Affirmation Techniques

There are a number of different techniques you can use to make your affirmations as powerful as possible. The goal with affirmations is to feel the truth in the statement you are affirming. Affirmations are reminders of the beliefs and values you want to live your life from. The more consistently you live from a place of affirmation, the more effortless habits and behaviors that support your goals become.

Try a variety of the techniques below to see what feels the most authentic and effective to you.

Writing Affirmations

Writing your affirmations down adds power and action energy to what you are saying. Make your affirmations focused. The goal when writing affirmations is to make the words that you are using meaningful enough to evoke the feelings you desire to feel when your affirmation manifests. Click here to learn more about writing affirmations.

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

Say your affirmations as often as you can. Each time you notice that you have slipped into old limiting, negative patterns of thinking, acknowledge your thoughts, and replace them with an affirmation. If you write them to be short and easy to remember repeating affirmations this way can quickly become habit.

You can post your affirmations to your fridge, car, bathroom mirror, anywhere that will prompt you to remember to take a moment to affirm the reality you are stepping into.

Visualization and Affirmations

Visualization and Affirmations are closely related. The more real we can make our affirmations, the easier it is for our minds to embrace how true they are. There are two main ways to visualize and increase the potency

of your affirmations:

1.Visualize a natural image that compliments the statements you are making. For instance, when I use affirmations about abundance, I picture millions of stars in the sky, billions of grains of sand in a desert or countless drops of water in a waterfall. This gives my mind concrete examples that abundance in our natural state of being. It makes it more difficult for my mind to contradict abundance because I am showing myself that abundance does exist.

2. Visualize the outcome you would like to experience as a result of the affirmation. Include all of your senses in the affirmation. What will this reality look like? Taste like? Sound like? Smell like? Feel like? This is an easy way to get your feelings engaged with your affirmations. As you immerse yourself in your visualization, your feelings will bubble up to create the energy needed to bring about this new reality.

When I was affirming that my credit cards were paid off, I would visualize myself at a celebration dinner with Phillip. I knew where we would go, what I would order, what I would wear and most especially what I would feel: deep love free from worry. It worked.

To practice, try these visualization exercises.

Write an Affirmation Letter

Sometimes you may find that your mind wanders when you try to focus on a goal just in your mind. Writing an affirmation letter can assist in generating the focus and details needed to create a new reality. There are many different types of letters you can write. I’ve listed a few examples below. Click here for additional information and writing prompts.

• Write a letter to the Universe explaining what you would like to contribute to the world.

• Write down what your ideal day would look like from sunrise to sunset.

• Write a letter to your self explaining why it has been hard to achieve a goal. You might be very surprised about what comes out.

• Write a letter to someone you admire about what qualities of theirs you would like to incorporate into your life.

Get Creative

Putting your affirmations into a picture or other work of art can be a tremendous way to add energy to your affirmations. Our actions on the physical plane have the most energy of anything we think or feel. That is why cooking dinner creates a meal quicker than thinking about dinner. Similarly, putting creative energy into your desires through action can jumpstart your motivation quicker than just thinking and speaking affirmations alone. Creative projects can include:

• Painting or drawing your ideal life or a symbol for your ideal life.

• Create a vision board or book.

• Compose a piece of music.

• Physically plant your dream in your yard & watch it grow.

• Create a mockup of your book cover, album cover, newspaper ad or logo for your new business, etc…

Smile

Smiling while you are saying affirmations brings fourth positive feelings almost immediately. You will be amazed at what a great mood you will be in when you start smiling.

Feel the Energy Within

Eckhart Tolle presents a wonderful exercise in his book A New Earth. He asks his readers to feel the vibration in their hands. Take a moment now to sense if you can consciously feel the presence and vibration of your hands. To me, it feels almost like a light buzzing all throughout the inside of my palms and fingers. You can sense the same thing in your legs, torso, head, all over. This exercise is a wonderful reminder that we all creative energy. The energy that will create our desires is what moves within us now. It is powerful enough to power our body and it is powerful enough to change any circumstance we so desire.

A few months ago I had an echocardiogram. It was an astounding experience. As the technician moves the ultrasound over your heart you can see it beating on the screen, and at the same time, you hear your heart beat. I was blown over. My heart was working its butt off for me and I wasn’t even aware of it. Without any effort on my part, it was beating away, nonstop, to keep me alive. What a reminder of the power within me that is so much greater than I am.

As I was shown on the echocardiogram, and as you can feel in your hands, the entire Universe is active within us. Before you say your affirmations, take a minute to feel your hands and remind yourself that there is power within you and within your words.

Get a Positive Power Boost

Do you find that after you read or hear something about positive thinking you are fired up for change? This is because you have a moment of belief. Self-help Greats are masters at getting you motivated for change. They rouse our feelings of power so that, even if for a short while, we believe we can change our life.

Right after watching The Secret, I exclaimed, “That’s it, my life is changing.” I had been in a small rut and even though I believed in the power of my mind, I was in a valley of doubt. This was the most opportune time to visualize a new life because I knew that I could create it. My visualizations are always the most intense and emotion-engaged when I first affirm that I can change my life.

I encourage you to listen to a motivational CD, watch a motivational talk or read something that really gets you fired up before doing your visualization and affirmations. You will be astonished at how strongly you will be able to feel your affirmations.

Take a Walk

Before or during your affirmations, walking in nature can be an inspiring act. Notice all of the miracles that surround you while you are walking. The colors and shapes of trees and flowers are beyond a doubt divinely created. Take the time to notice the precision and creativity in nature. Know that the force that guides each tree and flower while it is growing is the same force that is guiding your life.

Listen to Music

Music as an affirmation technique is a surefire way to get your emotions roused toward your intentions. You can say your affirmations before or during a piece of music and then let the music carry your feelings into your new reality. Music is wonderful because it gives your mind something to focus on rather than wander. Let your self sink into the melody, and with your eyes closed, let the music become the soundtrack to your new life.

I typically use classical or instrumental music as I prefer to choose the affirmations that I am saying rather than inadvertently affirm the lyrics of a particular song. Some of my favorites include:

Laura Berman Inspirational Music

Vivaldi - Four Seasons

Chopin - Fantaisie-Impromptu

Enya - Storms in Africa

Bach - Prelude in D Minor

Bach - Prelude in C

David Gray – January Rain

Meditate

One of the frustrations with our minds is that we have a conscious mind and a unconscious mind. It is harder to influence our unconscious mind, and typically, that is the portion of our minds that controls the out-picturing of our reality. Change would be lightening quick if we only had to consciously choose to believe something. For change to really occur, you need to influence your unconscious mind. One way to accomplish this is through meditation. Meditating gives your mind a break from the steady stream of thoughts so that you can get in touch with the more intuitive and influential part of yourself.

If you allow time to meditate before saying your affirmations, your conscious mind will have stopped (or slowed) its barrage of thoughts so that the message you are instilling can get through to your subconscious and implant the new belief. There are numerous ways to meditate including:

Counting – count up, count down, count 1 to 10, count at each inhalation and each exhalation.

Meditate on a single word: peace, love, abundance, prosperity, joy…

Watch your body – watch your breath move in & out of your lungs.

Move through your body feeling the Universe vibrate within.

Use a guided meditation CD.

Meditate on your specific affirmation – repeat it over & over again.

Focus on a single object.

Learning to meditate is a process. Our conscious minds do not easily release us from the grip of non-stop thinking. In the beginning it is especially important to pick a meditation that gives your conscious mind something to focus on. If your mind does wander, do not judge yourself, just observe your mind jump around & slowly guide it back to your focus point or saying.

Return from Affirmation Techniques to All About Affirmations