Using Affirmations to Change Negative Thoughts and Habit Patterns To Create A Better Life

by Robert Wilkinson

This is a rewrite of an article covering a number of precepts that may be useful to consider. Many people have asked over the years about "creating reality using affirmations to replace any negative tapes that may be playing in our heads.” While we know we have this power, why then do so many negative thoughts and feelings persist regardless of our affirmations?

It's important to note here that the recurrence, at least for a while, of seemingly negative patterns and mental tapes may be perfectly natural as they die out due to our affirmations and mental self-control. It's like they must reassert their reality so that we can consciously antidote them in the moment, thus redirecting the energies while processing the thought form. It's also good to see them as having no substantial reality in and of themselves, since that helps us detach from giving them any emotional magnetic substance at all.

Of course, finding the right affirmations to replace negative mental tapes, whether about people, things, experiences, or anything else, is a great idea. We know that “matter follows thought” and “thoughts are things,” so it's important to take time to train our minds to bring forth positive and useful thoughts rather than repeat the same old unhelpful images that are making us feel negative. Being mindful of our speech helps us become more precise in expressing the best thought form we can in the moment.

The five senses and the mind like to refer to that which is known and familiar. We are programmed to take in sensory information, and then we seek to interpret it using the experiences we’ve had. That of course can lead to very erroneous assumptions, since what’s going on may have no relationship to what has been. Illusions and delusions are something we must all endure and learn to recognize in our path to becoming wise in our experience.

All our experiences, feelings, and ideas are impressed on our “holographic” subtle bodies, composed of who we are ethereally. All we do, feel, and think impresses vibratory thought-forms on our “auric egg,” as well as our astral and mental shells. Experiences leading to Self-realization create productive patterns in our subtle body that express as helpful actions, feelings, and thoughts, while experiences that create suffering for ourselves or others lead to distorted plates of images stored in our subconsciousness. This article from The Magic of Space will help explain our subtle bodies.

We begin the process of dealing with our negative tapes by our willingness to confront the negative images in our subconscious and enter into the dance of destroying those that are creating negative tapes in our life. We can track these subconscious patterns by examining the negative tapes themselves, and understanding what gave rise to those tapes within us. Even if they seem to be justified by our experience, that doesn't matter. Regardless of the cause, we must antidote the subconscious factors if we are to achieve the goal of erasing negative tapes.

It is one thing to target the tapes of negative feelings, thoughts, and responses; it is another thing to be able to antidote them. The tapes grow stronger through repetition, despite the fact that we know they are not making us feel better or resolve our problems. It is important to be consistently mindful so that even if you catch yourself instinctively playing a negative tape, stop in that moment and re-direct your mind to a more altruistic view. Uncontrolled emotions and thoughts are often the cause of the negative tapes we play.

As we grow clearer and catch the tapes when they are playing, we can in that moment shift the focus in any direction we choose. We can get serious, goofy, deep, creative (or all of the above!) or we can get frustrated, gloomy, reckless and discouraged. We have the power to transmute every negative tape or emotional state (actually a mental state) through being aware of it and changing the pattern to a more helpful point of view. Overcoming fear is very important in claiming the power to end the negative tapes playing in our head, since Fear is A Dangerous Disease.

We have lots and lots of tapes of memories of perceptions of memories of perceptions of memories of perceptions that we play over and over and over until we become bored of them, or care enough about them to deal with them, whatever that entails. Sometimes we embrace them to see they are illusions; sometimes we walk away, knowing only suffering can result from those tapes. Sometimes we bar the door and forbid them entry into our mind, and sometimes we take the tape and throw it into the fire. Different ways work for different people at different times.

That’s the beauty of our human process. We may fall into error, but can just as easily move into a more helpful, altruistic pattern of doing our Being. If we refuse to indulge unhelpful feelings and ideas and force our rational mind into a more helpful focus, eventually the negative tapes lose their power to assert their presence. Some tapes will fade away and die through the habit being starved, while others will die through our choosing new habits to replace the old patterns.

Every time we choose to blank out a negative tape and re-record a good, true, and useful tape over that psychic space we claim the power that is our Divine Heritage, i.e., the freedom to steer our personal spaceship of Consciousness through infinity and eternity. This initially involves us learning to pay attention to what we’re thinking and affirming, and stop speaking words that could result in negative states of being.

An example is how often I’ve thought and heard a statement to the effect that “It’s always hard when I try to _________” This is a very unhelpful affirmation, as you’re asserting that it is ALWAYS HARD to whatever. Why affirm that it’s always hard? Why not affirm that you are learning how not to continue having those kinds of experiences? I have changed that phrase in my head to “It (has been) or (used to be) hard, but I am learning to do ________.” I figure if I’m affirming that I’m learning, then eventually I’ll learn enough not to go where I shouldn’t go, physically, emotionally, or mentally.

Think of what’s you’re saying, and whether you would really want that to come forth. If not, change your language, change your affirmation, and you change the pattern. Play with ideas and concepts that can reshape the view of what is to come forth, and persist in affirming the highest concept possible while welcoming clear signals about whether it's working, and whether the affirmation can be improved. Being creative in imagining a better way of experiencing life always yields unexpected delights.

Getting back to an earlier point, as you persistently practice overriding old tapes with new intentions, eventually the echoes of the old thought forms and tapes stop playing, and you’re left with what you affirmed in the meantime. We have more power than we suspect to change our view, what we assert, what we believe to be true, and what we would like to see made manifest. Courage plus mindfulness equals power, love, and wisdom.

Just remember that we have an individual and group destiny, and so don’t get discouraged if some affirmations don’t seem to come true. If it’s true for you, it will eventually come true, even if you no longer want it. That’s why it’s important to consider what really would be your greatest good, greatest happiness, greatest consciousness, and greatest life. No need for negative tapes, since it’s guaranteed if we just become aware of what we’re affirming and change that to mirror the Divine Will there will be no space for the negative tapes to play. And that’s a very good thing.

(Original article published 12 July 2006 - Interesting comment stream not included in this article.)

© Copyright 2008 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Felita]

Hi Robert, Must thankyou again for all this useful information. My favourite sayings."something will happen" and "you never know what's going to happen" They fly out of my mouth at least once a week.We are all constantly adapting.This came in my head while driving in the rain today.

Courage endured
Compassion self
That Clarity square boxed Trust,
For giving goes to understanding
Like water travailling down an endless fall
All pieces in the puzzle
Hold to no droplets
Contentment calls.

An affirming of today. Aum Shanti Felita

[Robert]

Hi Felita - Yes, we often don't know what will happen, or not. And even our closest can turn strange regardless of our best efforts.

[Felita]

Hi Robert, I spent a whole day with space to contemplate all this feeling energy passionately felt by so many.{and I am grateful for that time) I asked alot and after teaching a class tonight it came to me Chiron, Chiron is the wound in Aqaurius and would activate the Libran void you spoke of. Wound is fear is anger to some!

As I am an Aussie I will say "mate! you need a break. And go bush for a day" . I am still feeling for the wound in your group as I think many are.
Take it easy Aum Aum and many to you dear Robert.

[Robert]

Hi Felita - I'm probably ripe for a "walkabout," but then I couldn't compose enough to keep my readers informed, nor answer their questions. Need to find time in Nature soon. Maybe when the house renovations are done, since the actual is also metaphoric. The wound is still bleeding, and I'm not yet able to cauterize it. While the work continues, it's ultimately a situation of "Reviving Ophelia" to use a specific metaphor related to a profound book about women finding themselves, regardless of what age they are.