I had a cold. That nasty kind that appears to move in and take up permanent residence. I hadn’t been sick for years, so I barely paid attention on the first day.
What’s this? A cold. Heck no, I don’t get colds.
That didn’t work. It simply made more noise. I honked, sniffed, and shuffled around for days.
Days later, feeling irritated, I got mad and took it out on my sweeper.
I yelled at it, swore at it, and slammed it into the floor to prove that it lets go of the dirt it has swept up whenever you bump it.
Getting mad didn’t work. I still felt miserable, although I focused on the fact that my stick vacuum did not suck.
Finally, I did something I already knew how to do but had forgotten its power.
Two things reminded me.
A friend, experiencing grief over losing a friend, said that she remembered she could feel sad, but it didn’t make her sad. Instead, she could remember that she is love.
I also listened to a podcast about how football uses virtual reality to produce better players.
They watch themselves do something right repeatedly. They are training their brains to see themselves as successful.
What had I been doing all that week? I lamented that I didn’t feel well.
Essentially, I was training myself to feel sick.
Periodically, I remembered that not feeling well isn’t the same as being unwell.
I would say, “I am healthy,” then succumb to a brain-blowing coughing fit and forget the whole thing.
Finally, it clicked.
I remembered the proven power of simple affirmations.
Having no brain cells left to think better thoughts, I could at least say affirmations without ceasing and see what happened.
Here’s what I said instead. “I am happy. I am healthy. I am successful.”
I didn’t feel any of those things at all—the opposite.
But I said them anyway. I wrote them down. I put them on my mirror. I taped them to the toilet lid.
And here is what happened.
Nothing. And something.
And that something showed me I was on the right track.
I could separate myself from my feelings by knowing what I am.
I felt better emotionally. The urge to kill my sweeper or to sink into depression slipped away. I started working on projects that I had been putting off forever.
Tiny things that needed to be done got done. I could think creatively again.
Physically, I coughed and sniffed and slowly got better. But I stopped counting the days to get healthy, knowing I was already healthy.
Affirmations work for two reasons.
One is because they retrain our point of view. We no longer question the validity of doing this. Brain retraining is everywhere.
One day, I saw a yoga move that I felt was impossible for me to do. I watched the instructor effortlessly accomplish it. I tried and failed. But I accepted that it was possible. Then, one day, without thinking, I followed along.
It became easy once my brain believed it was possible because I was already strong enough to do it.
The second reason affirmations work is that they begin with the Truth. We are not trying to become something we aren’t. We are removing what isn’t true.
Of course, I am making the life-altering choice to choose the point of view that there is an infinite intelligence that lovingly governs and creates all that we know and are and all that we can not yet see. Otherwise known as God and faith.
You, me, everyone, and everything express that infinitely loving intelligence.
I chose that because I know what I perceive to be reality magnifies (yes, we are back to that), so why not choose infinite Good as Reality?
Which brings us back to why affirmations work. We affirm what is already true so that we can see and experience it.
Affirmations help us remember a greater Truth. Affirmations remove what isn’t true.
And then we act as if it was true because if it begins with Good, it is.
Go ahead, try it. Let me know what happens.