The two most important words you ever speak are "I AM", and what you put after those words determines your destiny. If you get your I AM right, your life becomes an awesome adventure. If you get your I AM wrong, your life turns into a nightmare. When you say I AM, you speak your future into existence.
AFFIRMATIONS ARE ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE GOING
Affirmations aren’t wishful thinking or whistling in the dark hoping things will improve if you say a few magic words to yourself.
Affirmations are not about where you are or where you have been; they are about where you are going.
Where you are right now isn’t nearly as important as where you are going. You may not like where you are, but if you are moving toward a positive future, you can hang on until things improve. When you repeat a positive affirmation, you create the road map that takes you where you want to go.
AFFIRMATIONS OVERWHELM THE INNER SKEPTIC AND CHANGE THE WAY YOU FEEL
Positive affirmations do more than change the way you think, they also change the way you feel. They put you on the fast track to to a positive mind. Positive affirmations rely on the power of positive repetition to do their magic.
Affirmations give you the power to change what’s in your heart. They do more than change the way you think; they also change the way you feel.
People frequently talk about changing their mind, but rarely talk about changing their heart. Changing their mind is relatively easy, but changing their heart is hard, and few do it.
Changing the way you think is an exercise in logic. Your rational mind is always open to the power of reason, and it easily swallows watermelon size chunks of truth as long as it’s logical. You usually need to say an affirmation only once for your rational mind to buy into it. If the affirmation is logical, your mind accepts it as fact and files it away without argument.
YOUR EMOTIONAL MIND IS AN ETERNAL SKEPTIC
Your emotional mind isn’t so easily convinced. It’s hard to change the way you feel. You may need to repeat an affirmation fifty times before your emotional mind accepts it. It’s an eternal skeptic and must be shown the truth many times before it will believe. That is why affirmations are so valuable. You can repeat them until you overwhelm the inner skeptic and change the way you feel.
If you want to influence your emotional mind, don’t argue with it. Instead, overwhelm it with positive affirmations.
The inner skeptic is massively susceptible to the power of positive affirmations.
When reason tells you one thing and emotions tell you another, your emotions will hold sway in the short term.
It’s not that the power of reason is weak. Rather, it’s that the power of emotion is so strong. When the two are in conflict, emotion emerges the winner because it overwhelms the rational mind.
The inner emotional skeptic isn’t interested in logic; it’s more susceptible to the power of repetition than it is to the power of reason. If you repeat anything enough times, the inner skeptic slowly has a change of heart, and it changes the way you feel.
Affirmations aren’t aimed at your rational mind. Instead, they take aim on your emotional mind to push it in a positive direction. They transform your life by putting good things into your heart. Repeating affirmations increases their power, and the more times you repeat them, the sooner you feel better.
YOUR BRAIN IS AN AFFIRMING MACHINE
Your brain is an affirming machine that affirms the negative just as easily as the positive; it affirms the bad just as easily as the good.
Your brain is positive about many things that are factually untrue. And when you are positive about the wrong things, your affirmative thinking actually gets you into trouble.
The affirmative powers of the brain are immense, and often those powers are destructive. Negative thoughts could not do their dastardly deed without the help of a brain that is an accessory to the crime.
It turns out that affirmations become weapons of mass destruction when you affirm dark, destructive thoughts.
When you are dealing with dark negative thoughts, you need to understand massive power of affirmations. You need to understand what they can and cannot do. You need to understand how they can help you, and how they can get you into trouble. You need to learn how to use affirmations to make your life better rather than worse.
This is your opportunity to make affirmations into a strong ally that makes your life better.
THE AFFIRMING MIND IS NOT ALWAYS POSITIVE
The affirming mind is not always positive. Many times it is biased, unbalanced, and extremely negative. Sometimes the mind affirms things that are factually untrue.
Once you understand that the mind is an affirming machine, you have taken the first step to understanding why affirmations are so important.
The next step is to understand that the mind affirms negative things just as easily as it does positive.
God gave you an awesome mind that is an affirming machine. It is up to you to decide whether those affirmations will be positive or negative, healthy or sick, constructive or destructive.
THREE ESSENTIAL FACTS ABOUT THE AFFIRMATIVE POWER OF THE MIND
1. Affirmative thinking comes in two forms: positive and negative.
2. The opposite of affirmative thinking is not negative thinking.
3. The opposite of affirmative thinking is doubt, uncertainty, ambivalence, and fear.
Until you understand these essential facts, there is a high probability that affirmations will not work their magic. In fact, affirmations may even make you worse.
The battle for a positive mind is even more challenging when doubt, uncertainty, ambivalence, and fear assume control. The doubting mind is the antithesis of the affirmative mind. The opposite of affirmative thinking is doubt, uncertainty, ambivalence, and fear, and when they are in charge, nothing good happens.
For all practical purposes, your mind is either in an affirmative state or in a state of uncertainty, doubt, ambivalence, and fear.
The affirmative state has two forms: positive or negative. Most people experience some combination of the two.
Positive is a constructive state that makes your life easier taking you in the direction of your dreams.
Negative is a destructive state that makes your life harder than it needs to be and takes you where you don’t want to go.
Doubt, uncertainty, ambivalence, and fear are destructive maladaptive states that take over when the mind loses its ability to affirm. Your mind does not do a good job of handling doubt and ambivalence. A mind full of these culprits is inefficient and dysfunctional.
If you want affirmations to make your life better, you must make sure that all your affirmations are positive.
THE CRIPPLED MIND - LOOSING YOUR AFFIRMATIVE POWERS
Although you can never turn off your brain, you can cripple the affirming machine with doubt, uncertainty, ambivalence, and fear.
When your mind loses the power to affirm, it becomes impotent. You are mentally decapitated because positive affirmations no longer flow from your mind.
Rene Descartes penned the words, “I think, therefore I am.” This simple premise states the fact that my ability to think proves that I actually exist.
Although I don’t have any doubts about my existence, the human mind could make a similar claim. “I affirm, therefore I am.”
Part of what it means for the brain to exist is the power to affirm, and when you strip it of that power, you diminish it to a significant degree. It’s impossible to affirm anything good when doubt, uncertainty, ambivalence, and fear cripple the mind.
Nothing good ever comes from doubt, uncertainty, ambivalence and fear.
THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS
Which is better? A mind full of negative affirmations or a mind crippled by doubt, ambivalence, and fear?
I would not choose either of these states, but if I had to choose, I would choose the negative mind over the crippled one.
The negative mind is working normally in the sense that it still has the ability to affirm. Although it is affirming the wrong things, at least it is still working. It isn’t crippled. Rather, it is misdirected and misinformed. A negative mind gives me more with which to work. If I can move the affirmations in a positive and constructive direction, things can rapidly improve because I don’t have to deal with a crippled mind.
A mind crippled by doubt, ambivalence, and fear is an entirely different story. That mind is not even to square zero because it has forgotten how to affirm. The first order of the day is to retrain the mind so that it starts affirming once again. That gets you back to square zero, and then you can start reprogramming the mind with powerful positive affirmations so that the mind can start doing what it does best.
You prime the positive pump with positive affirmations so the mind can start affirming once again, and you repeat positive thoughts to your mind until your mind repeats them back to you.
INNER CONGRUENCE
Affirmations give you the power to get in agreement with yourself and achieve inner congruence.
What is inner congruence?
Inner congruence is about who you are. It looks at the three parts of you that make you uniquely human.
Inner congruence exists when your mind, heart, and will are all committed to moving together in a non-ambivalent fashion to achieve a worthwhile purpose.
People have understood the importance of inner congruence for thousands of years. The Bible teaches that you are to love God with all your mind, all your heart, and all your strength. This passage of scripture lays out what it means to achieve inner congruence. You must get you mind, your heart, and your will all heading in the same direction if you want big things to happen in your life.
If your mind wants one thing, your heart wants something else, and your will is not willing to do whatever it takes, you are in trouble. You are heading in different directions in your mind, heart, and will, and this lack of congruence literally tears you apart. You are stuck until you get your mind, heart, and will to work together and head in the same direction.
Each time you face an important decision, you must ask yourself three questions:
1. Do I want this with my head?
2. Do I want this with my heart?
3. Am I willing to do whatever it takes?
If you answer yes to all three questions, ambivalence is not a problem, and you have inner congruence. You will be able to move forward in a positive manner because every part of who you are is on the same page working to achieve the same positive outcome.
If you answer no to any of the questions, ambivalence is present and inner congruence does not exist. You may as well stop right where you are and resolve the ambivalence before you try to move ahead. You will never be able to move forward in a positive manner until you have inner congruence.
Inner congruence is easier to achieve using the power of repetition. You repeat an affirmation until your mind repeats it back to you. You repeat an affirmation until your heart repeats it back to you. You repeat an affirmation until your will gets on board and speaks with the same voice as your heart and mind. When your heart, mind and will are all in agreement, your affirmations will have done their positive work, and you will have real power.
DO AFFIRMATIONS WORK?
There is no doubt about it. Affirmations work, and they work all the time unless you are trapped in doubt, ambivalence and fear.
Affirmations will work for you and make your life better once you understand what they are and how they work.
Positive Thinking is much more complicated than repeating a few positive affirmations and hoping for the best. Positive Thinking is about learning how to run your mind in a way that get's you in agreement with yourself so that you can make your dreams come true.
SPEAK YOUR WORLD INTO EXISTENCE WITH THE POWER OF POSITIVE I AM
When you talk, you actually speak your own world into existence.
Every time you say I AM, you create a personal world that matches your I AM.
When you say "I am positive", you create a positive world.
When you say, "I am blessed", you become aware of the blessings that surround you on all sides.
When you say, "I am healthy", the power of healing flows into your body.
When you say, "I am unstoppable", God says, "All things are possible to him who believes."
When you say, "I am willing to do whatever it takes," you discover that you can do all things with God's help.
When you say, "I am prosperous", you trust God to be the Source of everything you need.
When you say, "I am a Doer of Dreams", you get in agreement with God and live his dream for your life.
When you say, "I am a child of God", your spirit comes alive, and you dare to call God your Father.
When you say, "I am created in the image of God", you realize that you are who God says you are, and you can do what God says you can do.
When you repeat these I AM statements, you create an awesome world in which you are a positive, blessed, healthy, unstoppable, and prosperous child of God created in His image. That's the positive power of getting your I AM statements right.
Negative I AM statements are the formula for a miserable life.
Nothing good ever comes from saying things like I am a loser, I am depressed, I am ugly, I am hopeless, I am stupid, I am poor, or I am worthless.
When you repeat those I AM statements, you create a wretched world where you are a loser, depressed, ugly, poverty stricken, and you live without hope. That's the negative power of getting your I AM statements wrong.
Affirmations will make or break you. They will turbocharge your destiny taking you far beyond your early limited dreams, or they will become weapons of self-destruction that ruin your life.
The Positive Thinking Network has hundreds of positive rescources to help you get your affirmations right.
Listen to the positive podcasts, repeat the positive self-talk, review the positive graphics, and check out the positive apps.
Many times I felt like I had taken things to the limit, but on further examination, it was clear I simply had enough. I was done and was unwilling to do whatever it takes to continue. Hitting the wall of absolute limits has never been a problem. The envelope of possibility is infintely large, and the likelihood of encountering absolute limits is infinitesimally small. There are no limits. There are only limiting beliefs.
In the grand scheme of things, my grand schemes seem fairly insignificant. In a global sense it's easy to feel as if my life counts for nothing, or at most, counts for little. When someone tells me that I shouldn't be doing things that are important to me, and that I'm wasting my life, they are really saying that my dreams don't count in their scheme of things.
I am a daktari without borders. I am not sure when and where borders disappeared from my mind, but sometime in the last quarter century, I became a citizen of the world. Wherever I am on planet earth, I feel at home in my borderless world. Find out what it's like to live without borders.
When my life is over and on judgment day I stand in the final line up with all the rest, I hope millions of people can point their finger at me, pick me out of the line up, and say, "He's the one. That's definitely him. He's different from the rest. He didn't conform, and he is guilty of living his dreams.
You are never safe from negation. Unchecked negativity can rapidly flush the achievements of a lifetime down the drain. If you ever reach your dreams, it will be because you stopped listening to the voice of fear and negation. You stopped looking at your limitations and stopped constructing barriers that exist only in your mind.
Faith isn’t something that must be present before you move in the direction of your dreams. Rather it’s something that develops after you start moving. When you start out, you don’t see how your dreams are possible. Nevertheless, the moment you take the first step, faith instantly comes into your life. Never look at faith as the path to a life of leisure. God gave you faith so you could see things other people can’t see and do things other people can’t do.
I could write an entire book called, "Things I Feared That Never Happened," and follow that up with a second book entitled, "I Feared The Wrong Things." Almost always, fear is a waste of time. Most of the things you fear will never happen, and you fear the wrong things. When the hobglobins of fear start dancing in your mind, it's time to refocus on other things. Learn how to squelch the voice of fear with a positive focus!
For me, the dream is all about adventure, freedom, and being really alive. Although I like seeing the sights wherever we go, I think it's the sense of adventure coupled with the freedom to do what I want to do with my life, seasoned with a pinch of adrenalin that makes it all worthwhile.
The first step in moving toward your dreams is to doubt your limits. Once you doubt your limits, it's almost as if you are born again. You get an entirely new life with radically different rules of engagement. You enter the Promised Land of Imagine, Believe, and Receive. I know this to be true because I have been there.
WHO IS DR. DAVE AND WHY IS HE BLOGGING?
More than two decades ago, Captain Dave (aka Dr. Dave) started writing and creating websites as he sailed around the world on his sailboat, SV Exit Only. Those early websites and books evolved into the Positive Thinking Network you see today.
Captain Dave lived overseas for twenty-eight years in his globe trotting lifestyle until he became a Flying Doctor with the Indian Health Service working for ten years in the American Southwest flying out to deliver health care to the Apache, Hopi, Hualapai, Havasupai, and Colorado River Tribes.
Dr. Dave completed his work with the Indian Health Service in Arizona, and now runs the Positive Thinking Network full time either from his catamaran or his Land Rover Defenders as he travels around the world
The Positive Thinking Network has a global outreach sending a positive message to 196 countries, and it is your definitive source of positive thinking on the World Wide Web.
With hundreds of positive websites, and more than a million pages and podcasts downloaded each month, it's where you come to learn everything you want to know about positive thinking. The Positive Thinking Network focuses on positive self-talk, positive spirituality, winning the battle against depression, PTSD, and positive adventure.
Hundreds of family safe websites stand ready to fill your mind with positive things.
Dr. Dave and the Positive Thinking Network work around the clock to change the world, one person at a time, one web page at a time, and one podcast at a time.
