Cognitive Therapy - Affirmations

by Patty E. Fleener M.S.W 

Someone told me just the other day after something negative happened in their life, "This is a bad sign I just know it is. This new year is not going to be a good one. How can it be? Look how it is starting out?"

Let's examine this statement just for a second. What is this person doing? Two things come to mind. Magical thinking. Superstition. 

All in all, nothing is based on anything reasonable. Yet, how many times do we all find ourselves ACTUALLY saying and believing that? 

I am going to bring up COGNITIVE THERAPY again. On one level it might come true. What we think about is what we become. Remember? Our subconscious mind does not know the difference between what we say to ourselves and reality. So it believes it. When it believes it then if we live otherwise we live outside of our comfort zone. When we do that - life outside our comfort zone, we seem to go on auto pilot and subconsciously live our lives within our comfort zone to match what our subconscious mind believes. 

This is so!

If we tell ourselves enough times that we are thin and beautiful and go so far as to see it in our mind's eye and do it daily and often enough, our subconscious mind really believes that is true TODAY. It believes it. So when we look in the mirror and see if we are overweight or haven't gotten those split ends cut off in 8 months we are uncomfortable - more than usual. We are living out of our comfort zone because we have begun to fool our subconscious mind into believing we are thin and beautiful. 

So what do we do? We get into our comfort zone and we go on a HEALTHY eating lifestyle, (I did not say diet as they do not work) make an appointment with the hair dresser, buy some sharp looking clothes if we can afford it, etc. 

Now take this information and apply it to self esteem, to getting out of abusive relationships, to learning to love yourself, to getting the nerve up to face your in-laws, to gaining self-confidence. 

You do this by practicing affirmations. You must only use positive affirmations. Nothing negative and SEE yourself actually there and do it as much as possible and don't worry about believing it. It will come in time. Affirmations must be stated as if they are in the present "I am feeling wonderful, confident and calm as I approach my in-laws and tell them how I feel. I feel strong and courageous." See yourself approaching them and feeling those feelings. See yourself saying what you want to say to them. See yourself walking away when you are done and see yourself feeling wonderful feelings.