Affirmation trap
Is positive thinking through affirmation a great motivational tool and inner booster or rather foolish technique of persuading yourself into something which isn’t true? The answer is: both. From this article you will learn how not to fall into a trap of affirmation.
Affirmations are positive sentences/statements which repeatedly repeated can be a great tool of changing both your thoughts and emotions.
It’s a kind of programming your mind in order to create more positive way of perceiving the world.
Beware of the trap
Using random affirmations as adhesive bandage (hoping that your problems will disappear by covering them with affirmation) not only will make you feel disappointed, but also won’t get you any closer to the solution.
In your head, you’ll keep repeating phrases which mean nothing to you or that you don’t believe in. Telling yourself “I’m wonderful” constantly, when you actually don’t feel that way, won’t make it happen. It can only distract you from the problem and working on yourself.
Forcing positive thinking on yourself is not a good solution when you feel negative emotions and your thoughts are destructive. Mindless persuasion of the same sentences is just stupid.
In order to get rid of mental obstacles you should turn on your thinking and submerge into your inner fears. That’s the only way to truly understand those problems and therefore liberate yourself from them.
Turn thinking on
What does it mean? It means that you should stop thinking about your fear/mental obstacle using some schemes. Instead, start thinking constructively (for example by asking yourself meaningful questions).
What does “submerge into your inner fears” mean? It means focusing on them rather than running away. The point is to look at your fear in many different ways so that you can completely understand it. Stop judging your mental obstacles and instead try to get to know them as good as possible.
For example, let’s say that a friend of yours told something about you that you dislike. That makes you angry. If you don’t want to get to know and understand this anger you’ll be stuck in a scheme in which you’ll be blaming your friend on your emotional state. In this situation, responsibility for your feeling lies outside.
Instead of that, if you have focused on how and where you feel that anger, you would be able to understand it better. Focus on it, and then ask yourself “What is it trying to tell me?” “What does it want to achieve?” - that will give you an access to a brand new knowledge about this feeling.
Talking to your subconsciousness would give you a great understanding of the essence of the problem.
Perhaps it would turn out that this emotion is so strong because you believed in what your friend has said. Or because you think that only good things should be said about you. Maybe you would realize that the source of the problem is in your thinking. It’s the first step toward taking back responsibility and what comes next, toward changing your emotional state.
Effective affirmation
If you start from submerging into your fear you will have a chance to create affirmation adapted to your needs. You should understand your fear, realize where does it come from and what’s it purpose. It is not always a pleasant thing to do.
It will be an affirmation which strengthens you while coping with the true cause of your problem.
Moreover, you will feel that this affirmation is true and good for you. Practising that kind of affirmation is a powerful tool supporting your personal growth.
In case of working on emotion (anger) mindless affirmation would concern how things that people say about you affect you (“It doesn’t affect me what people say about me”). However, it wouldn’t concern true cause of your problems and source of your feeling. Good affirmation would apply to what you think about yourself or what image of yourself you want to create in others eyes (“I accept myself the way I am”).
Create good and accurate affirmations - which hit the nail on the head, not just cover your problem.