Create Effective Affirmations

Affirmation is a statement of an idea you desire to "make firm", to impress upon your subconscious mind, so that eventually it begins to work for you automatically.

There are many different ways to practice self-hypnosis, and writing affirmations is one of them. As you keep on working with self-hypnosis, you may find that at different times your mood and preferences may change and different methods may be more suitable for you. The more options you're aware of, the better you'll be able to deal successfully with any situation regardless of the circumstances.

There may be times when you just want to relax and listen to a self-hypnosis recording and let it guide you toward your desired outcome. There may be times when you feel too busy and may find it more suitable to just let the subliminal recording play in the background. And then, there may be times when you feel too restless, or you are experiencing some pressing feelings you'd like to get out of your system and transform them, times when you just don't feel like relaxing, but would rather engage in some form of physical action. Writing affirmations is one of the things you can do at such times. By the way, you can write them or type them, or even repeat them to yourself silently or aloud, according to your preference.

Writing affirmations allows you to become aware of any conflicting beliefs hiding in your subconscious mind, so that you can transform them at the same time.

An effective process of working with affirmations has three main stages - just like a good hypnosis session, a prayer, or any other form of changework. The following process describes the way I work with affirmations.

The first stage gets you into the appropriate state of mind for impressing the affirmation upon your subconscious. In a regular hypnosis session, you get into this state of mind most often through relaxing your mind and body. When working with affirmations, you may want to align yourself with the source of all power, or if you prefer - your own inner power to create changes in your life, by writing appropriate affirmations. The purpose of this stage in hypnosis is to help you to put aside the critical faculty of your conscious mind. The purpose of this stage when writing affirmations is to help you put your "outer" self aside, so that you can access your inner "creative power", your "true self" which knows of no limitations and has all the knowledge and power to effect the desired changes in your life.

Here are few samples of such affirmations:

"I live and move and have my being in an ocean of love, power and wisdom of God".

"I am in, one with, and completely amalgamated with all love, power and wisdom of God".

"I allow all the love, power and wisdom of God to express fully and freely through me now."

Depending on the goal you are working with, you may replace the word(s) "love, power and wisdom", with "God", "Spirit", "abundance", "peace", "energy", "healing energy", "light", "life", "chi", "ki" or any other attribute or the "universal essence".

How long should you keep on writing these affirmations in one sitting? Until you get the corresponding FEELING. You impress your subconscious mind through FEELINGS, so you need to keep on writing until you can FEEL that the affirmation you are writing is true for you.

If listening to a particular music helps you to access the desired feeling and create the optimal mood, the optimal state, by all means have that music play in the background. You may also listen to corresponding subliminal recordings while writing your affirmations.

The second stage of writing affirmations consists of your "goal-specific" affirmations. Your goal should be stated in positive terms (what you want to experience instead of what you don't want), and be in present tense - "as if" the desired outcome is your reality now.

Your affirmations should begin with "I am" or "I am becoming", "I have", etc.

Your affirmations should also be specific. For example, if you affirmed "I now have more money" - you may find one cent somewhere and the affirmation would be fulfilled, but that's probably not what you had in mind. Your subconscious mind takes your statements literally and it fulfills them according to what you affirm. A better affirmation would be "I now have $(specific amount)", or "I am now earning $(specific amount) a month".

You may write these affirmations in the first ("I am"), second ("You are" and third person ("[your name] is"). Also, incorporate "feeling" words into your affirmations, words that help you to elicit appropriate emotions relating to your goal. For example

"I feel so good that I am now able to ..."

"I feel so exited now that I have ..."

"I have decided to ..."

"I am committed to ..."

Certain types of general affirmations do work well, too. For example "All my needs are now and forever supplied", or "I am enjoying perfect health now and forever". These general types of affirmations are pretty close to the affirmations you were writing in the first stage of the affirmation process because what you're doing here is affirming and aligning yourself with spiritual truths. You are simply affirming that you desire to experience in your physical world what is already true for you in spirit. You are acknowledging these spiritual truths and allowing them to express in your life.

The universe (or, your subconscious / superconscious mind - whatever term you prefer) follows the path of least resistance. This means that what you ask for will come in a way that is the easiest to get according to your beliefs, desires and expectations and according to beliefs, desires and expectations of everyone else who may be involved in your project.

If you leave the "how" what you desire will come about - but instead state, for example, "this now manifests for me in a perfect way for the highest good of all" - you'll will often get what you desire faster. There are many more ways of getting what we desire that we are consciously aware of, so leaving this element to the universal creative intelligence (or your "inner wisdom") would be a better way of proceeding in many instances.

It is also good to distinguish between the "form" and the "essence". The "essence" relates to the feeling you're after, the feeling you believe the specific thing give you. The "form" is the thing you believe will best fulfill this need and enable you to experience the desired feeling. Often times we may get exactly the thing we asked for only to find out that it didn't really give us the feeling we were after. Also, focusing on the "essence" or the "feeling" will help to manifest the truly desired experience in your life much faster and to your greater satisfaction.

To find out what is the "essence" of what you desire, you may simply ask yourself a question what do you hope will the thing you're after give you. For example, you may want a specific car because you believe it will make you feel important (i.e. you base your self-esteem on having a specific thing) or because you desire a reliable transportation and the car you desire has a great performance, or is big enough so you can fit your whole family in it, etc.

The affirmations you write will work in conjunction with the beliefs that are already impressed upon your subconscious mind. So, if you are writing affirmations for prosperity, what may initially happen is that you end up with more offers for the same type of work you're accustomed to getting.

This simply means that, through repeated action, this method of acquiring money has become conditioned in your subconscious mind. And, of course, you can change it by reaffirming the method in which you'd rather be acquiring money now, until this new idea becomes impressed upon your subconscious mind.

Or, if you have a health challenge, and begin to affirm for perfect health, the first method you may come across may again be the one that is most acceptable to you according to beliefs and conditioning already impressed in your subconscious mind.

Whatever first comes your way as a response to your affirmation doesn't mean that it's the only way - it just means that it's most appropriate based on your current beliefs. By sticking with the idea you really had in mind, sooner or later you'll get your desired outcome.

You may also get the actual thing you're after or you may end up with a lot of opportunities requiring some kind of action on your part and leading to the acquisition of the desired thing. It's important to recognize when what you asked for is manifesting in some way in your life, even if it's not exactly what you asked for. This will still boost your confidence and condition your subconscious mind for success because you'll know that something is working even if you need to adjust your request in some way.

While I did say that you should be "specific" there are some things that you should avoid regardless of how initially attractive such ideas may seem to be. Things to avoid are asking for a job that a specific person has, a possession belonging to a specific person, or that a specific person (e.g. Joe or Mary) goes out with you on a date, or worse, drops dead. Can you get those things with affirmations? Yes, you can - but ultimately you may not like the consequences. These things would be "ill-gotten" and sooner or later, something would be taken away from you "in exchange", something that you consider valuable.

You can, on the other hand, affirm for yourself that you are irresistibly attractive and that you ideal partner is now coming into your life. You can also list down the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual qualities of such a person as well as any other general interests. You can specify what kind of relationship you'd like to attract and enjoy. You can specify that you'd like to work in a specific occupation, make certain amount of money, etc. And you can affirm peace, love, happiness and abundance for other people. In short, if you wouldn't want other people affirming something for you, don't affirm such things for others.

When you affirm for something, it's pretty much like throwing a pebble (your statement) into an ocean (of infinite supply). It will create waves in all directions, gather all different expressions of the energy (thoughts and feelings) you just sent out, it will multiply and come back to you. So, unless you'd really like to experience what you asked for multiplied and returned to you, don't affirm it.

If you desire something, but don't have a clue how to create such experience in your life, or it appears that all doors are closed to you, you can affirm:

"The way now opens for me to ... (state your desire)"

The way to uncover any conflicting beliefs you may have regarding what you desire to create in your life is to write your affirmation once, then take a deep breath, and write down whatever first comes to your mind as a response to such statement. Then write your affirmation again, take another deep breath and write down whatever comes to your mind as a response. For example:

(affirmation) "I, (your name), completely forgive myself"

(response) "I smashed my dad's car. I was so irresponsible."

(affirmation) "I, (your name), completely forgive myself"

(response) "I never once called my mother in two years. What kind of a person am I?".

(affirmation) "I, (your name), completely forgive myself"

(response) "I yelled at my son. Oh boy, I'm so stressed out" ... etc.

Incidentally, if you choose to work with forgiveness affirmations, you should write them 70 times a day for seven days - you're bound to experience some major transformation and emotional clearing in just one week. You may be very surprised with the results.

And talking of "clearing", if you find yourself standing in front of apparently insurmountable obstacles, you may write the following affirmations:

"The path to my (being, having, doing) ...is now clear."

"All obstacles to my (being, having, doing) ... vanish into nothingness".

"I now give all of my problems to the Spirit (Christ, Inner Wisdom, God) within me."

"All obstacles to my (being, having, doing) ... now dissolve in the Light."

"I totally surrender to my Inner Wisdom".

"Beloved God, Thy Will be done in me and through me now and forever."

The third stage of the affirmation process consists of closing the process. In hypnosis, this is usually done through suggestions for emerging from the state of hypnosis to normal waking consciousness.

While writing affirmations, you can write down "gratitude" affirmations acknowledging the acceptance of the blessings (change) you have just asked for.

Some examples of these affirmations are:

"I am deeply grateful for my life".

"I am deeply grateful that I now enjoy perfect health."

"I am deeply grateful that the million dollars are now manifesting in my hands."

"I am deeply grateful for the ability to serve others."

"I am deeply grateful for my ability to ..."

And, of course, you may close the whole process with "It is so!", or "So be it!", or "Amen!" knowing that what you asked for will most definitely manifest in your life according to your beliefs and expectations.