Affirmations

Positive statements, repeated on purpose. We mostly use them backwards, as a way of finding parts.

Description

The standard version is a present-tense, positive, personal statement you repeat until you believe it: “I am worthy of love and respect”, “I trust myself to make the right decisions”. Some people find this empowering. Some of us find it cringeworthy, and have done for most of our lives.

The objections are decent. They can feel inauthentic, and telling your system something it knows to be untrue seems to make it trust you less — say “I am loved and worthy” in the middle of a brutal breakup and most of your parts will answer with something like “sure, and the moon is made of cheese”. They can flatten complicated things. And they edge close to the idea that the universe owes you delivery.

Here is the reframe. Say the affirmation, then pay attention to whatever objects. The eyebrow-raise, the snort, the “yeah, right”, the sudden tiredness — those are trailheads, and they are the good part. Used this way an affirmation isn’t a belief you’re installing, it’s a probe, and the ones that produce the loudest objection are the interesting ones. Conveniently, parts work doesn’t require you to be of one mind about a tool: you can find affirmations cringeworthy, stay sceptical, use them anyway, and see what happens. We wrote it up here.

What Affirmations is NOT:

Not positive thinking, at least not the way we use them. And not a way to talk a part out of what it believes — if you notice yourself repeating one harder, that is a Self-like part trying to win an argument.

Examples:

“I am worthy of love”, and a part immediately asks who says so.
“I trust myself to make good decisions”, and you feel tired. Why tired?
“My body is strong”, and nothing comes up at all, which is its own information.

see also:

Trailheads; Metta Bhavana (Loving-kindness Meditation); Self-like Parts; Burdens; Parts Work