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The Power of Positive Affirmations
For most of us, the modern world brings with it a high level of stress and anxiety. From
rushing around ticking off an endless to do list, being exposed to daily negative news, and
living in a society that no longer has strong community bonds - we experience tension in the
mind and body. We are hard-wired to look for danger. This is our brain attempting to
protect us. In doing so, we live lives filled with worries and negative thinking. Without the
bear or tiger to run from, our minds turn in on themselves.
Nicole Bowman is a psychic, medium, and intuitive artist. She shares that loving ourselves
first is the most important step to healing the world. Our hearts, minds, and homes are the
foundation of the world we live. How we speak to ourselves internally affects our world
view, which influences the world around us.
In Alison Ledgerwood’s TED Talk, A Simple Trick to Improve Positive Thinking, she states that
our perception of the world is often negative and changing how we communicate can create
a more positive outlook on life. Failures stick in our minds longer than successes because
our minds get stuck in the negative. Once we frame looking at a situation from a loss view, it
sticks. Our view of the world tends to sway toward the negative. We have to work harder to
see the positive. It takes effort, but we can train our minds to do this better.
Gratitude journaling can boost our wellbeing and improve our health. We can rehearse
good news and share it with other people. Talking about good experiences improves our
ability to think about positive things in our lives. We can help our communities to focus on
the upside by being kind, compassionate, and saying loving words. We can retrain our minds
if we put some effort into it.
One powerful way to shift from negative to positive thinking is affirmations. An affirmation
is a sentence we tell ourselves daily to invite that positive thing into our lives. It can be as
simple as ‘I am love’ or ‘I am worthy.’ The whole idea is to boost our confidence and energy
levels by the things we say and think about our lives. This practice helps us to look at our
jobs, relationships, environments and inner worlds – and become aware of what we want to
change. The first step is accepting where we are right now and then trusting that change is
possible.
We can introduce an affirmation practice into our lives for our wellbeing toolbox. We can
start by choosing one thing we want to invite into our life. Keep it simple. Say it daily and
breathe it in as you say it, speaking in the present tense. Be patient and imagine yourself
being and feeling all of it. Own how you feel now, accept where you are at, and know that a
more positive life is possible. Writing down our affirmations helps. An affirmation practice
clarifies what we desire and where we want to go in life. Our thoughts and words have
tremendous power, and we have the ability to create a more beautiful world through what
we say each day.