MPNforum Magazine

by Patricia Wagner

Using AFFIRMATIONS TO HEAL here at the Mind-Body-Spirit column. . .

Like most folks with chronic disease, we’ve had frequent reinforcement of every frightful thing which might result due to our illness. Our doctors, our fellow patients, and our online research assure us that what we are experiencing is quite real, if our symptoms and treatments haven’t already convinced us of this.

We also have subconscious beliefs and behaviors , programmed as kids and perhaps unremembered at this point, which may be conducive to the perpetuation of our illness.

Lastly, we are influenced by the general opinions of mankind about the nature of disease. Many feel that illness is a natural, and to be accepted, part of life. We are immersed in a race consciousness that suggests that rather than fight, one should gracefully accept illness should it occur.

This column seeks to inform you of methods to overcome all of these detrimental influences, and to place you back on the path to health. Today we address affirmations, as another tool one may use to tip the mind, body, spirit interplay in your favor.

It is, of course, up to you to take action. You must continually exercise both your will and your imagination to create the experience you desire, whether it is good health or anything else in life.

Today we will assume that you are conducting regular visualization sessions, and are therefore practiced in the art of seeing yourself well. What do you do when you encounter doubt, or negative self-talk, between those sessions? When your visions seem to crumble before you, you must take action to restore them. Your success depends on keeping your vision sharp and clear. Or as Mark 9:47 says,

If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.

The elimination of negative self-talk is critical, for both science and spiritual law say that you are what you think.

AFFIRMATIONS DEFINED

To affirm means to “make firm”. An affirmation is a strong positive statement that something is already so. You may affirm silently, speak them aloud, write, chant or even sing them. Some consider affirmations of truth to be the highest form of prayer. Affirming is different than thinking, or wishing.

An emotionless recitation of an affirmation could be compared to having a momentary thought. This will have no power to alter your subconscious programming.

When you speak an affirmation, longing for it to be true, you are effectively wishing. Wishing will continually delay the manifestation you seek.

An effective affirmation is accompanied with a sensation of truly receiving.

If you think about the words of your affirmation as being true this very moment, and you feel joy and gratitude because of this, you are affirming with the necessary belief to bring about the changes you envision.

SAMPLE AFFIRMATIONS FOR HEALING

These are affirmations I’ve successfully used. Feel free to substitute words in harmony with your own spiritual or logic-based beliefs:

Contrary to any present appearance, my perfect health already exists in the invisible and I am grateful that this is so.

Thank you for my vibrant health! I feel and look totally well, and am grateful for this miraculous occurrence.

I will care for today’s manifestations of need or insufficiency, but I know in my heart that all is well and this will soon be apparent to everyone else including my doctors, friends and family.

I am vibrantly well, in body, mind and spirit, and rejoice in this!

Now go back to the script you developed during our three-part study of visualization techniques. Lifting out the key components of your script, write a few statements that support your personal vision. In the future, when self-doubt arises, make a deliberate substitution of that negative thought and feeling with the positive affirmations you have created. It can be helpful to write your affirmations on a sticky note or index card and keep them handy.

ACQUIRING BELIEF

Affirmations and visualizations do not work without belief. We can define belief or its commonly used synonym, faith, as a thought coupled with a feeling. No mere thought, a belief is an amalgam of words, mental images, and one’s feelings in conjunction with them.

Since it says in Matthew 9:29, “According to your faith be it done unto you”, it’s worth pursuing a new belief about health. There are three primary approaches, and at various points I have employed them all:

(1) Convince yourself based on scientific fact, or through philosophical analysis of those facts. This is the thought-derived approach of Ernest Holmes and Mary Baker Eddy. It can lead into sincere feelings that our scientifically-based thoughts are indeed to be believed and applied.

(2) We can prove it to ourselves through our own experience. For example, use these techniques to set and achieve a small goal, then set progressively larger goals. Your heart will tell you that affirmations and visualizations work.

(3) Convince yourself based on the evidence of success all around you. Perhaps you can accept the words of nine year old Garrett Porter, who used visualization and affirmations to successfully reverse a malignant brain tumor: “I choose to live! No matter what disease you have or no matter what problems you have, it doesn’t own you! You own it! And you can do something about it. If you want to do it, I believe you can.” (quoted by his physician Patricia Norris, M.D. of the Menninger Foundation).

HOW LONG MUST I KEEP REPEATING THEM?

Affirmations are to be used as often, and as long as necessary, in substitution for negative thoughts. When a negative thought arises, do not resist but simply substitute that thought with a positive affirmation. Your mind can hold only one thought at once, and you have the right and the ability to choose those thoughts.

I’ve found that affirmations can stale over time, so be willing to alternate or adopt new ones as needed.

When I begin to use a new affirmation, I am frankly reciting more than believing. I am attempting to memorize it, and so as I take each word or phrase, I am starting to appreciate the nuance and implications of each word or segment. As they sink into memory I find that I begin to feel them within. It is then that I sometimes wish to alter my affirmation until it captures the truth I’m now seeing more clearly. Then I reach a stage where the words are a part of me. The affirmation is now deeply meaningful and yet still delightful in its freshness, and it now seems to me that it is the only truth in the Universe that I need to know! I feel a sustained faith and a deep belief in what I am saying, and this carries over into virtually every moment of my days and nights.

Yet after a time, the affirmation begins to once again feel pushed, like a recitation, and so although I continue to say the words they no longer give me the thrill that they once did. And then I begin to mourn inside, because the deep strength of the affirmation is slipping away from me, and I struggle to keep it. Don’t let it leave me! It is everything to me – my peace of mind rests upon it and I do not want to lose the balance which I’d attained through it.

And then I accept that it has lost its magic for me, and it will not work no matter how many times I say it or how I try to conjure up the feelings I used to have when saying the words. It is gone. And I ask the Universe for help. I say thanks for all that I have learned, and am grateful for the degree to which I have been healed through this cycle. There will be endless cycles, and endless improvements to follow.

Then I again call upon my guides and my Higher Self and all of the angelic vibrations around me and ask them to guide me. I ask them to stabilize me and point me toward the next area which I am to work on. And new words come. . .

FOR FURTHER STUDY:

If looking for scientific proof, try The Spontaneous Healing of Belief by Gregg Braden, or The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.   Books for the spiritually-oriented among you: Creative Mind and Success by Ernest Holmes, or Teach Us to Pray by Charles and Cora Fillmore.

Next month, we’ll discuss the energy body, as a prelude to a special use of it in releasing old and unhelpful subconscious programming which manifests as ill health. Blessings, until then.

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© Patricia Wagner and MPNforum.com, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Patricia Wagner and MPNforum.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.