How Dow Affirmations Work
A lot of people talk about affirmations, but few know how to do them properly! They may also feel that it is not enough just to say an affirmation out loud, you have to put it into action.
In this article we will go over some easy steps for creating your own personal afforestation strategies and then testing them to see if they work. Once you find one that works for you, you can add it into your daily ritual and reap the benefits for yourself. You can even make it a habit.
There are many ways to use affirmations in your life, so don’t worry about which ones are right for you! Some examples include saying kind things to yourself (an internal assertion), writing down an affirmation and practicing repetition, adding positive experiences into your life, and replacing negative thoughts with positives.
All of these apply to external assertions as well. For example, instead of stating “I am beautiful,” you could state “today I will look in the mirror and notice all the wonderful things about me.” Or, “my body is healthy and strong, and I love myself today.”
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History of self help
A lot of people try to improve their lives by using different motivational tools, including affirmations. Having success with that concept comes down to picking meaningful statements and repeating them mentally or even out loud.
A few years ago, there was a popular theory about why some individuals seem to get more done than others. It’s called “Pygmalionism.” After English professor Henry Higgins taught himself how to speak French, he noticed that his students seemed far more motivated to learn it. So, he tried teaching the language to other people, but instead of learning it, they asked him questions about things unrelated to the lesson.
His conclusion? People who want to learn something tend to make conversations like someone who knows what they’re talking about. Because he was clearly knowledgeable in the field, so were those students he trained.
This idea is similar to how many people are familiar with the term “placebo effect.” Medical experts acknowledge that sometimes a sugar pill can have genuine healing powers. Even though you’ve been told that you’re getting medicine, nothing actually gets cured until you believe it does.
That’s because believing in the effectiveness of a treatment makes you feel better about yourself, which creates a positive emotional state. You feel healthier, and thus, healthier too.
Law of attraction
The law of attraction comes from the French word ‘attraction’, which means to draw or pull towards something. Your subconscious mind is like a computer program that processes information it receives through your senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell).
It then organizes this data into thoughts and feelings, creating internal experiences and perceptions. These are called signals sent to your brain to make conclusions.
Your subconscious picks the most powerful thought you have ever felt before, and turns that feeling into an intention. Then it uses that intention to create a physical experience with what you want.
That’s how the law of attraction works.
The key difference between the two is that with the law of attraction, you don’t need to do anything to produce your desired outcome – you just have to believe in the power of the law of attraction!
With the law of attraction, you can use it for yourself or for someone else, and it will work equally as well. You don’t have to be thinking about a specific person, thing, or situation to get the same result because the law of attraction works via energy.
So if you want to gain weight, you can think about eating healthier or spending more time exercising, or both. If you want to lose weight, you can think about either rejecting food or giving up things you enjoy so that you stay hungry, or both.
The universe has a plan
A few years ago, I read an interesting book called Living in Your Power. In it, the author mentioned something that changed my life — he referred to this as your “dow affirmations” or “wealth declarations.”
He said you can choose to put into action only those thoughts and beliefs that bring you money, success, and happiness. You can consciously think of things that make you feel good about yourself and your life, and then take smart actions to achieve them.
This is how most wealthy people operate. They have wealth-creating beliefs and behaviors. It’s their lifestyle.
By creating our own lives, we create our own opportunities to succeed. By thinking positive thoughts, we get results for what we want.
Positive affirmations
A positive affirmation is when your will or desire is repeated as fact. For example, if you want to lose weight then having a sentence such as “I will not eat past midnight” is a negative affirmation because it contains a word that does not exist (past).
A positive affirmation would be something like “I will eat only healthy snacks tonight,” or even better – why not just try the Ayurvedic diet? It is much more balanced than the typical Western diets.
Using an affirmative statement in place of a negative one can also help change your perception of yourself. You may feel bad about yourself for eating too much junk food, but replacing this thought with a healthier one changes how you perceive yourself.
The opposite of wanting to do something is not going through a process to achieve that goal, so by thinking about what you don’t want, you are creating a mental block. By changing the message, it alters the way you think about the topic and removes the obstacle. – Albert Einstein
You get what you give importance to, so make sure to add some strength to your inner voice by giving yourself credit for accomplished goals, or things you have already done. Give yourself grace and let yourself be happy for these achievements! No matter what you say to yourself, nothing can match the power of your own belief system.
General tips: use short, plain language and speak slowly to ensure your tone of voice is consistent.
Negative affirmations
A lot of people get really stressed out about life due to past experiences or media influence.
These fears can be subconscious, which makes them harder to recognize and overcome. For example, if you constantly hear stories about how your parents were not supportive and loving, then it creates a fear in you that they will never love you.
This fear may be so strong that it prevents you from establishing relationships or seeking out opportunities because you do not trust yourself to be loved.
It also may cause you to avoid taking risks in case things go wrong, or you are afraid to fail. This could eventually lead to you staying in a job that you no longer enjoy just to make money, or working for someone else who does not treat you well.
All this stress can have long-term effects on your mental and physical health. And it is totally preventable! You can choose to add into your daily routine negative affirmation exercises to reduce these stresses.
There are two types of negative affirmations: factual and emotional. Factual affirmations remove any doubts or inconsistencies that exist with false information such as “I am less than average” or “Nobody is better than anyone else.”
Emotional affirmations work by changing the way you feel about something. For instance, saying “I hate my boss” will probably make you angry.
Affirmation techniques
A popular way to create positive feelings is to use affirmations. An affirmation is a statement that contains no negative words, but instead uses positive ones. Yours could be something like “I will make my bed every day” or “My life will always have enough money for me to enjoy it.”
There are several theories as to why using affirmations works. It can reduce stress and bring you into a happier state of mind. You can also learn some helpful things about yourself by reading through past examples.
Your subconscious mind does not differentiate between truth and lies when you repeat an affirmation. This means that your body responds in ways related to the assertion just like if you said the word ‘no’ loudly enough.
Personal experiences
A lot of people say that affirmations don’t work, but they do not understand what makes them seem to fail for someone else. This is why it is important to have personal experience with affir- mations so that you know how they feel for you.
I will be very direct here – most people are wrong!
Affirmations actually work, but they require proof. You need to test your affirmation by using the opposite in your thoughts and then seeing if those results change or improve your life.
This isn’t always easy because we get attached to things– maybe you want to lose some weight, so you avoid eating foods that taste good. Or you may want to earn more money, so you stop trying hard to achieve your goal.
By having these attachments, you make changing your lifestyle difficult. But if you can let go and try again, your life will probably change for the better in the process.
That is exactly what I would recommend doing when no one is around and you have time to think about it. Try this technique during times when you have nothing going on and you can focus only on yourself.
Take a few minutes each day to tell yourself something positive about your life. It could be “My health has improved since I decided to eat healthier” or “I learned my lesson the last time I spent too much money,” or anything similar.
Should I use affirmations?
Using words or statements to promote positive thoughts is a very common way to boost your mental state. Positive thinking is almost always focused on changing how you feel, not about what things are like outside of that feeling.
That’s why using affirmation exercises isn’t necessarily the best strategy for everyone. Some people believe that telling yourself “I am wonderful” every day can contribute to feelings of self-importance and even narcissism.
Instead, focus on doing something which makes you feel happy, and then acknowledge that this made you feel good. Repeat this process several times a week and you will start to see changes in your emotional health and wellness.