Life by Laurie Buchanan
In their e-Book, Affirmations – Words of Power, authors Remez and Dorina Sasson tell us that, “Affirmations provide a bridge between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind, which is the control room of the mind and body. The subconscious mind is responsible for all of the involuntary functions of the body such as the heartbeat, bloodstream, respiration, the immune system, metabolism, and self-healing. Affirmations pass from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind, which takes the affirmations as commands to heal the body.”
Based on my experience as a Clinical Hypnotherapist working with the “mechanics” of the subconscious mind, here are some suggestions for the optimum use of affirmations. If you additionally integrate visualizations (strong mental picture) of yourself as healthy, vital, and energetic … all the better!
Use Positive Statements
Use expressions such as “I am healthy.” or “My [ ] is healthy and functions perfectly.” Avoid stating what you wish to overcome in your affirmation. Rather, express your desired outcome—the ideal state: “I enjoy full health.”
Use Present Tense
For example: “I am healthy,” “I am healed,” “I feel great,” and “I am full of energy.”
My Personal Daily Affirmations Include
The energy of Divine Love fills my heart, directs my thoughts, and organizes my affairs.
The healing energy of Divine Love flows throughout my body, mind, and spirit.
My body is vital, healthy, and strong.
I lovingly forgive and release everything in the past.
I choose to fill my world with joy.
A Favorite Client Example
I’m open to the possibility that a miracle will occur for me by morning . . . it’s not that I’m searching for the miracle; rather it is searching for me.
I typically end my affirmations with: “Thank you, and so it is.”
Do you use affirmations? If yes, please share a few of your favorites.
Tuesdays with Laurie 
The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they’ll ease
Your will they’ll mend
And charge you not a shilling.
~Nursery rhyme quoted by Wayne Fields, What the River Knows, 1990
(not quite an affirmation, just bending the rules slightly to include this)
Mike – This is great: sunshine, water, rest, air, exercise and diet. Perfect!
hope you all like this blessing from Anam Cara by John O’Donohue..
May your body be blessed
May you realize that your body is a faithful and beautiful friend of your soul
And may you be peaceful and joyful and recognize that your senses are sacred thresholds
May you realize that holiness is mindful gazing, feeling, hearing and touching
May your senses gather you and bring you home
May your senses always enable you to celebrate the universe and the mystery and possibilities in your presence here
May the Eros of the Earth bless you
Mike – I’m a huge fan of John O’Donohue. I have his book, “To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings” on my Kindle. In other words, I have it with me pretty-much wherever I go. Thank you for sharing this blessing with us. It looks like I’m going to have to get “Anam Cara” too.
Borrowing from Gay Hendricks…..
” I expamd in abundance success and love everyday, as I inspire those around me to do the same.”
Mary Jo – This is an excellent affirmation; thank you for sharing it with us.
Hi Laurie- I think the sun might peak through today….Lots of storms last night…….
I would say that I have always been exposed to affirmations, however my subconscious mind most of the time took over.
I am now realizing with a lot of help from my friends
(you all know who you are) that affirmations need to be said strongly and often every day.
Thanks for sharing the positive story of affirmations.
Kim
P.S>….I am also looking for some little books of affirmations?? I will look up the one you mentioned.
Kim – I think you own some of the Belleruth Naparstek guided imagery CD’s – there are great affirmations on them. Your observatio about saying affirmations every day is keen. In my experience, consistency is key!
Last evening’s storm was a doozie! Lexi (Standard Poodle) wedged herself under the bed. It’s a good thing we don’t have carpet. With hard floors we laid her on her side and slid her out this morning.
Kim – I just went out to Amazon.com and typed in the word “affirmations.” I received a huge list of books about affirmations. Here’s a LINK.
OMG a wedge poodle….Poor thing.
Has this happened before?
I decided to go outside, as I have three conference calls back to back. I am actually sitting in a parking lot and borrowing internet from the Grocery store! Looks like storms this afternoon as well.
Thanks for the link I will check it out. I lost a bunch of my guided imagery off my ipod and have not reloaded them yet.
I am peace!
Kim
A “wedge poodle” — Kim, you crack me up! Borrowing internet from the grocery store? The produce police will probably arrest you!
Laurie,
How timely this blog is, I am now working Chapter 1 in The Artist’s Way as you know and that chapter is about creating and affirming a safe space within our self to allow the child artist to grow and mature. Ms Cameron writes “Affirmations help achieve a sense of safety and hope.” This allows for me/us to begin to move beyond the unconscious language we use to keep ourselves stuck, or even in dis-ease, from negative self talk created elsewhere in our past lives or coming from the unconscious collective of the world around us.
Neale Donald Walsch in Conversations with God Bk:1 has this to say about affirmations, “Affirmations do not work if they are merely statements of what you want to be true. Affirmations work only when they are statements of something you already know to be true.”
May affirmation I have used now for years is what I sign off with
I am Love.
Jeff – Oh, I’m so glad you’ve shared precisely what you’ve shared. I am particularly taken with Neale Donald Walsch’s statement, “Affirmations work only when they are statements of something you already know to be true.” I have always appreciated you sign-off. As you know I sign off with “Listen with your heart” encouraging people to do just that, but today I will switch it up a bit and use it as an affirmation:
I listen with my heart
– Laurie
Good Morning,
I do affirmations but not as often as I should. I start for awhile then stop. I’m back to doing them.
I have one that I like the best, I made it up when I was trying hard to heal myself and feel positive. You suggested a way of making it stronger so I will post that one.
” I am healthy, I am strong, I am happy, I am alive.”
I have also come to affirmations on a more business level since I am starting my own on- line store of artwork. I found this one to be particularly good for my self-esteem,
“I trust my ideas and I’m willing to follow my intuition.”
I have started to carry a little spiral notebook with me and write them down I carry this with me so I can say them several times all day.
~Jean
” I am healthy, I am strong, I am happy, I am alive.” I love it Jean! And I love “I trust my ideas and I’m willing to follow my intuition” as well. I think it’s a great idea to carry that notebook. I carry my “planner” and use it similarly. Thank you for stopping by today — I appreciate it.
Hi Laurie and team
Looks like we’re about to get our first sunny day in two weeks. We have had a couple of days when we have seen 10 minutes of sunshine, but it has been a very cold and wet couple of weeks.
I have done a bit of exploring how the subconscious seems to function, including studying hypnotism, and gaining a diploma from Brian Head – one of NZs foremost hypnotists (as well as the physiology, biochemistry and systems stuff of university).
Just a small correction.
The subconscious can and does do a lot, and it does not do everything.
A lot of what happens in the body has it’s own control systems, that can be influenced by both the conscious and the subconscious.
The beating of the heart is for the most part within the heart itself. Certainly it is influenced by any other systems, including the subconscious, and it is possible to remove all control of both conscious and subconscious mind, and have the heart remain beating.
This amazing depth to the layering of control systems within the body is one of the truly fascinating things about it.
To give a rough idea here are some of the control systems I am familiar with:
Lipid membranes;
RNA catalysts and protein synthesis;
DNA RNA synthesis;
Sugar and protein modulation of DNA/RNA expression;
Protien pumps moving molecules through membranes;
Modulation of protein pumps by electrical and chemical signals;
Protein catalysts;
Modulation of protein catalysis by product inhibition;
Secondary and tertiary modulation of protein synthesis by other chemicals;
All the above are involved in cellular response to internal and external stimuli;
In multicellular organism there are:
Complex chemical signaling modalities – known as the hormonal systems;
Complex electrochemical signaling systems, mostly based in the nerve systems;
Multi centred response; processing at local and remote ganglia (minibrains) as well as at the central brain;
Within sense organs such as the eye are built in mechanisms within the retena that enhance signals, like edge discrimination;
Within the central brain there are multiple processing centres handling multiple different tasks simultaneously (seems to be around 23 of these in most people), doing thins like face recognition, voice recognition, language, balance, locomotion, spacial orientation, short and long term memory, etc.
These centres are what most of us refer to as the unconscious mind.
Above these, modulated in language, and intimately connected to the activity of all that underpins it is our conscious awareness.
Within our consciousness there are further multiple layers of awareness and distinction possible. I am aware of 7 within me, and I have strong reason to suspect that it is potentially infinite in dimensionality, with each dimension itself being potentially infinite.
That we communicate all is amazing.
That we survive as well and as long as we do is little short of miraculous (considering all the other levels of life forms to which we are simply another food source).
Stepping back to the subconscious mind, it has some limitations that it is powerful to understand.
The major one is, it cannot deal with negatives.
To give and example.
Consider you are canoeing down a river, and you come to an obstacle, say a semi-submerged tree with a gap to one side. If you say to yourself “don’t hit the tree” – then all the subconscious hears is “hit the tree”. If you say “shoot the gap” then you have a much greater chance of safe passage.
It is all to do with the way in which the subconscious deals in processing images – you cannot negate an image. If the image in you mind is tree, then tree you will hit, if the image in your mind is gap, then gap you will hit.
So yes – similar with belief.
If the image in our mind is of not quite obtaining something, then that is what will happen.
If the image in our mind is of the desired state, then that becomes the likely outcome.
There are so many systems operating simultaneously at so many different levels that we are not, and cannot be, consciously aware of, that holding the image of the desired outcome, and doing so with a context of having achieved it, can create what seems to be “miracles”.
Doing all of this in the context of health is something of a focus of mine, and it is much easier said than done (kinda like playing golf).
Arohanui
Ted
Hi, Ted — I have heard from several sources that the subconscious mind cannot hear “no” — the word “no” has no meaning at that level of our being because life there just is . . . there is no “is not.” The subconscious mind cannot conceive that something is not right — all things are “right” because that is what exists.
Hi Barbara
Yes – sort of, except in my understanding it is the other way round. The notion of right/wrong does not exist, it is, as you say, just stuff existing or not.
Right and wrong are inventions of culture, required for our self awareness to start, and to be transcended as soon as possible.
Ted – I’ve had the opportunity to read your comment twice. And I appreciated it both times — thank you. You’ve intrigued the bajeebers out of me with this statement: “Within our consciousness there are further multiple layers of awareness and distinction possible. I am aware of 7 within me, and I have strong reason to suspect that it is potentially infinite in dimensionality, with each dimension itself being potentially infinite.” I’ve just finished writing a book that introduces people to their 7 selves. Interesting about that number 7 … I don’t think it’s a coincidence.
You know how some people use the term “aura” and other people use the term HEF (Human Energy Field) but they’re both talking about the same thing? Do you think it’s possible that we’re both talking about the same thing when I use the term “Divine Love” and you use “Patterns” that are filtered through your interpretive schema?
What is the name of the book, Laurie? I am interested to find out why the author’s limit is 7. Like Ted, I become aware of different selves and my process is to integrate each as I can and become more whole. That we are fragmented beings is true, yet our presence is whole encompassing all of the selves that we have cut off from.
Barbara – It’s my book – it’s the premise of the whole book (and the baggage we establish for each of the selves). The reason for the number 7 is because it’s the number of “selves” I’ve seen in each and every one of my 1,200+ case studies. And it’s oh-so-intresting. There’s probably a gazilion more, but these are the ones I work with every single day — I know them well.
I AM A CASE STUDY!!
My affirmation for today!
Kim – At least you’re not a BASKET case study!
Hi, Laurie — I don’t regularly use affirmations but lately I have been coming across some nice ones from the Science of Mind (www.scienceofmind.com) folk. For example, today’s is: “I listen directly to the word that God has for me, and it’s all good.” If I take this affirmation with me and apply it to all that happens all day long, it helps me find the good in all circumstances which really helps along that path of gratitude!
Barbara – Thank you for the web address. That’s a new one for me and I’ll check it out!
You laugh!!!
A real official looking lady walked out of the store! I thought I was dead…However she walked bym obviuosly I had to be the IP address in the parking lot.
I AM SNOOPY!!
I don’t have an affirmation to share. But I have found words to be healing for as long as I remember reading. Here are some that have been healing to me:
One phrase I find as a little voice in my head are some precious words my father brought in to my life from AA. “Let go, let God.”
Another favorite of mine is a prayer of thanks by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends
-A lovely and timely post. Thank you.
Hi Erin – I’m so glad you stopped by. I appreciate what you shared with us — thank you.
WOW!!
It is soo wonderful to read about such others doing these sorts of affirmations, other than these books I have been reading…..always informative and many thanks to you Laurie, for bring this topic up.
It has been my discovery, of a rather hard and negative up-bringing, that speaking with an unknowledgeable upbringing of ones-self, (parents, grand parents…you know the jist) can shed on to ones memory cells a negative binding growth, shall we say, of ailments, diseases, mental disorder, you name it – that can give the child an image of something that had been there for them and is now passing on down to you.
The imagination of a child is so alive in a young mind when growing up, almost like you can touch it, that it now becomes real when it is said so, over and over again from a parent that says, “Your grandma died of this and your grandma before that died of it to…it’s in our blood.”
The book I just finished reading called, “Psychic Healing” written by, Sylvia Browne, explains just that. She, or rather her Guides tell it all. The whole book is actually written from the mouths of heavenly beings…her 2 guides.
They mention the fact that feed back coming from parents and or others such as doctors, etc., plant a negative seed in ones thoughts that those thoughts now become a reality in ones brain cells and that now starts to function as that.
Apparently, we have the power to move energy and to spit out any negativity there is in this world and of what we had been accostomed to when growing up.
We truly are amazing creatures!
Love and Light
Rita – You bring up an excellent point. When were told something like, “Your grandma died of this and your grandma before that died of it to…it’s in our blood” were almost being “programmed” for it to happen. Or the way a physician delivers a message is almost like a judge that giving a “sentence” that “condems” a person to what they’re declaring. I’m so glad you stopped by — thank you.
Sorry to come late to this Affirmation Party. I am only signing in once or twice a day for a short time through Sunday. Spending four days in heavy-duty meditation… (OK will have to post a blog or two, but short ones!)
Affirmation: I am whole, I am Home, I am One with the Universe!
Blessings to you dear Laurie.
Kathy – Thank you for this dynamic affirmation. I’m going to start using it today! You hiatus for meditation sounds rejeuvenating–body, mind and spirit.
Hi Laurie,
What a grand day I had yesterday.
Starting with all the affirmations and then into my Reiki massage.
I have been praying for a healing group here in my own area. As I was talking during my massage . . .I got invited to join her woman’s group. They are studying Energy Medicine too!!
I bought the book they are using and they meet once a month. I can hardly believe my fortune and it only just proves once again that when you ask the Universe with true intention she answers. I feel so blessed. My life is starting to have interesting whole healthy people in it.
The book is called, “Energy Medicine” Donna Eden with David Feinstein, PhD
foreword by Caroline Myss.
I am excited to be surrounded by healers.
~Jean
Jean – Doesn’t it just make your feet wanna do a Happy Dance when that happens?! I’m tickled for you. “Energy Medicine” by Donna Eden is among my top three energy medicine books. It’s one the I recommend my clients and students keep handy as a reference tool. My other favorites are “Hands of Light” by Barbara Brennan, and “Anatomy of the Spirit” by Caroline Myss.
Jean,
I been meaning to connect with you a few times, I saw your comments here and wanted to say Hi.
I am glad that you have listened to your heart, followed the voice of your affirmations. How powerful and healing is that?
I look for Donna Eden’s books in the library, not such thing there. I may have to find one in Abe’s Books or Amazon…
You can connect with me on my blog http://www.jeffstroud.wordpress.com. I would love to have you as part of my healing and creative artistic circle too!
I am Love, Jeff
Jeff,
Thank you soo much,
I have gone over to your blog and have been reading your morning pages.
You are an inspiration.
I tried to leave a comment but couldn’t get in, next time I think I will hit the reply button maybe that’s the way in. Until then I invite you to my reception, just hit the link below,
I hope you enjoy the artwork.
http://smilebox.com/play/4d5459354f4459784d7a633d0d0a&sb=1
Be strong, be safe, be inspired.
~Jean
Jean,
Congratulations! The exhibit/reception looks as if it was a great success!!! Well to you and all the women!
I am glad you went for a visit to my blog!
Laurie, sorry I am using your blog as a jumping off space, to network and to widen my circle…
I am Love, Jeff
Jeff – Please don’t apologize; that’s precisely what this healing space — community — is for. Whoohoo!
Wow I have come to class just in time to reap the benefits of your fruitful post Laurie and all the lovely comments. I passionately use affirmation, visualization and action to attain my highest good. The full body and impact of my visit today reminds me… what is my affirmation for today?
I am still thinking as the beans bake in oven, and sunshine pries back the week’s cloud cover.
Terrill – I love the word pictures that you paint, “… sunshine pries back the week’s cloud cover.” Thank you for your visit today. When you’ve decided on your affirmation for the day, I hope you’ll come back and share it with us.
Laurie, I have spent the last few hours enthralled with the baby robins that flew chirping from their nest at the peak of the roof into a near by tree. The baby squirrels thought this tree was theirs – what a noise! I skipped out on most afternoon tasks to sit in the sun and just watch them battle it out. The score is Squirrels 7 Robins 3 (I made that up… don’t have a clue what a goal between baby squirrels and baby robins in the same tree might be). I am reminded of the thrill of seizing the moment. I think I will continue along in that direction for the rest of today and tomorrow.
I am seizing the moment with playfulness, gusto and wonder!
Terrill – I can’t think of a better way to live life, let alone a day or two: “I am seizing the moment with playfulness, gusto and wonder!” I’m so glad you came back by. I hope we’ll get to see some of the robin and squirrel antics on Creative Potager.
Oh Laurie they were all shrouded in trees so I couldn’t get good photos but if I had had a good recording device I would have tried to capture their chirping and chatter because it really was like they were negotiating – who has the right to be hosted in that tree! So no photos for the blog… just a story to post on your blog:)
Oh Terrill – I can just imagine how their “conversation” would have sounded on a recorder — hysterical! And it’s always my pleasure to point toCreative Potager. I look forward to Tues/Thurs when you post.
p.s. thank you for the link to Creative Potager… wow! has it ever been an inspiring conversation on this last post about “Searching for lost and soft edges” Thank you Laurie for being part of that inspiration.
I am a living affirmation…
” I am going to bed-it is 5.21 AM”
Good grief Mike — I sure hope you were up that late (early?) for a fun reason!
Indeed Laurie, a friend from Gaia.com and particularly from Sandra’s diving deeper writing pod is in Paris for 4 days . That’s Nono( Pirjo Zylon) from Sweden with her friend Helena. So I and these lovely ladies saw some “Paris by Night” and took in a show in English as well as Montmartre and a dazzling view of the glittering Eifel tower. “Life is beautiful” and sharing with friends just adds to the fun
Mike – I’m sure the ladies were thrilled to be strolled around like jewels on the arms of a handsome man life you through the streets of Paris. I’m glad all of you had a blast!
Mikey, I hope you and Pirjo are having a magnificent time! Say hi to her from me, will you?
Kathy, too late, the ladies have taken to the sky, but will pass on the message to Pirjo on new divingdeeper ning site. We had a ball, and I was very silly and the three of us sang Abba songs, loudly and harmoniously in the metro, We were “nuts & Bananas” according to Helena, Pirjo’s friend.
Inspiring me…
Healthylife – I’m glad you stopped in and were inspired. I hope you come back again soon, we get into some lively discussions here. I post on the “even” days of the month.
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Hi. I’ve recently found out about affirmations. It just changed my life. Great article here. Very inspiring. Guess what, I found this site http://www.createaffirmations.com and learn more about others who share same interests. Sign up – it’s free. Hope to see you there.
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