Positive Affirmations For Women

Positive affirmations are just about as easy to understand as they are to do. Great, isn’t it?!

Basically, a positive affirmation is a statement or phrase you repeat over and over – sometimes at scheduled times of the day, and sometimes whenever you need it. They’re GREAT for challenging and dissolving unhelpful and negative thoughts and beliefs.

Actually, you can change your entire inner world, and therefore your experience of life around you, by practicing affirmations in a disciplined way. And by disciplined, I don’t mean unpleasant – it’s a hugely pleasant habit to cultivate. Above all, it gets even MORE pleasant the longer you do it.

Positive affirmations are especially effective when trying to combat deep-seated beliefs of inferiority, low self-esteem, or generally negative thinking.

The way the conscious and subconscious minds harmonize, allows you to take conscious control of your inner world – both thoughts and feelings – and change what needs to be changed with minimum mess or fuss.

Without a doubt, positive affirmations are one of the best self-help tools available to you. It’s free, it’s effortless, and you can design your own affirmations to fit your unique needs.

Ain’t the human psyche MAGNIFICENT!

Sure It Is, But What About The Science?

Many of the techniques and methods used by self-help practitioners have had a bad wrap for years. It’s been written off as hocus-pocus, or wishful thinking, or pie-in-the-sky.

This has changed. The shrinks have cottoned onto affirmations as a quick route to lasting change, and it’s now a part of their repertoire.

Academics are paying more and more attention to affirmations as a bona fide area of research. That, in turn, is bringing about a whole gamut of more successful ways to write affirmations and more effective ways to use them. And it’s all backed by academia and science.

The rest of us – we’re just having a quiet smile and trying our best not to say: “We told you so!”

What Do The Shrinks Say?

Well, psychologists and psychiatrists are leaning on self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988). This study provides empirical data that says we can indeed maintain our sense of self and self-worth by telling ourselves we matter and we’re doing perfectly well at this maze called life.

In academic-speak, this is referred to as self-integrity. So, in their language, you can maintain your self-integrity by using a regime of positive affirmations.

The biggest difference between what we tell you and what the shrinks tell you? Our advice is free. Theirs will set you back $100 an hour!

In the language of psychologists and psychiatrists, this self-integrity is really our ability to control our inner world, and the flexibility with which we respond to the things life throws in our direction.

Look, we’re always motivated to protect ourselves. If you delve deeply into the way your thoughts and feelings stick together, you’ll always find a survival motive at the bottom of it all. And that’s perfect – it’s just how we roll. We survive!

How Do Positive Affirmations Affect Your Self-Identity As A Woman?

Okay, I’m a bit tempted to get somewhat academic here. And there’s a good reason for it. Affirmations, as I’ve said, have gotten a bad wrap for a long time. It was frowned upon and sneered at by academics and mental health professionals. Yet, now, they’re all coming around. They’re all starting to notice the benefits and there’s suddenly a spurt of research projects to try to find out how it actually works.

But there are still those who see it as something esoteric, practiced only by new-age hippies and other lesser beings.

So, I’m going to stomp my academic foot a little to silence those critics (and the little voice in you asking if they may be right!)

The 3 Keys Of Positive Affirmations For Women

1. We all have a story we tell ourselves about ourselves. It’s the way we perceive ourselves. Academics call it our global narrative about ourselves. If this narrative is positive, we see ourselves as capable of adapting to different circumstances, moral and flexible. Ultimately, this is our self-identity. Our self-affirmation.
2. This self-affirmation is not about being exceptional excellent or perfect by any stretch of the imagination. It is about being both adequate and competent in the areas that WE VALUE.
3. We maintain this self-integrity or self-image by how we act. We do things that merit praise and acknowledgment. Period. And then, when we get that praise or acknowledgment, it feeds our self-esteem. The more we get, the more we do. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I’m sure you can start to see an emerging picture. It’s all about the ability to feel good about ourselves. When we feel good about ourselves, we do better. When we don’t, well, we don’t do so well.

And this “doing” better is not only inside ourselves; it’s out in the world too. Again, this is just how we as human beings roll.

The Fascinating World Of Research Into Positive Affirmations For Women

I don’t want to go all propellor-head on you now, so I’m only going to highlight a few research results that will underline how important this positive affirmation journey can be for you and your personal well-being as a woman.

You know what an MRI is, right? In short, it’s a test that uses powerful radio waves, magnets, and a computer to produce high-resolution images of the inside of your body.

Well, MRI evidence suggests that neural pathways in your brain are dramatically increased with daily positive affirmation regimes.

That means, when you practice positive affirmations every day, your brain simply works better. Your emotions work better. Your body works better. Your mind works better. You’re more “in the flow” and more resilient. That’s science!

Another study proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the daily practice of positive affirmations allows us a better view of the world, and increases our ability to process information. That’s science again.

Cool, All That Science, But What About The Benefits, Jack?

Okay, okay. Benefits it is.

Enough for you? And these benefits are all included in the results of bona fide academic studies and were published as a part of the results of these studies. Not bad for something that was once the domain of new-age-types and head-in-the-clouds hippies, right?!

But The Benefits Don’t Stop There!

Studies also point to countless health benefits (both mental and physical), drastic improvements in outlook on life, and even physical healing.

In fact, if you’re ever interested in using positive affirmations for physical and mental healing, you should be introduced to the work and life of Louise Hay. She spent her life studying affirmations and their effects and wrote prolifically on the topic.

Here are a couple of her titles you may want to explore:

Louise Hay’s body of work touches the lives of millions of people just like you and me every single year. Her books should be on your reading list. And her work on positive affirmations for women is unsurpassed.

What About A Positive Story – Something That Proves The Point?

Sure, that’s easy. I’m going to tell you about Angela Carter.

Angela had spent her entire life manifesting the perfect life for others. You know her story in your heart already. Nothing was ever too much. He poured herself out like water from an urn to make her family happy.

All she ever managed to manifest for herself, was scarcity. Literally. Deep inside her, everything swirled around in a maelstrom of unhappiness, unfulfillment, a deep sense of being lost, and hopelessness.

Around Angela, everyone was happy and happening. Inside Angela, everything was murky, and nothing was happening.

On a journey through Kathmandu after a bitter divorce, someone asked her a couple of questions that changed her life.

1. Have you heard of trauma stored in the cells of your body?
2. Would you like to clear out what’s blocking your energy so you can manifest the life YOU want?
3. Would you like to know about the simple “switch” that quickly unleashes the full power of your body’s BioEnergy?

These questions lead to answers that changed Angela’s life. What she is and does now, is unrecognizably different from what she was and did 5 years ago.

I suggest you read her entire story:

 

A Parting Shot

It’s in the crisis moments of life that choices are made and destinies are born. And it’s so easy for us to forget that.

When we look down the road, we can all say with a fair amount of certainty, that one year from now, we will arrive somewhere. The question is – where will that be.

Well, that destination ultimately depends on the choices we make today.

Take care of your life, inside and out. NEVER underestimate the power of positive affirmations. It’s one of the sharpest tools in your toolkit.

And it’s easy and free!