There are fights happening in there.

You understand?

So if I say,

I'm worthy of love,

Well,

That feels quite true.

But if it didn't,

I'm worthy of love,

Didn't feel quite true,

Instead of denying that and just trying to convince ourselves of that,

We have to find the part in us which feels unworthy of love.

We have to meet that part,

Get to know that part,

Discover,

Maybe it comes from my mom,

I can give it back to her.

Maybe it comes from my dad,

He wasn't giving me love and was so harsh to me,

And then I've got to heal that,

Clear that.

Anytime we say a positive affirmation,

A gratitude statement about our life,

And there is a contradiction inside,

There's something going on inside us that needs to be healed,

Met,

Taken care of.

And when we deny it,

We're denying a part of ourselves,

We're,

What's the word?

We're like disintegrating,

We're,

I don't know,

Like splitting up into parts and not being whole,

Not being here and not being genuine.

You get what I mean?

So I like to tell myself something positive just to assess where I am.

Yeah.

Let's see,

What are some other ones?

Like my life is amazing.

My house is great.

People are so kind to me.

I trust human beings.

Like all these types of statements,

When you say the positive and it doesn't feel completely true for you,

It doesn't feel completely real,

Like it doesn't just naturally spread throughout your body in a soft way,

Not a high way,

Like it's a high way,

You're lying to yourself almost certainly.

But if it's a soft way,

Like I'm healthy,

I'm loving,

That's not a surprise.

I know that I'm that.

If I don't know it,

It's a belief and beliefs fight with other beliefs.

I'm good,

Fights with I'm bad,

But if I know it,

Like if I know I have five fingers on this hand,

There's no fight.

There's no maintenance,

There's just,

I have five fingers.

I'm loving,

I'm wise,

I'm okay,

I'm lovable,

My life is quite wonderful.

Use these positive statements to help you explore and discover the parts within you that don't feel good about yourself and about your life.

Like if I say I'm a success,

How does that feel?

Is there a part of me that doesn't feel like a success?

Maybe I am quite successful practically,

Physically,

But if I say I'm a success,

How does that feel?

And instead of just trying to convince myself,

I might discover there's part of me that really feels not good enough and like a failure.

If I say I'm wealthy,

I might be physically wealthy,

But how do I feel?

I'm wealthy and abundant.

I feel like I don't have enough.

I never have enough.

So we're using these positive statements to help us detect,

Find hidden negative beliefs about ourselves and our life.

And then we can go through the process of healing them,

Releasing them,

And dealing with them in whatever way that feels aligned.

And that leaves us with a more relaxed gratitude,

A more relaxed embodiment of our self-worth rather than trying to maintain something and fight something within ourselves.

So I'm curious how this feels for you,

If you can relate,

If you can resonate.

And it might be hard,

Like if you've done a lot of positive affirmations and it's given you some nice feelings and maybe it's changed your life in some ways,

Amazing,

Wonderful.

This is not against any of that or saying something that you're grateful for something.

Cool,

Totally cool.

Like for some people that focus only on the negative,

Telling yourself something positive maybe can give a little power to the positivity and that can grow.

There comes a time,

Perhaps,

Where honesty is the most important thing.

Honesty and exploring what is real within us and genuine within us just feels like a priority and feels like something we want.

And maybe that's not for everyone.

I'm not sure.

So trust your own experience.

Don't feel like you have to agree with this or it has to be for you.

I invite you that if you feel closed or resistant to what I'm saying,

That might be a sign that you're afraid to perceive it in a different way.

Like sometimes when something is really helpful for us,

We hold on to it like,

No,

Positive affirmations were so helpful for me.

I can't let I can't let them go.

And sometimes that fear of letting go of something that worked for us.

Maybe we need to honor that and hold on to that old way.

Maybe we can see that fear and like,

Oh,

I'm afraid of losing that way.

But if it's not ultimately true and there is something perhaps more helpful,

Could I be open to trying it and seeing what happens if I tell myself something positive and just feel how my body responds?

Yeah,

As an exploration rather than as a foregone conclusion.

So I hope it's helpful.

I hope it's clear.

And please let me know in the comments what happens for you when you try that.

Oh,

And if you want if some of the stuff that comes up for you is around self-worth,

Low self-worth,

Inadequacy,

I'm a failure,

I'm not good enough,

You can check out my new course,

Which which addresses some of those things.

You can find the link somewhere around here and click that to learn more.

See you soon.

Bye.