Affirmations

[King sns]

My mom got me into them recently. Just a quick wiki tidbit for those that don't know. Affirmations (New Age) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They are kind of new-agey as the article implies. Not sure about the current scientific validity of these. I've always believed that the universe will give you what you ask for, or respond to positive and negative thoughts. (Perhaps this was my upbringing.)

What do you guys think?
Quacky? Out there? A ploy to make money from the vulnerable? Or amazing up and coming discovery?

 

[miss fortune]

I saw some lady who was big on daily affirmations on Wife Swap a while back (don't tell anyone I was watching it ) and something about repeating things like that was really creepy... it reminded me of Bob on What About Bob?

 

[Halla74]

I don't know how to react to that.

Everyday of my life I have woken up with the following mindset:

"Today's going to be great. I am going to kick ass, take names, and make shit happen. YeeeeeeHah!!!"

So, I don't know if affirmations would do me any good.

They might do other people good though, so I won't hate on them.

 

[Riva]

Affirmations are mind strengthening techniques. They could be interpreted as self hypnosis. Mind strengthening is something that is believable. I am sure we have all done it in our lives at least once without knowing it. And I am even more sure that we have made more negative remarks about our selves and carried it in our minds and believed those feelings which have about ourselves are true and cannot change.

So if negative affirmations are true, the positive once should also be true is that not?

--

And there are differences between visualizations and affirmations. To understand visualizations watch the Secret. Affirmations you could read Napoleon Hill's Think and grow rich.

But affirmations are a daily part of our lives even though not all of us have noticed it.

 

[Riva]

Today's going to be great.

This is not an affirmation it is actually a visualization. To visualize that the day is going to be great is something we want to happen and believe it is going to happen for sure.

I am going to kick ass, take names, and make shit happen. YeeeeeeHah!!!

Now this is a affirmation. It is a thought that you carry around about yourself.

 

[Riva]

Affirmation - Belief about self
Visualization - Belief about life

Ps - Watch The Secret.

 

[Polaris]

A positive attitude is empowering, as anyone who feels good can tell you, but I don't find affirmations to be a good way to achieve one. If you have to affirm something, then you don't believe it; and if you believe something, you have no need to affirm it. At best, affirmations might serve as a kind of crutch; more often, they lead to cognitive dissonance.

 

[disregard]

I don't like affirmations because it's clinging to an ideal in order to find inner peace.

You cannot realise true inner peace if it is dependent upon clinging to an ideal.

The relaxing calm derived from inner peace comes from not clinging, not fearing. Affirmations are used to combat fear (the fear of the negative, thus being essentially positive). Inner peace comes from not fearing by having lived. Having made it through many a struggle and coming out alright. The fear was naturally destroyed.

There is never a short-cut to inner peace.

 

[Halla74]

Affirmation - Belief about self
Visualization - Belief about life

Ps - Watch The Secret.

Good stuff, will do!

A positive attitude is empowering, as anyone who feels good can tell you, but I don't find affirmations to be a good way to achieve one. If you have to affirm something, then you don't believe it; and if you believe something, you have no need to affirm it. At best, affirmations might serve as a kind of crutch; more often, they lead to cognitive dissonance.

Bad ass response to this, I love it.

I don't like affirmations because it's clinging to an ideal in order to find inner peace.

You cannot realise true inner peace if it is dependent upon clinging to an ideal.

The relaxing calm derived from inner peace comes from not clinging, not fearing. Affirmations are used to combat fear (the fear of the negative, thus being essentially positive). Inner peace comes from not fearing by having lived. Having made it through many a struggle and coming out alright. The fear was naturally destroyed.

There is never a short-cut to inner peace.

Beautifully stated.

 

[Riva]

A positive attitude is empowering, as anyone who feels good can tell you, but I don't find affirmations to be a good way to achieve one. If you have to affirm something, then you don't believe it; and if you believe something, you have no need to affirm it. At best, affirmations might serve as a kind of crutch; more often, they lead to cognitive dissonance.

And I should mention that the main part of Affirmations is to believe the positive trait you want to be actually true. This is what people who believe in themselves do, they Believe in themselves. Affirmation is not simply a statement we affirm but a statement we have to believe is true.

 

[King sns]

This is not an affirmation it is actually a visualization. To visualize that the day is going to be great is something we want to happen and believe it is going to happen for sure.


Now this is a affirmation. It is a thought that you carry around about yourself.

From what I've been hearing, everything that you tell yourself, every thought that you have, every word that you say- is an affirmation. Many natural affirmations are negative. Training your mind to speak in present, positive affirmations, will improve your attitude and make your life better now. They are more effective in the present tense because when you say something in the future tense, the idea remains in the future, and therefore will not happen.

 

[Vasilisa]

shortnsweet, I have a new age mother, too. And yes, she is into these affirmations and encouraged me to read the books about them.

This is not an affirmation it is actually a visualization. To visualize that the day is going to be great is something we want to happen and believe it is going to happen for sure.

Now this is a affirmation. It is a thought that you carry around about yourself.

What I learned differs from the article a little. From how I understand it, the most effective affirmation is to believe it because it already happened.
So today was such an amazing day!
and then feel gratitude for the blessing that has already happened.
I am so grateful that today was such an amazing day!
(this particular phrase might sound awkward with the use of today, but you get the point)

Some sources claim it works because of cosmic energy. Maybe that is true and maybe not. But it seems to me that psychology indicates positive thinking is beneficial to people. Because thoughts influence behaviors and moods, which influence interactions with people, its like a chain. And the amazing thing we humans have is the ability to recognize thinking patterns & behavior patterns and try to influence them, for the better, right? Some folks with physical afflictions may not be able to as much, but in general.

The only problem I have with the affirmations thing is that if you extrapolate it out really far it starts to seem like its saying if something bad happens to someone they deserve it. And we can think of all kind of suffering by innocents around the world that is undeserved. It seems like it could even foster complacency.

But truly, for personal meditations I think affirmations can be good. A wise lady told me a good one that I should probably be using right now.

 

[King sns]

shortnsweet, I have a new age mother, too. And yes, she is into these affirmations and encouraged me to read the books about them.


What I learned differs from the article a little. From how I understand it, the most effective affirmation is to believe it because it already happened.
So today was such an amazing day!
and then feel gratitude for the blessing that has already happened.
I am so grateful that today was such an amazing day!
(this particular phrase might sound awkward with the use of today, but you get the point)

Some sources claim it works because of cosmic energy. Maybe that is true and maybe not. But it seems to me that psychology indicates positive thinking is beneficial to people. Because thoughts influence behaviors and moods, which influence interactions with people, its like a chain. And the amazing thing we humans have is the ability to recognize thinking patterns & behavior patterns and try to influence them, for the better, right? Some folks with physical afflictions may not be able to as much, but in general.

The only problem I have with the affirmations thing is that if you extrapolate it out really far it starts to seem like its saying if something bad happens to someone they deserve it. And we can think of all kind of suffering by innocents around the world that is undeserved. It seems like it could even foster complacency.

But truly, for personal meditations I think affirmations can be good. A wise lady told me a good one that I should probably be using right now.

I've been hearing to believe it as if it IS happening.
Like, "Today is the best day of my life." My mom uses Louise Hay to learn about them and then has a bunch of those little apps for Iphone.

 

[Vasilisa]

I've been hearing to believe it as if it IS happening.
Like, "Today is the best day of my life." My mom uses Louise Hay to learn about them and then has a bunch of those little apps for Iphone.

Gotcha, my mom and her friends are all about The Secret and thats where it says you gotta believe its already assured and feel grateful.

 

[Riva]

From what I've been hearing, everything that you tell yourself, every thought that you have, every word that you say- is an affirmation. Many natural affirmations are negative. Training your mind to speak in present, positive affirmations, will improve your attitude and make your life better now. They are more effective in the present tense because when you say something in the future tense, the idea remains in the future, and therefore will not happen.

Affirmations would work only if you believe it is true about yourself. "I am hard working and persistence" would be the phrase. To believe this is true and have no doubt about it is a correct affirmation.

On the other hand visualizations are things you want to happen in your life. And it is best that you actually see yourself in those situations. Open your eyes look around to actually live the moment in the present tense. Like a holodeck program in Star Trek.

 

[Riva]

It might confuse you to see the differences between the two initially. But I must add that affirmation and visualizations go hand in hand. I just wanted to break it in to pieces and categorize them. Thanks to my Ti maybe. I just have to do it. Get to the basics, compare, contrast and study it.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

The only problem I have with the affirmations thing is that if you extrapolate it out really far it starts to seem like its saying if something bad happens to someone they deserve it. And we can think of all kind of suffering by innocents around the world that is undeserved. It seems like it could even foster complacency.

I’ve seen this too. The people I know who are the biggest advocates of doing affirmations seem to be the most critical of others for having problems they don’t know how to fix. There’s this “the universe provides to those who are willing to see it” attitude, and people who are ‘choosing’ to have problems don’t deserve any compassion. I’m not certain that’s exactly what Vasilisa meant, but it’s my only problem with affirmations. Using them seems to somehow engender a seething disdain for ‘victim mentality’. Any seething disdain is going to have ‘shadow’ consequences, and in this case: a person gets to be easily threatened by ‘victim mentality’, so they project it into anyone else’s experience of having a hard time with something. It’s possible to work on avoiding ‘victim mentality’ without necessarily also fostering contempt for it. But with many hardcore advocates of affirmations- it often goes too far and ends up looking more like a distinct lack of empathy.

Overall, though, I think affirmations are a good thing.

If you have to affirm something, then you don't believe it; and if you believe something, you have no need to affirm it. At best, affirmations might serve as a kind of crutch; more often, they lead to cognitive dissonance.

That’s the whole point. Studies on cognitive dissonance have proven that people start to believe things that they say out loud- because the human mind naturally rejects the condition of cognitive dissonance. Most people have some variation of “I’m a loser, good things won’t happen to me” bouncing around in their head as an automatic thought. The whole point of affirmations is to reduce those negative automatic thoughts by raising cognitive dissonance about them.

 

[Synapse]

wouldn't positive affirmations be seen as a feeder to the subconscious to encourage those self beliefs that self perpetuate the motion of confident assertion in the artifact of life?

intentions are constantly altered in ways we are unaware and the energy that creates them would be manifestations of those entities that expand or disrupt the flow of that internal monologue that believes or disbelieves in affirming conditions to be given the right to achieve.

 

[Saslou]

wouldn't positive affirmations be seen as a feeder to the subconscious to encourage those self beliefs that self perpetuate the motion of confident assertion in the artifact of life?

Possibly .. I like your thinking.

I think that positive affirmations are a good source of producing positive outcomes .. or even negative outcomes where you can appreciate the positives from it.
Humans are energy, our aura's can't dispell this negativity until we change our thinking/behaviour (Ever let someone get close enough and got that vibe of negative energy?) Positive energy thus bring closer positive people towards us .. That's the idea anyway.

 

[Josephized_Joe]

wouldn't positive affirmations be seen as a feeder to the subconscious to encourage those self beliefs that self perpetuate the motion of confident assertion in the artifact of life?

intentions are constantly altered in ways we are unaware and the energy that creates them would be manifestations of those entities that expand or disrupt the flow of that internal monologue that believes or disbelieves in affirming conditions to be given the right to achieve.

And I thought Shakespeare was difficult to decipher. I'd hate to mark your essay questions.