Toxic Anger vs. Healing Anger
When we avoid feeling what we feel, it tends to dampen all emotions.
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The right phrases, when repeated consistently to yourself, can make a huge difference in your thoughts ... which in turn makes a significant difference in your actions. Learning how to write your own affirmations that mean something to you will help you harness the potential of this powerful practice.
If you were a fan of Saturday Night Live in the 1990s, you’ll remember Stuart Smalley’s Daily Affirmations. If you aren’t familiar, the bit featured comedian Al Franken talking to himself in a mirror, saying things like, “I’m an attractive person. I refuse to beat myself up,” and most famously, “Doggone it, people like me.” It became a fan favorite, and Franken (aka Smalley) published a book based on those daily affirmations.
Keeping a sense of humor is an essential part of living a healthy life. Creating affirmations that are deeply personal can help to guide you in the direction you want to go. If you’ve ever gotten stuck in the trap of repeating affirmations that make you feel like a fraud, then you might wonder how to write affirmations that feel true.
Louise Hay became well-known a decade before Stuart Smalley for her books Heal Your Body and You Can Heal Your Life, which explored how positive thought patterns affect systems in the body based on her own personal experience and her work with others in her ministry. Although she passed away in 2017 at the age of 90, her work lives on through Hay House, the publishing company she founded in 1984, and through her foundation. People still turn to her affirmations as a source of inspiration.
Many people spend a good deal of time beating themselves up for things they didn’t do or things they did that they wish they hadn’t. Often this inner voice is operating on an unconscious level, so it’s important to “turn up the volume” so you can know what it is you are saying to yourself throughout the days and nights. After you begin to hear yourself, you can begin to make some choices about whether the message you are telling yourself is helpful or not.
If you wouldn’t say to your best friend or someone you care about the things that you say to yourself, it might be time to rewrite the self-talk script. That's where affirmations come in.
Support yourself with positive affirmations that feel in alignment with both who you are and who you want to be. Knowing how to write affirmations can be an important step in creating a life that you love, and one that loves you back.
Discover 10 affirmations for staying centered.
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