I’ve tried visualizations and affirmations in the past. I really tried. Somehow though they never worked.
No matter how much I said to myself “I am wealthy. I am abundant. I am fabulously rich.” I still woke up… errr… financially challenged.
I tried them on my love life too and I ended up attracting horrible relationships.
Why?
It took me years to figure it out.
I was sincere in my desire to change. I was profoundly honest when I proclaimed to myself that I wanted money, love and an awesome life. But my deepest, truest feelings about myself and life in general were very different.
I felt small, poor, challenged, at the mercy of forces that seemed bigger than me and that I couldn’t control. And no matter how much “affirming” I did, those affirmations always felt like a lie.
It’s a bit like this: our beliefs and feelings are, in a way, the software that “runs” our brain. Like Windows 7 or XP or any other operating system that runs your computer – and every other program on your computer. Affirmations are little add-on programs. For them to stick, they have to be compatible with the operating system.
If the core operating system is set on “poor, unprotected, unloved and lost”, trying to “install” add-ons that say “rich, protected, loved and purposeful” will fail.
It’s like Windows popping up a message: “Sorry, this new software you are trying to install is not compatible with your current operating system. ” This is why we attract the same – and even worse.
By trying so hard to install those “add-ons” into our minds, we actually end up reinforcing the original software!
What then are we to do? Accept that we are doomed? That our creator or Life has sent us here on Earth with a preinstalled system that’s condemning us to a wretched life? Of course not.
How and why we got the “software” we got is another story I won’t go into now. Suffice it to say, we don’t need to know that any more than we need to know who installed Windows on a computer – or why. The good news is, we can change it!
How to change your internal “operating system”
There are many schools of thought that teach a great variety of methods for changing the deep-seated feelings and beliefs that we wish to change. I have tried many of those myself.
What has worked for me is this:
I focus on the feelings I’d get if I had what I wanted or if I were what I wanted.
For example, if I want money, I focus on “comfort” or “freedom”. “Abundant” is too general – and it brings up lots of issues. So I just gently look for feelings that seem achievable. Then, I contemplate and look for them wherever I can: my life, other people’s lives, the world at large.
I don’t even do it in the context of money, but in general.
“Comfort” for example is in spending time with my best friend. It’s being a couch potato watching movies. It’s wearing my pj’s all day long if I feel like it. Comfort is in someone who takes a day off because they need to rest. Or in a big, fluffy armchair.
“And does this work?” you ask. The answer is YES! I don’t really know exactly how… but my theory is that by focusing on these feelings, I do two things:
- I stop focusing on “the bad” and therefore I don’t keep running it and I don’t reinforce it.
- My life changes because by focusing my attention on these other feelings, I attract whatever resonates with them.
The first month I focused on these general good feelings I got a very exciting business proposition from an old friend, I wrote three books (I didn’t even try to defeat procrastination! “Defeating” means still focusing on “it”) and I had synchronicities showing up almost every day, several times a day.
Of course, this means that you have to be willing to give up trying to control circumstances or a particular outcome. At least for a while, until you get good at it and work the bugs out of the new system.
In the meantime, keeping it general works. Would you be willing to give it a try?
C.M. Ellis
FindGoodFeelings.wordpress.com 