I’ve been a spiritual seeker for many years now and I’ve always been interested in reading books about spirituality, self-improvement, healing and learning as much as I could for quite some time. I feel like I’ve been blessed by aligning myself with some of the best spiritual teachers through workshops and individual counseling sessions. I’ve had to overcome a lot of obstacles in my life, due to family issues, and I needed a lot of guidance.

One of my mentors was a counselor in Houston, Texas. I spent almost ten years working with this woman who whole-heartedly believed in the power of affirmations. It was sort of like going to confession in the Catholic Church. We would have our session where we would talk about issues, and then I would be assigned my so called homework. Instead of ten “Hail Mary’s” and five “Our Father’s”, it would be to write this affirmation 25 times: “I begin to bless everything that comes into my life as good, good, good.” Then I would write this affirmation in first person with “I”, second person: “You begin”, and third person: “Laureen, begins to.” The reasoning is that yes, I need to affirm myself. When writing in second person, it’s as if someone that I trust is talking right to me. In third person, it’s as if it were written, and already true.

Over the course of 10 years, I have written thousands of affirmations. I’ve written affirmations of healing from past childhood traumas, healing of relationships, healing from a divorce and healing from career changes. I was basically reprogramming my conscious and subconscious negative thoughts into positive “affirming” thoughts. Instead of believing in a “negative belief” that no longer works for me, I worked on accepting and affirming the “positive” experiences from the situation.

In the beginning, I would complain that my hands would get tired from all the writing, but the repetition imprints the affirmation into the subconscious mind. Also, the more times you write an affirmation, the more emotionally involved you get. How can you write “I am healthy in mind, body and spirit” dozens of times, without believing it? Writing, helps you believe it, feel it, and reprogram your mind.

I’ve written affirmations down in journals and post-it-notes around the house. I’ve typed in affirmations on my computer and printed some of them in large type and pasted it to my wall, such as: “The more money I spend, the more money I receive from the Universe”. I tend to like this one a lot! I’ve even taped myself speaking affirmations, so I can listen at home, while I’m doing yoga. I find there isn’t such a thing as too much. We spend so much of our lives in negative surroundings, whether that be at work, or at home, with our family, friends or even watching TV.

When I was in music school, I was a vocal performance major. I use to hear all the time from various students (some instrumentalists), “I can’t sing.” Well, who told them they couldn’t sing, and why did they believe it? I’ve found through years of singing, performing and teaching, that very few people are actually tone deaf. So, why do so many people believe they can’t sing? It’s because someone told them to be quiet in church when they were singing, and from then on, they adopted a negative belief system about singing. Just because they may not have had a pretty voice, or a professional voice, is not the same thing as they “can’t sing”. I found myself coaching a few of these people for my sight-singing class, and lo and behold, they could it.

Not all of us can afford coaches, or counselors, or professionals to help us. But, one thing we can do is help ourselves by working with affirmations. The one great thing about affirmations, is that there is so much information out on the Internet about affirmations. What I like to do is to search through a lot of written affirmations in healing, prosperity, health, career, relationship issues, and find the ones that I like. Then I re-word the affirmation into something that feels right to me. I always make sure that the affirmation is written in the “present” tense and that it is positive and specific.

Some affirmations have a bit of a “charge” let’s say. What I mean by a “charge” is that you are stating something positive, but you’re feeling some negative emotions as you write. All this means, is that somehow, you’re not quite sure you actually believe this, and there is some healing to do in this area. As you keep writing the affirmation, there can be a whole series of emotions flowing, if you allow yourself to go through the process. The experts say that the subconscious mind doesn’t know what is real, or not real. So, why not give ourselves the best positive belief system, to replace the negative beliefs we’ve adopted through the course of life? Changing our beliefs, is like giving ourselves a new life, a new outlook and a new future that’s based on positive beliefs.

When I was going through a difficult time in my life, I use to write “I now release all fears and resentments”, over and over again. It was difficult, because I was in fear, and I had a lot of resentments. I was tired of being depressed. I was tired of being fearful. What I had to do, was reprogram myself into releasing these negative feelings, so that I could live a joyful life. Even though, I didn’t initially believe that I could actually “let go” of those negative emotions, the more times I wrote the affirmation, the more relaxed I became.

I love affirmations so much, that I buy CD’s and audio downloads of so many wonderful teachers and healers, and I usually play them when I meditate or go to sleep. I find that continued use of affirmations changes my outlook, my productivity, and my joy and happiness. I even subscribe to a number of e-mail subscriptions from Unity’s Daily Word and Joel Osteen. I find that immersing myself in positive affirmations has helped me to grow significantly and has healed many wounds. I am now a much more joyful and positive person than I’ve ever been in my whole life.

My new affirmation of the day is “I choose positive words and experience positive results.” Have a great day!