The Affirmations of Love

“In our unhappiness, there is so much we're not seeing. Don't treat the soul as an appendix at the tiniest hurt. Find joy in the little things, those which seem so little but are in reality so much - the stars in the sky, the leaves on a tree ... and then when you look at everyone who's going through the motions of life, blind to all this beauty, let it pierce your soul, to remember when you were that blind, and took everything for granted.”
— Mickie Kent

As a journey of discovery, life can seem full of questions with few answers. Call it synchronicity or serendipity or coincidence - or just plain luck; but the fact is, sometimes you have no idea why something amazing happens to you. Is there something beyond our five senses, or are we just a random echo in the corridor of what we term as time? What can we really be certain of - when there is so much we have to understand about ourselves and our place in the universe?

There are so many "truths" that turn out to be "myths" - like the belief that we only have five senses. Sure, sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch are the big ones - but even the way we understand them are changing. Have you seen the taste map of the tongue, the diagram showing that different regions are sensitive to salty, sweet, sour or bitter flavours? That is now said to be a myth.

Read about the link between taste and the brain.

We have many other ways of sensing the world and our place in it. Proprioception is a sense of how our bodies are positioned. Nociception is a sense of pain. We also have a sense of balance - the inner ear is to this sense as the eye is to vision - as well as a sense of body temperature, acceleration and the passage of time.

Compared with other species, though, humans are missing out. Bats and dolphins use sonar to find prey; some birds and insects see ultraviolet light; snakes detect the heat of warm-blooded prey; rats, cats, seals and other whiskered creatures use their "vibrissae" to judge spatial relations or detect movements; sharks sense electrical fields in the water; birds, turtles and even bacteria orient to the Earth's magnetic field lines.

And when it comes to "happiness" - we seem to luck out again when we compare ourselves to the rest of the living community we share the planet with. Many of us think we know what will make us happy, but in some cases we haven't a clue. We routinely overestimate how happy something will make us, whether it's a birthday, free pizza, a new car, a victory for our favourite sports team or political candidate, winning the lottery or raising children.

Read how to increase your prosperity.

Money does make people happier, but only to a point - poor people are less happy than the middle class (unless you live in a society not based on cash wealth), but the middle class are just as happy as the rich. We overestimate the pleasures of solitude and leisure and underestimate how much happiness we get from social relationships.

On the flip side, the things we dread don't make us as unhappy as expected. Monday mornings aren't as unpleasant as people predict. Seemingly unendurable tragedies - paralysis, the death of a loved one - cause grief and despair, but the unhappiness doesn't last as long as people think it will. People are remarkably resilient. There are all kinds of theories about how and why things happen in our lives and how much each of us has to do with the outcome. Is there a magic formula for creating a successful life or career?

Some people are committed to the concept of goal setting. "You have to know where you want to go," they insist. "Then, you must set long and short-term goals and march resolutely forward until you reach your destination." The idea has been likened to that of a torpedo, speeding toward its target. When the torpedo veers off course, an internal feedback system makes the necessary corrections and points it back to its programmed end point. Thus, we are responsible for knowing where we want to go and getting ourselves there.

Is the best goal no goal?

There is another school of thought that agrees with part one of that equation but is a little more mystical about part two. That theory is that, if you know what you want and send that message out to the universe, you will receive it. That is the principle behind the best-selling book, The Secret, not unlike "If you build it, they will come," - the line made famous in the motion picture Field of Dreams.

As a self-help guru, you just have to reword things a little and you can pretty much resell anything that self help has ever produced. The concept of creating a state of feeling good can be labelled as a winning feeling; the freedom of outcome concept can be labelled as turning crisis into a creative opportunity. But even if these programmes do help us, like anything in self-help, even after having the absolute clarity of what you need to do to become successful in any endeavour you put your vision on, nothing is going to happen unless you do something with that understanding.

Read more about money-making gurus.

A third idea is that of synchronicity, not to be confused with coincidence. Synchronicity is when events occur that seem to be related but have no discernible cause that connects them. Coincidence is more of an accident or a fluke. The subtle distinction seems to be that there really is a reason behind synchronistic happenings; we just don't know what it is.

These are at three explanations for why some people achieve their dreams, get the perfect jobs or spouses, build great careers, or seem to always be in the right place at the right time. But if you ask these same people what contributed to their success, they are likely to say, "I had a lot of lucky breaks". Very few will take credit for setting a goal and working hard to attain it or admit it was just a series coincidental occurrences. Instead, they will credit luck.

When something good happens do you believe it is just lady luck handing you a magic four-leaf clover to clutch in your fist. Do you believe that there is no doubt about the existence of luck? Others are more mystical in their belief about a cosmic plan preferring the philosophical concept of synchronicity to coincidence. They refuse to accept happenstance; claiming that the oddest things do happen, but they are connected, even if they don't pretend to know how. The important point is what you choose to believe; some will believe in luck, while still giving credence to the other possibilities. Most feel that one theory doesn't adequately explain everything that comes our way over the years. Why is life "good" to some, and "bad" to others?

Is it just a matter of perception? That there is neither "good" or "bad" happenings, but the weight we attach to them. For example, if we "fail" at something, we should learn from that "failure", not focus on the "failure" itself. The unhappiest of mortals are those who insist on reliving the past, over and over in their imagination, continually criticising themselves for past mistakes, continually condemning themselves for past sins.

As humans are creations of their past, society, culture, even our biology (it used to be thought) demands we carry around our past like baggage. But if our genes our plastic, they we can change their programming. World history is a lot of rhetoric, uproar, mass movements; but in reality history is made by the individual, not by the masses.

In this way, it is our own negative mindset which sabotages (or second-guesses) our choices and decisions. Negativity is poison; getting rid of negative thinking patterns is important because negative thinking affect us mentally, physically and spiritually. Negativity breaks the link to our intuition - requiring us to consciously challenge our negative thought processes to replace them with positive affirmations and inspired actions.

Enhance affirmations with sensory input.

Experts emphasise the importance of stepping out of negative thinking and switching to a more enjoyable way of living life to break the power negative thinking can have on our lives. Thus, it seems that although we must look at the sky every day to remember the immense freedom open to us - we must then look within ourself to make certain that we can enjoy that freedom. Our thoughts influence the reality that we experience, and we can use them to be happy and successful.

Positive steps to self-development boosts with self-confidence, and helps us to deal with (what we negatively perceive) as our own shortcomings, goals and planning for success, obligations, and commitments. In order to make the most of ourselves we need to study the science of self.

The science of self

“The secret of health for both the body and the mind is not to mourn the past or worry about the future, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
— The Teaching of Buddha (by the Bukkyõ Dendõ Kyõkai Organisation)

Every self-development guru will have his or her own theories (comprised from a body of thought that stretches back decades) or self-help concepts they will claim holds the key to unlock the mysteries of who we are, and how we can improve who we are. They do this, because naturally they want to turn a profit for themselves. Some oversimplify, some obfuscate, but when you become well read in this field, you realise that most concepts are similar, if not the same. They are all trying to be a manual to what makes you - you.

Self-imag­e psychology encompasses a person's entire being starting with the premise that a human is by nature always moving towards their predominant view of "self". Some believe that the basic self is never flawed as it is a "God-given" gift. It's what we choose to do with it that counts. We determine in large measure the course of our lives through the image we hold of ourselves. This is an extremely powerful truth: You have a self image. You act out what that self image is. So work on that image, because the ceiling on your success is your self-image. Charles Schwab said that personality is to people what perfume is to a flower.

Some experts have divided these self-images into categories of personality traits (Type A, B, C and D), which can be be ascertained through tests. Adherents to these tests to ascertain your personality traits believe the information can provide important knowledge about your health - e.g., about your potential for heart disease, high blood pressure and other negative health effects believed to result from certain aspects of the Type A behaviour pattern.

Filling out a personality quiz can sometimes be misleading and self-defeating. It's very common that someone forms a limiting belief about his or her personality and becomes stuck doing a certain behaviour, just because a quiz result gave him or her false information about themselves. But some may find it useful guidance.

Click here to take a personality test.

Followers of the classification of personality types into four major categories say this is a very accurate personality type assessment. I'm more inclined to believe that categorisation can lead to the slippery ground of labelling, and that the human personality is too complex to be described in the terms of any one personality type theory. It's not as easy as to just ask: Are you burnout-prone stressed out overachiever Type A personality? The laid back underachiever Type C personality? Or the balanced Type B personality?

Another point to consider is that you will certainly have tons of other personality traits that are not covered at all by a single theory, that's why one personality type theory is certainly insufficient to help you understand yourself well. For example, you might find that you have Type D personality traits but still find that you have some personality traits from another type such as Type C. However, the important part of the theory involves the claim that personality types can be changed.

Whether you are a Type A B C or D you can still change your personality or even change one single trait that is associated with one of those types. It's believed we don't inherit our personalities, nor we are stuck because of our genes; a Type A personality can have three children who are Type B, Type C and Type D. The approach also provides an incentive to change - once you know your "general" negative traits, you can treat the underlying causes.

For instance, it's said that Type D people by nature fear to talk about their emotions and to approach people as a result of their fear of rejection. Thus, in order for a Type D to change his or her personality he or she first needs to build self esteem (and deal with self image issues) so that he or she can stop fearing rejection. Once the root cause is dealt with, it's believed the problem will disappear on its own.

You are made up of liabilities and assets. You have within you the desire to be happy and unhappy, the will to succeed and the will to fail, the desire for self-fulfilment and the desire for self-destruction. It's like looking in a mirror and finding two different people for different times. Sometimes you will have a frown on your face and feel frustrated; sometimes you will have a smile on your face, because you feel successful.

When you like the better you, you are that moment enlarging the scope of your personality. If you choose frustration as a way of life, you undermine your personality and diminish your self-image. In other words, you and you alone can add to your assets or accumulate more liabilities. No one else can do this for you. Here are some points the experts say you can utilise to be the better you, the big you, with a better personality.

How to be a better you

• Do one thing at a time, shoot for one goal at a time.


• Live in the present. Live today.


• Live from happiness, rather than for happiness. This goes for almost everything in life, including success.


• Exercise your imagination creatively to achieve success.


• Yearn for self-improvement. Some believe opportunity never knocks; you are opportunity, and you must knock on the door leading to your destiny. You prepare yourself to recognise opportunity, to pursue and seize opportunity as you develop the strength of your personality, and build a self-image with which you are able to live with your self-respect alive and growing.


• Hold on to your self-respect by appraising yourself honestly.


• Forget the mistakes of yesterday. Yesterday has gone forever. Stop criticising yourself and stop criticising others.


• Learn to listen to others. It helps remove bias from your opinions.


• If you have a goal, reach for it. If you make a mistake, try again.


• Don't be timid in conversation. Talk even if you make a mistake.


• You must re-educate yourself to accept fear as a necessary part of growth, then move on; 90% of what we worry about never eventuates.

We're unconsciously living with barriers and limits on life, but self-improvement comes from a point of view that what you think and believe is not absolute or unchangeable. You might need to remember lessons from your past negative experiences, but you should only focus on the positive ones. You are the navigator of your mind, and applying this type of concious control to your thoughts is said to bring about some of the most staggering and sudden positive changes you could imagine.

Some approaches are scientific, some are more esoteric (or mumbo-jumbo if you like), it will depend on what sort of belief resonates with you. I am a practical person, and although I don't believe science is the only bastion for understanding, it is a verifiable one - allowing us to define practical, helpful tips to apply the theories to our everyday lives, to get results. Underlying all physical phenomena are scientific laws.

When principles are based on science, and theorists and self-help authors cite numerous experiments and studies to support their claims, you don't feel like you have to make a "leap of faith" to trust in what is being said. However, in a world where logic has let us down, some may prefer claims that are not all backed with solid logic, but offer an alternative look at how the world works.

Others stick to the view that your life isn't guided by what you think, say, or do - it's guided by what you believe, and thus may prefer more "spiritual" theories. However, the power of thoughts, words and actions in our lives (or more importantly the weight we attach to them) is clear to see. Researchers posit that 50% of our make-up comes from genetics while 10% is determined by our circumstances (like our job, marital status, wealth). The other 40% is determined by our habitual thoughts, feelings, words and actions. This is why it's possible to raise your happiness levels. In the same way you'd crank up the thermostat to get comfortable on a chilly day, you actually have the power to re-programme your happiness set-point to a higher level of peace and well-being.

Other experts emphasise that what others think about us is immaterial; the only thing that matters is what you think. When you want to do something, ask yourself why you're doing it - if you don't know, then find out - and ignore what people think. If it feels right, make yourself happy. Many self-help gurus try to place you in a system or product that tells you how to fix your problems (erroneously called self-help - you're not helping yourself, they're helping themselves to your money), but everyone is unique and there is no one-size-fits-all cure. It is going to be more beneficial if we figure things out for ourselves.

Use your own affirmations as a mind cure.

Not only is this one of our main real freedoms; it's also a journey of growth and learning that will aid in the self-development process - rather than just following some other person's system and hoping for improvement to appear in your life "as if by magic". This is why talking therapies are so beneficial (if somewhat slow process) at helping people work out their problems - it is a proven method that helps us work things out for ourselves with a qualified professional.

Restoring balance to our life

There is no doubt that we have so much on our minds these days. We take on all and be all. The minds ability to analyse, plan and communicate all that we want to accomplish day in and day out has helped us reach were we are today. It can also be a double edged sword.

Our brain can help us reason, be creative, plan and help others. It can also fill us with fear, doubt and uncertainty. This in return can be very overwhelming and causes us unnecessary stress. Experts say when we are awake we are in beta most of the time. Beta is the left side of our brain. Studies suggest we spend about 1 hour in alpha time, the right side of the brain.

Read about brainwaves here.

• Alpha (Right side of the brain): Receptive, Intuition, Present, Relaxed, Being, Listening, Imagination


• Beta (Left side of the brain): Active, Thought, Past/Future, Tense, Doing, Talking, Calculation

It is believed that meditation helps restore the balance needed, by increasing our time in the alpha side of the brain. This allows the brain to be in the present, before you interpret sensations on the beta side of the brain. Restoring balance leaves your mind and body free to do all the enjoyable activities. You will find more time for you, your life will be organized and you will be able to determine what you want to fill your life with and what you don't.

Read about the power of meditation.

There are many different meditation techniques, e.g., mindfulness, affirmations, mantras, standing-sitting or walking, chakras, visualisations, colour and light, candle, sound, fragrance, and many others. Applying one of these into your daily life will give your mind and body a break from the everyday stresses that are attacking your energy and leaving you with nothing. As an example, here is a boost for your confidence - the visualisation technique. This is believed to help you boost your confidence in any challenge you face.

1. Take a few seconds to recognise and release all tension from your body. Do an evaluation. Take a few deep breaths, then breath naturally.


2. Visualise yourself entering into your challenge with confidence. Everything about your challenge - change all negative into a positive flow. Speaking, thinking and feeling positive.


3. Keep this image in your mind as long as possible. Then after that - reinforce this new confidence with an affirmation you designed for this particular challenge.

When you are nervous or feeling tension, take a few moments to visualise some new self-confidence. Becoming aware of the two parts of our brain allows us to know where our thoughts and actions are coming from. Is it coming from present or past/future? Is it coming from being or doing? Or are we more active or receptive? Meditation can create balance between the thinking and emotional sides of our brain.

Experts say that affirmations can help boost this process. Affirmations are your desires made into statements that you read or say to yourself - but don't underestimate this simple mind technique. Experts say affirmations are very powerful processes we can use to create our reality.

To get into a higher state, however, we must say those affirmations and pay full attention to them. If we just saying them with no feeling - as if they hold no meaning for us - then in one sense it's like they're going right through us. It's like saying, "Yes, yes, yes," to someone when you've not really heard them. It's the same with affirmations. Say it and feel it. Picture it and know it.

The more real you make your affirmations, the more it will happen, experts say. You have to experience as well, you have to feel it inside. It's your feelings that create your reality, too. The more you can picture having something, and the more you can feel it, the more rapidly you will create it. So, feeling these affirmations with a sense of knowingness is a good state to be in, but if you're just saying them because you have to, with no sense of them as a truth, then it's neither not wasted nor bad, it's just simply that you're not getting the maximum results from them.

Experts warn that affirmations are a very powerful way to change your reality, but they don't work if they're merely statements of what you want to be true. Affirmations work only when they are statements of something you already know to be true. The best affirmation is a statement of gratitude and appreciation, and it's believed that a grateful idea or thought, which is spoken and acted upon, produces wonderful results - when it comes from true knowing; not from an attempt to produce results, but from an awareness that results have already been produced.

Moreover, think a thought you can accept, i.e., "My success is coming to me now,” or “all things lead to my success". If there is something you choose to experience in your life, do not "want" it - choose it fully, not half-heartedly. One key way to increase the power of affirmations some experts suggest is a method called affirmation imprinting.

The goal with affirmation imprinting is to repeat a statement over and over again, day after day, until it makes an "imprint" on your subconscious. Once this occurs, your subconscious mind will sense a difference between what it sees as being "real" and your outer physical world. This difference will cause a tension and your subconscious mind will provide you with ideas, motivation and behaviours so that your outer world will begin to match up with your inner world. Adherents to this practice claim that it will seem almost magical the way doors and opportunities open up for you everywhere in order to make that affirmation a reality.

However, in order for the affirmation imprinting to occur most effectively, the affirmation statements need to be written a specific way. Experts provide three guidelines to powerful affirmation statements:

1. They must be personal. You are going to use the words "I" and "My" in each case. For example, a proper affirmation would be "I am confident when speaking in front of a large audience", not "You are confident..."


2. They must be positive. You would state your affirmation like this: "I eat healthy meals each day." A negative, and thus ineffective affirmation, would be "I don't eat junk food." The reason given is that although the subconscious is a powerful tool, it is still rather simple in this respect. It thought to see what you are saying as images rather than words, and so it can't comprehend words like "don't" and "can't." When you say, "I don't eat junk food," your subconscious mind brings up an image of you and junk food, and you actually begin to reinforce the behaviour that you are trying to change.


3. They must be in present tense. Logically you would think to make the affirmation in the future tense, as in "I will be successful in my business." But this isn't the case. When you put your statement out into some distant future, no tension is created within the subconscious mind, and therefore no imprinting or changes will occur. When you say that you will be successful someday, you are also implying that you are not successful now. That matches exactly with what your subconscious knows to be true, and therefore no change. Just by changing that same affirmation to present tense, "I am successful in my business," it's believed you create the tension needed and your subconscious goes to work. Some studies even suggest that encouraging yourself to think in the present tense makes it a little bit easier to engage in self-control, which can help in achieving your goals.

Knowing how to write powerful affirmations is the first step, putting the knowledge to use is the second. In applying affirmations, experts provide an action plan for affirmation imprinting which many have found useful. It incorporates six steps, namely:

• Step 1: Choose a maximum of three behaviours that you would like to change. Since you are just starting out, trying to change too many things at once will greatly reduce the probability of any affirmations being imprinted onto your subconscious. Ideally, you want to choose just one behaviour to focus on. Once you start to see the effects of your affirmation becoming your reality, only then would you start with a new affirmation.


• Step 2: Get ten index cards (the 3 1/2 by 5 inch kind) and using the guidelines above, properly write out your affirmation in big, bold lettering.


• Step 3: You are going to place these ten cards around your environment so that you see them constantly. Place one by your bed, one on your refrigerator, one on your bathroom mirror, one by your computer monitor, and so on in places where you will see them often.


• Step 4: As soon as you wake up in the morning and right before you fall asleep at night, say the affirmation out loud twenty times. When you repeat these statements, speak with enthusiasm, and smile knowing that with each affirmation read, you are deepening the imprint on your subconscious mind.


• Step 5: Each time you see any of the other index cards that you wrote the affirmation on, say the statement out loud ten times, again with enthusiasm and faith.


• Step 6: When the imprinting occurs and you feel it working, you can move on to a new
  affirmation to work on.

It may seem over simplistic, but this mind technique is believed to have worked for many who have managed to maintain the discipline to carry it out. You will begin to experience a balanced inner feeling that reduces tension. It reorients you to the state of grace. This centred feeling supports your practice of learning to describe events in non-dramatic, neutral and positive language. When you practice freeing yourself from your own needlessly dramatic loops, you discover that you are practising a spiritual path of conscious wisdom.

In this way, it's believed you are learning to step back from dramatic descriptions. You generate neutral descriptions of reality. You bring yourself back to your centre. And this frees you to access your inner peace and divine soul wisdom. If higher states of consciousness are a set of choices and behaviours, then you can access the healthy states by choosing the balanced behaviours. We can change our personalities, change our lives, and use affirmations with love, for a love-affirming life.

Yours in love,