When positive affirmations make you worse?

[libertynow]

Have you ever found positive affirmations become a battle in itself. It's like positive affirmations cause more creative negative thoughts to combat them to make them even harder to do. This is a serious dilemma to have when affirmations are an important part of recovery.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

[Dahila]

No!!! Positive affirmation help you replace and combat negative thoughts. You just have to know how to do it:)

[libertynow]

No!!! Positive affirmation help you replace and combat negative thoughts. You just have to know how to do it:)

What would I be doing wrong? The mornings are the worse it's a mental battle trying to affirm positive to a unbelieving mind. Some days it actually does make my best days but some days it's opposite.

[jessed03]

Perhaps you need to rephrase them a bit?

If you look in the mirror and say 'I am so calm' - your mind often says... 'No you're not'

If you change them to say 'Why am I feeling so much calmer lately?' Your minds gonna subconsciously look for evidence that proves that point. Sometimes I say 'Why' affirmations 10 times or more. I haven't done 'I am...' affirmations for ages. Never worked that well in my case.

Just an idea :)

[GeneAllen]

Have you ever found positive affirmations become a battle in itself. It's like positive affirmations cause more creative negative thoughts to combat them to make them even harder to do. This is a serious dilemma to have when affirmations are an important part of recovery.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

Oh yes Kevin, it's quite common. This is where the war is won though. DO NOT fight negative thoughts though (replace them). You won't win trying to will them away. The more you resist the more they will indeed persist. Keep bringing the body around and the mind will catch up, put the headphones on and listen to the positive as much as you can. Flood your mind with them. I am serious work at it like you are being paid to do it, and you'll find the sub or other than conscious mind follows. You will definitely experience the life you are meant to be having. I call that a good weeks pay. Worth more than paper with a number right? It's never life that goes awry, it's only the "life experience" we are making up and confusing it with reality.
Peace Bro

[libertynow]

Oh yes Kevin, it's quite common. This is where the war is won though. DO NOT fight negative thoughts though (replace them). You won't win trying to will them away. The more you resist the more they will indeed persist. Keep bringing the body around and the mind will catch up, put the headphones on and listen to the positive as much as you can. Flood your mind with them. I am serious work at it like you are being paid to do it, and you'll find the sub or other than conscious mind follows. You will definitely experience the life you are meant to be having. I call that a good weeks pay. Worth more than paper with a number right? It's never life that goes awry, it's only the "life experience" we are making up and confusing it with reality. Peace Bro

Thanks Gene. I find it hard to replace sometimes cause the negative thought has so much feeling attached to it and the positive has none. Not always but most days. Weird how affirmations are better received in the evenings vs morning or day.

[KIKI74]

There are some therapy that suggest that positive thoughts or gratitude only make you feel like you are lying to yourself. What my doc advised me was to retructure the thought:
" i feel shitty this morning, i always wake up anxious"

You can say:" i feel anxious this morning and its normal, its the cortisol present in the morning."

My doc said to stay put until you feel that the anxious symptoms fade and then get up. But its a vicious cycle since when i feel good, these thoughts don't even pop in my mind. But when i feel anxious or depressed: watch out! Its out of control.

Another tip (haven't Tried this one yet) is to say:" i just had a taught that...

Its suppose to distance yourself from the intrusive thoughts

[GeneAllen]

There are some therapy that suggest that positive thoughts or gratitude only make you feel like you are lying to yourself. What my doc advised me was to retructure the thought:
" i feel shitty this morning, i always wake up anxious"

You can say:" i feel anxious this morning and its normal, its the cortisol present in the morning."

My doc said to stay put until you feel that the anxious symptoms fade and then get up. But its a vicious cycle since when i feel good, these thoughts don't even pop in my mind. But when i feel anxious or depressed: watch out! Its out of control.

Another tip (haven't Tried this one yet) is to say:" i just had a taught that...

Its suppose to distance yourself from the intrusive thoughts

I really like this, and it does help too. Thank you for sharing.
Peace

[UltimateWorrier]

Overcoming those negative thoughts in the morning is my biggest battle at the moment. I'm up and down throughout the day, but the mornings are horrible. I go to bed happy that my mind will get some respite from all of the negativity while I'm asleep, and then wake up with the bad thoughts as if they weren't even off while I was unconscious. This is the first time I've been waking up regularly to thoughts that just make me want to not get up. I try to fool my mind with positive thoughts, as you do, but deep down I know they aren't true.

I need to try some of the suggestions here though. While my thoughts during the day are all over the place they're certainly at their worst as soon as I wake up. Maybe it is the cortisol after all.

[Matt192]

When I was in the heart of the Panic attacks, they would be 24/7 and I couldn't even get sleep at all. Looking back it was almost a never ending panic attack that lasted almost a year. When I got to the stage where the anxiety was horrible in the mornings, that was actually a step up from where I was. It was super intense when I woke up then as the day went on I'd be up and down.

What I learned was it's your thought process. It happened to me until I started taking something called "Holy Basil" which helps with sleep, blood pressure, nervous energy. I took it for about 6 months and ever since my morning anxiety isn't there. I wake up feeling fine every day now. but I remember how awful that was, because the morning is when you're most prone to negative thoughts.

[GeneAllen]

I found this on a very helpful site I use. Addictionalchemy.com

I hope someone finds it helpful.


Five Types of Affirmations for Empowerment
By Jeanie Marshall

Five categories of affirmations support you in manifesting powerful change. These five categories or types of affirmations have emerged from my consulting work with clients and workshop participants. You may work with affirmations in every category concurrently, or you may focus on a different category each day or each week. It is important that affirmations you select resonate with you, that is, that they feel natural and appropriate. In order to experience this resonance, you may need to change words in the ones listed here as examples, or let these inspire you to create ones you prefer, or develop your own from scratch.

Popular Affirmations
Many popular affirmations are beautiful, indeed, they are quite extraordinary! However, if you do not believe them, they are useless or even counterproductive. If you say an affirmation you do not believe, saying it repeatedly will not make you believe it. Actually, the repetition can build up greater resistance to believing it. Consider this example: Sam feels powerless. He has had many experiences that he can point to that justify his feelings and his belief in his own powerlessness and unworthiness. Saying "I am powerful" is less likely to erase his feelings of powerlessness than to prompt an emphatic reaction, such as, "Oh, no, I'm not!" If Sam does not deal with the resistance, he carries it with him as he lives his life.

An empowering process emerges by using these five categories of affirmations in a systematic way to assist you in embracing an affirmation that you desire to believe but do not. If you have an intention and a desire to say and believe "I am powerful," start by releasing powerlessness, open to the possibility of being powerful, affirm an intention and readiness to live in your power, claim your power, and let the idea of powerfulness integrate into your life.

Following are the five categories of affirmations described briefly with a few examples of each type.

Releasing/Cleansing Affirmations
The purpose of Releasing and/or Cleansing Affirmations is to let go of unwanted and unneeded stuff. Especially, they help you let go of resistance. They allow you to purify your system. These affirmations stimulate the release of toxins such as negative thought forms, repressed or suppressed emotions, old memories, negative bonds with others, karma, dark consensus reality, illusions of all types.

Examples:
I give myself permission to release toxicity from every level of my energy field.
I rescind outdated vows of poverty, celibacy, struggle, silence, and unworthiness.
I release resistance.
I let go of old programs that keep me stuck in old patterns.
I let go of everything I do not want or need for my highest good.

Receiving/Accepting Affirmations
The purpose of Receiving and/or Accepting Affirmations is to open to allow something to be. They allow us to receive goodness from the Universe. They neutralize the misqualification of energy; that is, they can reverse illness or other density. In addition, they help us shift the attention from disempowering actions such as, "getting" or "taking" to more freeing concepts such as, "receiving" and "allowing" and "accepting."

Examples:
I open to the gifts of the Universe.
I allow abundance to flow through me.
I accept support when I need it.
Dear God, please let me know what to do in a way that I can understand.
I accept peace and joy in all aspects of my life.

Being/Intending Affirmations
The purpose of Being and/or Intending Affirmations is to ground your purpose, especially your higher purpose. These affirmations enhance conscious awareness of your intention about something or about your mission in life. In addition, these affirmations can deepen your understanding of your reason for being and/or acting generally or in a specific situation. They can be used to enhance any and all actions that follow.

Examples:
I know that this is for the highest good of all concerned.
I deepen my awareness of the consciousness from which actions spring.
I live my mission.
My intention is to live free from struggle, fear, and hopelessness.
I remember.

Acting/Claiming Affirmations
The purpose of Acting and/or Claiming Affirmations is to bring something into manifestation or to direct the energy of your intention to appropriate manifestation. These affirmations bring into the physical experience those ideas that you hold in your mind and/or heart. In addition, these affirmations help you to claim your power and establish boundaries in relationships.

Examples:
I act with high intention and purposeful awareness.
I step into the world to live my mission in every word and action.
I demand my good right now.
I make every act an act of love (or freedom or mastery or hope, etc.).
I am powerful. I am worthy. I am loveable. I am free.

Integrating/Embodying Affirmations
The purpose of Integrating and/or Embodying Affirmations is to allow the energy and meaning of the affirmations to merge with your consciousness. Affirmations and ideas that do not resonate, drop away. Integrating/Embodying Affirmations support us in knowing more deeply -- integrating -- what we have learned rather than introducing new information.

Examples:
I integrate trust into every aspect of my life.
I breathe love into my job, my body, my relationships.
Yes to Life!
Today is an opportunity for peace.
I breathe in abundance, letting my whole body feel its energy.

Affirmations as Lifestyle
As you work more and more with intentional affirmations -- written, spoken, read, chanted, meditated upon -- you will make them part of your lifestyle. Affirmations are already working for (or against!) you. It is your job to select the ones you want to live by. Remember, you are already using affirmations every time you think or speak! If your current affirmations are disempowering, you can intentionally change them to ones that you choose to live by.

"You become what you behold." -William Blake


SAMPLE AFFIRMATIONS

Perceive it. Believe it. Conceive it. Receive it!

I KNOW. LOVE. CREATE. BEAUTY.

Process Pain, Passion, and Purpose for Personal Power.

My thoughts are filled with pure love.

I am love and I live my life in love.

I am not alone. I am separated from all that is, only by the thoughts I choose.

I am loveable.

I am loving and kind.

I am whole and perfect, and my seeming imperfections are what make me beautiful.

I am worthy of love.

My life has purpose and meaning.

I take back my power to make the unknown, known.

I nourish myself everyday.

I give and receive love unconditionally.

“The Law, having no purpose of It’s own, having no intention of it’s own about us, is compelled to take the color of our dominant thought and create after that pattern. We, being persons, can change our thought and thereby remold our conditions. Indeed this is the great realization of freedom, and to understand this is to understand how we may be released from bondage”.
source: Ernest Holmes from Living The Science Of Mind


Peace