What are affirmations? Statements meant to assist in the process of accomplishing goals. Examples of affirmations are: “I’m feeling great at 148!” “Money flows to me freely from unexpected and expected sources in ever growing amounts!” “I am happy, healthy and wealthy!” You get the idea.
The challenge with affirmations, at least in my own experience, is that there is this little voice—we will call her Negative Nelly—who argues with me every single time I would attempt to use an affirmation. “I feel great at 148,” I’d say. Then Negative Nelly would chime in with, “Then why are you a fat cow!” Did I mention that Negative Nelly is a complete asshole? Yep, she is. She acts this way out of love though. She developed her negativity as a defense mechanism from all the stuff experienced in the past that was painful. So, while she is a complete asshole, her goal is trying to protect from any future failure, rejection, pain and abandonment.
We ALL have a Negative Nelly in our head and getting her to shut up can be a challenge.
I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of learning how to heal and move beyond our “stuck” points in spite of ourselves. So, when this whole idea of afformations came into my life I had this fabulous EUREKA Moment.
See, afformations are almost the same as affirmations except they are put in the form of a question. Negative Nelly loves to argue, but she also loves to help and answer questions…after all, she is part of your brain. So, let’s work with her strengths instead of her negative asshole nature.
We already know that if we use affirmations like “Money flows freely to me in ever growing amounts from expected and unexpected places!” Negative Nelly is going to chime in with her asshole truth bomb and say, “Then why do you have 27 cents in your bank account! Oh, that’s because we are broke and you suck with money!”
So, instead we ASK “Why does money flow to me so freely?” “Why am I so good with money?” “Why is it so easy for me to feel great and lose weight?”
Nelly gets all flustered when we do this because she was ready with some asshole reality check statement and NOW, she has to pause, look around and go, “Hmm, this is different. Why does money flow to me so freely?”
Even better, ask her “What actions do I need to take to…(fill in the bank)?” And suddenly your inner critic has to stop being such an asshole and she takes on the role of a coach. All she ever wanted to do was help you and protect you—it’s just that somewhere along the way she became an overbearing, helicopter “mother” type that you just wanted to give a shot of tequila to so she’d shut the hell up! Am I right? Can I get an Amen? Or something?
So here are some fabulous examples of affirmations turned afformation. For more in depth work on this, get in touch with me and we can do a one time coaching session to create your own awesome afformations.
“I love and accept myself completely” becomes “Why do I love and accept myself so completely?”
“I love my job” becomes “What would it take for me to love my job?” or “Why do I love my job so much?”
“I am happy, healthy and wealthy” becomes “Why am I so happy, healthy and wealthy?”
Also, HERE is another article that explains this in another way for more understanding.