Every week, we celebrate #AffirmationMonday! What is an affirmation? At Renewed Strength Counseling Services, we define an affirmation as being a statement of action or belief that is stated as a fact. This statement can be something that someone believes is currently true or something they want to believe is true. For instance a person can use this affirmation- “I'm brave enough to climb any mountains.” A person can state this as a matter of fact because they already believe this about themselves OR a person who does not currently believe this about themselves can use this same statement to motivate and change their perception of themselves. Anyone can use affirmations in their daily lives to help improve their self-esteem, motivate themselves or just to encourage themselves.
We find that using affirmations is an effective way to motivate and remind all of us that we have the power to determine our viewpoint in life! Affirmations are used to reprogram the subconscious mind to encourage us to believe certain things about ourselves or about the world and our place within it. They are also used to help us create the reality we want often in terms of making or attracting wealth, love, beauty and happiness.
Affirmations are very powerful because it releases you from negativity, fear, worry and anxiety. When these affirmations are repeated over and over again, they begin to take charge of your thoughts, slowly changing your pattern of thinking and ultimately changing your life in a tremendous way. Research suggests that it can minimize the anxiety, stress, and defensiveness associated with threats to our sense of self while keeping us open to the idea that there is room for improvement.
All affirmations are not for everyone. You could use an affirmation that is already developed if you find it helpful. But we also find it extremely helpful to develop personalized affirmations. These personal affirmations will speak to your specific hopes and dreams instead of being a cookie-cutter statement that may not speak to anything in particular for you.
We post a weekly affirmation on Mondays that we hope inspires everyone to have a great and productive week. Here are some of our past Affirmation we used for Affirmation Monday and these can be seen on our social media feeds.
“My Strength is greater than my Struggle”
“I have the Courage to say NO”
“I love and accept myself for who I am”
On #AffirmationMonday check our social media for new affirmations weekly!!
References
Cascio CN, O’Donnell MB, Tinney FJ, et al. Self-affirmation activates brain systems associated with self-related processing and reward and is reinforced by future orientation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2015;11(4):621-629. doi:10.1093/scan/nsv136.
Falk EB, O’Donnell MB, Cascio CN, et al. Self-affirmation alters the brain’s response to health messages and subsequent behavior change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2015;112(7):1977-1982. doi:10.1073/pnas.1500247112.