A simple definition of positive affirmation states “An affirmation is a form of autosuggestion in which a statement of a desirable intention or condition of the world or the mind is deliberately meditated on and repeated in order to implant it in the mind”.
Is this just some New Age or Far Eastern idea of meditating and planting seeds of reality disillusionment, or is the idea of affirmation, backed by Neural Science?
Although the idea of the use of positive affirmation and meditation is often associated to some New Age “hocus pocus”, nothing could be farther from the truth.
These ideas are based on sound solid medical facts, and deal with the science of your mind and neural biology. The joining or wiring together of brain cells, is often referred to as, "cells that fire together, wire together", and the theory explains that, when we learn, groups of cells that are activated together, grow a stronger connection.
This grouping of common brain cells gives us our learned behaviour, it allows us to walk, talk, run, write, sing, in fact any learned activity we do, seemingly without thinking. But it goes much deeper than that, every bodily function and every aspect of our personality is in the wiring of these groups of brain cells.
Even before you were born your brain arranged cells or neurons in particular orders, testing and rewiring its circuits, routing and rerouting its electrical signals. The day you were born, you were programmed to function, to pump and clean blood, control an army of defence cells, feel hunger, digest and dare I see it, fill a nappy.
>From this day on you started to make use of your senses, collecting data, analysing and testing. You started to recognise smell, sound, taste and sites and form Neuron Circuits to help you identify these things again.
Was the smell good, how did I react to that taste, was this sound pleasant and did this look nice. Whatever the reaction was the first time around, will probably be the same again, the circuit is formed, the cells are structured, the brain is wired.
You test reaction and response, that’s why babies cry, you test taste and texture, you learn about pain, fear, love and laughter, and each action and re-action is wired in for future use.
So how does this process work?
The process of wiring habit, pattern or memory into your brain is in two steps.
As I have already mentioned, “At birth, you start to make use of your senses, collecting data, analysing and testing”, this is the first process of learning. This is the action of the objective or conscious mind, testing, retesting and programming data.
The second step takes place once all the data has been passed, and all responses verified, this is then belief, we know the fact to be true and the response to be appropriate and we then pass the fact to the subjective or subconscious mind, to be programmed in biologically.
So why do we need a Positive Affirmation, if we are passing facts to our subconscious?
Quite simply, to evolve our intellect, to achieve, to overcome and to grow as a human race. Now that’s quite a statement, but I’ll go further, “Positive Affirmation is the key to all advancement and all achievement, without exception”.
You see there is quite a biological flaw with our outstandingly clever bodies, wiring facts into our brain means that we can achieve and remember almost anything. The analysis of data, testing of response and the programming of our circuits seems a flawless system, but there is one big, giant monster of a stumbling block.
What happens if the data was wrong and the response defective or inappropriate?
So how do we overcome faulty facts? Well to coin a phrase, it’s just like riding a bike!
But seriously it is, just like riding a bike, and how you learnt to achieve this marvellous feat is the answer to the problem.
Riding a bike is one of the most unnatural things to do, your subconscious is already in charge of your balance and speed, the data has been tested, retested analysed and programmed as fact. You know how to stand up, walk and run. But a bike? Balance on a couple of square centimetres and propel yourself forward at three times the speed? I don’t think so!
“But you know it can be done, you practise, you tell your body to take the pain each time you fall, you are determined, you will achieve, overcome and ride this bike”.
This is a Positive Affirmation at work!
To help you see this as a positive affirmation let me make the statement personal lets go back to our time learning to ride a bike and say the statement to ourselves, as if we were still learning.
“But I know it can be done, I will practise, and tell my body to take the pain each time I fall, I am determined, I will achieve, overcome and ride this bike”.
A powerful Positive Affirmation!
Now lets imagine that you live in 1790 and a Frenchman gave you his new invention “The Celerifere”, this was one of the earliest bikes, with no steering.
Your beliefs and programming about balance and speed would be the same as they were when you actually learnt to ride a bike, but your experience would be different. You would never of seen one, never have witnessed it work and I’m sure you would believe, that the idea of a bike seemed an outrageous way to move.
How then, would your “Positive Affirmation” read?
It would probably go something like this.
“But I’m not sure if this can be done, I don’t know how much I can practise, and take this pain each time I fall, I will never do this, I can’t achieve or overcome and ride this bike”.
Hardly a Positive Affirmation, but an Affirmation all the same.
OK, so it’s easy to see how we can use a Positive Affirmation to achieve a physical goal, but it surely can’t make me earn more money, find love or be happy.
Or can it?
This is the second flaw in our biological make up.
Your subconscious does not think, it only accepts, it cannot decide. Your subconscious discharges chemicals into your bloodstream every time certain circuits are activated, and you will perceive these chemicals as emotion, but your subconscious doesn’t feel, it does not know whether these chemicals are good or bad, wanted or unwanted
If you’re in debt you will be all to familiar with the dread of the arrival of the postman, the feeling of another bill, another demand and then the bill arrives, the letter is opened, yet another demand or final notice, and you experience the feelings of despair and depression.
The event is anticipated and the relevant circuit is activated, the corresponding chemical is released and you perceive the chemical as emotion, as dread. The event happens and another circuit is activated, the corresponding chemical is released, and you perceive the chemical as emotion, as despair or depression.
But this then grows more powerfully as our bodies start to crave this chemical rush, and just like the smoker, who’s body crave the rush of nicotine or the drinker the rush of alcohol, your body is crying out for the rush of proteins that give you these emotions of dread, despair and depression and you will keep moving towards the things your body needs.
Our subconscious, does not analyse this, it does not know that you do not want this result, why should it? After all, you are the trainer, you set this in motion by practising the event every morning, you analysed it, and passed it on, therefore it must be true.
This is why the abused, seems to move from one abuser to another, or the failure to more failure and the broken heart to the heartbreaker.
Whether you believe in the Law of Attraction or not, if you cannot see that like attracts like, surely you can see that what you think you like, you will keep moving towards by default. By your very own actions, you are what you think about.
You have today, built your destiny for tomorrow, and you will continue to become the things you fear the most, that is, until you respond, until you stand up and shout out.
“I know it can be done, I will practise, and tell myself each time I fall, I am determined, I will achieve, I will overcome and ride towards my chosen destiny”
"I will be, what I will to be”
What a Positive Affirmation.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Positive Affirmation Rewiring The Brain
Self Affirmative Exercises For A Brand New You
Positive affirmations, when worded optimally and charged with emotions, are able to tap into the boundless power of the subconscious mind. Our dormant subconscious mind remains untapped most of the time and in this article we will teach you how to reach down deep within to unlock the power of your subconscious mind. There are many exercises and techniques that can help you achieve the benefits of positive affirmations, by putting the subconscious mind to work for you.
1. Repetition
Constantly repeating the positive affirmations will become a good habit that results in self-improvement. It strengthens your ambitions, and the activations of the subconscious mind create solutions to make it come true. By repeating your affirmations several times a day in present tense, they will soon become an extension of your daily thoughts, making it easier for your subconscious mind to work on.
2. Belief
If you do not believe in what you are saying, no matter how constantly you repeat it you will not believe in it. By believing what you are proclaiming to yourself daily, it creates a positive response in your mind to accept it as reality and it will work towards making it a reality. This will build up more resistance, and hamper you from achieving your goals.
3. Clearing your subconscious mind
Your subconscious mind is overloaded with thoughts and emotions, and you will need to not just create positive affirmations, but eliminate the negative thoughts as well. After you’ve cleared the negative thoughts, you can then move on to inculcating the positive thoughts you would like to see bear fruit. As mentioned earlier, what you place into your mind would encourage your subconscious to work towards making that a reality. As such, if negative thoughts remain in your mind, your subconscious will work towards that too as it is unable to reason right and wrong.
4. Music
Music serves as a tool to amplify your emotions. When positive affirmations are charged with positive emotions, it can produce amazing end results. The use f music tends to make individuals more receptive to new thoughts and positive affirmations. For example, listening to music with a fast beat is liable to get your feet tapping along, and recalling something strongly associated with the theme of the music.
5. Goal
When setting goals and repeating them to yourself, it is important to use the present tense, as if the goal has already been achieved. This translates into the use of positive words that reflect the now, and not the future. This is with the ultimate goal that you will over time come to believe it to be true, embedding it into your mind and allowing the subconscious to work.
6. Reminders
Constant reminders are a valuable tool for reflecting the positive qualities that you already possess, or have achieved. These constant reminders need to be used regularly to maintain positive feelings and thoughts, and belief in yourself to achieve the goals that you have set out. Make it a part of your daily ritual and incorporate it into your life, so that it gives you a positive vibration.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Daily Affirmation For Your Personal Growth
What a life I have! It is so ___________________", now you fill in the blank.
How do you view your life right now? Are you where you thought that you would be? Are you where you want to be?
Life is funny. When we were children, our lives and thoughts were filled with the hopes, the dreams and the desires that nobody could take away from us! True or false?
You know, as I was growing up, I had this crazy idea of being an astronaut or being a world renounced runner and even being this great leader that helped millions of people. So did I end up doing any of them?
Well I pursued a couple because one of them was pounded right out of me....to be an astronaut. Why? What happened?
You know as well as I do that when you are young, you are at the most impressionable point in your life. It really doesn't take much for someone to start saying negative things to you before it sets into your subconscience as what it considers fact. Well, I had plenty of people tell me that I was too short, not smart enough, not this or that. It works especially quickly when you hear it from an adult, whether it be a teacher, coach, parent or any other authority figure.
I was pretty lucky in having some older siblings that encouraged me with other areas of my life. I didn't become a world renouned runner, but I gave it a good shot. Could I have been more successful? Had I known and understood the technique that I am going to share with you now, I believe that I would have had much more success. Now don't get me wrong, I don't live in the past and I don't have any regrets in my pursuit of my dreams, but the things that I have learned have helped improve my life tremendously and have helped me to make an impact in the lives of others. I have always heard about the saying, "You become what you believe". Ok, but HOW do you learn to believe what YOU really want to believe?
There have been times in my past when I wished that I could do this or that, but at the time, that is ALL it was, A WISH! How do you turn that wish into something much more powerful that will drive you to succeeding?
What I am going to share with you can absolutely change your life for the better, IF you are willing to stick with it DAILY! It won't sound like a hard thing to do, but it does take work. Trust me, there were days when I was rushed, tired, sick, frustrated or whatever that made me not want to stick with it. And you WILL have those types of days, but you MUST be persistent and do this every day. If you do this twice a day, it becomes easier and more natural, much quicker. Likewise, three times a day will propel you to believing that much faster. Like I said, it will sound simple, and you may think, "I have heard this plenty of times and it just doesn't work!". Friend, I am here to tell you that it DOES work. It did for me, and it can for you.
So, why would I share this with you so freely when I don't even know you? Let's face it, this is public for the whole world to see, critique, agree, disagree, etc. That's ok, because it is not about just me, it is about HELPING others in their own personal lives. Helping people get out of the same old rut, helping people break the chains of mental bondage that has been past down from generation to generation. If I can help one person out of one million, that's ok, because I helped someone.
Ok, enough of the soap box stuff. Let's get started.
What can you do to help you become more successful, happier and start on the road of creating the life that you really want? What I am going to share with you is one of the basic things for you to put into practice, for now. There are many more techniques that I will share with you in later issues, but for now let's start with just one.
The first, and by far THE MOST IMPORTANT technique that you must do daily:
Get in the habit of VERBALLY giving thanks for the things that you do have.
"What? That's it? How is this going to help me? How can this possibly make a difference?", you may ask. Stay with me. Remember your dreams as a kid? What was it you REALLY wanted to do? Do you remember? Did you do it? If you didn't, why not? For most of us, it wasn't any physical issue or mental issue (even if it was, there are lots of people worse off who have accomplished great things). Somewhere along the line, someone who was important to you told you, in one way or another that you couldn't do it, or to just give up because you weren't meant to do that. So many times, not even realizing what they are doing to us, people we love and people who love us can destroy our dreams with non-supportive, non-encouraging words. We don't even realize what it is doing to us, and our mind starts to listen and repeat it without us even knowing it, until our subconscience accepts it as fact. Over time, we start to think about why we can't do this or that, rather than why we can. We start to verbalize all the negative things in our lives, how we got there, all the bad choices, all the bad circumstances, EVERY bad thing that has happened to us. We VERBALIZE it every day to everyone we know! We don't even realize that we are doing it anymore, it is just natural to "complain" about stuff, rather than look at what we do have, and VERBALLY recognize them! Am I right? Ask yourself, honestly, how often do you verbally complain and how often are you verbally thankful? It is easy to get caught up in society today, wanting everything for nothing, wanting things for free or little effort, and to just go with the flow and join in on a complaining forum!! Friend, take a look at the things that you do have, no matter how little, but you do have things to be thankful for.
Here is a challenge for you: make a list of 10 things that you have in your life that you are thankful for. Every day, at least once a day, verbally acknowledge thanks for those things. Now I say verbally, not in the quietness of your head (that will become a natural part of it) but from your mouth, let the words come out..."I am so thankful for_________". I promise you, the more you do this, the more persistent you are with this on a daily basis, the more things that you will see that you have to be thankful for.
Ok, now remember that I told you that you WILL have days where everything seems to be going wrong, PLEASE remember that these are the most critical days to do this, as a matter of fact you should do this more than once this day!! On a day like that, the last thing before you go to bed, turn off the television, turn off the radio, turn off the lights and just relax in darkness, eyes closed. Think of your list and let it run through your head several times, and then verbally give thanks 2, 3 ,4 even 5 times. These thankful thoughts and feelings will be the last things being sent to your subconscience before falling asleep, and from there your subconscience takes over. Soon, more good things will start coming into your life, giving you more things to be thankful for. Just remember, that it is always darkest before the dawn. STICK with it, change your perspective and your life!
Start this today and keep doing it, because it will change your life for the good! Remember VERBALIZE IT TO INTERNALIZE IT!!
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