affirmation

image credit... alex ibsen

Trust life to hear and respond to your positive words. Say these affirmations every day and your whole world will change for the better.....Louise Hay

i first learned of affirmations in 1985. i had recently tested positive for hiv and my best friend was drifting towards lift off from this life. i was more than willing to try anything at that point, because what was happening around me was mayhem. pure and simple and overwhelming.there was a woman named louise hay who was working with gay men in los angeles who were dealing with aids. she was tossing around ideas like we had the ability to reverse the direction this virus was taking us. that we had allowed the space for aids to move into our lives. we deserved to heal from the terror that was seeping into our spiritual foundations. these were radical ideas at the time. i remember feeling somewhat intoxicated from the audacity of her words and her beliefs. and i would humbly submit here that the affirmations i folded in to my own belief system then have so very obviously contributed to the miracle that i am here to post anything.

i have been asked this year to chair the committee that is producing colorado's 2011 rally for recovery. it is hosted by the organization called "advocates for recovery" and i also author a blog for them. the rally will be held in september (national recovery month) at ft. logan. there will be 2 hours of speakers and thank you's, followed by 3 hours of a resource fair, music, fun, and a picnic. we are even working with denverflashmob to produce a flashmob in the middle of the day.

There is a voice in the Universe urging us to remember our purpose for being on this great Earth. This is the voice of inspiration, which is within each and every one of us... Dr Wayne Dyer.

My hope is that the rally this year is indeed a celebration. the relief and peace that has come into so many lives because of recovery is very real, very powerful, and not often very visible. when we think of addiction we have become accustomed to picture the messes and dramas and we look last to the miracle of recovery. recovery does happen. it happens every day. it happens quietly and powerfully and restores order into a chaotic heart and mind and life. this is a fact worth celebrating. 
this year's rally for recovery colorado is powerfully healing, connective, and celebratory. it will surpass expectations of all the participants in its ability to reach across cultures and communities.



Perceive it. Believe it. Conceive it. Receive it!
I KNOW. LOVE. CREATE. BEAUTY.
Process Pain, Passion, and Purpose for Personal Power.
My thoughts are filled with pure love.
I am love and I live my life in love.
I am not alone. I am separated from all that is, only by the thoughts I choose.
I am loveable.
I am loving and kind.
I am whole and perfect, and my seeming imperfections are what make me beautiful.
I am worthy of love.
My life has purpose and meaning.
I take back my power to make the unknown, known.
I nourish myself everyday.
I give and receive love unconditionally.

Why affirmations work

By choosing to think and say positive affirmations as true, the subconscious is forced into one of two reactions - avoidance or reappraisal. The bigger the issue the bigger the gap between the positive affirmation and the perceived inner truth and the more likely that one is going to experience resistance. This is where the subconscious finds it easier to stay with its perceived inner truth and avoid the challenge using any means at its disposal to avoid examining the issue. You will recognise this reaction by a strong negative feeling inside as you state the positive affirmations. Equally if your experience a sense of joy and well being, your mind is instinctively responding to something it believes to be true. When you get this emotion, you know your affirmations are working!

Continually repeating affirmations with conviction and passion will chip away at even the strongest resistance. However there are a number of additional techniques you can use that will super-charge your affirmations and magnify their effectiveness many fold. I will outline these techniques for you later. Once the resistance is broken, your subconscious is able to re-examine the core belief and patterns you have been working on. The effect can be startling and things can change very quickly as the dysfunctional beliefs get identified and replaced by your own new inner truth. Depending on how deep into your consciousness these beliefs lay, every other learned pattern and belief that relied on the original belief as a premise, becomes unfounded. The subconscious has to re-examine them all, this can lead to a period of introspection. If you find yourself experiencing serious resistance or have identified an area of trauma in your life, I strongly urge you to seek professional support, the journey you are embarking on will release you from the past but having proper support around you as you go through the process will make it so much easier.

Because affirmations actually reprogram your thought patterns, they change the way you think and feel about things, and because you have replaced dysfunctional beliefs with your own new positive beliefs, positive change comes easily and naturally. This will start to reflect in your external life, you will start to experience seismic changes for the better in many aspects of your life.