Several weeks ago I was having one of those days where mental focus and clarity about my current spiritual journey was less than optimal. Being reworked by Spirit again, leaving me to trust in my higher Self which knows this business better than I. Fortunately a good friend of mine was available to take a look at things for me and in the course of having a conversation with my higher Self and was told to remind me to make use of affirmations.
My fuzzy mind reacted with an attitude; been there done that, not likely to help. This is in spite of having made use of affirmations, or self-hypnotic suggestions for many years. When I first read about affirmations they were discussed as a way to reprogram the mind. Repeating a well constructed affirmation would stir up counter programing and belief, all the reasons something wasn’t possible. Eventually this mental back talk would be cleared out and the new positive belief installed.
When I trained as a hypnotherapist, self-hypnotic suggestions took this a step further. By dropping into a trance state first, conscious mental filtering is by-passed and the suggestions enter directly into the subconscious. This is a process I teach most of my clients and have used extensively and effectively myself.
In spite of the mental brush-off I was inspired to work that week with a new affirmation. As I repeated it to myself as during the following days, I noticed something new. There was a body level response. I was feeling the affirmation. It wasn’t just a mental loop of words going over and over and fading into automatic background (not that that’s bad). I would think the words to myself and I would feel my being respond with the quality that the words represented.
It was like dropping stones in a well and hearing them splash, except I was dropping them into myself and feeling the echo. This was pretty cool. As a ceremonialist I recognized this as a form of invocation. The words were invoking a state. Rather than somehow reprograming myself to be something new, I was calling forth something that was already there. This is what my higher Self had been after. It wanted me to use affirmations to remind myself of what I already was. Calling forth qualities that my higher/deeper Self already knew and could bring forward into the receptive space I created by “listening”.
I have been shown over and over in my work that we are already everything we need to be. We are souls that are fully capable and realized. Just not fully conscious. But the places that need to heal have the wisdom for that healing, the Self we want to be is already existing, even if we are not fully aware of it. We are deep, reaching all the way to Source. If we call down into ourselves another part of us will answer.
So when you next work with affirmations, try them with this in mind. Say the words; then pause; listen/feel for the echo from your Self. Create a space to feel them in your being and know that they are already true. Calling your Self into awareness you will be everything you can be.
(© 8/2010)
