Why affirmations work

Last month I told you I believe it’s not a good idea to be specific about affirmations and gave you examples of affirmations going wrong. Now I want to share with you why, when practiced properly, affirmations work.

1.

If your affirmation is something that is possible, say it as if it’s already true. In his book, “Natural Brilliance,” Paul Scheele gives a good example of the fact that your subconscious doesn’t know if something is real or imagined. He tells about the time he was studying hypnosis and his teacher said, “Once you get someone into a trance, give them a suggestion that they can’t do some simple thing like they can’t lift their foot because their shoe is glued to the floor. Then repeat these words several times, ‘No matter how hard you try, you can’t.’” Later, during his first stage performance, Scheele was amazed to see this six-foot tall man stand in front of him that he’d just put into a trance and he couldn’t lift his foot because he really believed that his shoe was glued to the floor!

2.

Your beliefs triumph over reality. New placebo studies explore how the brain works with suggestion, such as the experiment in which Japanese researchers blindfolded a group of 13 students who were known to be highly allergic to poison ivy. The researchers told them their right arm was being rubbed with a poison ivy plant, which was really a harmless shrub. Afterwards, all the students’ arms showed the classic symptoms of poison ivy: itching, boils and redness. The biological effects were the result of the students’ beliefs, even though no poison ivy had touched them. Next, the researchers told the students they were rubbing a harmless plant on their other arm, while they actually rubbed poison ivy on their left arm. Only 2 of the 13 students reacted to the poison ivy and broke out in a rash. 3.“

In his book, “The Spontaneous Healing of Belief, “Taos County’s own Gregg Braden shares about his journey with a small group that accompanied him to Tibet and their experience at an 800-yearold monastery, hidden at the base of a mountain. Through their translator he asked the abbot, “When we see your prayers, what are you really doing? When we see you tone and chant for 14 and 16 hours a day … when we see the bells, the bowls, the gongs, the chimes, the mudras and the mantras on the outside, what is happening to you on the inside?” As the translator shared the abbot’s reply, Braden knew that this was the reason they had come to this place. “You have never seen our prayers,” the abbot answered, “because a prayer cannot be seen. What you have seen is what we do to create the feeling in our bodies. Feeling is the prayer.”

May your 2021 be filled with magnificent miracles.

Your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between real and imagined. Feeling” affirmations, rather than just saying or writing them, is what gives them power.

northernnewmexicoartists. com. Her website is howtogrowyounger.com.