Affirmation

I grew up in a day and age, with busy, over-worked parents, where no one paid much attention to anything that I did until I did something wrong or produced something far below my potential. Therefore, when I became a parent, I created strong intentions to shepherd my children more with affirmations of what I liked about what they were doing and less with reminders of what they were doing wrong. However, to my surprise, I found this far more difficult than I expected it to be. I found that it was much easier to ignore happy, productive, busy children than it is to ignore children who are making poor choices with their time and energy. With time and effort I got better and better at affirming behavior that I wanted to encourage in my children while ignoring behavior that I hoped would be extinguished. And what I found is that affirmation is powerful!


Yet, everything that I learned about affirmation through parenting two children seemed to be lost on myself. When I began my journey toward wholeness and began to listen to the self-talk in my head - I was astounded by its negativity. If affirmation was so powerful in helping children grow and transform into higher functioning beings - what was I accomplishing in the area of personal growth with constant negative self-talk?



For several years since this revelation, instead of saying to myself "I am never going to get well - this cold is going to hang on forever" - I try to say, "I feel my body fighting this cold - I am going to be well soon." Or I choose to tell myself, "the fifties are the best years of one's life." "Wrinkles are a sign of wisdom and saging." "That wasn't a mistake - it was just another opportunity to grow into who I was made to be." "My soul is drawing these difficult things to me so that I can grow and better serve the highest good of the all."



Do I always talk to myself in positive affirmations? No, like all humans, I have days of discouragement where I slip back into negativity. However, learning to monitor my self-talk and to speak to myself in positive, affirming ways has been transformational for me.



My daughter's church is having a "No Complaint" campaign where you wear a pink plastic bracelet on one wrist. Whenever you catch yourself complaining out loud you have to move the bracelet to the other wrist. The goal is to make it 21 days without having to move the bracelet. When she was explaining it to me she said, "The Rabi says that if you catch yourself and don't say it out loud - it doesn't count." I wanted to say, "It's great to monitor and be in control of the words that you speak but it is harder and more important to monitor and control how you talk to yourself in your head."



Is your self-talk serving your highest good? Are you positive, affirming and compassionate in the way that you talk to yourself? If thoughts and self-talk are transformational - what are your messages to yourself bringing into your life?