How to use Affirmations

An excerpt from Manifesting Mr Wonderful by Freya Eostre © 2008

What is an affirmation?

An affirmation is a short phrase which ‘affirms’ something for you.

♥ Affirmations affect your subconscious thoughts and feelings and will also act like a ‘prayer’ because the message is an energy vibration that reverberates into the Universe.

We are constantly giving ourselves ‘messages’ about our beliefs. These internal messages have a huge energetic impact, especially if there are strong feelings attached to them. If we give ourselves negative

messages, whether said out-loud or in our head, we vibrate negatively. Therefore, how we ‘self talk’ has a profound impact on the quality of our life and our experiences. If we are prone to negative ‘self talk’ we can gradually change by using positive affirmations. It is because affirmations are so effective at raising your vibration (by changing the way you think and feel) that they form an integral part in the practice.

You can also use affirmations to attract what you want into your life. What you say will come true if you feel it strongly enough. Our self-talk has a strong energetic vibration because we are co-creators, so our messages will be energetically attracting things to us, for good or ill. Everything is energy; like attracts like; thoughts and emotions are powerful energy vibrations. So if we say what we want and keep affirming it with strong emotions then what we want will naturally be attracted to us. You can literally will something into being by thinking about it because your thoughts and the feelings attached to them are energy vibrations which attract manifestations.

♥ When you use affirmations you are telling the Universe what you expect and so it will be manifested.

Creating effective affirmations

Affirmations are relatively easy to create but there is an art to making them effective. When you use an affirmation you are saying ‘yes please’ to the Universe, therefore it is important to make sure that you

are saying ‘yes please’ to what you really want. The most effective affirmations are positive, clear, have a strong emotional resonance with you and are worded in the present tense:

• To attract positively, we must send out positive energy so it is vital that you are asking for what you do want rather than what you don’t want and that you ask it in a positive manner. Affirmations should

be stated in the positive; ‘I want a loving man’ instead of ‘I want a man who isn’t a womaniser or a cheat’. Also, make sure there aren’t any subtle negative feelings hidden in what you say; ‘I want a man

who will get around to asking me out’ should read something like ‘I am ready to be asked out’. The first affirmation sounds like you don’t expect to be asked out, the second sounds like you believe

being asked out is a given, now that you are ready.

• An affirmation needs to be clear and simple so that the Universe knows exactly what you are asking for. Try and keep it short and precise: ‘I am ready for love’ or ‘I invite Mr Wonderful into my life’

rather than ‘I have an open heart so I can attract and receive a loving, caring, sexy man who wants to spend the rest of his life with me and give me children’. In trying to keep it precise I came up with the

name ‘Mr Wonderful’ because to me the term means a man who can fulfill my desires. It is a term which encapsulates what I want. You can come up with a different name or way to convey what you want but keep it simple rather than writing a long wordy affirmation.

• If an affirmation has little emotional resonance for you then it will not be as powerful because your feelings have the biggest impact on the energy vibrations you send out. This means if you use other

people’s affirmations – make sure they really speak to you. You can make adjustments to someone else’s affirmations if you would prefer not to start from scratch. I would suggest, however, that you

try to come up with something for yourself. An affirmation you have come up with is more likely to have emotional resonance and the process of finding a good affirmation will further help you clarify

what you want. Also, when you come up with a good one it is exciting, which will add emotional potency to your affirmation.

• Affirmations need to be worded in the present. Ultimately tomorrow never comes, so stating affirmations in the future tense instantly puts them out of reach. State your affirmation as if it is already true by wording it in the present tense. The Universe will then work to bring it to you today. The more you ‘act as if’ you already have what you want, that you are where you want to be, the more powerful your manifesting energy will be. You are not requesting it, you are stating that ‘it is already so’. Not only does this demonstrate incredible faith and self belief (which creates a positivity that is hard to beat) but the Universe has to bring into being what is: By stating ‘what is’ before it exists, you create a vacuum which the Universe must fill.

• Although you can word your affirmations as desires or wants, I believe that it is more powerful to show that you expect to receive something rather than you are hoping it will arrive. The words ‘I

want’ have negative connotations for many of us which can get in the way of manifesting. Many people, especially in Britain, grew up hearing things like ‘I want doesn’t get’ and were told not to say ‘I

want’ when they asked for something. Apparently stating what you want is seen as selfish and/or rude. Perhaps more importantly, in terms of affirmations, ‘wanting’ is what we do when we haven’t yet

got something. For some of us it can have a connotation of feeling ‘desperate’. For the purpose of affirmations we want to create the ‘already got it’ vacuum to encourage the Universe to deliver. ‘I

attract…’ or ‘I am ready…’ or ‘I receive…’ or ‘I invite…’ or even, if you are feeling really daring ‘I have…’ or ‘I enjoy…’ (because I already have) are further down the process from wanting and closer

to the experiencing. However, if you usually feel guilty for ‘wanting’ it can also be really affirming to unashamedly state your wants to the world! (Use ‘I want’ or ‘I desire’ for your wish list.) Be

proud of your desires – without them you couldn’t be a co-creator.

To create an affirmation, try to summarise what it is you want. You can go back to your wish list or dream scenario and try to make the picture into a concise statement – almost like a mission statement that will help to focus yourself and the Universe. Play with ideas and allow yourself to be creative.

If you feel you have to go through a few phases to become ready to get what you ultimately want then begin with affirmations that reflect where you need to get to first. For example, if you feel you need to

work on being able to receive positive attention from men then start with that; ‘I am open to positive male attention’ or ‘I enjoy receiving positive male attention’. It is not useful to go for your ultimate goal until you feel ready in yourself because it will be harder to believe in what you are saying and therefore more challenging to feel positive.

Build your relationship confidence gradually starting with the first step not the final destination.

Using affirmations Once you have had a go at developing some affirmations you need to actually use them. While it is valuable to go through the process of creating affirmations – if you don’t get around to using them, they won’t work. An affirmation is different from a wish list. When you create a wish list you say it to the Universe and then let it go. Affirmations, on the other hand, have to be repeated because they are used for aligning your internal vibration with what you are trying to create. You have to ‘work them’ so that they sink into your deeper self and have the chance to transform your emotional energetic vibration.

♥ Affirmations are about changing how you feel inside and aligning your energy with what you want to manifest.

If you know on a deep level that you deserve love and state that you are already enjoying a loving relationship, then the Universe has no choice but to deliver it to you in order to fill the vacuum. To make this shift you have to repeat affirmations regularly. You are self-talking all day long so you need to get a conscious word in edge ways. If you don’t say it regularly then your message will simply get lost in all the other inner babble.

♥ The key to using affirmations is to repeat them regularly.

• Whenever you say an affirmation, repeat it several times

• Say it out-loud and/or in front of a mirror for added potency

• Write your affirmations down

• Post them around your home as reminders

• Only work with one (or two) affirmations at a time

• Work with each affirmation for at least one week

• Repeat your affirmation several times during the day

• Having a routine can help you remember to say your affirmations

• You can use an alarm to remind you the next time to repeat them

• Say it whenever you remember during the day – even if you only have time to say it once or twice

• For maximum benefit first connect with Source, then say your affirmation from this powerful feeling state

If you find it hard to feel anything about an affirmation it is worth playing around with it until it sounds just right to you. Sometimes when we have a wall of negativity or doubt standing between us and what we want it can be hard to get excited about an affirmation. If you find yourself in this situation, don’t worry – just ‘act as if’ you believe in it for the time being. This will give you a chance to get started and the messages will get through – though they may take a little longer. Here are some affirmations you can use and/or adapt:

♥ ‘I enjoy a loving relationship with Mr Wonderful’

♥ ‘I attract a wonderful man into my life’

♥ ‘I am open to receiving love’

♥ ‘I am a beacon of light guiding my beloved home’

♥ ‘I invite Mr Wonderful to ask me out’

♥ ‘I experience the joy of being truly loved’

♥ ‘I experience the bliss of being united with my soulmate’

While you are traveling on this journey if you stumble across an inner block or negative belief that is hard to shift, use affirmations. You can add new ones to your (daily) practice that are pertinent to you.

Affirmations work when you work them!