Positive affirmations are statements about yourself and your life that are designed to produce a positive outcome in emotion.

As mentioned, how we feel affects the world around us. This is why shifting how we feel can powerfully shift everything else as well.

However, this is also why no amount of positive affirmations can create the change you’re seeking. Probably sounds contradictory but it’s not.

If you’re going through intense anxiety and you affirm: “I’m relaxed,” do you really feel relaxed?

If that works for you - awesome! 

If it doesn’t, then you are like most people. In this case it’s important to come up with affirmations that help you shift forward. You can’t just affirm something that feels like a lie to you and then have a shift in emotion. Affirmations are powerful, but only when we choose ones that feel true or possible to us.

The reason we’re discussing this now is that in the next chapter you will learn what I believe to be the most important exercise in the book. As part of this exercise, you will be working on changing beliefs. This is much like writing your own affirmations. If you write an affirmation that you cannot believe in, then your feelings around it will not change.

You gotta believe in the affirmation you are writing or saying because really, it’s just words. What makes it real is how you feel.

Ooh! That’s a fun rhyme!

“What makes it real is how you feel.”

That goes for pretty much everything.

It’s not what you say that matters, but how you feel about what you say. If you want to feel peaceful but saying “I feel peaceful” just makes you feel resentful that you don’t feel peaceful, well then you’re just perpetuating the belief that you’re not peaceful.

If you want to feel peaceful but aren’t sure if you can feel that way so you say “I am willing to believe I can feel peaceful,” now you step into the energy of willingness. You’ll see why this is so important in the next chapter. If you’re willing to have a new belief, anything is possible!