Hi French Claire, et. al.,
I've been experimenting with a new twist on the affirmations approach to manifesting life changes. It comes from a success coach/teacher/speaker named Noah St. John. Noah's stuff is endorsed by Jack Canfield. In fact, Jack helped Noah get his first book published. After attending one of Jack's seminars, Noah simply handed Jack a manuscript of his book and asked him if he would check it out. Jack looked it over and said, "Yes, this looks good. Here's the number for my publisher". The moral of the story - ASK.
Anyway, Noah is the most innovative thinkers I have come across in the self-improvement field. One of his neatest innovations is what he calls AFFORMATIONS. An afformation is much like an affirmation, except that it's a question (typically beginning with the word "why").
For example, if I have a goal to make a career change (and I do) I might affirm: I have manifested a brand new, exciting, fulfilling and lucrative career. Instead, my afformation would say: Why have I managed to manifest this brand new, exciting, fulfilling and lucrative career?
The idea behind afformations is that the way the brain actually operates is through a perpetual cycle of generating and answering questions. The questions you ask yourself determine what your mind focus on. So, if you're habitually asking yourself (consciously or not), "Why can't I lose this weight?", guess what your mind focuses on? That's right, it focuses on NOT losing weight. Yes, the mind also spits out endless assertions, as well - "I'm too fat." "I have no discipline." "I'll never be thin again", etc. But it is the questions that act as the operating system for the computer that is your brain (this is my explanation, at least).
So I've been working with afformations for a couple weeks now, and I've worked my way up to at least an hour a day. I've recorded them onto a Dictaphone (or personal recording device, if you prefer) in my own voice, and I listen to them when I'm doing things that don't require a lot of mental concentration. Today I took an hour bike ride and just spontaneously started making up afformations for whatever showed up as an interest, desire, or concern. When I move, thoughts and ideas come out of me that are often quite surprising, and it was truly fun to make up afforming questions, based on whatever showed up. I got off the bike feeling way less fatigued and way more energized than I usually do.
Noah's claim is that afformations work twice as fast as affirmations in half the time. I don't know what he's basing that claim on, but I can say that for me, the first time I converted my affirmations to afformations the shift in energy was instantaneous palpable. I can feel it in my brain and my body, and the effect on my overall disposition has been undeniable. And there have been some remarkable reckonings, emotional exorcisms, and quite stunning shifts in relationships with people and within myself, in a very short time. I have not focused so much on specific, tangible goals (more on qualities like happiness, ease, confidence, etc.), but I suspect I will be doing that not too far down the road.
I am, quite honesty, blown away with what I have been experiencing. Like you, French Claire, I have known about affirmations for a very long time, and I have used them intermittently and with very little success. I figured I just haven't done them enough times, with enough visualization, over a long enough period to get the results I was seeking. Now I'm wondering if there might be more to it than that.
Stay tuned!
Stevers
