In our world there are lots of self-help guides and books, presentations and recordings to help a person lift their self-esteem, self-worth or overall and general positivity towards life. These can be an accumulation of many so-called ‘loving’ words and affirmations that one can say once or twice, or be recalled repetitively throughout the days, months or years to come.
Affirmations can be telling ourselves things like, “You are good enough,” “You are beautiful,” “You are positive, happy, amazing, worthy, successful etc. etc.,” and even “You can do anything.”
But does telling ourselves we have all these positive, easy-going and highly desirable traits and talents really work? Does it feel real? Does it last? And do we really live it? Or are these words really just presenting to us the knowledge that if we tell ourselves repetitively that something is true about us, we will eventually believe it?
What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell: that we are already everything – that we are already enough.
Would it be possible to then use our daily words and personal appreciations to simply support and confirm this, and never to just tell ourselves what we are? There would be no need to label ourselves with words that describe who we want to be, leaving us thinking that we will reach our goals or get there someday; thinking that if we repeat affirmations many times, perhaps even sticking them to our fridge, we will one day believe it about ourselves in full.
Could it be that our number one and true affirmation is that we are love?
We don’t ever need to teach ourselves this nor try to recall it as knowledge – because we already are love, it’s just a simple fact.
With the choice to stop and to feel who we are, in our own bodies, in this very moment, is it possible that all anyone ever truly wants is to be love and to be loved? If so, there would be many places in our daily life where we would look for this love and one of the most obvious places is in the way we speak to ourselves; including what we tell ourselves about who we are, what we are good at, what we are worth, how we look, what we are capable of and, perhaps, even what our purpose in life really is.
The most common conversations we have daily – if not moment-to-moment – happen within our own heads. Our internal dialogue is where such affirmations happen, driving and striving us to be better or to achieve personal development, growth and success, but does this drive to be greater someday actually work for us and most importantly, does it feel natural, easy or truly loving?
There can be great simplicity in the relationship with ourselves and this begins with knowing who we already are, from the very inside of our own bodies, within our hearts. Our bodies know when something feels hot or cold, good or bad, and so they definitely know when words are just words and are not truly felt or lived in full – when they are not a part of our Livingness.
It is true there are many writers, presenters and courses that one could seek out to support themselves in affirming who they are, and changing how they would like to live. But a true and loving affirmation cannot just be found on a calendar page or a magnet on one’s fridge, or through words spoken at you by another.
When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.
By Cherise Holt, Nurse, 32, Brisbane
Further Reading:
Who Am I?
Appreciation, Appreciation, Appreciation
Appreciation – A Pathway to Love
Livingness
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
“When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies”. This truth can be felt in ones body, when we are connected to it. Otherwise as you have already shared it is just words, that the eyes see but the body cannot feel. Confirmations and appreciations are felt through the body. Anything else/less will only be superficial…
When we move the love that we are we can feel the truth.
Mary, when we move the love, others can feel it too. Sometimes they don’t know what to do and sometimes they awaken and realise, that there is more to life than just words.
‘But does telling ourselves we have all these positive, easy-going and highly desirable traits and talents really work? Does it feel real? Does it last? And do we really live it?’ from my experience in the past with using affirmations … No they do not truly work. It is easy to say them similar as it could be easy for someone to say to another person ‘I love you’ but not really mean it. Further from my experience it has been a process of truly connecting with my body more, letting go of ill ideals, beliefs, patterns and behaviours that was in disregard of and to myself, the Esoteric Healing modalities helped massively with this, clearing from my body all I had accumulated in life that was not truly me. In doing this I then had more self-love and self-worth from my body not my mind saying i had this and then when I did feel things from my body, a feeling of loveliness, this was natural true and not forced or false state. Our body really is the marker of all truth and once we clear all from it that is not truly us it has the space to be what it truly is ✨
When we appreciate our essences we are in fact loving who we are and this is the most power-full way to evolve.
The thing is we already have love within us but because we do not feel it or live it we then try to convince ourselves by using thoughts to bolster up our self-worth. When we link to the fact that we are love and we know love from the inside out that’s when things begin to change and the external confirmations are not needed.
We are love, ‘is it possible that all anyone ever truly wants is to be love and to be loved?’
When we feel something in our bodies then we can own it as being true, I can know something but until I feel it, it remains as knowledge outside of me. Allowing me to reconnect back to my body is the greatest gift I can give to myself so worth the struggle to let go and just allow.
‘The most common conversations we have daily – if not moment-to-moment – happen within our own heads.’ This is so true, I’ve never looked at it this way and it makes me wonder what is the qualities of these conversations we have with ourselves. Are they, appreciative, loving and honouring or are they judgemental, negative and abusive?
Affirmations tend to take us further away from who we are because we are asking for something to either fix us or fix a situation, yet when we live from love we know there is nothing to fix.
When we connect to our inner-heart we know who we are.
We know who we are, and we know that we are love, ‘When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.’
When something is known in the body and then lived from the knowing, it is very powerful. I find it more powerful than when you are told something or convinced to believe something, and then try to live it from there.
Affirmations don’t work because it feels like we are trying to convince ourselves of something which we do not believe is true. Feeling the love that we know we are from the body comes with a deeper knowing and the body responds to this. Then it is up to us to develop that relationship with the love that we are.
Affirmations that simply come from the head will not work, our body knows the truth.
I used affirmations when I was younger, of course they didn’t work because I was saying something that didn’t feel true for me. When we learn to build love in our bodies and connect more to our inner hearts we don’t have the need to search for something outside of ourselves, we can then move from the love and connection we feel within.
I actually feel that having a positive outlook on life is important, not that we need chants or affirmations or anything, but just the realisation that the angle of our focus is vital to the place we ultimately end up at.
I remember trying affirmations once, I got a little frustrated because they didn’t seem to work. Now I know that when I live from my heart I have everything I need.
Feel it before we speak it. Live it and we move in it.
Affirmations are like a tip of an iceberg … actually they are not even that. Affirmations are very superficial. Acceptance and honesty along with a willingness to heal will start to get to the root of something (the bottom of the iceberg) including knowing the love that we all are.
Connecting to the feeling of love within the body is naturally confirming of who we are.
If we’re rushed, stressed, over-working and generally completely disconnected from our body, it’s hard to imagine that there’s any love in it, because in those moments we can’t feel it. Taking moments in our day just to stop and feel the body, feel underneath the stress or anxiety or whatever emotion we’re feeling, helps us to start to build a relationship with our bodies where we actually want to be with whatever we’re feeling instead of wanting to run away from it. When we stay with our body, we can start to heal whatever it is that we’d rather not feel, and to want to take care of it and love it.
We have people living in a way that do not truly enjoy life, and we have a lucrative industry addressed to them aimed at picking them up, cheering them up, etc.. Yet, what the industry provides, does not really change anything. You may buy a thousand T-shirts with the word Love but it may not mean a thing. You may decorate all of your house with ‘loving’ phrases but may not do anything for you. The truth is that only healing does something for you. Only a body that heals is able to shift thigs inside and can change the way it moves.
There is a feeling of love within the body that I have connected to via the Gentle Breath Meditation, and that has blown away any ideals of what love is, and instead opened the door to a daily way of love that is always with me.
I remember how hard it used to be for me to even admit that I wanted to love and be loved. It was too much of vulnerability, it was far easier to say that I wanted to be rich or successful or whatever. Now looking back, I can see the ridiculousness of this – wanting to be something while stubbornly resisting my own essence when in fact that was the very thing I most craved. I can feel the insidiousness of the way those affirmations drive us further from our essence.
This blog really describes all the things about mentally-driven affirmations that never felt right or really useful to me. When I tried that ‘reprogramming’ approach of self-affirmations it always felt empty and as if it was coming from someone else, because I was not ready to actually make the self-loving choices that would confirm these positive affirmations at all.
I can so clearly remember the day I decided to start using affirmations, with the first one being “I love myself’.
My response was instant and really stunned me as the words ‘No I don’t!’ emerged loudly from my mouth. Initially I struggled to understand my reaction but I persevered and as I did I started to feel within my body that there were blocks in the way of the natural self-love we all have for ourselves. It has taken a while, and not one more affirmation, to come to a place where I truly love myself and live that love every day.
I used to do affirmations for many years, nothing ever changed because they were done from my head and had no love in them whatsoever.
A quality that is felt, moved and lived in the body is known. Affirmations feel to come from a lack, or trying to become more in some way without the living of those qualities.
Affirmations are like a bit of plaster we pile on hoping that, if we repeat them often enough, they will stick eventually. Confirmation of what we already are is of a very different quality and supports us more than any affirmation ever could.
Yes, this is a great way to describe the quality of these two words, one confirms that what already is while the other hopes for something that we wish to be.
I cannot but wonder if everyone wants to love and be loved why is the world in the mess that it is today. What are we doing to ourselves.
Something we are not actively living can maybe temporally feel like the reality with affirmations but it never can be sustained as it does not come from inside ourselves. We need to address why we don’t feel good and treat the root cause for true and lasting change.
When we connect to our divine inner essence we know and feel that we are love, we feel it through our bodies, no need for any affirmations when we are connected.
Affirmations are very much about trying to change ourselves from the outside in, but it’s kind of like painting over a wall with positivity when the house we are living in is always going to feel negative if the source of energy we are aligned to is from our spirit. Aligning to our soul is the true way to feel amazing, not because we tell ourselves so but because we are so.
Affirmations are very much about trying to change ourselves from the outside in, but it’s kind of like painting over a wall with positivity when the house we are living in is always going to feel negative if the source of energy we are aligned to is from our spirit. Aligning to our soul is the true way to feel amazing, not because we tell ourselves so but because we are so.
there are so many things happening in this world that seem to be the answer… Affirmations of course… Mindfulness is another one that seems to be leading so much of humanity down a garden path that just leads to a compost pit… It is only when we truly connect to our bodies that we can stop the old destructive paradigms of our mental processes.
“And do we really live it?” This blog gives deeper meaning to the expression ‘Actions speak louder than words’.
Beautifully expressed Cherise. The simplicity and truth of love that is already within us (always) is far from the complication of using mental affirmations to
fill up with and feel better about ourselves. No external seeking, confirmation or learning knowledge required, only a re-turn to re-connect to the inner wisdom, equally available to all.
“We don’t ever need to teach ourselves this nor try to recall it as knowledge – because we already are love, it’s just a simple fact”.
True the wisdom of our bodies is the real marker of appreciation and no words repeated or written down can be believed by the body, it is not a matter of the mind convincing the body it is the other way around if we feel our body and the love that does reside within, even beyond pain and tension, then our mind can settle and surrender to impulses of love.
This is very beautiful Cherise. In deeply reflecting on the relationship we hold with our bodies, the marker of truth, and how our bodies will always communicate what energy we are aligning to, we are offered the opportunity to deepen our relationship and connection to the love we are so we can live all that we are.
The problem with using words that are devoid of their livingness is that we get used to their emptiness because of our own emptiness. So, we try to fill emptiness with empty words.
Interesting point Eduardo, it does feel like that. How often do we express with a fullness and appreciation?
When I first tried affirmations in an attempt to change my life I really wanted them to work, as nothing so far had. But it didn’t take too long to realise that this was simply another hope that was not going to give me what I was looking forward. I figured this out when in response to me repeating ‘I love myself’ over and over suddenly from deep inside I heard the question, ‘do you really?’ I was stopped in my tracks and knew that I was being asked for total honesty and the words that I spoke in reply – ‘I don’t think I do’ – were definitely from a place of honesty. Those words made me realise that there was something getting in the way of me loving me and I could feel that what that was I was finally ready to discover.
Beautiful blog, rendering all those aspirational affirmations obsolete in favour of one simple truth : We are Love. Important to realise all the negative self-talk we allow to run amok in our minds throughout the day and remind ourselves through our actions and choices that we have all we need already – we’re born with it; we’ll die with it. So let’s get on with living it.
We all want to love and be loved, and this can be built by how we are with ourselves, how we talk to ourselves, taking moments to appreciate and confirm our amazing qualities is very supportive, ‘in the way we speak to ourselves; including what we tell ourselves about who we are, what we are good at, what we are worth, how we look, what we are capable of and, perhaps, even what our purpose in life really is.’
‘Affirmations are the lies we tell ourselves’. However, appreciation and self-love and building that is true affirmation.
I agree Jstewart51, and appreciation and self-love is very powerful, if we apply this to every aspect of our life it can be life changing and it is truly amazing on all levels.
And the application of that self-love and appreciation is through the lived quality of our movements, not the reciting of words.
The livingness of love is an awesome description of the embodiment of the love we are which when we appreciate and confirm it thus expands and flows out in all our activities both those of caring for ourselves and also all our interactions with others.
What a great claiming of the love we all are, ‘the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.’ Beautiful sharing and confirmation.
Changing our internal dialogue is a big one. I didn’t clock until the last few years that I actually communicate the most with myself in terms of my thoughts and how I feel about myself, but it cant just come from the head because I also know affirmations don’t work, having tried them for years. Connecting to my body has been my way to make lasting change and it started for me with doing the Gentle Breath meditation. A way to call a stop and feel what was going on in my body, and then from there start to get honest with how I was feeling.
I totally agree with you Debra. It is through listening and honouring the wisdom from our body rather than telling it and our self something we do not believe that results in the changes we desire and more.
I used positive affirmations for years, but they did nothing for my lack of self-worth. Also because my own negative self-talk about how I wasn’t enough continually drowned out anything positive i tried to say. “What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell: that we are already everything – that we are already enough.” Saying affirmations are meaningless unless we actually feel we are already enough in our bodies. Universal Medicine presentations and practitioners have enabled me to now know I am worthy and good enough, because i have reconnected to who i truly am deep inside.
When it comes to exposing the false layer we can place on top of the existing reality of our lives, through the new age/personal development and spiritual practice of ‘doing affirmations’, the promise of “getting there” says it all really. Get to where?
In doing such a practice – and I did my fair share of it in years past – we are frequently seeking alleviation from aspects of our lives in which we are generally not happy and/or do not feel that we are enough. And/or seeking to ‘magically attain’ externally driven measures of ‘success’ that contain not an ounce of actual love.
Industries yet thrive upon this… emptiness begetting emptiness…
Without a knowing of love within our own being and reconnection to the essence within, it is all meaningless…
The thing is, connecting to ‘the love we are’ IS something that requires a deep ‘yes’ on the part of our own will, or yet again, we are left with words that sound good and helpful, but leave us bereft…
And so we need a means of reconnecting, of making this truth real for us – that this may become our own claimed knowing. The Gentle Breath Meditation, as presented by Serge Benhayon offers a powerful step in this direction – an opportunity to feel the truth that you have shared here Cherise, to arrest the ‘outer bombardments’ and quite possibly, feel that we do have an essence within, an essence that is this Love.
Stopping the negative thoughts and self-talk and allowing us to feel instead how much beauty there is about us is something very worth practicing and a true affirmation to ourself.
Repeating sentences, no matter how ‘positives’ they sound, is another way to check out if those words are not lived first.
The difference between a mental dialogue, no matter how ‘meaningful’ and an energetic full body realization of truth and healing, is vast, and once the latter is felt , one could never go back to the former.
“But does telling ourselves we have all these positive, easy-going and highly desirable traits and talents really work? Does it feel real? Does it last? And do we really live it?”
In my experience, a big fat no is the answer to that question. I used to have affirmations taped to my mirrors, say them constantly, write them down, often each day for a period of time- you name it, I did it!
And whilst I may have got ‘a result’, it did not last as I did not really live it. I put something ‘out there’ and got ‘something back’ but it was not really me truly living it and it continued the illusion that I had to be ‘better’ to become ‘who I was’.
Whereas the true confirmation you write of, is learning to live the love that you are, with a deep knowing of that you start to live that, and confirm that you live it and that you are it, then it feels real, a strong foundation to live life from – and in my experience, it lasts.
‘Could it be that our number one and true affirmation is that we are love?’ Yes I agree Cherise and your blog is a beautiful sharing, there are many who use affirmations that are ignoring the grand love we are and instead are trying to make themselves feel something from their mind – I know because I said affirmations for many years hoping for things to change. The greatest changes came for me when I began attending Universal Medicine presentations where I was inspired to connect to my body and make more loving choices and through these changes I could begin to truly appreciate the qualities I bring.
Words are just words if there is not livingness behind them. So, where is the author of the self-help book writing from? From where is anyone ´learning’ what the author have to say? What truly helps is someone writing what they have to say from their own body, that is lived experience and to feel in and with your body what the author is presenting.
Words are just words if there is livingness behind them. So, where is the author of the self-help book writing from? From where is anyone ´learning’ what the author have to say? What truly helps is someone writing what they have to say from their own body, that is lived experience and to feel in and with your body what the author is presenting.
I love playing with words and how they feel and when I feel affirmation versus confirmation there is a real difference in quality. An affirmation feels slightly fluffy or transparent and something that is felt from our thoughts whereas a confirmation feels like clarity and a solid foundation for which we can continue to express and appreciate the essence of where we are all from. Confirming who we are with every breath or step taken is so utterly beautiful and supports our commitment to living life from the quality of vibration we then move in.
This makes perfect sense to everything in my life so far. I tried but it never truly made sense to try and talk myself out or into something. The way I learnt was always a very bodily, physical experience, in other words I had to feel it for myself and no amount of telling or teaching would convince me. It’s the same for trying to tell yourself to be positive or cheer up or be happy or whatever. The moment you have a conversation, even with yourself that is telling you to do something to get you out of something the whole thing is a miss. For me feeling has always been my strength, my make sense of the world that didn’t make sense. Whenever something confused, impacted or sent me in a spin I would need to feel how to walk myself back and the only thing I was able to stand on was the experience I had had. Anything else would always lead me around in circles.
Spiritual affirmations are needed when we live in separation to the love that we are and thus in this space we search outward for a truth that can only be found within us. And so we set up the futile outward search for love and our true self, our Soul, which buys us more time to stay lost in the mire of our own creation rather than simply feel the love we already are, the magnitude of the love we belong to and begin to deeply appreciate this. Thank you Cherise for these beautiful and truly affirming words that are spoken in and with the great love that we are.
So beautifully shared Cherise – surrendering to the knowing of all we already are within is the greatest affirmation and as such foundation for us to live from, through which our livingness, all that we do, is a confirmation of the love that resides within us all.
Really appreciating the depth you present here with such simplicity. We could be telling one thing in our head, but if that is not what we are experiencing/living, the lie is felt unavoidably no matter how much we tell ourselves otherwise and try to ignore. Disregard we often choose to live with is totally contradictory and negating of what we truly are in essence. What is already here only needs to be felt and lived for it to be affirmed.
Affirmation is never a word I used, but when reading this, I start to understand that what we affirm is important to realize. That we not just affirm that which is obvious and ‘accepted as normal’ but actually feel within what feels right. As only then we will know its whole and full truth.
“but does this drive to be greater someday actually work for us and most importantly, does it feel natural, easy or truly loving?” I wish the latter part of that question had been asked to me a while back….I used to be a big fan of affirmations – the kinda fake it till you make it – and the question you pose is a great litmus test and if I had asked myself, none of what I did would have passed the test.
Learning to live the love that I am, can feel a bit clunky at times because I have not done it for a while, but when I connect to it, it feels as natural as the day we were born.
It is crazy to believe that we can fool ourselves with empty words. A truth is known only when it is lived… everything else is just a lie to make ourselves feel temporarily better.
Spot on Samantha, far great to expose the lie and begin to be honest about how we truly feel.
Such great topic! It is so daring me to be honest and equally all whom read this.. Have we been affirming those things we miss or would like to be lived, or truly appreciating? One who can answer that very clearly is : our body. As it is shared about – that what is lived will be felt, as our body will never lie at all.
Affirmations or saying the same thing over and over trying to memorise it can be like a broken record going around and around in your head in a tune of words that you kind of dance to but don’t fully embody and express from your heart… nor bring fully alive in your day to day life.
When you know something you do not have to keep repeating it, it is just an absolute truth felt in your body.
Some people are better at listening to what they feel than others, but the bottom line is that we all know, it’s whether we’re tuned in or not. We can feel a situation – perhaps being somewhere that doesn’t feel right or tension between two people. Acknowledging what you feel builds a foundation for knowing what you feel.
When our head is constantly talking to us, it is easy to beat ourselves up, and affirmations no matter how good they may sound are making us focus on an expectation of ourselves, it is so much more loving when we focus on being ourselves with no preconceived ideas as to what that might look like.
It is true affirmations only deliver a momentary relief and belief that we are making positive changes but over time the intensity changes and leaves us feeling empty, and seeking again for more answers.
You are spot on Cherise when you say that affirmations occur in our heads, and it seems directly as a result of believing the rest of what has come before (also in our heads) about ‘not being enough’, not ‘there yet’ etc.
From our bodies we get to feel that we are already everything… and that is the only confirmation that will truly support.
It just doesn’t work trying to tell ourselves something is true when it is not, or that something hasn’t hurt us when it has because it lays a shield that we have a subconscious knowing is false. It creates a relationship with anxiety that can become all to familiar to the point we forget we are trying to persuade ourselves of something. The anxiety stays though…. to stop us feeling completely comfortable in our own skin. Much better to embrace who we are in full.
When we live in a way that confirms that we are love, there is no need to talk yourself into anything. You just know and know that this is the same for everyone.
Love holds such clarity and richness and we all know it deep within, as it is a part of our every cell and particle of our bodies. There is no affirmation book big enough to support how huge our love is.
We need to re-deveop trust for ourselves and in this reacquaint ourselves with the absolute knowing that we hold for what is true and what is not. Unshakable is the ground for the one who stands tall in this knowing and lives it to the best of their ability, in full, every single day.
Words can take on any meaning we want them too – and many words have been made to mean something they are in fact not. Affirmations feel really empty to me, like there is no relationship to anything, just a hope or a ‘fake it till you make it’ attitude.
I’d say this is a case of Quality rather than quantity! Even if we repeat words over and over to ourselves if we haven’t connected with the quality inside us then it doesn’t really help…
Awesome Cherise. As we begin to see the truth of what we are not it is vital that we appreciate the truth of who we are too. As you say, this true beingness does not have to be created for it already is but we do need to appreciate and nurture this innate essence.
Saying particular words or sentences over and over does not necessarily mean you are actually living the qualities of those same words….
The world we live in is full of pictures and images of how things should be, how we should be and what everything should look like. But these images are a set-up to make us think that we are beginning from a starting point where we are ‘less than’ before ‘we get there’; but where are we getting exactly? It’s like a dangling carrot that is always moving and always designed to keep us in the ‘less than’ mode and way of thinking. The illusion that this way of thinking holds us in is thick but there are definite ways to not get caught in it and actually bring ‘true love’ and thus ‘truth’ back to our lives. One way is to redevelop our natural ability to be aware of such pictures and to claim what is true and what is simply a picture or placed expectation and another is to move in a way that is not about the mind running the show or about listening to the constantly fed pictures, but instead move from a connection within our bodies that ‘already knows we are everything’ and that any ‘less than’ energy has been exposed for the set-up and picture that it always, always was.
Its great that you bring up sticking affirmations on your fridge and trying to convince yourself you will get to this, as you say it is not something that comes from the outside, it is knowing the truth of who you are on the inside and allowing this to be expressed on the outside.
There is something naturally ‘absolute’ about us that we can connect to at any moment and this is a profound and exquisite understanding to have; because from here, we are able to walk, talk, move and speak (communicate in every way) from a place within us that is more solid and naturally confident, unshakable so. There’s no place or time to go into doubt when we come from our absoluteness and so this is a concept that each and every one of us has the worth and potential in exploring more and more.
It is important to confirm and appreciate that we are love, this could simply be in ways like, ‘ in the way we speak to ourselves; including what we tell ourselves about who we are, what we are good at, what we are worth, how we look, what we are capable of and, perhaps, even what our purpose in life really is.’
This is lovely Cherise, ‘When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.’
Things which require effort usually do not work. There is a difference between effort and commitment, one is an expression of what is already within us, and the other requires all sorts of things to be justified.
This is great, affirmations are only from our mind, while when we truly feel deep into who we are we get to see the beauty that is there only needed to confirm but never only to affirm..
One of the choices I have made recently is that of ‘ letting go’, and I have found that the more I let go of everything I was hanging onto that no longer serves me, the more I am able to accept, allow and connect to the wisdom within my body which is then easily felt and expressed….
A simple choice ‘to let go’, allow or give ourselves the permission in any circumstance is a healing one and I love what you share jacqmcfadden04 as the clarity within our own bodies that is there always becomes much more easily accessible and lived.
Having a deep appreciation of ourselves is far greater than any external affirmation as the appreciation confirms us from the inside out. Thank you Cherise.
“There can be great simplicity in the relationship with ourselves and this begins with knowing who we already are, from the very inside of our own bodies, within our hearts” The simplicity of this is just gorgeous – thank you 🙂
True affirmation is our connection to our inner self,feeling that deeper love the confirmation of that. That is the true foundation for any affirmation. The appreciation of that is huge in its self. I found when I use to just read affirmations that did not feel true, when I started to connect to the feelings in me, with the love in me, that’s when the true appreciation and confirmation was felt.
I used to use affirmations to make myself feel better, but they never lasted. I would feel good about myself for a moment then move onto feeling like a horrible person again. It wasn’t until I re-connected to Love that resides in me, in all of us, that I began to hold a level of Love for myself more consistently. There is no affirmation that comes close to this, because once we re-connect to the Love that we are, we simply just need to live this. This is what fills us up, the Truth, not something we hope is the truth, and repeat to ourselves over and over again hoping it will stick eventually.
The origin of the word affirmation comes from the Latin to consolidate, strength and confirm something that already exists. Hence if affirmations are used to establish something that we do not already have, as in the New Age approach, then they are just lies that we tell ourselves.
On the back of that, if this is true, “The most common conversations we have daily – if not moment-to-moment – happen within our own heads.” Then this is the relationship we should bring the most attention or dedication to. Knowing that how we are with ourselves will impact on how we are with someone or everyone else. This is true for me, the relationship with myself in any moment reflects how outwardly my relationships are. In other words take true care of yourself and everything else will be taken ‘care’ of in that same quality. Thanks Cherise.
From my experience Cherise this is so true, “But does telling ourselves we have all these positive, easy-going and highly desirable traits and talents really work? Does it feel real? Does it last? And do we really live it? Or are these words really just presenting to us the knowledge that if we tell ourselves repetitively that something is true about us, we will eventually believe it?” I for a long time watched the up and downs from this type of ‘positive talk’. It was like you would talk yourself up only to fall down again to talk yourself up again to fall down again, the yo-yo of life. At some point you would give it away only to find another way to try and do the same thing again at some point. Universal Medicine supported me to smooth this yo-yo out and now it’s nothing about positive or negative but I keep an eye on my thoughts to see where they have me headed. I bring simple awareness to the quality of my thoughts and then reflect this back to how I have just lived. My thoughts follow the way I am, the way I live and equally the way I live follows my thoughts. The only true choice we have is the quality of how we live.
Our bodies are too intelligent to be kidded by our minds.
I used to repeat affirmations daily before I came across Universal Medicine but I found saying them from my mind with no substance, an effort to sustain. Today I know who I am; my essence is love and when doubt creeps, I say ‘No’ and confirm myself of this love. Having felt and experienced both I can say there is a vast difference between the two simply being affirmations come from the head and the livingness of love comes from the body.
Accepting and appreciating ourselves is key, confirming that we are love, knowing this deep down, this knowing of being love has to come from feeling this in our body. ‘When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.’
Many years ago I would say daily affirmations and from my experience they do not work, I was searching for something outside of myself because of the emptiness I felt within. Learning to appreciate and accept myself has been key to deepening the love for myself and all my relationships and then confirming this has been simple and easy.
Cherise what a powerful way to look at confirming ourselves as who we are rather than telling ourselves something in the hope that we believe it. I love the simplicity of confirming something, of being able to appreciate what we bring, which so often we don’t even stop and consider.
The amazing thing is that every moment and every movement we can either confirm the amazingness we are, or convince us of the opposite, it’s simply an every-moment choice.
Affirmations are more of a wishful thinking whereas that which comes from our body and is lived is known.
Loved this one especially the affirmation of you can do anything …. Mmm well I did and many times but where’s the small print that says, yes you can but maybe check in with your body ‘cos perhaps it’s actually not for you to do and might leave you lying on the floor in a million pieces!! The small print is not so small when it’s your body talking.
Yeah sure we can do anything, but we need to ask ourselves a few accompanying questions: Is it true for us? At what expense to our health or our bodies? Is it of true purpose, quality and value to us and those around us? and Do we seek to ‘do’ from an emptiness, a need or a rush or even out of distraction to not be aware? There are many, many, questions we could ask ourselves and the truth is that true truth and wisdom is held within our bodies and does not come from the thinking mind, riddled with expectations and images. And so without a Livingness – a true connection to ourselves we are left ‘thinking that we know’ until such time that we begin to feel for ourselves again and live the awareness and ability to read energy as we did so effortlessly as children.
“There can be great simplicity in the relationship with ourselves and this begins with knowing who we already are, from the very inside of our own bodies, within our hearts.” If only we were taught this in school, the fact that we are everything now, which really is simple, that everything is about our connection and knowing who we are in truth.
These kinds of affirmations put the cart before the horse. They say “I want x and I can achieve x by saying ‘I already have x'” even though that is a lie. Much better to affirm what is true and already worth affirming and to build on that. That actually works, permanently.
“What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell: that we are already everything – that we are already enough”.
Beautifully expressed Cherise, so much in this sentence to ponder and inspire; very wise indeed, thank you.
When ” …the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us…” is realised, then we also realise that this quality about us is more than enough. No more trying, proving or competing required.
‘does this drive to be greater someday actually work for us and most importantly, does it feel natural, easy or truly loving?’ I love this question. It exposes the whole illusionary cycle of perseverence that then leads to a temporary, short-lived ‘success’ that then must be bettered by the next ‘success’. Exhausting! Learning that success is connecting to who I am and living this in my life, learning to accept the evolution that living from love brings – and yes, feel like a fledgling learner.
Affirmations are a way to try to outsmart ourselves. A part of us trying to outsmart the whole of us. A more intelligent way might be for the part of us listening to the part of us that gives us true feedback – our body and then not affirming that experience but confirming what is already there and to build on that foundation.
The idea of being all-knowing Sons of God whose bodies are constantly communicating to us how we need to be and what we need do, and that we are completely responsible for everything that happens to us is very hard for us to grasp. I think it is the responsibility factor that mostly trips us up and leads us to seeking heaven outside ourselves.
The problem with these affirmations without feeling is that it already starts from a point of feeling not enough instead of from a point of knowing that we are love, no matter what happens. This will always lead us to feel not enough as the ultimate affirmation or confirmation we are looking for is feeling our own love, who we truly are.
Great point Lieke, affirmations that people say to themselves or instructed to say to oneself in the mirror, are ‘always’ coming from a place where we aren’t good enough, there is something wrong that needs fixing. It is never positioned that we are 100% love now, and our job is to discard all that which is not love, that is key.
‘I am already enough’ my body knows this but I choose to not listen sometimes. Affirmations are futile unless they come from a lived love in the body and not a grasping, needy mind.
‘When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.’ The simplicity of this is so beautiful. We are returning to a love that is already within us.
We have , built within every human body , a living affirmation of our true selves, and that affirmation is within the gentleness of our breath …. It is like a secret that waits within us all, , simply waiting for us to turn within, feel that affirmation of a direct and true connection with our hearts, and to live in the way that this guides us.
Cherise I can remember being a bit obsessed with affirmations. I once read a book with a list of affirmations and I fell into the trap of saying some every day as I thought they would improve my life. This lasted about half a year until I cottoned on to the fact nothing was changing. Fast forward a few years and my life has dramatically changed, I now know myself to be love and there is no affirmation and trying involved.
It is the state of our bodily movments that determines what quality of thoughts pass through us. When it is the quality of love that we move in, this is the natural affirmation that would fill our entire body including our minds.
Repeating an affirmation just from our heads without the support of our bodies simply does not work as our body is one whole unit, and cannot be compartmentalized.
Absolutely Adele, so simple, walk your talk, which brings a quality of love that is our lived Livingness!
“… the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies…” Solid gold words here Cherise, thank you
I love your words Cherise – ‘Could it be that our number one and true affirmation is that we are love? We don’t ever need to teach ourselves this nor try to recall it as knowledge – because we already are love, it’s just a simple fact.’
Absolutely Cherise and Jenny, we are love we come from love so confirm and appreciate we are all the living Sons of God, because God is love how could we be anything else, no affirmations just a simple Livingness.
There is a huge difference from what comes from the mind to what comes from our inner heart. We can tell ourselves something over and over but this doesn’t change how we deeply feel and the way we are with ourselves.
Then felixschumacher8 our Wisdom would come from the true connection and reflection from each other, if as you say ‘ we lived from our wisdom’ Is it possible this is how it was in times gone by and we have just been caught in the illusion of progress coming from knowledge.
Affirmations are there to fill the gap from us not living in connection to our natural way of being, to comfort us from the deep unease we feel at being separate from the love we innately are. Once we make the simple choice to be open to the essence that is and has always been inside of us affirmations are exposed for what they are.
The difference between speaking about something and living it is significant. If this would be really understood, humanity would close down its current Universities, the so called Meccas of knowledge and instead teach to truly nurture our bodies, our markers of lived wisdom.
This would be a marked and profound change Felix, what would life be like if we were truly living from the wisdom of our bodies first and foremost before anything else? The way in which the whole world and every system now works would naturally change as those that run it, those who attend and everyone in between would have Universal truth to bring to us all and thus a truly intelligent way of living.
If this were truly to be understood we would not need to say so much at all.
The difference between saying something and living it is apparent in the way we parent too – ‘do as I say not as I do…’ Even then ‘do as I say’ changes with moods, making it very confusing and meaningless.
We all have to look at ourselves and make the way we live our daily lives worth inspiring others.
Cherise, your blog reminds me of something truly important: that it’s about developing a relationship with ourselves and not about using an outside thing (be it an affirmation or something else); that the true gold is in developing and building that relationship with ourselves and allowing ourselves to feel and know what our bodies are communicating to us.
Affirmations keep you in a world of illusions, by giving your power away to your mind and making yourself believe things will come true. It’s a trap to keep you caught in the mind away from the body.
So well said Amita. We can’t make things happen magically, there has to be a reality there. There is nothing more real than the physical body, so why not live the way we want to live through the body instead of ‘thinking’ and ‘wishing’ how we would like our lives to be.
If a true affirmation is something that is felt in our physical bodies, then how far do we have to go to numb our ability to be affirming of who we are. What practises are in place that keep our bodies unable to feel the truth?
One of the most harmful things about affirmations is they keep you on the illusionary wheel of not feeling enough and needing to be more. There is always something else you need to do, be, improve to be enough but when you get there you find there is more to do. This constant chasing of the carrot is exhausting! Before Universal medicine I thought this was the only way life could be. But as I reconnected with my body, I discovered this lack wasn’t true and there was a vast ocean of loveliness waiting to be re-discovered.
I used to think (hope) that affirmations worked before Universal Medicine. They made me feel temporarily better, like a little shot of sugar. But it never changed anything within me and really just covered up the emptiness that was there. I have since discovered my body is the most amazing lie-detector and affirmations definitely set the lying needle off.
I have been pondering on the great harm caused by affirmations for awhile, so it was very confirming to read your blog. I was brought to this realisation listening to a person one day, talking about being positive and using affirmations, They appeared confident on the outside but I could feel that the affirmations were being used to bury how they were really feeling – scared of being sick, feeling they have to hold it all together for the family etc. There is such a healing when we honestly accept how we are feeling, rather than constantly trying to be more.
This is so true. It is one thing being inspired by someone or something, a gentle nudge to show you there is more, yet it is quite another telling yourself you are something that you are not. In doing so you take away the honesty and the integrity so needed to truly move forward in life.
I agree Jenny, living honestly really allows us to accept things as they are and vice versa. This enables us to makes choices to learn from that which is presented to us each day.
We can become very very humble whenever we are given a thought that truly serves us, knowing that it is then that we don’t follow affirmations that lead us astray. Once such a truly serving thought is given to us, all we have to do is choose it. And it dawns to me that these serving thoughts are given to me all the time…
It feels like you have nailed something here, in that there is a massive difference between affirmation and confirmation – an affirmation is the bringing in of something outside of you to try to make you that too or to convince you to believe it, whereas a confirmation comes from within you, and confirms the truth you already feel inside you.
Meg I love your beautiful comment. What you have shared so simply should be part of a lesson at school.
Yes I agree esteraltmiks. The clarity in Meg’s expression is very powerful presenting us with the Truth, undeniably so.
Affirmations are doomed to fail if the body they are being spoken to doesn’t feel it or know it as its reality. If you feel tired and run down and tell yourself you are a dynamic, energetic person, you know it’s not true because your body tells you so. All the affirmations in the world can’t change this. What would be so bad about admitting you are tired, taking steps to change whatever is draining you and developing a body that actually is vital?
Fiona it’s another seemingly ‘good’ thing to be doing for ourselves, but in actual fact it’s just another layer over what our body is showing us needs healing deeply, and positive thoughts might block out the reality but it is all still there… When our car breaks down we ask ‘ what has caused the problem, and that’s where we can start to ask the same questions of our bodies, and with our bodies seek the appropriate assistance from one who understands the truth in our connection.
‘…a confirmation comes from within you, and confirms the truth you already feel inside you.’ A beautiful reminder, thank you Meg.
Yes I agree Michael, a very beautiful reminder Meg.
Meg what you have shared is beautiful, confirmation comes from within, the truth felt inside. Affirmations come from the outside trying to convince you to believe it.
I love what you write here Meg and agree with you but it takes some dedication and commitment to knowing what is true within you. ie. When someone pays you a compliment about how beautiful you are, if you dont know your true beauty within, you can say thank you but also scoff it off in a way (oh not really, its just the way I did my hair etc…) but when you know the beauty that exists within you (as it equally does for all woman) a compliment is confirming what you know. But that can only come with a commitment to know that we are already everything and the only place I have been able to truly come to that is through Universal Medicine – any other teachings have felt forced.
Totally Meg. Affirmations have always felt like painting over mould – and I’m always scared what I’m trying to hide will start showing through. I want to hide all the stuff that doesn’t feel great that I have felt inside of me, not realising that it is only energy I’ve let in and it’s not actually me.
Whereas comfirmations are feeling the truth of who I am. As I appreciate and allow myself to expand all the other stuff that isn’t me, that feels yukky gets pushed out leaving me. No fear of mould coming through!
Love this summary Meg, thank you 🙂
So well said Cherise. Thank you.
“When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.”- so beautifully claimed and truthfully expressed Cherise.
What we all want to feel is confirmation that we are already love and we always were enough (we know this deep down we just haven’t had it confirmed to us). This knowing of being love has to come from the feeling in our body. This is what we need to develop a relationship with rather than the many thoughts that come and go.
Thank you Cherise for a beautiful blog, to simply live the love we truly are that is what life is all about. It is so simple, but the mind with it’s self talk can railroad this simplicity as it has had lifetimes of running our bodies. Appreciation of who we are is a powerful way of building love in our bodies.
Agreed Jill, appreciation creates more space for the love that we are in our bodies.
Yes Fransisco, and it happens so naturally when you don’t think about it, simply be it.
Appreciate is a key that opens up our ability to feel love within and express it, the more we appreciate the more we build and know love and the divine within. I have felt an expansion within my body through appreciation, it is a tool and true affirmation that brings the knowing of divinity and our relationship of being with and from God in to everyday life.
Appreciation is powerful beyond measure Jill and it constantly deepens when we give our focus to nurturing it as apart of our rhythm. The mind and self talk is completely imposing, we would not allow another to talk to us in the way that we communicate within our own heads and yet we allow this imposition to continue. Staying with the connection of our quality and our movements with this is the key to not being owned by thoughts and knowing this, developing it in everyday life, is one of the (many) greatest things that Serge and Natalie Benhayon have ever presented.
‘What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell: that we are already everything – that we are already enough.’ Thank you for this true definition Cherise. If everyone read and felt these words, the affirmation book shelves in our book shops would either slowly gather dust or be taken down. A great replacement then would be the purple books by Serge Benhayon.
It is a very powerful quote, it is spot on, I feel this in my body when I read it. This is the way to live and know truth and love to feel it from within.
Yes, it’s a very powerful quote that I feel throughout my body. I can feel truth. Samantha thank you for reminding me of this true and powerful way to live and know truth in the everyday.
Like Cherise I have discovered over and over again that those pictures in my mind and the mental dialogue that accompanies them, some of which are attempting to affirm a way of living and some negating, all only serve to separate me from my body. In doing so, they prevent me from connecting with the activity of love that naturally flows when I make life about connection and the quality of activity I can bring to each moment.
Hi Simon. I can relate to what you share here for me all the value in life stems from the relationship I have with my body and movements.
This puts a whole new meaning to the word ‘value’ and what we choose to place it on in life.
Well said Simon. The flow of life can be a magical experience the truly surrendered to.
Yes Simon, it is the way in which we stay connected to our bodies and our deepest form of knowing that supports us throughout every aspect of life. Our connection, once felt, is the most precious feeling we can have and yet the total opposite of this is to live disconnected, separated or in isolation from our otherwise deepest part of who we are; this hurts us deeply as we can never ignore the fact that we know connection and to not be with it in life is a tension that can’t be not felt.
Being aware of the picture we have in our minds is powerful, and some of them do come to attempt to hold on to ideas we have about our lives, and some come dressed up and pretty if not alluring. But it is the quality of them that for me has been how I began to assess them, how do they feel and I have felt this through being connected with my inner heart and observing…it makes all the difference.
We have pictures and images behind everything Samantha and I agree with you that it is through discerning the quality of energy that they come with that allows their exposure and supports us to build more deeply a life built on transparency; of both ourselves and all that we see and feel around us. To not hold an image or a picture is simple when we make it about quality first and move in this quality which harbours zero judgment, ideals or beliefs of any sort.
A great reminder that the truth is in our bodies not from affirmations from the mind ,as we learn to feel our way and give less power to the thoughts of mind we can connect our natural order .
Feeling rather than thinking has been super powerful for me, it has allowed me to understand and appreciate who I and all are without getting lost in my head. I feel I have connected with the natural order of the universe, a natural flow.
If the affirmations that we say stop short and do not include the whole truth, then are they really self-help at all? In fact it is more accurate to say they are poison, that keeps us distracted away from the simple fact that as you say Cherise, we are LOVE first and foremost. The ability we have to feel this Love in our body, gives us the simplest, greatest and most universal tool to affirm whether we are connected to truth or not.
‘What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell: that we are already everything – that we are already enough.’ Yes Cherise a beautiful confirmation that expands us.
I have always wondered why affirmations never worked for any length of time. I now know that it is because it never came from the body but the head.
I agree, these affirmations you stick on your fridge feels like a sentimental longing, a want or a wish of something we feel we don’t possess, when a true affirmation just confirms what we know we already are.
Thank you for sharing this Cherise Holt! I have been pushing myself to be “loving with myself” and thinking affirmations will fix me. This feels like a lot of hard work and not loving at all.
I love how you bring it back to simplicity and our body.
This quote just makes me stop, ‘Is it possible that all anyone ever wants is to be love and to be loved?’
In reading this blog again today the line “there would be no need to label ourselves with words that describe who we want to be” so true, no label is required as it becomes very evident if we are living in the fullness of the love we truly are it just shines out for all to see and feel.
I agree Marian. All the labelling does is provide a sticking plaster which ultimately is covering not just our surface hurts, but our deep and loving essence which lives within.
The truth, wisdom, knowing and contentment I have found from embracing Universal Medicine in my life is simply beautiful and all knowing and loving as a way of life. It is a foundation for everything we come across and is the livingness of love as you share here so well Cherise, thank you .
Confirming the love we already are is a foundation that cannot be rocked and requires no propping up. There is nothing greater we can offer ourselves or bring in from the outside but our own true loving appreciation of who we innately are.
This article proposes a completely different way of living: a living from knowing we are everything already. A way of living knowing that everyone else is everything already too (no matter how they are choosing to live their lives). Living and interacting with people from knowing we are everything already inspires one another to live knowing who we are and that we are love – so different to constantly chasing love.
I remember a long period of periodically waking up with a deep sense of doubt about myself and everything I was living. I had many such techniques as affirmations and other modalities that seemed to address this and make the doubts ‘go away’. I would sail for a while and then one day wake up to the same old doubt. Not until I met Serge Benhayon did I start to realise how astute those doubts were! I was living what I believed was a ‘good life’ which was not in consideration of and congruent to my true self, so I kept having warning signs which I was using the techniques to squash!
Universal Medicine has been the first place where no symptom, incident or issue is ever targeted in isolation – it is always our whole life, the true essence of who we are and the energy we have chosen to run with. Very simple, and everything else starts to fall in place. Words can not express the depth of inner freedom, natural trust and awareness this brings.
I too love finding out all the amazing wisdom my body holds within, how it moves in cycles clearing and building. I find it truly magical to be in a woman’s body particularly where we can feel this very obviously with our menstruation. Beautiful to connect to this.
‘Affirmation’ is the noun for the verb ‘to affirm’, which means to confirm something that already exists. Therefore, in truth, how can saying something that one desires but does not already exist be an affirmation?
It feels like grasping at straws, any crutch or prop that will help avoid the responsibility of putting into action what we might find more comfortable and temporarily soothing to merely mouth and talk about but otherwise leave untouched and unchanged.
In some way I guess it can seem strange to build a relationship with ourselves yet if we do this then we open up our world. Knowing who we are and loving ourselves is the only way we can positively contribute in the world. I have felt the difference between when I have done tasks with a loathing of myself and when I have done them with a love. The latter has a quality the former simply cannot match.
No need for spiritual affirmations – I tried those for years – nil result. Yet, “When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.” Beautiful, thankyou Cherise.
Reading this again today just shows how amazing our bodies are ‘all feeling and all knowing’ – the only interference, and that is down to pure choice, is that oh so busy mind!
We are so very sensitive and are aware of everything yet we can be so numbed out and shut down. When we start to take care of ourselves and I mean really take care, this all changes. Self-Care may initially seem an effort, but you soon are able to register your own sensitivity and how incredible this way of living can be for yourself and many others.
‘But does telling ourselves we have all these positive, easy-going and highly desirable traits and talents really work?’ It’s amazing what we’ll buy into to avoid havng to feel the investment we have made into that which we know within is not it.
There is no doubt when we live life from our bodies…it is only our minds that bring confusion and complexity.
Paula I agree and I am still wondering why this is not a common knowing . . .
I agree Paula, our bodies offer simplicity only but the mind will come in and try to sabotage that.
I can feel the enormity of what ‘accepting ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our bodies’ could mean for humanity. As such it would not be possible to wield hate toward another or ourselves, and henceforth illness disease would cease to accelerate but reverse its current momentum, therefore what reason would we have to go to war?
Knowing that we are that love and living from that love is very much needed, especially in times like this, when there is so much going on and terrorism is at its peak. In are days like today, we have to turn up the love.
There was a time in my life when I was really keen on affirmations. It was after a big break up from a relationship. I told myself things every day that gradually helped me to feel better in myself. But underneath this falsity of feeling ‘better’ were the underlying true feelings that I was denying. What I truly needed was to be honest and loving with myself and to feel the pain in order to clear it. Affirmations simply took me away from my true healing process.
Cherise, you offer a beautiful understanding of the difference between affirmations that are externally based through the mind to make life ‘better’ and the contrast of the livingness of love that comes from deep within us. This can be developed to re-build a foundation which is true and solid from the inside out.
So true Stephanie and when we build this foundation there is no need for affirmations for we already know within our bodies we are love.
“When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.”This says everything Cherise and exposes the myth of affirmations.
Could it be that our number one and true affirmation is that we are love? That’s a yes from me . A very beautiful sharing Cherise, from your lived love, no question.
True success is found not through affirmations but through surrender to who we truly are. The need for affirmations suggests that we need to get somewhere and achieve something.
Cherise I liked how you highlighted that “our most common conversations we have daily – if not moment-to-moment – happen within our own heads.”
As we understand and accept more of who we are, the love that we innately are, the quality of these conversations in our head can naturally change.
I feel what we are talking about here is the difference between an affirmation and a confirmation. An affirmation, as we have come to understand it, seems to consist of a repetition of certain words to achieve a particular outcome, e.g. using the words “I am love, I am love, I am love” to become love. A confirmation is an inner knowingness. Here the words “I am love” emanate from the inside out, and need never be vocalised, just impulsed and felt.
Yes Victoria, an affirmation is more of a mental experience whereas confirmation is a full body knowingness of who we are.
A beautiful blog which brings such an understanding to the beauty we carry within us and all we know through our very connection to our bodies . Honouring this builds a trust and knowing that we are love and that is everything. The truth about affirmations you offer here Cherise is very profound.
With every conscious, loving and present step I take, I affirm what I already am.
Beautiful Kate, ‘With every conscious, loving and present step I take, I affirm what I already am.’ I love this; what you have written feels like a very practical way for us to return to the divine, loving beings that we are.
By not identifying with our issues we do not need to constantly pull ourselves out of this space with positive affirmations.
This is an interesting statement, Kate, because I am working on letting go of judgement – (of myself and anyone else) and “I am equal” doesn’t work because it’s not in my body and I keep catching myself putting myself down (or up). Even ‘I don’t need to judge myself’ feels like a false affirmation, so it’s not that I need a statement to convince me, I simply need to feel how it is when I don’t judge and see how it feels when I accept and appreciate myself and there will be a difference that guides my choice.
A true affirmation is a confirmation, and that confirmation is made through a movement, a choice to be that which you already are, instead of living less than this.
Working as a counsellor it is not uncommon for people to ask me about affirmations and how they may help them, and my answer is always the same, if you are not living the statement or if it not something you already know yourself to be then they are just empty words confirming falsely, what you are not, as by ‘trying’ to convince yourself of something is confirming what you do not already know yourself to be! A very toxic and sneaky self-help tool dressed up to be something ‘good’ but in truth is actually quite evil.
This is a great way to approach this subject… Affirming and confirming who we already are, not trying to use ‘self talk’ to talk or convince us into something we think we don’t have already.
Affirmations are designed to override the body – to force whatever we want to happen, to force that to occur. This means we collect momentum to go against our affirmations. We can keep the momentum at bay for a while but eventually it will override what we want – a bit like ‘buy now, pay a lot more later’.
Well said, Shirley-Ann – when we know who we are, when we feel our love in every cell of our body, we know that anything telling us that we are otherwize, is not true.
Affirmations are there to distract us from just connecting deeply with ourselves, which sounds so simple and yet there is so much in life to detract us from doing this very simple thing, which is completely life changing, it’s crazy. While we mull over affirmations in our minds, we’re not feeling our bodies, using the wisdom that’s there for us to connect with.
For my feeling Affirmations following an outer image, a picture how I would like to be or should be or whatever and so it is separated from the inner truth, the ‘who we are’ inside. To follow an image is a way that can not ever lead to truth.
‘The most common conversations we have daily – if not moment-to-moment – happen within our own heads. Our internal dialogue is where such affirmations happen, driving and striving us to be better or to achieve personal development, growth and success, but does this drive to be greater someday actually work for us and most importantly, does it feel natural, easy or truly loving?’ …… No, no, no and no. It doesn’t work, because the drive and strive never stops, we just keep pushing for more and more, it’s never ending, unless we choose to stop. It’s certainly not natural, easy or truly loving as we are forcing ourselves to perform in a certain way to achieve a certain outcome. We’re treating our bodies like a machine, demanding a certain output …. there is absolutely nothing loving about that. If we are forcing our bodies in any way, we are not honouring our natural flow causing the body stress and dis-ease.
The phrase ‘actions speak louder than words’ springs to mind here in the sense that we can hear or study great knowledge or wisdom and even remember and repeat that knowledge or wisdom to ourselves or each other but unless the wisdom is embodied meaning actually lived in practice through all of our daily movements, it will not change anything. It is our movements that confirm or magnify the energy that we have chosen to align to.
I feel the problem with a lot of self help books and guides and courses etc is that they are coming from the basis that we are broken and damaged and less than amazing to begin with and we have to go out and search, find, achieve and attain some kind of wisdom and amazing life. They then present themselves as the solution that those that seek for things outside of themselves are looking for. In contrast, The Ageless Wisdom has presented for thousands of years that we are already divine and amazing as we are and we have enormous wisdom and knowledge within us. We don’t have to strive to achieve anything or seek it outside ourselves, just simply accept who we are and return to our own amazingness.
This is a great point Andrew. I never read any self-help book, but the concept of being broken or not complete is huge. Being it the education system, the job, the skills, parenthood, etc. all have the same aim to form us into someone, to give us an identity a role to play. The fact that we are already all who we are has never been presented to me before Universal Medicine and feeling our true grandness is the most beautiful daily confirmation.
Before I came to Universal Medicine, I dabbled in a few self help books. I had questions I wanted answers to, such as ‘why do I feel really small in the world yet I put on a face that everything is OK’, ‘why is it that sometimes I just know in my body what is going on’, ‘why do I have very little self worth’ – these were all questions I started to naturally ask myself. Sure I got the advice to ‘be confident’ ‘love others’ and ‘be kind to myself’ – but none of these books felt true so I put them all down. When I made a choice to start listening to Serge Benhayon, it was as if what he was sharing what I recognised in my body. I knew what he was saying and he seemed to know exactly how I was feeling. To explore this and start to appreciate how easily it is to let go of roles and start just being myself in the world, is not something that can be taught, but rather connected with. Universal Medicine made this connection possible and is an absolute affirmation of who we are already but might just not be living.
Affirmations will only work if truly felt in the body,but saying something over and over in the head may satisfy the mind for a while but seldom last the test of time.
Well said Kevin and mainstream religious institutions are the proof of that. Repeating things over and over again makes people obey out of fear, but it seldom last the test of time and the atrocities that are planted in people through this have shown us their ugly faces.
We are Love and there is no words that can encourage us to be this. It is a connection with in that is the only thing that truly supports this to go deeper and allow more Love that we are to radiate out. It is a connection with the inner heart that no words can deepen this, this one has to be lived and expressed.
‘There’s no place like home’ and clicking your heels three times is a great affirmation of how our dreams work. But they are just stories we create for the outcomes we wish would happen. Life is grand when we live in it with no need of expectations.
Nice observations Steve! Wishing is like hoping, are and both fairly insubstantial – I don’t feel anything real or actionable in them. They don’t speak of a commitment to life and, yes, perhaps they have more to do with how we expect or want life to be rather than learning to master life for ourselves.
It is the quality we live in that confirms and appreciates us or dismisses and disregards us. We are not confirming ourselves if the choices we make are giving our body the absolute opposite reflection. The love we are living in our bodies is the confirmation and affirmation not the words or actions we make ourselves belief to be that. For example, I cannot celebrate myself with a glass of wine, as it is poison to my body, although my mind wants to belief it is a sophisticated beverage that confirms having a good life.
Beautiful, and an on point example of how we can use things outside ourselves to reward ourselves – the glass of wine, the cigarette break, the chocolate bar at the end of the day, and so on. All forms of affirmation, rather than the true appreciation and confirmation that can spring naturally from our inner-hearts.
Indeed Rachel and Victoria, the only true appreciation and confirmation of oneself can only come from our inner-hearts and not through a glass of wine as that is in fact just the opposite. With that glass of wine we numb ourselves and are not able to feel that inner confirmation anymore but instead do need the affirmations we stuck on the fridge.
Cherise- awesome blog. In the past I tried using affirmations from my mind as part of selfhelp book advice. This never worked. Today, through developing a body connection more through gentle breath meditition, esoteric yoga I am able to feel the truth in my body and confirm the love that I am.
I have had this experience too. Affirmations repeated like mantras come from the mind and hope to convince us something we have identified as desirable is coming our way, and soon!
So true Victoria it is like affirmations has the empty ring of HOPE without the need to take responsibility for the way we have been living.
Could it be that our number one and true affirmation is that we are love? A true affirmation indeed: Words are lineal and hold no true lasting quality of the deep knowing and feeling of love that is affirmed by feeling it from our body.
I agree Kelly, love can be conceptualised, but when it’s felt, it is known.
I have just been feeling that anything can be an affirmation, even “I am love” in the sense that it is a thought that is repeated over and over to try and convince myself of this. But if I am not making choices in my life to confirm this, then it stays floating in the ether of my head and remains something that is not lived.
Agree Jennifer, it is not confirming to have thoughts “floating in the ether of my head” as what is not lived through our daily choices is never a true confirmation. Living in a world of energy we also know that we don’t think and if we don’t think everything that is in our head does not belong to us – it just gives us the impulse for our choices and that is what we live.
So true Jennifer … we can convince ourselves of one thing in our head but our body will always show us the truth of how we are living.
We can say ‘I love you’ or ‘I love me’ as much as we like but it is our movements which make up our livingness, that actually confirm the love we are.
I like it Andrew, we either confirm our emotional love or confirm the love of our livingness. Both are about love of some kind, but polar opposites, each with consequences and movements that take us in one of two directions.
So true Jennifer – living love is the confirmation of what we are.
To be honest I am still struggling with this phrase ‘I am Love’ and yes, you are right, it can become an empty affirmation in itself. For me the most important thing is to keep connecting with and feeling my body, that helps me to stop being governed by my mind, so I am not dependent on words but on what I feel.
Ditto for me Carmel. I was never one for affirmations per se but certainly one for being governed by my mind. Connecting with my body and moving from there is a moment by moment choice I need to make if I am to bring any sort of truth to my life.
The same for me Carmel, I need to feel it in my body and take it as a marker for truth.
It really comes back to walking the talk so to speak. Actions speak louder than words without the activity to back them up.
I agree Jennifer. The truth is our choices determine all that comes to us, not affirmations.
This provides an understanding for me Jennifer, of how we can at times appear to be so very successful, having accomplished everything that we have set out ‘mind’ to. But without our heart and our body intimately involved in the process there is little satisfaction and not much experience of the gorgeousness of life, because we are not truly present in it!
This is so true Jennifer. We can say ‘I am love’ until the cows come home but unless we are in the livingness of our love those words are just like other affirmations and thus carry no credence.
When we know who we are there are no need for words or phrases to convince us of anything. Even if we get hooked by the lesser quality of thoughts that come through, returning to what we know will always hold us in good stead.
‘…hold us in good stead’. I love that phrase. Hold us in good standing, and in steadiness – yes that’s exactly what a sturdy foundation of knowing who we are will offer us.
So true about affirmations Cherise. I have found that when I try to persuade myself that I can do something with a dialogue in my head of “I can do this,” yet there is nothing in my body that is agreeing with what I am saying, it always fails. It is as if I am convincing myself by an affirmation that anything is possible yet unless it is said from truth they are just words and have no meaning or validation.
‘…yet there is nothing in my body that is agreeing with what I am saying…’ What a great way to put it. There is a hollowness that comes with constant mental reinFORCEment. I heard an interview with 3 ultra-marathon runners the other day and wow, running like this is the ultimate in “I can do this” thinking – that’s exactly how they keep going long past the time the body says ‘enough’. Suffice to say their bodies suffer greatly as a result.
Great example Victoria. They call it endurance running but it is our bodies that have to endure the consequences of pushing our bodies way past their natural way of being
The message is clear. Affirmations are just scaffolding holding up need, when what we really need is the knowing that we’re already enough.
Cathy that’s great a point and i love the analogy. When we allow ourselves to feel that we are enough then we simply confirm what we know and feel.
Gorgeous, Cathy. The metaphor of scaffolding is spot on. I can see a Dr Seuss-like apparition, higgledy-piggledy holding up a teetering, tiny affirmation, the whole of which is constructed to give us something we think we need, that is missing from our lives. And none of that elaborate structure is needed – everything we need is within.
This is very exposing of the fallacy of affirmations Cherise. Convincing ourselves that we are something we are not through repeated self marketing until we believe the message – even when we believe the message this still does not make it true. I love what you propose here, another way, to actually confirm that which we have felt to be true in our bodies already. We are love and we come from love. When this is felt in our body as truth it can be confirmed and appreciated – no marketing required.
I love this phrase self-marketing Lee. Like all marketing we can be led to believe anything in our minds based on our needs but this may not be the energetic truth of actually what is going on which we can always feel in our bodies first not our minds.
“no marketing required” – love it Lee 🙂 !
I too love your phrase self marketing Lee. We can try to hood wink ourselves with affirmations from our heads that get us nowhere, or we can simply surrender to the truth that we are love, eternally so.
Cherise, your writing is always deeply heartfelt and I feel so much love when I read your words here. Mostly I feel your love and support for humanity. This I love and treasure about this piece. Your words here support us all to go deeper into our bodies, claiming the love that we are, not just in words or thoughts, but in our very being. Beautiful.
Thank you Cherise for a truly beautiful blog, livingness doesn’t come from the mind and it’s knowledge but from living in connection to the true wisdom held in the body.
I agree affirmations are only like plasters and we know this at the time but may continue as we like the relief they can bring and false hope. Definitely not sustainable it is only when we are confirming what we feel inside already that we naturally make changes.
The thing with affirmations is: we can say a 1000 times in our mind that we are beautiful and full of love, but if we don’t live it from our body, no matter how many times we tell ourselves something, it will never be felt, nor by ourselves, nor by others.
This is so true Mariette, after reading this article and these comments it seems obvious to me that affirmations will never work, we can not tell ourselves something over and over in our heads if we do not feel the truth of what we are saying in our bodies.
Exactly – if our movements are against what we are, there is no way of truly living it. In fact our movements, how we live and express with our body do set up what can be realized and thought in our mind.
And that is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Developing a relationship with ourselves and getting to know who we are is definitely a great place to start. Re-connecting to this truth allows us to access great wisdom.
Well said Deborah, developing that inner connection within ourselves opens us up to the wisdom of the universe.
Affirmations are completely different to confirmations. To me affirmations are like an illusionary quick fix pill to cure all ills, and the latter confirms the love you already are. It is time to take responsibility for ourselves on all levels.
I agree jeanettegold. It’s like we need to have expectations of ourselves and of how our life should be with affirmations. With confirmations there is no expectation, just knowing who we are and the choices we make either confirm this or not. This also gives us the opportunity to learn a lot through life.
This responsibility is a big key Jeannette, confirming who we are in all our beauty, power, grace and love becomes not at all about us when we take responsibility for living this way; life becomes about true equality and a oneness between us all that disintegrates the sense of self that we so identify with and hold as so important. Without ‘self’ our confirmations progress to being about the love that we all are and confirming each and every other person around us that they are this same equal love too. There is always a sneaky part of ‘self’ that doesn’t want to let go of identification, hence affirmations serve to keep us less than or more than; but the truth is that we are all on our way back to responsibility, it is inevitable.
And the plot thickens – affirmations are usually centred on self gain, whilst confirming your own innate beauty, power, grace and love is for all, as it offers an inspiring reflection of those qualities in all others. How beautiful, powerful, graceful and lovely Cherise!
There is always a part of self too, that is looking for the quick fix or solution to our feelings of low self worth and emptiness. Thus we look for external things such as affirmations to not take responsibility for the choices we have made that have led us to our current state.
Great point jeannettegold, affirmations for me have a degree of aspirational wishful thinking about them. That we are wishing or wanting ourselves or life to be different. Confirmations are confirming what has already been felt and known in the body, so the changes have already occurred and been lived.
Yeah Andrew, we commonly wish things were different but are unwilling to take the steps and make the choices to affect change. It seems easier to make an affirmation and hand the hard work over to the universe to deliver better situations to us, but in fact this is what makes affirmations the height of irresponsibility.
I run with affirmations all the time they are hugely deceitful. If I am corrected by someone my initial reaction becomes about pleasing what they want so ‘I take on’ what they say and it now becomes an affirmation in my head. This confuses me if I continue to think about it after without feeling from my body what in truth is said behind those words. It becomes now my justification that I’m ok especially with this person when in truth I have given my power away to words without understanding why it was said.
What an important awareness and learning Rik, when we give our authority away to another it leaves us floundering in the same energy we were in to have given it over in the first place. To know who we are in full is one part but to back this up with the movements of true Livingness is needed to solidify our knowing in all situations, naturally this comes with the ability to truly observe and not be caught in the images and pictures that complication loves to use over us.
Building self-care, self love and love, care and responsibility in all our choices, one step at a time – there is nothing that confirms us more deeply and empower us more profoundly.
Using affirmations to fuel ourself into an action that is engineered from our head, and not impulsed from deep within us is a booby prize. Looks good for short term gain and rahrah’s us into feeling strong and invincible, but it does not empower us, it is the force we are using that gets stronger and more engrained within our body. But we only realise when we have a go at becoming still and connecting to our inner essence and find how hard it has become.
In the past I’ve tried positive affirmations, not always as conscious dialogue but as a way to feel that I am capable of doing something and they didn’t work. It may help for a short while in order to get through something but you are always left without a knowing or feeling that you are enough. When we start to accept and live the love that we are everything changes as we start to feel that we actually don’t need to do anything we are already all that we need to be. Feeling that beingness is enough was a huge turning point for me in starting to get to know who I truly am.
A true confirmation can only come from the body, never the mind.
Cherries what a beautiful blog to read. Following sentences I love very much: “Our bodies know when something feels hot or cold, good or bad, and so they definitely know when words are just words and are not truly felt or lived in full – when they are not a part of our Livingness.” If I am not living what I am talking about than every word is only an empty word as in our Livingness everything is alive so to speak as my whole body is living it with every cell and therefore walking it in every second.
“Could it be that our number one and true affirmation is that we are love?” Attending a presentation by Serge Benhayon gave me my first experience of someone moving, interacting, speaking and presenting love, it came from his body in the way he moved and spoke. There was a recognition in me, a recall from within that knew what I was seeing was different but true. He showed there was a way to live with love for myself and for others – that could not be denied. It was a feeling in my body, not a thought but an alignment of my body with what it recognized – It was the start of my own knowing that I am love and by changing and developing the way I live to be more open and accepting, I know this more and more each day.
Same here Rosanna, I remember well after reading his website that I had a clear thought: “If he’s right, the whole world’s wrong – and this can’t be True”. So I rejected Universal Medicine. After two years I decided that I shouldn’t judge and find it out for myself. Within the first minute that he started presenting I knew I was home. Everything he said made sense. No affirmations at all, just simple sharing from his body. And although I didn’t have the words myself, due to not living Love to that extend – I knew it to be True. What happened since than is nothing short of a miracle and brought me back to my own Livingness of Love. Still learning everyday in accepting the Glorious Man I am.
“What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies”? when I feel something in my body in this way I know that it is a confirmation of something that I know is true, rather than an affirmation of what I wished were true.
Exactly Rosanna – true ‘affirmations’ are in fact confirmations. And this feels so different.
I love how you have expressed this Rosanna. A true affirmation is a confirmation.
Great sharing Cherise, walking our talk affirms the truth of us, no amount of mind chatter can improve or change anything.
Yes Shelley this is the key! Living what we know and our truth leaves the small talk and the chatter in our wake, with each step and every movement we get to build our quality to be far more powerful and absolute than anything else could be.
I love what you have shared sehlleyjones 44: “walking our talk affirms the truth of us, no amount of mind chatter can improve or change anything.” It is interesting that in our world most of us are thinking that a great amount of chatter can change everything. We are lost in our thinking so to speak – it seems that to live what is in our body is too simple.
I really like what you said here Cherise about an affirmation being a living configuration that is already in the body. This is definitely a true affirmation and they constantly offer me a reminder of who I am. It is not a mantra that I need to remind myself to say from my head try and convince myself to be something.
Thank you Cherise. I loved the simplicity of this blog and the deep truth you shared. Affirmations are just a poor shadow compared to truly living and confirming who we are from with in.
You simply asked ‘Does it feel real?’ And of course the answer is no. This is a great question to use as a marker because really we can ignore or override the feeling in our bodies but the feeling is always there as our bodies do not lie.
We are amazing markers of truth as our bodies do not lie and this is the power that we can bring to our lives in each and every moment, to any problem or crisis. For all of us have an ability to connect to our sense of knowing and to knock out the cobwebs of false doubt that can flow through us. Imagine what life would be like if we lived completely by our sense of knowing and not from an image or plan? To feel the solidness and continual expansion in our bodies and our Livingness is deeply powerful and brings a richness of purpose to our lives.
Another point with affirmations is the constant energy that is needed to keep up the pretence, and there is also the complexity which often comes with affirmations as well – which one to choose today, self-doubting todays choice, etc…all of which is exhausting.
Whereas feeling the love we innately are is simple and energising … simply love shining forth for all.
A beautiful blog Cherise, and so very inspiring…confirming everything we do, say and think has an impact on our bodies and the way we choose to live.
‘is it possible that all anyone ever truly wants is to be love and to be loved?’ – this captures it all Cherise and is possibly the answer to all our woes and issues if we truly ponder on it.
“What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell?: that we are already everything – that we are already enough” If this is so then we do not need to affirm it, we just need to confirm it. It is interesting to look at the meaning of words: an affirmation has a sense of ‘making something firm’ but a confirmation means ‘strengthening together” (To ‘affirm’ comes from Latin affirmare, from ad- ‘to’ + firmus ‘strong’ To ‘confirm’ comes from Latin confirmare, con- ‘together’ + firmare ‘strengthen’ (from firmus ‘firm’)[Online dictionary].
Beautifully said Sandra, in all its simplicity we are able to confirm, consolidate and strengthen the pure love and divinity that we are in each and every moment by connecting to our quality and moving with it, from here there is certainly nothing to affirm as we are all and everything in these moments.
Absolutely – coming at it not from a point of, I have to become this, which only confirms to us that we are not yet any of these things, but rather from an awareness I am returning to knowing this because I am already all of this.
‘coming at it not from a point of, I have to become this, which only confirms to us that we are not yet any of these things’ Beautifully put, Gina, this has certainly been my experience.
What an affirmation, I can’t think of a better one – That I am Love and this is the same Love as my brothers no matter what our culture, religion and colour are. The Grandness of this love and the depth is beyond what we can imagine yet it is simply a choice to connect to.
True Monika, and this shows the harm in affirmations because they cement the belief that our thoughts are ours.
There is indeed here a danger when we give emphasis and power to our thoughts and controlling our minds. There can be a great dichotomy at play when our bodies do not correspond to the dialogue we are running with and yet are at the mercy of our living way.
“. . . we already are love,” Cherise, as you say, this is “just a simple fact”, we know love from the day we are born. A baby is like a package of love and the baby body will let us know when it doesn’t feel love but we do not always read the subtle signs until it has to cry out loud.
Cherise, it is great that you expose this, as affirmations are not just ineffective they can be harmful because they bring up a confirmation of the opposite which takes us further away from seeing that “we are already enough”. For example, we may be saying to ourselves: “I can do that” but internally we are reacting with “I’m not good enough”, “I don’t have the skills” etc. Thus our “internal dialogue” contradicts the affirmations we try to make. Affirming that “I am beautiful” does not hold, for very soon we will be judging someone as more or less beautiful which means that the affirmation is just empty words that do not support us to connect with our true beauty.
Sandra, this is most interesting – that affirmations can be harmful because they bring up a confirmation of the opposite – I had never thought about them in this way, or been aware of the internal reaction that arises from them. Our internal dialogue can be so damaging and I have certainly been battling with ‘I am enough’ and as for ‘I am love’, it is so far off my radar it becomes impossible to feel. Letting go of trying to ‘be’ anything and simply connecting to and feeling the body brings its own truth.
This is super important Sandra because we can be fooled to believe that ‘good thoughts’ are the answer to ‘bad thoughts’ when in actual fact they are exactly the same when they are equally coming from a picture or an external image of how we or things should be and thus equally as harmful. Without knowing our essence and true quality we are forever left to the mercy of comparison and judgment and never truly knowing and confirming the greatest most powerful love that we are.
‘When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.’ This is such a beautiful and powerful truth, thank you Cherise.
Most of our dialogues go on in our head. We think we think, whereas our thoughts are not even ours but are given to us. Images rule the way we live and the choices we make and they are half the speed of light, so fast. So we need to be able to distinguish which is true and which not and live according to that.
Wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise to record all of the dialogue that goes on in our heads in one day. It would blow us away. If we really looked at them we would see that all of them are designed to take us away from knowing who we are.
You are absolutely right, Jennifer. None of our thoughts support us in knowing who we truly are: divine beings on our way back to our soul. Our body is the instrument that supports us in this process.
Ha ha, yes, Jennifer, if I heard all the dialogue that I have with myself in one day, in one go, I would appear to be completely crazy!
“Could it be that our number one and true affirmation is that we are love?” Yes we are love, we come from love and we are returning to be this great love again. Repeating words to try to convince yourself you are something without feeling it in your body and move accordingly is useless, but allowing yourself to feel you are love, surrender to this feeling and express it makes all the difference in the world.
Yes, telling ourselves that we are great when we are not willing to feel it, as in our essence we are absolutely amazing, will never do the trick. We have to go there and feel it, live it, walk it, and when you then speak it will be words confirming what is already felt.
Totally agree Lieke we have to live in a way we can feel who we are to confirm it, otherwise affirmations will not mean anything, and will only create another layer obscuring ourselves from being able to feel the truth of who we are.
Yes affirming needs to be a very practical living action, otherwise the quality of love cannot be built and held within the body.
I wanted to agree, that ‘we are love’ is the best affirmation but then found: it is a realization and a living of what we are and nothing else.
Yes, if we are told ‘we are love’ we fight it, don’t accept it, challenge it as it cannot be felt it is only when we start to live what we are that we start to feel we the truth of who we are.
Yes, all the words in the world can’t change how we feel. It needs to come from a deep knowing and living of the Truth of our bodies.
I agree Sandra, love is what we are and we can only know that by living it. thanks to the presentation of the Ageless Wisdom by Serge Benhayon the truth of love that has been known throughout the ages is once again being made clear and accessible for all.
The living of Serge Benhayon, the Benhayon family and other students of The Livingness has to be studied so we can see what is love in truth and not try to follow an image that is fed to us and the opposite of truth.
That’s right Sandra, if we experience how it is to live love for ourselves and all, then we will know by our own truth the truth of it.
Well doesn’t this just take some weight off our shoulders.
I agree Luke, weight that can fog our minds with all sorts of ideals and beliefs of how life, people and the world should and should not be.
It is beautiful to feel the truth of your words, Cherise for it as you say ‘When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies’. If we can’t feel this love within then no words can replace the feeling – although our words will change as we connect to our innermost selves and our experience expands and confirms the truth.
Beautiful sharing Cherise. I can feel just how fully you understand what you have presented here. Affirmation comes from a known within and not something that needs to be repeated over and over hoping to convince oneself. When the truth is felt the confirmation is in the body, a full surrender and contentment that leaves no doubt.
Feeling the love in my body and knowing it from my mind are poles apart – I really know nothing until I feel it in my own body.
‘Feeling the love in my body and knowing it from my mind are poles apart – I really know nothing until I feel it in my own body.’ ….. very true, Shelley. When I allowed myself to feel the love that I am, in my body, then it became so clear that before that point I truly hadn’t understood ‘love’ at all. You have to feel it to believe it ….
All anyone ever wants to be is loved, I see that everyday in the children and the adults I work with, and I feel it within my colleagues, friends, family and in myself. And we go searching and pushing for this love, yet it isn’t out there needing to be found, it is within us all. The love we hold others in is one special way we can start to allow another to feel how true this is, and when we do this the behaviours we don’t like, the disharmony will lessen and the choice to accept ourselves starts to shine through.
Before the Internet, bookstores had large sections just on self-help books I just did a Google search on self-help and got ‘About 143 million results in .062 seconds’ and trending shows self-help books has rated in Interest’ and average of 70s for ‘the last 10 years. That is a whole lot of looking outside of us for affirmations! When our greatest affirmation of who we truly are is the sparkle in the eye of the person that looks at us from the mirror.
So true Steve, all the Self Help books in the world cannot restore that sparkle, it has to be unearthed inside us, re-claimed and polished through heaps of Self Care. Affirmations will never replace the nurture, tenderness and love we are all capable of giving ourselves and one another.
Absolutely Rowena, ‘Affirmations will never replace the nurture, tenderness and love we are all capable of giving ourselves and one another.’ Affirmations do not mention self-care and self-love, they are empty words that just get repeated, changing nothing, self-care and self-love change everything and allow us to love and appreciate ourselves.
I had a bookshelf full of self help books before I found Universal Medicine. Not one of those self help books helped me to restore my ‘sparkle’, however, through how I live now, thanks to Serge Benhayon’s inspiration, that sparkle has been restored.
So true Rowena the self care and self love must be lived from within us otherwise any external help, advice or support cannot be sustained.
Very interesting Steve, isn’t it?! But I love what you share in all its simplicity that the greatest affirmation of who we truly are is in the sparkle in the eye of the person that looks at us from the mirror. Why are we looking for someone else for the answer of who we are or how to find love? and what is it about our so-called intelligent human race that the discontent experienced has this happening increasingly so?
Great stats to share Steve, as they serve to emphasise how many of us are searching, often desperately, for a quick fix to the mess in our lives. Unfortunately though when we search outside of ourselves we end up with the knowledge, ideals and beliefs of another, whereas turning inwardly for the answers we find the wisdom that has been waiting patiently for us to re-connect with it, and who we truly are.
Wow that’s a huge number. It also shows the amount of people that are struggling or sensing there may be more to life that their current reality. Imagine if we had education systems that actually educated us on how to deal with life.
That is a great point Steve. Self help books, audios and modalities are becoming a huge trend, and it’s interesting how there has been such a rise in looking outside of ourselves to find what can only truly be found inside ourselves – ourself! It sounds absurd when it’s put like this, but millions of people believe that this is the way forward.
A beautiful way of expressing this Steve, and I do totally agree here. This should be our normal way of meeting and greeting each other and therefore we would all know who we truly are.
There is a lot of people who actually know their life and the world is not how it could be and that change is needed. Unfortunately it also shows how many seek outside of themselves for that change when it is our connection within ourselves that comes first and then the world changes with us.
Spot on Steve, it only takes a second and stop to connect deep within the wisdom and true beauty that lives within us all.
This is so true Steve, the way feel about ourselves and in living that is the greatest confirmation we can have.
Cherise (and all writers of blogs) – I love how a topic introduced through a blog brings so many facets and angles we can explore together and expand our way of living, moving and expressing to bring more awareness, honesty and truth to ourselves and everyone.
Thank you!
This confirmation is beautiful Stephanie. I hold the same appreciation for both the writers and commenters of blogs like this.
Yes Stephanie, I love this too! the more that we share in the conversation brings about a sense of building, exploring and uncovering the world all together.
Stephanie that’s beautiful appreciation of what we all have and share here on these platforms, thank you Cherise and all others involved.
That is such a wonderful appreciation Stephanie – I too love it that there is this possibility to explore and expand together – that is brotherhood for me.
Gorgeous and I love this too Stephanie. It is such a joy to read blogs that constantly expand our awareness and I love the way each comment then builds on that foundation allowing each person to grow and expand with it. True evolutionary expression.
We have words for everything and in this age of ‘LoL’ the list appears to be expanding. But what if we were to stop and consider them all, from the aspect of how they actually feel? We may find their meanings and the way we band them around might substantially change. For no matter how many times we may say something this is no substitute for the truth. When words correspond to the energy of what is going on we are can start to have a conversation that’s real and meaningful. Thank you Cherise, for sharing how you feel.
Joseph what you share about truth and words are true. I have felt how words can impact the feeling I have in my body…either a shutting down, or an opening up. Sometimes they may sound sweet, but the impact from them may feel quite the opposite. By discerning the energy this way it is easier to know what is really going on.
I totally agree, Rachel. The classic example is when someone says ‘sorry’, but every cell in their body is showing that they are merely saying what they think I would like to hear and there is no truth to their words. It feels worse to receive the false offering, than no apology at all.
So true Joseph, there are times when words are used as either a disposable throw away or as a cover up to keep from the truth. But the energy and intention behind the cover up still exists and can be felt. Discernment is a very good word to describe what is required in these moments.
Absolutely Sandra. Staying with the feeling with in our bodies will always guide us and reveal the truth of the matter.
The same is true for glib and superficial politeness teamed with a fake Colgate smile = customer service, so called, out of some rule and how to book that makes one’s hair stand up.
Again the wisdom of the body can allow us to discern what words are true or energetically empty. So instead of the focus being on what we say there needs to be an equal focus on the energetic quality that we speak to ourselves and others.
Beautifully said Joseph, uncovering how words have been used and exposing our own personal take on them is important. It’s common that we all carry a different set of images or pictures for what ‘beauty’ or ‘ugliness’ looks like for example, but take away your ability to see with your eyes and my how that all changes! How exposing too that our affirmations and words are so commonly (if not always) changing pending what is happening in the world outside of ourselves.
What you share here is so true Joseph…”For no matter how many times we may say something this is no substitute for the truth.” There is certainly no substitute for Truth, and… “When words correspond to the energy of what is going on we can start to have a conversation that’s real and meaningful.”
Every one of us has had the experience of knowing when the feeling that comes with words just doesnt match…we feel the insincerity or incongruency of what is expressed. When truth is expressed, it comes as a package that cannot be denied.
‘When words correspond to the energy of what is going on we can start to have a conversation that’s real and meaningful’ …. this is gold Joseph and the reason that so much of what we say to each other is never actually ‘heard’. Whether we choose to accept it or not, we feel energy first, when words are expressed in an energy that doesn’t correspond to the essence of what is being shared, we don’t trust what is being shared as there is a mismatch, it doesn’t feel true.
Good point, Joseph. The abbreviated terms the younger generations are coming up with are indeed a reflection of the lack of quality in expression that we have allowed into our relationships.
Absolutely Joseph and with this we have learned to settle for less. Social media has shown us to go for “likes” and not for “love” and that it is quantity and not quality. Building markers of true quality in our body is the way forth and the only true confirmation.
This is a great point Rachel…likes and not love, quantity and not quality. We so underestimate the power of words and the effect they have on us, especially if we are not truly aligned to our bodies and what they are constantly telling us.
Now Rachel, one of the social media platforms has offered an array of reactions, including ‘love’. Love, reduced to a popularity contest, a button click moment that passes in a flash until the next reaction is reached.
This Joseph, brings us back to truth, honesty and integrity. Qualities that many in our world adore, yet struggle with living by.
“When words correspond to the energy of what is going on we can start to have a conversation that’s real and meaningful.”
So true Joseph, it is the intent and quality behind the words we express that truly have an impact and reveal whether or not words are simply being said or come from a true felt place within.
Our ability to invent new words is never ending and our current technological status encourages us to endlessly abbreviate and re-invent our communication, yet seldom does it encourage us to truly feel and assess what it is we are communicating. Restoring integrity to the use of our language invites us to truly enjoy and cherish the real purpose of words, to communicate how we feel and create intimate relationships. That is the joy of language to support us to honestly and lovingly connect rather than just make a noise to fill up the emptiness.
You reminded me of ‘buzz’ words Joseph – popular, snappy, fashionable. But “buzz’ says it all to me…words that give a momentary thrill but no lasting quality.
Beautiful Joseph, there is no substitute for the truth.
We can say and repeat many affirmations but not unless we can feel and confirm them in our body we can truly embrace them.
Yes, Janina. This exposes the fact that it is not the words that hold power, and not only the intention behind them, but the connection to the body expressing the words, and the intention of evolution in that body that will bring the development that affirmations often desire.
True, saying and repeating affirmations feels like a lulling and numbing of what we don’t like about ourselves and/or life and has no substance when it is not lived from the responsibility that is needed to address what is truly going on.
We can say and repeat many affirmations but not unless we feel and confirm it in our body we can truly live it.
This asks much more of me than repeating a phrase in my head. This is asking me to actually walk my talk!
Absolutely to ‘walk our talk’, to feel, live and breath who we are from our sense of knowing and not from anything else. From this quality of living all else that is not yet lived is exposed to be worked on.
Indeed Felix…and that would mean true Responsibility – are we up for this as a humanity? Some would say a resounding yes, and others not so keen.
And take the steps each and everyday consistently so (without perfection) toward living and confirming all we are in full. Relationships need to be constantly worked at – they don’t just happen. And this also applied to us, our relationship with ourself and with our essence.
Absolutely, Felix, which is why it’s never about what we do, or what we say that matters, it’s how we do it. Our livingness is a reflection of the commitment we are making to walk our talk.
I agree in general Felix but would say actually it is ”talk my walk’, because I have to live (walk) first what I than can deliver. 😉
Absolutely!! Without the living and expressing it is only words with no substance or truth.
Walking our talk Felix, yes this is true affirmation. For when we allow ourselves to feel the depth of beauty that lies deep within us, the only way I know to affirm it and to make it the way I live, is to walk with it.
Dear Cherise,
And it becomes a joy to expose those yet to be lived qualities and how we hold them back. For once set free, we expand and bring greater joy and presence into our lives and all the lives of others.
An affirmation said with hope is a thought/wish from the mind whereas an affirmation of what we already are is a deep knowing.
Yes, it feels like something flimsy that could crumble at any time where as an affirmation of who we are feels totally solid.
When we know the truth of who we are deeply in our bodies our livingness becomes the affirmation.
Beautifully said Rosemary … a deep knowing of Truth.
I agree Rosemary, affirmations from the mind come across as wishful thinking with no substance, and we can feel this but it is like grasping at straws for something in our lives to change.
I agree Julie, repeating affirmations from the mind is grasping at straws and will never change our lives, it is only through taking responsibility and beginning to self love can changes start to take place.
Beautiful Rosemary, ” an affirmation of what we already are is a deep knowing.” indeed it is something we already are so there is no need to try to be something, we just need to accept it and let it out.
Exactly Francisco, when we know it deeply we live it, and we just naturally let it out.
I agree Janina, otherwise it is just knowledge and we already have enough of that flying around the world.
Absolutely Janina, and I am particularly moved by this question… “With the choice to stop and to feel who we are, in our own bodies, in this very moment, is it possible that all anyone ever truly wants is to be love and to be loved?.” It all starts with us filling our own cups.
You stopped me Irena. So poignant right now to read this and know that there can be a reticence to fill our own cup first, allow it to overflow with the love for each and every other person we meet. How can it be otherwise?
When we let go of any image or outcome there is always so much more on offer than we can ever imagine.
This is so true. Even affirmations are a watered down version of our grandness when we connect and express from who we are.
They often come from and image that we are holding of ourselves that has formed in reaction to hurt we have experienced in our lives, and are not reflective of the grandness we are.
This is true. Even affirmations are a watered down poor substitute for our grandness when we express from our own fullness
So true Jane, there are no affirmations that come close to the glory of our grandness, they are a poor substitute to the immensity of our love.
Precisely Jane, expressing from our fullness what need is there for a sell of a sweetly sounding repeat of something our head has dished up, that in actual fact tastes stale the moment it has been recalled as a fill in for the true connection not being made.
Affirmations are terrible. It is like accepting fake money instead of the real thing or saying “I have more and more money, YES!”, when you are surrounded by gold but your hands are empty.
Absolutely, Jane. Affirmations are our wished-for way of being, but we cannot change where we are at just be saying words that contradict our lived reality. Acceptance of where we are at and our responsibility in that, awareness of who we truly are, and then making new choices which align with that will start to change the things that we may so desperately want to be different.
True Nicole, we so limit ourselves with what we think we want and if we were to let go of our attachment to the pictures we might feel insecure but we are then surrendering to allow true service to be expressed through our body as a vehicle for God’s work on earth.
Gorgeous Sandra, and in that surrendering we are the living affirmations of such stupendousness.
Thanks Sandra makes me realise how much i still try to push things to happen.
It’s the images that keep us trapped really, because we have already been fed a line or a picture of what we and life are supposed to look like and anything that doesn’t measure up to this is instant disappointment and a let down. Leaving us to the mercy of the image at the expense of who we truly are.
Images are such a trick, nothing will ever match an image we create so we will be permanently let down if we rely on them.
It is True Fiona and so often we are, and so relearning how to be in a world that is not perfect requires us to let go of all expectations and say no to ideals and beliefs.
It is great to expose the game of images, not a fun game though as it is we who are being played. While we are ever looking outside of us for something ‘better’ we miss the absolute beauty of who we naturally are.
‘Bingo!’, nicolesjardin.
So true nicolesjardin. I use to have these images and ideals of what I thought my life would be like. As I have let go of these and been open to what is actually possible I am now no longer limited by my imagination and my life is so much more lovely than I could ever conceive in my mind.
How gorgeous is this Lee…so very inspiring to be open to the magic of life, and appreciating the transformation that comes with letting go.
I love this practical observation Lee, we are so dominated by our images and associated ideals of what our lives should look like and completely missing how lovely they already are when we allow ourselves to truly be.
That’s incredible Lee. Simply letting go of the images and expectations we have in our minds about life can change everything, and life becomes much more flowing because we let go of the need to control situations to fit the scenario in our head.
It also makes realise how many times I would ignore what was in front of me to make it fit into the image I was holding onto.
Yes Lee, the more we let go of images that are limiting us in many ways the more we can accept and surrender in our bodies to the what is.
There is a science to what you say Nicole, which I feel we, in the world are only just touching the tip of the iceberg about. Letting go of the pictures and the images that our minds show us and just simply surrendering to the feeling and walking our future selves towards us. It is yet to unfold.
It is so powerful to simply surrendering to the feeling and not doubting and complicating all that is there.
I agree, there is a tendency to complicate what simply is when we allow it to be.
How true this is Nicole, expectations and outcomes in any form only limit us from seeing the true beauty that simply can occur at any moment. With an outcome we are focused on an end point, rather than appreciating just being in the moment and being with ourselves and others.
Our body plays such an important part in this dynamic it can help us to feel what it there even when our mind wants to see something else.
Yes, when we let go of control it allows space for so much more magic, love and joy in our life.
I find there is also less effort and drive needed when I let go of the need to control, as in the space created there is so much support and natural intelligence.
Yes, when we let go of control it allows space for so much more magic, love, beauty and joy in our lives.
Without the connection to who we truly are, we are only left affirming an image of who we think we are or would strive to be.
Connection to our inner selves open us up to so much more.
Great point Jenny, when we live in disconnection from ourselves we can not but not try and live up to expectations, as in disconnection how could we possibly know better. Yet when connected, we know there is nothing to live up to as we are already the all.
Good question, Elizabeth, as when we do this, we’re choosing to resist our own love, our own truth.
‘What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell’ ….. a beautiful definition of a true affirmation. If we repeat an affirmation, but it is not absolutely felt in the body first, it’s just words without true meaning.
Very true Alison, an affirmation is very powerful when it is true and felt in the body. If it is not felt in our body as a truth it is no less than harmful to us.
It is actually a confirmation when it is felt in the body. We confirm what is already there. Through this blog it becomes so clear to me how important it is to become very intimate with my body, like a very close friend: get to know all the ins and out and listen to her, when she speaks.
Yes very much so Caroline, being with our body as a very close friend feels lovely and super supporting.
I love what you have said here Alison: “If we repeat an affirmation, but it is not absolutely felt in the body first, it’s just words without true meaning”, and I totally agree. We can say as many words as we like, many times over, but unless they speak the truth that we feel in our bodies they are nothing but empty words.
This is true they are nothing but empty words and this is always felt, we are often so caught up in trying to change the world because we know and can feel the state that it is in but starting with changing ourselves first already changes the world.
Yes, this reminds me of when people give advice (and I have done this many, many times) and the words are all right but they’re not living the advice they’re delivering so it doesn’t ring as true and I cannot feel the advice so am not experiencing the learning they would like to be offering.
When people are living being the love they are, words only confirm what’s already been felt. Very powerful.
Affirmations have been missed and people have just used them as repeating words with no connection to the body, no wonder they feel like empty words. As if I have been caught in the pass repeating affirmation with no true connection to the words.
Precisely Alison, “just words without true meaning”. We cannot change our world by words alone, for them to have true power they need to arise from a living expression within our bodies. I have found, through Sacred Esoteric Healing, that owning, feeling and releasing my hurts and pain in my body first has naturally changed my internal dialogue and self esteem. Bombarding our bodies with words alone will not ever change the ill energy trapped inside us, going inwards and feeling it is our only option.
It would appear to me by resounding words that ‘feel good’ to the ear does not indicate any honest want for change but more an unwillingness to be that change, as perhaps the fact we are Love has long been disconnected from, and therefore access to feeling it from the body is temporarily closed.
So true Rowena, whilst it is important I think to actually nominate or say to our self what is the hurt and pain I hold in my body, it must be felt also. Otherwise words to the contrary, as in positive affirmations, are indeed energetically empty.
I agree Rowenakstewart, I feel that you’ve summed up the issue beautifully here and how we can change it.
I listened to two interviews of women described as successful. One was an ocean sailor, the other an author, both described how affirmations helped them complete projects gave them self confidence. Affirmations can be about getting things done or making you think you feel better about yourself rather than truly feeling the truth of where we are in our bodies.
With a true affirmation there need not be reason for repeat, as it is felt direct, allowing for yet deeper still connection with ourselves to bring about the next.
“Our bodies know when something feels hot or cold, good or bad, and so they definitely know when words are just words and are not truly felt or lived in full – when they are not a part of our Livingness: – this is very true Cherise, that feeling of temperature is definite, distinct and immediately felt. Love your example as is such a great way to explain the workings of the body and how sensitive it is to everything, and feeling everything such that it equally knows the embodiment of a spoken word in the same way as it reads temperature change.
Yes, Zofia, if we allow it, the body can give us an accurate reading on everything. As we begin to honour its wisdom more, we feel the subtleties of what is really at play in every interaction, giving us more confidence in our sense of what feels true.
Beautifully expressed Janet…and how profound is the impact of this confidence in every area of our lives.
So true Janet. The body is indeed a barometer of truth and knows how to smell a rat any day. It is just up to us to be willing to surrender to what is it showing.
Yes beautifully said Janet.
And it makes sense because the body is made up of the same particles as everything else in the world. So it is able to detect and feel when other particles, which move in the same way it moves, are moving out of order.
When my mind says one thing and my body is telling me another, it makes sense to trust my body because my mind isn’t in direct communication with the wisdom, the order and harmony of the universe.
Absolutely Janet. The more we connect to and trust the readings felt in our bodies, the more available and easy to access these readings become. It then becomes easier to discern truth as it is clearly felt in our bodies.
This is so very inspiring, and everyday is another opportunity to know our bodies language of feeling, ever deeper. They are undiscovered countries so far-the journey is incredible for each one of us to take as we choose to embody our soul more and more.
Absolutely Janet. The more we trust what we feel, the more everything flows. I am finding that the more I allow this and the more that things happen with beautiful synchronicity, the more I am able to accept that its because of my choices and these are simply being confirmed by what is taking place. It is beautiful to feel, without there having to be any big ‘rah rah’, just a simple thankyou to myself for allowing myself to feel and follow my first impulse.
And if we don’t allow it Janet, we ‘cannot feel’ or over-ride what we feel as very often we’re in our heads. As you say’as we come to honour the bodies wisdom more, we become more attuned to its subtle messages.
Sometimes we may be tempted to override what we are feeling, particularly when a situation presents itself at just the right time, which, of course, is no coincidence at all. If it doesn’t feel ‘right’ and we ignore the warning our bodies are sharing, we clearly are in need of a little more ‘learning’, which will also present itself and this pattern will repeat over and over until we learn that we are actually reading the energy first, but choosing to ignore it.
It is in the allowing if we begin to honour what we feel all of the time and express what is happening for us in whichever way is supportive it is amazing how much life can become very simple and less tension filled.
Absolutely Janet, the more we trust our body, the more it gives us accurate readings. The wisdom our body shares really supports us with our confidences to discern energy and sense what feels true or not.
True Janet, well said, if we allow it.
Reading from the wisdom the body is so accurate and foolproof. We have to ask why did we ever let the mind take over?
well said Janet, in the connection with our body all can be found, it is the greatest and wisest friend we can have and being fully with it will bring us space and clarity to know how to be with all that comes towards us.
It’s been an absolute revelation to me, to experience that learning to trust what my body is saying actually builds confidence. Having tried the affirmations, the books, the healers..everything from outside of me, to ‘build me up’ or fix me, it’s been incredibly empowering to actually feel that none of this worked. The only place to turn is within: back to the body, listening to it acutely, and honouring it, re-builds that trust and connection with ourselves, and builds a natural confidence that comes from within.
Given the way we treat our bodies we could almost say we don’t want to be wise. It’s like having the fastest Maserati on the block and doing everything we can to it to make it the slowest… Perhaps we don’t like the attention.
Love what you share here, Zofia, how we absolutely have the ability to recognise the truth, we feel it in our bodies, however, we have become so used to numbing ourselves, so we don’t feel anything, hence we have forgotten how innately wise we actually are.
Karin we are particles before we are people so if we can refer to our particles for guidance rather than to our personalities then we’re going to have much better outcomes.
Great point Alison we cannot connect to the wisdom of our bodies when we have numbed them or made them racy with the many foods, substances and activities that we engage with.
We have numbed ourselves because we don’t like what we are feeling but what we are ‘feeling’ is our emotions which feel very unpleasant in the body, even if the particular emotion may be positive – have you noticed how numb you are when you are euphoric?
So we protect ourselves from the unpleasant feelings in our body but the numbing makes it worse as now we don’t know what we feel so we need to live from our ideas, leading to more emotions.
It sounds absurd but that is how we live.
Although we may have been experts at numbing ourselves, thank goodness (!) this does not change the fact that it is innately within us to feel and that re-learning to feel is about re-establishing this connection not having to create a new one.
And we can learn to toughen up to ignore both in the same way. There are people I know who go bare foot in the depths of winter – proud of the fact that cold does not touch them. Others drink tea and eat food scalding hot, insensitive to the burn. We might look at these as extreme levels of ignoring the messages from our body. But virtually all of us have learned to ignore the very subtle levels of feeling our body is constantly registering in every moment. We are just like the self-proclaimed ‘tough’ person with bare feet in the middle of the coldest winter day when it comes to awareness.
This is true Rachel, and so we can very easily be fooled and or tricked into thinking we know ourselves but if we do not know our bodies on an intimate level then this can not be truly claimed.
Wow bare foot in the depths of winter!!!!!!! And I thought people jogging in just a vest and shorts was crazy!!! Years ago when I was traveling at one point I would do a lot of walking bare footed, gosh now I just see how incredibly unloving and unsupportive that was as well as how I was so desensitised to my body.
I agree Amina, to be intimate with ourselves is the key to our awareness. And the awareness supports us to take the choices needed.
Very true, Rachel … maybe part of the challenge for us, in re-learning to trust and feel all that our bodies are lovingly sharing with us, constantly, is that through our own arrogance, we actually thought we knew better and now we’re eating humble pie.
Yes building the intimacy with our bodies, feeling how gorgeous they feel when connected to, even if there is pain beneath that is always in my experience a consistent feeling of expansion and gentleness that once you keep going back to that you are building that feeling so you stop taking what the outside says as begin it, you place the power back within your hands of what you know is true.
Also the less you know your self the more you will give weight to the critical thoughts and any slight by another person is easily personalised and blown out of proportion. The way back to feeling loved by yourself is by feeling your body and what lies within.
Agreed Rachel we are the masters of ignoring ourselves, the subtle movements of another, we know what is going on at all times yet feign ignorance we are masters of the illusion.
As a society we champion extreme levels of disregard to our bodies, to toughen up. We exploit each other for entertainment. Big brother is a classic example, and then there is the block and other very competitive shows where people are starved of being able to nurture and care for themselves are forced into a ‘survival’ state, and we all look to see how they will respond and thrive of the drama created when the emotions take over.
Once you start listing to the messages from your body, you start to realise how consistently it communicates and you will realise that you are sensitive beyond your wildest imagination. Your body knows how best to breathe, to move, to eat, to sleep .. it knows everything and if you listen to it you will discover it is, as Serge Benhayon presents, “the marker of truth”.
My daughters sports carnival in always held in winter, and in winter where we live we get to -2 degrees. They would encourage them to run the race in bare feet so they could not feel the pain. This was very disturbing to watch and I now keep my children home from school on these days.
Whoa! That is intense Heidi. What damage does barefoot running do to those growing, tender feet?
Toughening up! Good Lord, what a mess we make of these bodies in the name of “good”. And we wonder why we have so many arthritic, miserable adults?
Absolutely Zofia, our bodies know truth, we can trick our mind through affirmations but our body still knows this is a trick, not truth, hence the discord felt with affirmations.
Our bodies are very simple – when they feel something they know it inside out. Whereas the mind has to keep repeating and justifying and ‘bigging’ itself up otherwise it has no feet to stand on. If it doesn’t keep the spin going its lies don’t exist in the face of the truth the body holds. From Universal Medicine I’ve learnt that the way I move my body supports the thoughts to circulate, so stopping and changing my movements has time and time again proven to work against these lies of the mind. Letting go of the investment of the mind however is an ongoing process but it is becoming more clear that the body is the ‘go to’ place for truth, not the mind.
This is true… as long as there is a sensitivity to and awareness of the body. I see people walk around in singlets, shorts and things in winter; and I know for myself I have been oblivious to the disregard to the abuse I have meted out to my body over the years in various ways. Developing an awareness of the body might be a first step to feeling something more.
I can remember, years ago, when Serge Benhayon shared that rather than choosing to honour our bodies, we have tended to treat them like a piece of meat that we have control over and we arrogantly ‘think’ that we know better, that we are in ‘control’ ….. at the time I thought I understood what he meant, only now can I feel the truth in his words.
Yes Victoria, we can’t deny the level of sensitivity in our bodies and it takes great effort to live against this natural flow.
Yes, and listening to the body’s wisdom gets easier and easier the more often I do it. At first it’s a little bit like trial and error, but with practice it gets very clear and distinct and fun.
Yes, the fewer times our emotions interfere with what we feel, the more clearly we feel.
Learning to feel and trust the wisdom of our body is so amazingly simple, powerful and profound – it changes everything.
Our bodies are aware of so much more then we give it credit for. The wisdom we search for in books and through education is found first and foremost in the body we live in every day.
I so glad that someone has written and exposed the illusion of affirmations and put some clarity and truth into a subject that has had us so fooled for so long. Millions must be handed over daily for all these self help books and techniques and has anybody ever had results that last?
How often do affirmations and goals come from an image of how things should look or how we would like them to be,instead of just living from the truth that comes from within.
‘There can be great simplicity in the relationship with ourselves and this begins with knowing who we already are, from the very inside of our own bodies, within our hearts.’ Cherise I love this line about my relationship with me. Feels so all encompassing and so simple to live when put like this.
I devoured a huge number of self help books, affirmations etc in earlier years, hoping that the next book would be the be all and end all of my search for truth and for a better life.
Over time I disposed of them all. Studying with Universal Medicine, I came home to myself, learning to trust what was within me all along, my own inner knowing and connection to soul.I discovered then that no affirmation was needed, simply an ongoing confirmation and appreciation as I reconnect more and more deeply back to who I truly am.
Affirmations come from the outside calling us to be more…. the livingness of love is found deep within knowing that we are already enough.
Affirmations ARE empty. We could repeat for 100 years that ‘We are Love.’ for example and a person could still live miserably and without an ounce of joy. Whereas to live with love and feel love inside our bodies is a whole different ball game; one that transforms people’s lives.
A great question Elizabeth – when we feel empty inside we quite often succumb to empty words in a desperate attempt to fill our perceived void.
I feel ‘mindfulness’ is the new black …. affirmations do not connect to the ‘knowing it to be true ‘ and mindfulness does the same, it’s a constructed belief ‘ to bring a quality or state of being conscious or aware of something’ which once again takes away the responsibility to know and claim our own quality and take responsibility for the energy we are choosing. Without this its just a mind game with no true livingness.
I agree merrileepettinato. I find affirmations and using the force of my mind to create a reality is completely different to the actual power of knowing of something with my whole being.
To me, affirmations just confirm that I am not enough and therefore require affirmations, to be more, to be better. I love what you share, Cherise – we are Love, we are already enough, we just need to choose to live this on a daily basis.
“We don’t ever need to teach ourselves this nor try to recall it as knowledge – because we already are love, it’s just a simple fact.’ Reading this Cherise I was feeling how amazing this would be if we naturally reflected the fullness of our love to each other. If children were brought up knowing they were love any need for self-help affirmations in later life, self-help anything, wouldn’t be sought because people would know with an inner confidence who they already are.
What if there is something for humanity to experience within themselves about who they truly are that is so grand that beliefs do not even exist in this place? And if this is true, what use then would affirmations be?
Melinda what you say is profound. Affirmations make us believe we have to substitute one belief with a more favourable one. A completely false and disempowering set up. They hoodwink us out of the possibility of remembering that who we are is “so grand that beliefs do not even exist in this place”.
Yes this is awesome to expose. l did hundreds of variations of these affirmations for years during my lowest point in life. They simply served to make me feel the everything l believed that l was ‘Not’. l felt all the empty mess and inadequacy that l believed l was at the time. At no time ever did l entertain the possibility that l was already “enough”.
Now l know better. l have Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon to thank for this epiphany and for finally, getting through to me with my own Truth of who l really am. l am forever grateful to him. As he would tell me it was my own amazing soul that showed me the way back home, that walks with me on my journey and carrys me when l am hurting badly. He would not take the credit for that, however he is the walking, living, pointer and marker of all truth for me. As he is the living reflection of all that l am.
The other day I had an example which showed me the nature of affirmations. I knew my body wanted to take it slowly yet I chose to put several other circumstances ahead of the care for my body, told myself ‘you can do it’ and rushed forward carrying on with something, an activity that needed more attention than I was able to give it. When I sat down and picked up my iPad to read some blogs I noticed my hands were shaking ever so slightly, but I could tell. There was buzzing in my arms and when I stopped to feel I could tell it was the same throughout my body. I at that moment knew this was not my natural energy – I immediately knew it was about me overriding what my body had asked for a few minutes before. I had in effect called in a force to help me perform what I had just done and my nervous system had been taken into an excess so that my body could perform the action. In that moment I knew clearly how the standard practice of using affirmations to force a change in our behaviour works! Yes on the surface we may get the result. But what is actually happening is the absolute opposite to deepening the level of love, power and awareness in our body.
I love this Golnaz and in fact it mirrors a recent experience of mine almost exactly. We can tell ourselves whatever we like and merrily follow that line, but our bodies will let us know about it – if we care to listen and observe.
Further to this… confirmation, which is an appreciation, is only effective when it is taken is an acknowledged within the body as Cherise has so beautifully said. Likewise an affirmation begins and remains in the head, as a wish, a thought and ultimately an empty experience for the body.
When I first learnt the difference between confirmation, which appreciates something that already exists, and an affirmation, which tells us that what is being sought does not in fact exist in the first place… I understood in that instance why affirmations do not work. So simple, and so powerful.
Thank you, Cherise. These words feel so true and make me melt – “There can be great simplicity in the relationship with ourselves and this begins with knowing who we already are, from the very inside of our own bodies, within our hearts.”
Positive affirmations change nothing, but serve in truth to reinforce the very thing we are trying to avoid. Stand in the mirror and say to yourself “I am beautiful” ten times over in the hope in trying to change your self perception, and you change nothing. For what you are truly saying is “I am so ugly that I actually need to convince myself I am beautiful by repeating this to myself over and over again.”
There are deeper and more meaningful ways of bringing appreciation into one’s life that actually do bring about true change. True appreciation comes from the body and never from the mind.
How big is the mess we have created in the world that the simple fact that we are Love has been replaced with looking outside of ourselves for this Love to then fill us up? It really is self-defeating.
“When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.” So true, Cherise, and part of accepting this is actually realising that we are in fact Love, and all we need to do is re-connect to it within our hearts. This stops the seeking behaviours so many of us can find ourselves in and what drives the personal development arena.
I love this blog, Cherise, as it calls to account the majority of what the spiritual new age is based on. Empty affirmations. Thank you for such an insightful sharing.
“What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell: that we are already everything – that we are already enough.” This was my exact experience today. This is a beautiful way of saying we have all we need, we just need to call it forth.
Cherise this is a very clear and beautiful blog, and just the medicine I needed for today. It reminds me that as long as I connect to the love I am and thereby confirm it, whatever is not of that quality can just drop away.
If there is no foundation of love and alignment to truth, no amount of affirmation will change that. From a deep inner connection everything around us confirms the truth of us.
Beautifully and simply said Victoria – Cherise’s blog has busted the ‘new age’ illusion that we can think or talk ourselves out of unloving situations. Like you expressed, ‘If there is no foundation of love and alignment to truth, no amount of affirmation will change that.’
So simple Victoria. If there is no foundation of love then nothing we tell ourselves can change that. It can only be changed through what and how we live.
I remember years ago having an affirmation journal where I would pen ‘positive’ statements I hoped would come to pass ….. It never felt true.
If we first do not have a living relationship with our self that is loving and true we will not feel the fullness of who we are and will always be looking outside for something to confirm us.
Agree with you Victoria, i recall positive affirmations and mantras being really strongly used in my area of work (sales), and all they did was leave you feeling never enough and having to do more.. which i guess was the point behind them/why they were used for ‘training purposes’ – to drive you to deliver more…and in the process leave you depleted, hungry for more.To feel the fullness of ourselves is naturally expansive, and a feeling infinitely greater than any affirmation that doesn’t honour or confirm this but instead substitutes with empty words.
This is exactly what affirmations do ‘label ourselves with words that describe who we want to be, leaving us thinking that we will reach our goals or get there someday; thinking that if we repeat affirmations many times, perhaps even sticking them to our fridge, we will one day believe it about ourselves in full.’ It is like mentally saying something over and over again because we want to be in a different place than we are. It is futile and doesn’t work. Trust me I did this for years even to the point where every morning I would read this long list out! What is needed is honesty, self-love and appreciation of where we are first at, including the understanding that all that has happened in our life has at some level been our choice. Then things start to change. Truly. I deeply appreciative Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine they have taught and continue to teach us all so very very much.
A gorgeous confirmation of the spherical love that connects us all. Thank you Cherise.
I, like many I knew, tried affirmations by the dozens, in total desperation as nothing else we had tried had been the fix for the mess in our lives: we were always looking outside of us for those elusive answers to the meaning of our lives, and life in general. When I was presented with the wisdom, “that we are already everything – that we are already enough”, I was stopped in my tracks as I could feel the truth of this revelation resonating in a very familiar way through every part of me. That was the day my outer searching ended for good and the path back to who I was, and always had been, began.
Great comment Ingrid. What an amazing moment to be presented with the whole truth, to accept it and to stop the endless search outside of ourselves that leads us to a feeling of emptiness and therefore needing to continue on with our search. The search for me has also stopped since starting on the journey to connecting back to myself.
Thank you Cherise, there is a world of difference between repeating nice sounding words in the vain hope that some day it will morph us into a different person verses re-connecting to the love we already are and living that every day. The two approaches are very different as the latter one requires a deep honesty and self responsibility not even mentioned in the first approach. This means tackling the internal dialogue and not allowing one iota of negativity or criticism towards oneself and hence others, but observing ourselves, our choices and behaviours in absolute honesty, so that our inner love nourishes our expression, choices and actions, something that the world of affirmations never ask us to do.
The use of ‘affirmations’ by the Spiritual/New Age Movement is to practice ‘positive thinking’, which is a complete misuse and bastardisation of the meaning of the word. The original meaning of an affirmation is ‘a declaration that something is true’, which is confirm something is true and not the wish or desire for something to be true. Just by wishing or desiring for something and verbalising that desire does not make it manifest, it has to be lived and embodied to make it true. Therefore affirmations, as used by the Spiritual/New Age Movement, are ‘lies we tell ourselves’.
Yes, I have felt these affirmations as lying to myself – but rather than be honest I saw others seemingly convinced and thought I must be doing it wrong or I was immune to them as they felt false.Not being able to ‘fake it until you make it’ led to a sense of hopelessnes. Life and me in it would continue to be miserable!
Being honest about how I felt about myself or the world has led to letting go of a lot of misery. I’ve discovered beneath every negative thought and emotion about myself I lie, delicate and untouched. Being honest has allowed me to see that these emotions and thoughts I had of myself were never me at all whereas when I tried to make them go away and paint over them with affirmations they always showed through – perhaps because they were actually ready to get out the door and not return.
Thanks for your wonderful sharing Cherise. It is so true, what you are expressing – words are just words, when the words are only coming from the head. As you say, we are already love, i.e. we don’t have to look for love outside of ourselves. When we connect to what we are – love, and then express our love, this love can be felt by everybody, then that are not only words.
Great point Elizabeth, the words are empty and to me affirmations were used to make me feel better about myself but never really addressed the lack of self worth – it’s no different than pretending to be happy but feeling miserable inside.
Great blog Cherise, and I totally agree; affirmations said in the head to ourselves don’t really go anywhere or have a lasting effect. Sure they can make you feel ‘good’ or somewhat inspired for moments, but unless it is lived they don’t mean much. I remember trying the affirmations diary and saying nice things to myself each day, but I never really believed them, they were just a formality, like I was being polite to myself. Now that I am moving through life with a body that knows it IS love, the words I express to myself come from inside and have purpose in confirming what I feel.
We hold so much beauty already in us. Needing those affirmations really is confirming that we are not full already. Because even though the words might say that “I am beautiful”, the energy I am in at that moment is saying: “I am ugly, therefore I need such an affirmation.”
The livingness of Love has been the one way of living that is Absolute in all that it does, says, thinks, and breathes so there has been no need of any affirmations to ‘pump’ myself up. Only when I was not living love did I seek words to make me feel better. Gone are the forced affirmations and hello to Appreciation of who I really am and they are the stark opposite in how you feel about yourself.
“Could it be that our number one and true affirmation is that we are love?” Yes I can feel this in every cell of my body that this is true, but I don’t always live this love and bring it to everything that I do and say. The more I can confirm and appreciate that I am love the more this highlights the areas in my life where I am not love.
Cherise thank you for writing on this topic of affirmations. Absolutely it feels like this word has been misused to make it all about self, see it as a motivational tool, or even just identify with a skill rather than seeing who we naturally are as an affirmation. You share here that a true affirmation is felt in our bodies, and that I absolutely agree with. For it it is lived in our bodies it can then be expressed in word, and not the other way around.
Cerise I have come to wonder from reading your blog and the comments if affirmations actually work to ensure that we don’t get what it is that we are wanting. Appreciation shores up what we appreciate, i.e. what we appreciate seems to become more solid, therefore it seems to follow that if we repeat affirmations, which are basically things that we don’t yet have, we may actually be affirming the fact that we don’t have those things and in doing so ensuring that we don’t get them either. Are we each not our own self full filling prophecy?
Cherise I spent years devouring spiritual new age books, thinking that they were taking me towards the truth. It’s so fascinating now that I understand that our bodies are forever communicating to us what is going on, because I remember after years of reading so many spiritual books that I actually felt a little queezy, almost like i’d eaten too much cake in the car. I know now unequivocally that all of the books that I read were written in an energy that was not true. An energy that masquerades as the truth and yet does not come from it. It’s very cunning, very sly and keeps millions of people in no mans land for lifetimes.
When we feel our bodies, truly feel them, then we first feel a lot of things that are not right but eventually notice that they are not us – we may have issues but they are not us. Underneath everything that is going on, there is the true ‘us’ and the amazing surprise is that this ‘us’ is love.
The love we seek is the love we are. There is nothing to find, but everything to be.
That’s beautiful Liane. We seem to seek love in all the wrong places except the one place where we will find it… right inside ourselves. We can spend a lifetime looking outside of ourselves to obtain it from others…and yet there it just happens to be in our back pocket all the time. No doing, or obtaining just quietly there waiting for rediscovery.
I love this Liane … ‘There is nothing to find, but everything to be.’ It is worthy of a place on my fridge as a reminder to simply honour and be myself.
Beautifully wise and so simple Liane…. as affirmation is nothing more than an empty wish to be something we already are. Empty because it does not begin with the premise that ‘the love we seek is the love we are. ‘
A beautifully simple truth, Liane. When we finally come back to ourselves and accept that what we have longed for is eternally within us, we settle in the body and feel the absolute joy of deepening in our own love.
Beautiful and all so very true Cherise. From what you present it seems that we seek affirmations once we have lost touch with the love that we are. In order to reconnect we desperately seek outward for that which lies within. A true affirmation is living our love everyday in every way and through its expression we feel and know in full, the truth of who we are.
So beautifully said Liane. It’s so true. Why would we need affirmations if we already are in touch with our own love? We need affirmations when we feel lost. If we are in connection with ourselves, our bodies and the love that we are we do not need affirmations to lift us up or feel good about ourselves, as our sense of self-worth is naturally already there.
A true affirmation is living our love everyday, this is simple and practical, Liane.
Using the words of appreciation to support and confirm what we know deep within our cells is something that builds and fortifies our foundation of love for ourselves. This then reflects and radiates out to others. So much stronger than empty words not truly felt or truly believed.
The greatest affirmation is living the love we innately are. A Beautiful blog to read Cherise.
It is the energetic intent behind affirmations that makes all the difference and the energy as everything is energy and ultimately every comes down to this and what energy are we choosing, that is one of love, of God ,of the divinity, of the universe we are all part of and are from or that of the astral plane living amongst us all. True appreciation comes from the divine and is confirmed to us constantly as we choose to live it every day in the quality of our very movements every moment..
“When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us…”. I love how you start this last paragraph Cherise, it shows that if we keep it simple and make life truly about love all else will naturally fall into place.
I agree Judith and it takes one to surrender and trust to allow this to take place.
‘There can be great simplicity in the relationship with ourselves and this begins with knowing who we already are, from the very inside of our own bodies, within our hearts.’ I love this reminder of the power of self-acceptance and developing a relationships with our own true nature – Love.
Talking ourselves into believing something is a stark contrast to having that knowing in our bodies.
Yes Annie, it is a stark contrast, as is the difference in what each approach will offer in the end result. For many years I followed affirmations, and little if anything changed. I have not used this approach now for 15 years and my life has changed enormously. Understanding the difference and beginning from the premise that we are everything already, has completely eliminated the need to try to reach for something. This actually undercuts the entire basis for the spiritual new age. Affirmations are but the tip of that iceberg, and from my experience, just as unhelpful when it comes to any true and sustainable change.
Hence it is crucial to know how to re-connect and access this inner knowing, something Serge Benhayon has presented from day 1 and does still today. It is a direct experience and thus an instant knowing, no need to hope or invest in trying before you finally know for yourself – simple and self-empowering.
Accepting that ‘I am love’ already before I do anything changes the need to strive to prove or better myself.
So beautifully expressed Elizabeth, so much is said with words, with them and without them.
Sometimes all words do is get in the way of what is being expressed on a much much deeper level. I notice this with my eyes too… If I get caught with the image and what my eyes are receiving, it stops me from feeling what is there to be felt.
True Michelle, the power of reflection a lot can be said without words. Why do we need affirmations if a lot can be said in love and just without any words being expresses but with movements that confirm? The best example is physically making love. No words are expressed. There might be moans and groans but all is said through movement.
To me, affirmations are like hope, whereas appreciation for what I have is a substantial truth.
Michelle I love what you have shared, you have helped me to understand that appreciation confirms what is already there and affirmations are simply what we wish was there.
So simply and succinctly summed up Alexis: “appreciation confirms what is already there and affirmations are simply what we wish was there.”
Very well summed up Alexis “appreciation confirms what is already there and affirmations are simply what we wish was there” – thank you.
When we accept “that the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us” and we confirm this truth by the way we choose to be, there is no need for any affirmations.
When I read this regarding positive affirmations – “And do we really live it?”, I was like check. We can say all these words in the hope that they will be true but unless we choose to live them, moment by moment, they remain just words.
Yes it is the choice and only the choice to begin to live with the love and tenderness we really are that truly affirms, for we are affirming a real lived quality.
And as you say, it is in our movements that we confirm our love, for our thoughts are born from how we move.
Thank you Emma, I agree, it is essential to understand how we move. “Movements confirms our love” very true, and love is developed from the choice to align our bodies to the divinity we all come from, through our movements. So when we can move in a way that keeps us in that reconnection to the divine, this becomes our Livingness, which is true love. For more on the Livingness and love go to;
http://www.unimedliving.com/search?keyword=LIVINGNESS
Agree Emma, how we move is everything, if that quality is agitated, harsh or jolty, then our expression and communication will also be this with thoughts to cement that way to then seed further movement. Without movement in self-connection, awareness and presence of one’s physical body, a word (or affirmation that is not from a lived way first) can so easily be the filler. Makes sense then learning to consciously move in everything we do with connected-quality. This quality of being is essential living.
Yes, well said Emma, this brings my attention to be more aware of the quality in how I move. I find I can still easily switch from being connected to myself to the next moment of not. So, the quality of my movements as in being gentle and conscious is key to confirm more love.
Very well said Cherise. Your message is simple, clear and so true. Affirmations mean nothing unless we know and deeply feel the truth of our love.
‘Our bodies know when something feels hot or cold, good or bad, and so they definitely know when words are just words and are not truly felt or lived in full – when they are not a part of our Livingness.’ Our bodies know the truth of anything but we can fool ourselves and not want to see and live this but we all know we are love and can choose to live accordingly and then life becomes more simple every day. A beautiful way forward!
It’s such a trap. It sounds good at the time, but like any trap…the short journey there is always attractive, but often we’re left empty at the end of it.
I remember as a teenager realising the power of what my mind could create and I believed that I could convince myself of anything. And to a point that was true. But what I’ve learnt in the last few years is how unsustainable living from your head actually is. If we bring more focus to the body and pay more attention to how it behaves and the messages it sends us, we naturally start to appreciate all that it offers and then those affirmations we read on a cereal box suddenly don’t seem necessary.
Good point Elodie Darwish. The need for affirmations is really indicative of a belief that something feels like it is missing in our lives and hence ends up being a confirmation of what we believe. When we reconnect to the fullness of being in our body, our expression is more one of confirmation of who we already are, rather than an affirmation that seeks to become more.
Very well summed up richardmills363 and Elodie. This is why diets don’t work, and new year’s resolutions don’t work either because they are coming from an ideal way of looking or a desired way of being without addressed (healing) what caused the undesirable behaviour, weight in the first place.
Absolutely Elodie, yes i recall the exact same when i was young too…so much was geared around the mind, its control or power which i gave credence to back then… and yet when you start to come out of the mind and into the body to live from this and its natural sensitivity, you realise where the true power is. There is nothing greater than being truly connected to your body for the natural sense and feeling of true confidence from a self-authority that’s lived, instead of a confidence puffed up through empty affirmation to leave one in arrogance and lacking in true worth.
My experience of affirmations seemed powerful at the time because the things I ‘affirmed’ seem to come to me. However, and it is a BIG however, they were not based on truth, but on an ideal, a picture, something that was desired to be had or to be and it was coming from a place where I didn’t feel that I was enough and needed to be/have something to make me feel complete. Affirmations in this way sit side by side positive thinking and mindfulness I’d say…all of which come from the mind…not the heart or the body.
Hmm so true Sandra, you raise an imperative point in that affirmations not coming from truth clearly have to come from its opposite of an ideal, image, or picture that leads to more of the same. A truth that’s lived eradicates need (or neediness) for any such imaged affirmation to leave instead a surety and fullness that comes from, as you say, the body or heart to then direct the mind in connected unity, not compartmentalised separation.
Cherie you are spot on – affirmations can become like mantras that we repeat in emptiness saying what we want yet not living the actions and grounding the words. Words that come from the outside are only ever there to change us in a way that is actually not natural, where as the words that arise from our hearts and body are there to confirm who we are to begin with, and have always been. Hence when we confirm, we grow, but only ever grow back to the grandness that we once were, never growing into something new or different.
Cherise you remind me why affirmations have never worked for me – they’ve been based on the premise that I am missing something and that something outside me (an affirmation) can fix it, that I was not enough. So I’m very thankful those affirmations didn’t work and that I learned and understood that I have in me the love I’ve been searching for all along – and my job is to live in a way that confirms that.
Yes Cherise, the drive you speak of as part of affirmations to make ourselves “better” does not come from our innate stillness so it will always make the body feel terrible. This is key to understanding whether we are connected to the truth or whether we are chasing more emptiness from our own emptiness. Affirmations are a bandaid to fill the emptiness we live in from separating from the love and stillness we naturally are.
I occasionally used affirmations in the past but it was always short lived as they felt very empty. There is a start contrast between affirmations and appreciation. Self appreciation is along the same lines but has an entirely different feel, quality and effect. When I appreciate me I can feel the not only the confirmation of me and who I am, but I feel an expansion.
Well said Nikkimckee,
It is the feeling of expansion that holds the absolute confirmation that we have truly lived and moved in connection with our bodies.
We can affirm ourselves by the way we breathe, walk and move as long as it is done in connection. Otherwise, we only confirm a two dimensional world.
I love your sharing here Matthew of the ways we affirm ourselves in our movements. We can say many words but without true movement to back them up, words stay empty.
Wow I love this Matthew. We can feel the truth of who we are not in what we say to ourselves to make us ‘believe’ but more in the movements that we make that confirm our preciousness and the depth of who we are inside our bodies.
Beautifully expressed Matthew. Yes love is our spherical connection to life. Everything is everything including the quality we move, breathe and express from.
Well said Mathew, affirming ourselves through our connection with our bodies is far more powerful than the mental concept we can get caught up in when we are in total disconnection from our being.
Thank you Cherise for offering a deeper look at affirmations here. I understand why people choose them and have done them myself in the past but found them to be a mental exercise rather than something I really accepted in my body. Serge Benhayon though has helped me to reconnect with the feeling of love that I now know I am from my body.
Seeing and feeling a quality in ourselves and connecting to it, is far more powerful than wishing it to be there.
Yes Nicole, feeling the quality we hold is awesome, and for a while I was tricked into thinking that was it, but this was little better than using an affirmation. Appreciating my quality, and living from it is truly joyful, powerful and deeply life changing.
Beautiful Leigh indeed appreciation is the glue that holds it all together and creates a solid foundation.
I love how simple it really is. Affirmations or the Livingness of Love – indeed, what we are after is to be confirmed for who we truly are, and one has no foundation, but the other builds it so guarantees the solidness that we can always come back to.
I agree Fumiyo, affirmations are simply words and when we are not choosing to live them it becomes like you shared, it ‘has no foundation’ but by making the choice to live these affirmations they become alive, true and confirming of our love.
Well said Fumiyo,
The feeling of the foundation of our love is as strong as a rock, and is always present within our bodies. The trick is to be still, to surrender and allow ourselves to be guided by it.
Affirmation is a great confirmation when it comes from our body and our livingness.
Affirmations through empty words i.e. separation and not the whole would be a trick channelled by our mind. Thank you for sharing a great pearl of wisdom!
It is totally confirming how you share that the fact that we are Love is the only thing worth affirming – and that fact is from within ourselves and from within our own bodies, without the need for the mental repetition that establishes a belief.
When we understand that nothing from the outside can confirm our own beauty and self-worth we will start looking deep into ourselves, learning to appreciate the beauty that we are already and have been all along, saying no to the bashing and self destructive thoughts and with each loving step lay bear our essence that always shines through but we have learned to hide, cover and bury.
I love your comment Esther, especially this; ‘When we understand that nothing from the outside can confirm our own beauty and self-worth we will start looking deep into ourselves…’ And when we begin to unlock the beauty and vastness within then the outside world will begin to reflect what we have felt on the inside.
A true and loving confirmation is very different from an affirmation. The former resonates from the knowing of who we are, the affirmation keeps alive insecurity and hurt by burying them beneath wishful words.
Dear Cherise,
Thank you for sharing this well of wisdom. I have lived the affirmation, telling oneself how good one is, but never believed it, never felt ok within, I always needed another affirmation to prop me up, so to speak. Now after choosing to be a student of Universal Medicine, which is essentially a student of myself, I feel from within the love and wisdom that I am and the depth and grandness of this expands every day. No affirmation bought me to this space with in, nothing did until Serge Benhayon reminded me that it was there all along.
Well said Leigh Strack. To have any power, an affirmation must be rooted in what already is within us and a confirmation of the fact – not a wish or a hope that we can magically manifest what we desire.
A loving affirmation is simple and sustainable when we connect to the truth of it in our bodies – we start to live it.
Affirmations do not work in my experience I feel, due to the expectation I have put out that they should work! There is a lot riding on this expectation and when it doesn’t evolve there is disappointment that in turn says I am not “good” at this and put myself down! The realisation over the years that I don’t need another failure, so not to set myself up for this. Since I have been part of the Student Body of Universal Medicine I have learnt much about loving myself just the way I am , for I am already love within and always have been equally so with all. Thanks to Serge Benhayon.
This is beautiful Cherise and what a confirmation that the greatest affirmation comes from the very essence of our being and that is our love.
Standing in front of the mirror in a body that is devoid of love and repeating the words ‘I am love, I am loved and I love it’ ain’t gonna change a thing. Only love has the power to change any-thing.
Cherise your blog gently but definitely calls the truth on affirmations. We need many more blogs that dispel the false notions of self improvement, happiness, love and relationships.
It is not from the mind that the truth is known but through the heart that Love and truth are known. Our bodies are the heart of our being, always guiding us to realise and live the truth we know.
“It is not from the mind that the truth is known but through the heart that Love and truth are known.” So very true, Carola, beautifully shared.
Definitely the body is what keeps us on track, without we would be lost in the woods of our minds.
Agree Alex, reconnecting to the love within our bodies is the best affirmation we can ever do, as it is truth lived and not a mental concept that keeps us in constant bliss.
True Cherise, we can tell ourselves all kinds of things but if it does not ring true deep down we can know without doubt it is not true.
Yes, we can tell ourselves all kind of things that aren’t true and for a little while we can believe them, but the truth will eventually be revealed, sometimes quickly and other times not so quickly.
And this is a prison so many live, living a lie without even knowing it. Yet, we do know, everything in us telling us something is not quite right, yet we keep trying to live up to how the world tells us to be. Thank you to Universal Medicine for showing me a way out of the prison and back to my inner heart where I no longer struggle and understand that true love and joy is felt within and not an outer pursuit that just never seemed to be enough.
Yes, absolutely thank you to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for showing the way back to the inner heart, as this re-connection begins to break down the prison. Building on this connection eventually dissolves it completely.
Love the logic, we always know when we are willing to know.
We take for granted that the words as such would connect us to or deliver the desired quality. A word is a sum of letters we associate with a meaning, but just that doesn´t guarantee that the use of the word actually carries that meaning when used. The word needs to have meaning AND carry the describing quality to give it activity so that it can truly resonate in the body and thus activate a felt sense and thus become an experience. So what happens when we use a word, let´s say ‘love’, but it is not filled with love? What then resonates in the body is not love but the absence of love.
Absolutely Alex, love is continually filling us with more love, which needs no words but is felt as a Livingness, which as a truth and presence that cannot be denied. As this is also a feeling of inner stillness, that brings a feeling of harmony, which is innately who we ‘all’ naturally are as Sons of God. Simple God is love, we are love, when love is lived it is felt as a Livingness, so simply appreciate we are love! For more on love go to;
http://www.unimedliving.com/voice/whats-on-in-the-world/when-you-say-i-love-you-does-it-come-with-love.html
Beautifully said Alex. Our words are empty when they lack the fullness of our love.
Gosh I can so relate to this Liane, our words being empty when they lack the fullness of our love. So many times I have been told how great, or beautiful I am but when it comes from another that does not know this within themselves first the words are empty and often left me feeling sad rather than confirmed in what was being expressed.
Elegantly expressed Alex – words without a living quality are just a collection of alphabet letters.
That is a very interesting and important point you raise here, that we seek to become thereby obviously coming from a place where we feel that we are not enough, content or complete. And as we don´t feel to have it inside we look outside of ourselves to bring it in e.g. by words in form of affirmations. The term affirmation is a bit tricky here as it implies or pretends to foster the quality we look for in the assumption it then will start to grow or come into existence. But fact is that nothing comes from nothing, so when we come from a place of not having or trusting inside what we are seeking what actually is affirmed?
Precisely Alex Braun – in truth if we seek to become, we end up affirming the notion that we are not whatever it is we are seeking. We live in the illusion that we are becoming ‘enough’ – but our actions simply confirm that we are not enough.
Brilliant trick to keep us in the illusion of going somewhere while we are avoiding to take true responsibility for true change and development as can be seen in the results thereafter guaranteed by the choice of quality in each moment.
Richard a golden Gem so simply expressed, “We live in the illusion that we are becoming ‘enough’ – but our actions simply confirm that we are not enough”. A total game that keeps us trapped constantly looking for more when the whole time the all lies within.
Feeling amazing seems to be the unattainable goal for many, but we can see from these blogs many people who have worked with Universal Medicine do actually feel amazing!
After practicing affirmations for 10 years I can truly say they provided no value whatsoever. If anything they kept me locked in my self loathing and self worth issues. Thank goodness for Universal Medicine, an organisation who is the real deal when it comes to healing.
Yes agreed Heather, I did affirmations over many years and nothing whatsoever changed, except I spent that time kidding myself that I was changing! Since Universal Medicine l’ve not even thought to do a single affirmation and my life has changed immeasurably.
Agreed Heather and Jenny, only difference for me is that I didn’t think I changed I just felt like a huge failure because what was ‘meant’ to work just didn’t. Like you both not till Universal Medicine did I truly start to heal and not by someone telling me what to do but supported to connect back to myself where all the answers were found within and once known they are known, a deep surrender of true and utter contentment.
So true, Elizabeth, we have empty meaningless words in our heads but can emanate love from inside the body in every moment.
Cherise this is such a great consciousness that you are breaking here. I used to be ‘into’ having positive affirmations around me before meeting Serge Benhayon and came to realise that these were all empty and it made sense why nothing had really changed in my life from repeating these affirmations. The moment I started to really connect and feel who I truly was through the support of Serge’s Gentle Breath Meditation then I knew that there was nothing to do or say but to only allowing myself to stop, connect and be. Living this in my everyday is the confirmation that I am way more than enough, I am everything and then some.
Beautiful Elizabeth. Reading these sayings we see in shops, on walls, they feel empty, meaningless because there’s no substance to them. As with everything it’s our livingness that brings something alive, and as you say, we have it all within, we just have to live it.
What comes through as the main problem, is that we are trying to be something that we are not, putting it out there in front of us to drive us forward trying to be more. Appreciation is simply being the love we already are.
I love this Simon – we are always looking to get to some point ahead of us but this in itself is the trick that stops us realising that we are already everything we need to be and that we simply have to let go of what we perceive as where we should be to return to the love we are from within.
For me its the realisation that we have it all as babies… a light that shines out that is universally acknowedged as the most pure and perfect expression. The important words here are ‘we have it all’. We don’t need to become something – be constantly trying to be other than what we naturally here. Simply a question of connecting to what we already have… which we have made super complicated!
…do we really live it? The gap between what we want to happen, and how we are currently living is the source of so much dissatisfaction. As a starter for 10, removing this gap and being honest about who and how we really are is a source of great healing. The next step, which can be just as simple in spite of 40 years of opposite experience, is to realise that we are already all that we need to be….. all we need to do is live it!
I spent many years working with affirmations and couldn’t understand why they were not working. Having come to Universal Medicine and learning about energy, I now understand that if we want to make a true change we need to make a change to the underlying energy first and foremost.
It sure is Marika and can explain why so many people can invest a whole lot of time in affirmations to be disappointed that nothing seems to change. Energy is what always comes first.
Wise words from a lived experience – nothing more valuable than that.
Spot on Marika, it is the energetic responsibility of how we choose to live in every moment that creates the next moment in our lives so we are always choosing what comes to us.
It’s so true Cherise that we cannot talk our way into being anything. To have a belief about oneself or to have a desire to be something is not the same as actually knowing who we actually are and living that as a reality. There is so much trying in affirmations. To live who we are is not a trying. It is simply living who we are.
I have seen a lot of those coming into our shops too Susan and have found that reading them doesnt make it so. Thy actually felt empty though they were lovely words. I found myself searching for something deeper and not finding it. Does this (reading these) then set up a deep yearning for what we know we do not have?
I agree Jeanette and Susan, however I also understand why someone would want to have one in their home – We all know there is another way to live that is not the struggle so many of us choose to exist in so these kinds of things can give something to aspire to, and yet until we realise that nothing on the outside will change until we address what needs to be healed on the inside, they will only bring momentary relief and not be a confirmation of how we live.
‘does this drive to be greater someday actually work for us..?’ In my experience, the drive to be greater serves to just keep us forever searching and seeking – living in the constant motion of trying to become something better – and hence separated from the truth of our being that awaits patiently within us for us to stop for a moment and look inside ourselves.
Richard that’s an important clarification ” Beliefs always have an element of doubt in them, if they didn’t they would be knowings and not beliefs.” A belief can be a construct, an imposed ideal … knowing is acceptance of the what is.
Yes, this has been my experience too Richard – the more drive and push for life to be better or more, the complete opposite occurs as nothing ever feels complete or enough. Exhaustion, burn out, living a facade etc eventually take its toll in illness and disease causing more separation from “the truth of our being that awaits patiently within us for us to stop for a moment and look inside ourselves”.
Maybe if we do ‘affirm’ something often enough, we do eventually believe it – but that doesn’t make it true. Beliefs always have an element of doubt in them. If they didn’t they would be knowings and not beliefs.
Richard so well expressed. If we affirm long enough eventually we will believe yet to keep that belief going we constantly have to feed it and that is why there is so much exhaustion in the world. This takes energy whereas to feel a truth in the body and surrender to it leads to contentment and a settling that requires no energy other than to enjoy the love that emanates throughout the body.
That’s a great marker of truth Laura B – that it does not need constant feeding. The truth just is.
Lovely blog Cherise thank you. I used affirmations a lot at one time in my life and it is true to say that learning to ‘think positively’ was preferable to the habitual negative thoughts I had going on beforehand. However, they were like trying to impose a change on myself that was as I rediscovered through the teachings of Serge Benhayon, still a means of keeping myself separate from the innate truth of who I am. In fact I would go as far as to say that using affirmations in this way simply served to confirm the fact that I didn’t like myself very much and needed something to fix me. Reconnecting to the truth of our being is so very different. We don’t have to create a new self, but simply allow the truth of who we are to be the root of our expression and affirmation then becomes as you say – a confirmation of the love that we are.
Richard I relate to this pearl – ‘using affirmations in this way simply served to confirm the fact that I didn’t like myself very much and needed something to fix me.’ Reconnecting to our inner most is truly confirming.
Oh yes – I have been down this route too Richard and affirmations were certainly an ‘improvement’ on old negative thought patterns, yet at some point, the slide back into self doubt or self loathing would return and the cycle continued. To feel the difference in my body now from re-connecting to the innate essence of truth and divinity within is building a rock-solid foundation to move and express from.
“Reconnecting to the truth of our being is so very different. We don’t have to create a new self, but simply allow the truth of who we are to be the root of our expression and affirmation then becomes as you say – a confirmation of the love that we are.”
Cherise, I can really feel the difference between affirmations where we keep repeating something and that we then supposedly end up believing it but change nothing in our lives or another way is to develop a relationship with ourselves based on self-care and self-love and from here let go of the things in our lives that are not true and are harmful to us, and thus develop a true confidence in ourselves, I have found that the latter works for me and lasts and deepens every day whereas trying to convince myself and others that ‘im great’ and ‘amazing’ by repeating these words for me doesn’t last or feel true.
Hi Rebecca, it is amazing once a known act you follow can essentially become an affirmation from the head. A great example of this is repeating something if you were highly successful last time you did it. It is the difference between completing the task in the quality originally felt or becoming distracted and loosing that quality.
Cherise, this reminds me of an experiment what I have made with myself, to connect every evening to the love and joy I am and not allow any other thoughts come in. Yes there can be tension in the body and I have to look at this as well, but deep down there is the truth, the stillness and joy I am. This exposes what does not work and affirms what I truly am.
This is a beautiful example Kerstin, instead of trying to make you something that you think you should be you simply allow yourself to feel that what you are already and have been all along but haven’t really honoured it.
So true and beautifully expressed Esther.
That is gorgeous kerstinsalzer15, and so true. No matter what has happened during our day, or what we have taken on, it does not detract in any way from the essence of who we truly are. And we can, at any time, connect to this essence – and in doing so all that runs contra to this essence is exposed.
The Livingness that Serge Benhayon shares from his “essence” is a true inspiration for all of humanity. One day we will all reconnect back to the same essence and also realise we are all equally the Sons of God.
Beautifully said Greg. We are all equally the Sons of God.
What is magnificent about the work of Serge Benhayon is that day is today, using the Gentle Breath Meditation has shown me and thousands of others that connections with ourselves is but a breath away. No affirmations in sight, but confirmation of who we actually already are.
Absolutely Heather, claiming our true sonship can be that easy if we choose our breath.
“What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies” this turns upside down our entire understanding of what affirmations are about, of what we use them for and our relationship with them. From once seeing an affirmation as something we strive for to now understanding it as a confirmation of who we are.
It is a subtle but huge difference: from a steady stream of thoughts to a felt and lived experience. This is why affirmations spoken regularly end up being white noise and an imposition, ‘telling’ us what we ‘should’ feel. When we actually embody, and live with, our true worth it naturally finds its place and develops, along with the activity that is inspired by it.
Well said Matilda. The lived experience then becomes a confirmation of the choices we have made and an inspiration to continue appreciating and exploring the wisdom of our body.
And once we have lived it, felt it and experienced it we can always find a way back to it as we know it in our body.
Confirmation is a way of living that is much needed today, for first there must be a recognition of what is true, the love that we are innately, the joy that is there when we live each day as ourselves. In these ways confirmation reminds us who we are with an openness that is unshakeable.
Great description Matilda – “affirmations spoken regularly end up being white noise and an imposition, ‘telling’ us what we ‘should’ feel”.
“When we actually embody, and live with, our true worth it naturally finds its place and develops, along with the activity that is inspired by it.” – beautifully said Matilda! Thank you for making the difference between an affirmation lived and an affirmation thought as clear as day.
When affirmations are just said from the head there is no Livingness to the words.
It feels like handing over my power to something, ideal or image.
Unlike true affirmations or confirmation of truth by feeling it in the body.
This is a great description lorettarapp, ‘It feels like handing over my power to something, ideal or image.Unlike true affirmations or confirmation of truth by feeling it in the body.’ There is a very clear difference here, I have experienced both and know that just saying words over and over that I have read in a book or been told to say does not work.
‘When affirmations are just said from the head there is no Livingness to the words.
It feels like handing over my power to something, ideal or image.’ Great point, Loretta, that’s exactly what we are doing – handing over our power to an ideal or image. We are choosing to believe more in something we are being told rather than connecting to the wisdom of our body, which already knows everything we need to know.
So true Cherise, that we can affirm something that we want to be or have to become, but as you say do we really live it? And there is the key, affirming does not work as we cannot force ourselves to something we do not live already in our bodies. Therefore we can only affirm those qualities in us that we already live and by doing so we build these qualities and enforce ourselves in developing these qualities further.
Thanks for writing this blog Cherise. Having just attending the Universal Medicine retreat in Vietnam, I can really see how an affirmation is just an image that we have that we want and can at times strive for but never actually get too. We may get close to it, but then feel dissapointed as it is never quite it. I have also learnt how when we let go of any image or outcome there is always so much more on offer than we can ever imagine.
I love what you have said here Rosie, it is about dropping the pictures and images we hold of how our lives should be and when we do, we can feel the potential of everything that is on offer.
and not only that, when we let go of the time factor it is amazing what can unfold and present itself to us.
We are bombarded with images that hook into any insecurity we may have. Images that tell us what is beautiful and what is not, images that tell us where we should be in terms of family and careers in comparison to our age. Images that tell us what to eat enticing us all to indulge.
I’m glad you mention this, Abby …. ‘Images that tell us what to eat enticing us all to indulge.’ I’ve been feeling for a while that our focus on food has become extremely disproportionate …. it’s a daily topic at work, not the enjoyment of food, but the struggle with food. As we, as a society, much our way to obesity every man and his dog seems to be on the ‘food’ bandwagon and it’s rapidly becoming the distraction du jour for people to numb out. The food images are certainly becoming more prevalent and enticing, hoping to catch us at a low point and whisk us away, from our selves.
When we live our lives from images we lock ourselves in prison as we can’t see beyond the bars. Being free of images is our gateway to living heaven here on earth.
We are fully controlled by images all the time. Just try be image free for an hour and its incredible how many images are there constantly. Non stop.
yes Abby, and we defend these images we have about food that is good for us but if we are honest we will know that we are just using food to numb ourselves and be all of who we are.
That’s gorgeous Rosie ” there is always so much more on offer that we can ever imagine” being open to this with no set agendas or outcomes allows the flow in our lives.
That’s so true Rosie – holding onto images or outcomes is another way of limiting ourselves which prevents us from seeing clearly what truly lies before us.
Yes Tamara, when we hold onto an outcome we definitely limit ourselves because we are actually shutting ourselves off to other opportunities that come our way because they don’t match our “picture”. Crazy isn’t it?!
Yes Rosie this is so true. Letting go of the image or expectation is wise as there is often so much more on offer if we trust.
The image can have you heading in one direction without seeing what is in the complete opposite direction. I can clearly see how I have got stuck in images as that way I feel that I am in control yet that in itself is just another image and a form of protection.
‘I have also learnt how when we let go of any image or outcome there is always so much more on offer than we can ever imagine.’ …. this feels so expansive and free-ing, Rosie. Pictures and images keep us so contained, only focussed on a very specific outcome …. I shudder to think how much magic gets missed along the way.
Yes, the images keep us in a tunnel vision and we miss so much.
Another golden affirmation …”the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us…”
I used to do these the whole time .. and the true effect? Nada! Nothing. No matter how much I tried or ‘wanted’ things to be better I wasn’t being absolutely honest with myself, didn’t want to feel what I needed to feel with regards of the choices I had made, how irresponsible I had been, how much disregard I had been in and committment in life I hadn’t taken. Affirmations are like ‘give me everything on a plate but I don’t want to truly see and feel everything there is!’ They are baseless. You are right in saying it needs to be felt in the body, including acceptance.
‘ Affirmations are like ‘give me everything on a plate but I don’t want to truly see and feel everything there is!’ They are baseless.’ I think you have really summed it up here Vicky!
Agreed! Yes I’ve tried ‘the give me everything on a plate approach’ and it definitely does not work, but it gives a sense that at least I’m doing something that maybe one day will make a difference. In fact for me they were just a distraction, a delay tactic to avoid feeling and seeing what needed to be dealt with.
Give me everything on a plate, but I don’t want to know what it has taken to put it there, or whether it is fresh, or putrid or rotten.
Well said Vicky. We cannot expect our lives to be sorted out for us by affirmations and other people, nor our self worth confirmed through compliments or accolades, as these will not change the emptiness or disregard in our bodies as a loving relationship with ourselves is something only we can develop.
I am loving the responsibility that is being expressed here. True self help – comes through responsibility and not by wanting and or expecting someone else to fix something that you have the power within to do. Guidance and support yes but not a fix it mentality that says someone has more power or awareness over you. This is dis-empowering and not evolving.
Well said, Vicky ….. it seems to me, affirmations allow us to sit down to admire the view without first turning over the stones to see what’s underneath, allowing the honesty to truly feel what is there to see, to learn and then deeply appreciate all that we are. Then when we sit down we will feel the immense beauty all around us.
Vicky this reminds me of an old saying ” he who tries has a trying time” a bit like affirmations, they put a distance between the connection to who we ar naturally.
Yes Vicky Cooke and affirmations become a relief, not different to going to the gym or eating. If I first do not connect with my body there is not benefit at all – just more abuse of it.
Gorgeous Cherise, to me, it seems as though affirmations are another thing you have to DO in order to be a certain way or reach a certain goal. When we realise we are already enough and feel that in our body, our whole livingness is a confirmation of the love that we are.
Nicely said Emily. That’s so true. To be living a #mindfullness life, you have to do certain things that fit the bill, like have positive affirmations running through your mind and reminders on your social media. All these things are an attempt to feel a certain way, but is it possible we’ve missed the point? Is it possible that we don’t actually have to go through a checklist found on Facebook?
Exactly Elodie, well said. We have missed the point indeed. I am sure our body and soul do not require a check list to connect to.
Very true Emily, affirmation is yet another thing to do letting us crave for the day that we will have achieved. It may be a medication that seemingly gives us relief but does not let us understand that we are already enough.
Yes Esther, affirmations are another thing that projects us into the future in the hope that whatever we are affirming comes our way. Isn’t this called the law of attraction? As we know, that doesn’t work, but affirming what we already are does. because we are already it.
True Esther, affirmations seem to be more about achieving and recognition. not truth and what one feels from their body.
This deeply resonates in me Emily. Affirmations add to the bubble and illusion of ‘doing’. It always has an end point, some sort of image we want to get to or be. We’ll never get to our ‘being’ by ‘doing’. Life is about surrendering deeper and deeper. Building a forever deepening connection with our own body. The complete opposite of affirmations. While writing these words, I am realising that The Livingness of Love never ends, as life never ends. How Beautiful and inspiring is this. This blog is an offering of letting go of affirmations and all other (mental or emotional) goals and drives. Deeply inspiring Cherise and Emily.
Gorgeous to read Floris – Well said. “some sort of image we want to get to or be.” this is a great tell tale sign of how affirmations are not it. Life cannot conform to images in our head and how things ‘should’ be. We are twisting, contorting and kidding ourselves when we try to make it so.
So True Emily, reading your words and my own comment, deepen the knowing of the fact that any affirmation takes us away from surrendering, thus takes us away from the precious connection with life and ourselves. To really let go of all the affirmations and images is asking me to be deeply honest and also have a foundation of who I am, so I can return to that known ‘me’, whenever I’m out. Because if I don’t have a known ‘me’, I’m somehow lost and it’s much more difficult to discern when I’m out (or not) = adhering to an affirmation of any sort.
Exactly right Emily – we have to DO affirmations but we already are LOVE – no doing required, just simply BEING THE LOVE THAT WE ARE.
In life doing is so highly valued, and life requires action and activity, the challenge is the being comes first and it is that quality of being that will be in all our doing. Without the being the doing is empty.
and appreciating and accepting that seems like the way to go ! 🙂
Gorgeous Emily, reading your comment I can feel we need to fully confirm what we already know, which leaves no room for empty affirmations that try to convince us of something that is already in the body but not connected to.
It is amazing that the slight difference between an affirmation said with hope and possibly a tiny seed of doubt does not work in full but an affirmation of what is already there has a true and lasting effect.
That speaks of the energetic science behind the process and actually everything in life.
Dear Christoph, Thank you, I know now the only true affirmation for me personally is to choose to live by what is already there, this is the only thing that affirms my love, no words do, only my livingness does.
Interesting Christoph and so true!
Well said Christoph. The body is the difference here. Whenever what we express comes from our body, it is lived – it stems from a living body (literally). I’ve (ab)used countless and countless hours of thinking, reflecting in the illusion that I was actually moving forward / evolving / growing. Where now I’m realising that nothing (or very little) was connected to my body. A lot of it could or actually was quite Truthful, but because there wasn’t a connection with my body – ‘it’ wasn’t alive. Such an important article is this.
Yes if it’s not expressed through my body it’s not ‘alive’ in me. Movements of love expressed first without thoughts or words.
Well said Floris – Expressing from the lived experience of our body brings a completely different way of expression, there is a resonance that can be felt within and others can hear and feel the truth of it.
I’ve (ab)used countless and countless hours of thinking, reflecting in the illusion that I was actually moving forward / evolving / growing.
This will one day be the key in life, the basis in which we will connect together. As you are, Irena and Stephanie, confirming the Truth of the importance of the connection to the body, we are moving one step closer to the one unified Truth that Truth is only Truth – lived Truth that is – when the other person or persons are able to feel what is expressed. How wonderful is life to teach us the One Unified Truth in such a gentle and loving way. Leaving it up to us if we choose to express Truth or not. Eternally.
Great observation Christoph. So true.
Yes you can’t shake a knowing in the body. There is an absoluteness to it.
Thanks Annie, and Irena: ‘Movements of love expressed first without thoughts or words’. thank you for this reflection.
In an affirmation we either either confirm the All that we are, or the all that we are not.
Yes, Liane, that’s why we have to keep repeating an affirmation of “the all we are not” to convince ourselves, for we cannot feel it in our bodies. A confirmation of the all we are makes us feel expanded.
Yes I get that Liane – if we are repeating an affirmation from a lack of worth or in the hope of feeling something we are actually confirming ourselves in the lack rather giving ourself the space to connect with what is already within us.
This is a simple and straight to the point fact Christoph which supports the very fact that if we live what we know is true from the inside then there is a natural steadiness no one can tamper with, however if we live from what we hear or what others tell us then we are always at the mercy of the next piece of outside information to confirm us and or give us direction.
l love this truth Amina. When we walk our love in movement rather than talk our love in words we take big steps towards ourselves and our evolution expands ever outwards. Touching all.
Very true Amina, and if we are not willing to feel from the body what we are truly feeling we are whatever thoughts that are in reaction to our feelings.
Agreed Christoph, if there is hope, it hasn’t been claimed, there remains a possibility that it still needs to be attained, whereas, once we claim the love that we are, it’s absolute.
I agree Christoph – wishing for something in our life and believing that by repeating this does not have any true power. Confirming what we know is true from deep within – that we are love ,holds the true power of healing.
I love what you have shared here, Christoph. I am feeling that there may be a huge difference in affirming what we already know in our essence as opposed to saying something affirming and hoping it will happen. Love is an inside job and hope is always coming from outside of us.
Yes Christoph to construct an affirmation in the mind firstly is to confirm we are not that already but wish to be. In knowing who we are naturally and living with the knowing we are a direct reflection of love … we are all equally and never separated from the Love of God. Live in this knowing and your expression confirms that which you already are.
Yes these affirmations come with a seed of doubt. Reminds me of putting a sticking plaster on and not being too sure if it’ll stick. I know that it is a temporary measure that falls away. Whereas true healing comes from the body – the broken skin grows back, wounds heal from within. This love I can simply allow.
I love what you have shared here Christoph Schnelle. The affirmation is so solid and leaves no room for the doubt that can plague us for a life time.
This is what I call Absolute Christoph in what you have presented.
Beautiful Christoph. Yes by affirming what is already there we magnify it. By affirming what we wish was there we simply magnify the hope and the emptiness.
This is so true Christoph, an affirmation of what is already there then becomes a confirmation of what is already there, it is then we can truly appreciate who we are, as sometimes appreciation of ourselves can come from the mind too until it is really felt in the body.
Beautifully expressed Christoph. There can be no hope or need for an affirmation to be true if there is it is showing there has not been a full surrender to the body where all is already known.
True Christoph, it seems that affirmations are generally said “with hope and possibly a tiny seed of doubt”, rather than simply confirming what is there in full.
An affirmation that is already there doesn’t have to be repeated over and over again. It is a confirmation and leaves a feeling of completeness in the body.
An affirmation of what is already there is a confirmation, something we are all dearly lacking in.
An affirmation said with hope and possibly a tiny seed of doubt lacks the full presence of the person expressing. Not only does it not work in full, it only seems to feed the many beliefs we carry with us.
I agree Christoph, it is much more powerful when we speak from what is already lived in our bodies than when we speak from an ideal and belief about ourselves or others totally disconnected from our bodies.
Yes, when we feel what is already there it is a knowing there is no room for doubt.
‘an affirmation of what is already there has a true and lasting effect’ this is the essence Christoph, feeling and claiming the love that we already are.
I am understanding more and more that love just ‘is’ and to not feel this absolutely as my natural way leads to all sorts of behaviours and emotional responses that distract me from living this love- enter affirmations that try to convince me to believe what already is. It’s a set up!
It is our responsibility to accept that we are love first and foremost, equal, from God. Knowing this provides the foundation to live responsibility in our everyday.
Beautifully expressed Annie, I have found my solid foundation within me since meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Awesome exposure as to what affirnations actually are Bernadette. Set ups from our mind of endless empty controling thoughts.
When l gently move from an absolute knowing that each step is love expressing in full and each little movement is another manifestation of that love, it finally begins to build a momentum over time, in my body. lt creates space for me to have a ‘lived’ experience of loving expression. This is the key that changes everything and it has nothing to do with the mind.
Irene, in my thirties, I and a group of friends were sold on a particular ‘New Age’ publications centred on affirmations and visualisations. It seems a long time now, but at the time it became something we believed in and a reflection of how we were desperately searching for truth and self. And it’s true, affirmations are empty words. Thankfully, today I know to look within, feel the love that I am and all is confirmed.
Spot on Bernadette and I love the way you have expressed this, it is without a doubt a game that is played to not take full responsibility of what we are here to do and with this understanding it is much easier to see what is really at play all over the world. Holding our love is a very powerful way to live.
“I am love” and knowing this from our body ….. and claiming it through our livingness’ beautifully expressed Alison.
I’ve been there too, affirming over and over that ‘I am love’, and ‘I choose love’, but I also realise now that this comes from the mind and until I open up and really feel it in my body I am wasting my time. So time to open up and let people in and then the warm feeling spreads across my chest and confirms to me that I am already love.
Absolutely Sandra, confirmation comes when I feel that expansion in my chest. I know that the love in me is aligning with that of the universe!
It indeed is a set up bernadetteglass and one we have chosen to be part of while all the while we knew the game we have been playing holds no truth or love.
The most important affirmation of all is definitely that ‘I am love!’
“I am love” and knowing this from our body. Stating it from the mind is not sufficient.
“I am love” and knowing this from our body ….. and claiming it through our livingness. Choosing to share this love with ourselves and everyone else.
I agree, if we can’t feel it then the words are empty
Otherwise it is only half of it when spoken from the mind – like its asking the body to come along with what’s being said. And not a true knowing from deep within. We are so love.
I love this simple truth, ‘I am Love’ has been expanded right through to the Livingness in each and every movement – this is our purpose.
I agree Christoph, saying it is one thing, but we have to feel it otherwise it just becomes another affirmation. The only way to really connect with this feeling is to deal with our hurts (and not make them an excuse to not evolve) get honest and open our hearts and let people in.
I agree Christoph, this too can be like an old worn out record if we do not make the choices that support us to know and live this without doubt.
Yes Christoph we have to feel it in our body, just saying it is empty words just like the old affirmations that leave you feeling empty in the body.
This is beautiful Cherise and so true “When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.
No matter how many times we can say something it will never be a true rhythm if we are not living it and that doesn’t include living a lie. Living in a loving and caring way is the only way to cement all that we need in our bodies.
I love how the words you write have the rhythm you speak of. There’s something very reconnecting about this sentence, ‘No matter how many times we can say something it will never be a true rhythm if we are not living it..’
This is so true Cherise, an affirmation you put on the fridge can be empty words and our minds can be tricked. If you feel it in your body it has a solid truth and resonance that underpins every choice so that it is not only said but also felt and lived with conviction.
Beautiful Bernard,
Knowing, with out a doubt that the solidness we feel when we live this way is who we are. Living becomes so simple as it is full of true supportive choices.
Beautiful simple blog. Thank you Cherise.
The greatest affirmation I have ever come across and been inspired by is Serge Benhayon. Serge is a man who fully lives and expresses the love that he is in all that he does, says, expresses, how he moves – his very being. By Serge living who he is in full that has shown me who I am as I am of the same essence. Therefore, a great way to affirm ourselves and each other by the quality of our lived life.
Further to my comment about being inspired by Serge Benhayon to connect to who I truly am at essence, there are many more role models out there that affirm us in all that we are not. We have a word for this that we call normal. It is normal in the world to drink alcohol, to get cancer, to feel exhausted and so on. Whereas when we connect to and live from our essence we live a joyful and vibrant life and have no need to harm our bodies and check out or stimulate ourselves with alcohol.
Thank you Nicola, I agree, we are all that same essence.
Serge Benhayon has been a super inspiration to us all for the quality and reflection in how he lives his life, well said Nicola. Therefore; ‘A great way to affirm ourselves and each other by the quality of our lived life’.
Great example of the science of reflection where it is not just the picture we see, i.e. seeing another person doing something, but the felt resonance in one´s own body caused by the lived vibration the observed person is living through which one´s own inner knowing then is activated on an energetic level – quality in one resonating with quality in another.
Very true Alex it is always energy first and this is felt in our bodies. We are first and foremost energetic beings and respond to energy whether we are consciously aware of it or not!
Dear Nicola,
The more that I still myself and feel my essence, the more what you say here becomes apparent to me as being the “way” to live.
Beautiful Nicola to affirm ourselves by ‘the quality of our lived life’ says to me that in order to change our lives we must take responsibility for re-connecting to that essence which is equally our inherent nature.
Yes, I agree Jenny. It is incredibly liberating and empowering to know and experience who we are responsible for all that happens in our lives.
I agree Nicola, Serge Benhayon is affirming, inspirational and aspirational for so many others – and this is completely down to the fact he walks his talk. There are no empty words from him.
Cherise, what a gorgeously wise and simple blog that says it all. We are love and words only confirm that, they do not make us that. ‘When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us’ when we feel, allow and live that love the words we speak are from that love, and we know with every fibre of our being nothing but love.
The affirmations show up when we are disconnected from our bodies and looking for solutions. The connection to the body brings the awareness that we are love – not just saying words over and over in our heads…. I know I have tried it 🙂
Yes me too Kathryn Fortuna – perfectly said and so true.
Words being spoken to oneself work as we all know from the negative and self-critical self-talk that is going on for a huge amount of time – it works because we feed ourselves with more of the emptiness and negativity that then produces the negative thoughts we rehash over and over again. But obviously it is the energy or lived quality behind the words that can cause this effect not the letters as such hence to generate a truly supportive and affirming effect the words spoken need to come from a felt connection to the body and the indwelling love so that this inner quality is truly confirmed.
Great comment Alex – very enlightening. Negative self-talk works because we are living in the struggle and negativity just as words will lift and affirm us if we are living in a self-loving way. So in fact affirmations can be just that when they come from the quality of lived expression, although they would be more accurately termed ‘confirmations’ as they are simply a confirmation of the quality in which we are choosing to live.
Me to Kathryn…well said. Telling ourselves something over and over doesn’t change a thing…it may work temporarily but the minute something changes, it’s back to square one again.
A few years ago before my husband and I were together (we were ‘just friends’ 😉 ) we met one day and I started to cry about something (can’t remember what) and through my anguished tears cried out,”But I’m amazing!” – clearly not feeling it!! I was trying to tell myself I was to make myself feel better, and to hide the vulnerability I was feeling and yet the words were empty – I was not living in a way to confirm my amazingness, it was just a mental concept that I wanted to be true about me but could not feel yet. It was a ridiculous and very funny moment in hindsight and we often have a giggle about now – the point being, I agree, affirmations do not work 😉
I like the way you have expanded that Susan. It’s true that affirmations keep us in perpetual motion – they are all from the head, mental concepts that have absolutely no root in the stillness we are from and how our bodies naturally are.
It sounds like you gave yourself a pep talk every day – seemingly successful in the short run but not when it comes to really knowing our essence and the fact that we are love and from love. Once discovered and developed, knowing that we already are what we might erroneously think we still need to become changes everything, especially the way we feel about ourselves.
I have found that affirmations are a trick; they might seemingly work, persuading ourselves that we have a certain quality or deserve to have a certain thing – but none of them last or make a lasting change, they are just a different label stuck to the same old surface.
They are a trick, and they obviously bring comfort to people otherwise it would not be so popular. The problem with comfort is, that like being offered a big cushion it allows us to just sit more comfortably in the mess we have created. True appreciation reminds us of how awesome we are and inspires us to simply be ourselves… but no cushion this time… just truth.
They are a trick, but not a very clever one as they wear off so quickly even if they work at all, and you are left with not only your original problem, but also the disappointment of there being another thing that did not help you!
True Gabriele, and in my experience when one was used and I knew that it was not working, I would search for a “better” one, that “hopefully” would. How telling that I and I am sure many others could feel the truth of the falseness in affirming with words, that was not backed with a living way.
Thank you Cherise. I spent a long time repeating affirmations and it made no difference. It has only been through making choices in my life that honour and respect me and through focusing on taking care of myself and my body and being responsible with this as well as communicating my feelings in relationships and listening to them, rather than dismissing them, that I have felt a connection and could start to live from the Love inside.
What a powerful and revelatory blog, Cherise. The drive to be better one day is truly an evil affirmation that seems to be deeply ingrained in many. Thanks for making us aware of the constant affirmations we tell ourselves in our daily chatter in our heads.
“The daily chatter in our heads” is probably the oldest and most widespread and destructive plague humanity suffers from.
Tell me about it! I would say that for me the ticker tape of chatter going through my head is hands down THE main thing that distracts me from the responsibility I have to live in connection and express fully in the world. What has helped me hugely is the Gentle Breath Meditation as presented by Serge Benhayon – this supports me to move my awareness out of my head and into my body – to be consciously present so my thoughts are in sync with my actions.
What is needed are real and practical ways for every day that work, i.e. give us a direct experience of a true connection and quality to get familiar with it, develop it, deepen it and confirm us, so that we finally know who we truly are. The Gentle Breath Meditation is one of such methods as taught by Serge Benhayon, it works for every one every time when practiced with true intent.
If wisdom is a configuration of our cells that confirms who we are – what are affirmations? Do they configure our cells in the illusion of emptiness through something that we seemingly are not yet?
Through the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I have come to see that the configuration of energy held in the body will determine the type of thoughts we have, for example if we have an energetic configuration in the body that tells us that we are not worthy of love then no amount of affirmations telling us otherwise will work until we first reconfigure what is held in the body. I have seen this happen over and over again with myself. When I heal a pattern of behaviour that I have been doing for a long time my body reconfigures and allows me to then choose to do things differently. The freedom to choose comes from having reconfigured a certain pattern within me and not from trying to think my way out of it.
In my understanding so far what you describe as energetic configurations held in the body are the result of images that on the deepest level are unconscious until we become aware of them and renounce them. Those who we are aware of can be recognised as ideals and beliefs we impose on our view of ourselves and the world, tainting and distorting life to be something that it is not void of its true meaning and purpose. No wonder that then every thought we think and every step we take is confirming the falseness of these images. Before we can change or affirm anything in truth we need to first rekindle a connection to truth. Only from and with truth the next impulse to think or do anything can be an expression and hence a magnification of that truth – without truth to begin with everything that follows is just wishful thinking producing more of the same ill we hope to escape.
All wisdom and truth resides in our body. We don’t need any affirmation which only comes from our mind and therefor has no lived experience.
The mind seems to be the leader of the body, but in fact the body has its own clear messages, and the mind as we can see throughout society has us behaving in a way that harms our bodies.
Beautifully said Mariette. I agree that our bodies are the gateway to our wisdom within.
This is beautiful Cherise. “When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us…” this line resonated with me as a deep knowing and connection to the love that we are. With this as a fact, as a lived truth, there is no need for ra-ra or continual affirmation of the fact, rather a simple connection to this lived love as a truth which is with us each moment of the day.
So cool someone writes about “affirmations” – thanks, Cherise. To believe is necessary until I have put the effort into living a teaching and thereby make it my wisdom and lived love.
Social media is littered these days with slogans of ‘love’ or appreciation and they do seem to get a lot of ‘likes’ along the way! But it feels to me like these snippets aren’t making any difference at all in the quality of the people reading them and doing the ‘liking’. It’s like people agree with the concept of what these slogans say, but to actually live the message, that’s an entirely different story.
Living the ageless wisdom teachings as presented by Serge Benhayon, you get to realise or remember that you already are what the slogan’s say, you never weren’t any of those qualities; rather forgot for a really long time and in doing so, covered them up with outside affirmations and junk. The goal is to remove the post-it snippets from one’s mirror and feel for oneself that a particular quality is already there and lived, shown to the world as who you are. That’s what’s going to be permanent.
I love this suggestion of removing the post it snippets from our mirrors…for the reflection of our true being requires no post-it reminder as it is self evident in our livingness.
If it is forced, it is FAKE.
if it is living, then it just naturally comes out and is full of power!
Beautiful Cherise. ‘prop up’ sayings do not work for long, what instead works is the confirmation of what we already are, and this comes from within. It is a completely different way of saying how awesome we are.
And so harryjwhite, a confirmation is already known, felt and lived whereas an affirmation is something that is sought or desired from not feeling enough or needing to be/have more and is desired by the mind.
Thank you Cherise for a beautiful article to read, as I am reading this I can hear Miranda singing ” love is who we are” and this we know deeply.
Awesome timing for me to read your blog Cherise, as I experienced yesterday someone reading out to me these affirmations very similar to the ones listed in your blog and the words felt empty and superficial but I didn’t express how I felt as I just drew a blank. I realised now, that I held back expressing truth to avoid disturbance. It is very awesome to be aware that I still do this so I can be more aware and work on expressing truth more and more. To continuously remind myself to connect to my heart and express from there without holding back no matter what and not to be complacent otherwise my body feels the consequences of not expressing truth.
‘The most common conversations we have daily – if not moment-to-moment – happen within our own heads. Our internal dialogue is where such affirmations happen, driving and striving us to be better or to achieve personal development, growth and success, but does this drive to be greater someday actually work for us and most importantly, does it feel natural, easy or truly loving?’ This is also where our most self destructive conversations happen too and as we are discovering, they are simply not true. It is always in our livingness that the truth lays.
To me it is like promises from other people, much can be said, but it is not until the action occurs that it is real… and quite often what is promised never comes to fruition.
So true Michelle, until we consistently live in a self-loving and self-caring way confirming that we are indeed love, affirmations are just like hopeful promises that will never come to fruition.
Thank you Cherise for taking the time to pen these words. I know them to be true as I have spent many years in positive affirmations land (in a lift going to a sales meeting to win a client going ‘i feel terrific’, staring at my mirror going ‘you are beautiful’ to name a couple), and to now when I have dropped them and come to the understanding that I am – as we all are – love and I can appreciate it and affirm it. The difference in my body between the two is like chalk and cheese – one feels like it is being forced upon the body and one comes from the body with a solid knowing that it is true.
What feels amazing Sarah is that when we don’t try or aren’t out to give ourselves a certain image in the world, things like “I feel fantastic!” and “I am SEXY” just come, and they are real!
‘What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies,’ I fully agree, something real and tangible.
Agreed too Michelle. Having something real and tangible as something we KNOW not just think, seems to be the way to go.
Very beautiful Cherise. Our bodies certainly are our marker of truth through which the wisdom of Love is known as the essence of who we are. It is so true that words have no true meaning, hold no power if they are not lived, not connected to a lived experience which comes only through embodying the truth. When we surrender to the Love we are our bodies affirm this fact, this truth through how we move, how we think and how we speak through which the words we share then hold the true power and reflection of who we are. Imagine our world today if we all accepted our right to live the wisdom of Love that already resides within each and every one of us? A right this is ours to master through our bodies and the way we live.
When I really know something in my body it’s relatively simple to make choices to support that and there isn’t usually a lot of drama around it; it’s just a way of life. However, when I am telling myself something from the head, trying to convince myself of something, I have quite a rough time as my mind plays with various thoughts and leads me on a real dance. Clearly there is a real difference between what my body directly knows and what my head wants me to believe.
I agree Helen, as I have had many occasions when I have felt something and then the choice has been easy, but when it’s all from my head things get messy and I just go around in circles.
Very astute….”Our internal dialogue is where such affirmations happen…” the power of our internal conversation with ourselves cannot be underestimated. I know that learning to observe my thoughts is an ongoing exploration and reawakening of what is and is not me. Learning to be loving in this dialogue is something I continue to develop.
I’ve never liked affirmations or telling myself to be great in a way that I couldn’t feel. I never wanted to appreciate as I wrapped it off as being normal. Now I’m learning to appreciate from my body (!!!!!). This is so astonishing yummy and soil for the body. What is confirmed to me while reading your blog Cherise is the utter importance of the connection with our body. It is via our body that we feel True confidence. True Appreciation, True Love.
These affirmations that are prevalent in society, often stay in the head and the intellect, they do not reach our bodies because the energy that they are formed from does not necessarily share love, it can sound right, look right, but does it feel right? Confirming who we are with words can be a splendid activity, however in truth, the knowing of the quality is already felt before the words come.
What if, indeed…”What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell: that we are already everything – that we are already enough.” I know the confirmation I have felt in life concerning truth, love and light I shine has been through reawakening my body, it is already known and I am reclaiming it.
This is the most truthful account of affirmations I have read – what they are, set against what we have made them to be.
If I may say, we have been trained to use them as lies. An analogy: I tell the tax office I have made my due payment…I tell them over and over. If I have not paid, I am going to end up in trouble, no matter how eloquently I say it, how often I say it or how convincing I sound.
The same applies with affirmations we tell ourselves. No matter how eloquent, repetitive, convincingly voiced – if I say what I am not living, no words we get me there. Will I get into trouble? Yes, because the gap between the words and my actual life becomes an empty chasm. And in saying words that act as wallpaper over cracks, I am missing the fact that under the cracks is an amazing source of true power, divine and immutable.
I substitute an image for the all I already am.
perfectly put Rachel! The whole world is Lying to themselves, and trying to justify the “empty chasm” that exists, we are trying to make it work, but it isn’t.
And it is exhausting us Harrison.
I tried the affirmations craze many years ago, even putting notes on my water bottles and mirrors… but it was always coming from a less then, and I’m not enough mentality. I love how you share Cherise that our body knows the difference between just ‘words’ and actually living it, this is so true… I was actually insulting my body by repeating affirmations over and over again with absolutely no appreciation or love in it.
Not only do affirmations come from a place that says we are “less than” they also assume we are broken and need to be better than we are. That assumption is harmful to us all, for we do not need to be better, we need to care for and love who we are.
“The most common conversations we have daily – if not moment-to-moment – happen within our own heads.” – so true, lost in a little bubble of belief and thoughts, filtering all that we see and hear.
Brilliant… so is what we are telling ourselves true, or just something we want to hear?
Nailed it Simon. Not just individually, as there is also a globally accepted narrative about life become more prosperous and advanced, when the opposite is true.
Gorgeous, Cherise. Those fridge magnets have got to go! A saying on the fridge will not change anything but a continually loving connection to ourselves is the best confirmation we have that we are enough and this is then reflected in how we live each day, each moment.
Such wisdom in your sharing with us Cherise. Many years ago I understood affirmations to be something to strive towards or something to convince/persuade you that whatever the affirmation was repeated (constantly) your life could be altered by it in some way! It didn’t. It did not trigger a spark of anything from within me, no recognition at all. What changed my views? Along came Universal Medicine to share/present that there is another way to live in this world. So today I feel from my body your shared words Cherise and it resonated warmly within “What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell” Yes absolutely.
What Serge Benhayon brings to all of humanity is beyond superlatives.
Thank you Cherise for this blog. Your title is what made me stop and read it.
This affirmation business is big stuff. I recall being in A&E a long time ago, having just had another miscarriage carrying a spiritual new age book full of affirmations. The thing is, it never worked and the pain got worse and I was a mess at the time to say the least.
Today I am studying Corporate and Professional Stress Management and to write an essay about affirmations and endorsing them is not my cup of tea. However, if I want the qualification then I have to play the game – it is that simple. So the world wants us to do this affirmation stuff but there is absolutely no truth in it. I am living proof it does not work but what does work is what you are saying here Cherise on this real, website about a man called Serge Benhayon, who is living and walking absolute Truth. No question.
It’s interesting that affirmations are so popular, with many posters, courses even T-shirts trying to promote these positive vibes and energy. The fact that they are popular is because deep down we all feel our potential yet are weighed down by our ideals, values and beliefs and a way to counter this is to try and tap into what we knowingly feel. If we carry sadness the counter is happiness or anger the counter is maybe calm. These words sound right and give a sensation for a short time, but just don’t offer anything more than that because the lived connection to our light is what really matters.
Amazing Matthew! Deep down we know we aren’t anger, sadness or any other emotion, we know we are pure light. When we grow up that’s what we are taught, that sadness is opposite to happiness, and that calmness is opposite to aggression. What we aren’t taught is that these are all forms of energy and they are choices, we can choose to be who we ARE, or there is also a choice for emotions, which are destructive.
“When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth” It makes it so simple now to know myself by this – rather than the many roles and pictures I had accumulated over my life.
We know who we are not by what we tell ourselves we should be, but by how we feel. Regardless of how we judge those feelings as good or bad, it is the choice in that moment that will either continue the feeling or change it.
“When the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us, we can then live each day knowing and confirming this as our truth through the choices we make to accept ourselves in full and appreciating the wisdom we hold in our own bodies.” I see this every day in children and how when they confirm themselves they are so open to stepping up and evolving. It is a joy to watch, but it is no different with adults. I remember the joy I carried around with me because of this knowing as a child and I am in connection with it again. My children constantly reflect this to me too and support in this connection. Sublime!
Oh my goodness – I had shelves filled with those books – none of them truly helped until I came across the ‘Purple Books’ and their author, Serge Benhayon. Even now, I can hear beautiful statements about us but, until I can fully embody them, they remain just that, statements, not a way of living. For me cutting the incessant internal dialogue that tells me I’m not enough and I’m not doing enough is a good start. Simply being aware of and cutting the awful way I criticise myself and instead allowing little drops of appreciation to filter in, is a basic action that, when done every day, helps me to embody the beautiful truth – that I AM enough. I need to appreciate where I am at and how far I have come and to continue by making choices to nurture and care for my body so that it can do all that it needs to do in this lifetime.
My experience with affirmations is that you can use the mind to convince yourself over and over of pretty much anything at the expense of your inner wisdom and knowing and use the mind to override the body’s loud messages to us of truth…the body however doesn’t miraculously become the affirmed belief, ideal or picture we choose to hold for our bodies live every one of our choices and never do they hide the truth from us of where we are at and how we are living. We may say we are Love but if we don’t live the Love we are, the body too will reflect this clearly.
We need not assure ourselves of anything when we live in the knowing of who we are. Living the Love we are, our natural essence confirms us over and over again.
Its not a thought.. its a feeling.
A knowing within every particle of our being.
Absolutely Doug we are all equal it is as simple as that.
Thanks Julie, we can all benefit from the teaching and presentations by Serge Benhayon. When we align to the truth, which is we are all equally the Sons of God, life is simpler.
Many years ago, I used affirmations a lot…and I mean a lot. But all along, they were just rattling around in my head, without an invitation for my body to join in. And so, the way affirmations are used, is a way of keeping people in their thoughts and in their heads, and quite disconnected from their feelings, and they are based on what you want to become, therefore confirming that you don’t already feel that you are everything.
That’s it Sandra, repeating affirmations without an invitation for the body to join in was, I can feel, a “rattling round” of words in my head, experience. There was no connection to all of me. We get nowhere being kept in our mind and thoughts.
Beautifully expressed Cherise, making it very clear that saying affirmations without feeling the truth of them in our bodies first is yet another way of goal achieving and having an ideal, whereas taking the time and space to feel what is deep inside us in our essence — and that is love – enables the affirmations and appreciation of all that we are to flow from there and be expressed openly and to all, not just to ourselves in our heads.
If it isn’t felt then it doesn’t stick. That’s my motto. Over and over I have had to tell myself the same thing. Zillions of times. Whilst it may stick for a while, it can always be blown away by doubt, someone else’s words or whatever. But once it is actually felt in the body then it becomes an accepted truth. A truth on which I can then build and move.
“…Could it be that our number one and true affirmation is that we are love?…” What a great affirmation to start with…
Thank you Cherise. Many years ago I tried using affirmations just as you described for support. Looking back I can see that these affirmations were like elastoplast I would use to cover over my lack of self worth, my anxiety and my very chaotic lifestyle. For a brief spell I would think all was well – on the surface there was an apparent calm whilst underneath the emotions wreaked havoc. There was no lasting support and when the plaster fell off things always felt worse than they had before. Learning to connect to my body and the loveliness within has been a very different path, one that has brought lasting change and one from which confirmation of the love that I am is easily accessible without an elastoplast in sight.
Thanks for sharing Jane, it was awesome to read about your experience and what it is actually like to use affirmations. “Looking back I can see that these affirmations were like elastoplast I would use to cover over my lack of self worth, my anxiety and my very chaotic lifestyle.” a temporary band-aid to hide what’s underneath as nothing is truly healed just covered with other stuff.
“the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us,” It’s crazy really when you think about it, we are running around everywhere, a little bit like headless chickens, looking for love when all along we just need to stop, and it’s there. It makes me think of a cartoon with a person running down the street with this huge big love heart right behind them, never going away. There is no escaping the fact that we are love, and everything is supporting us to be that love, from beautiful sunrise to a sprained ankle.
Great cartoon idea, Gyl. I would love to see that for real. Any cartoonists out there?
I do whole-heartedly agree that “all anyone ever truly wants is to be love and to be loved”.
Yes we are naturally aligned to this truth Shami Duffy and I know my body responds absolutely to it.
I love feeling within me, confirming to myself very regularly throughout the day that I am Love, Cherise, not from knowledge but from what I feel inside in my heart. So when sometimes things go wrong, as they can do, I know it was an energy that was not me, and do my best not to get caught up, but simply let it go. It’s not surprising you should write this blog to cherish from your heart, Cherise.
No matter how much someone says something – if they are not living it it’s not true. Every cell of our body can sniff out whats not truth and can tell a mile off when someone’s living a lie. It’s whether we choose to buy into it for our own comfort or not. There are many so called gurus or new age health people that have turned out to be nothing more than cons – in the sense living a vast difference, drugs, drink, abuse – from what they ‘healthy so called perfect image’ they present on stage or in books. Serge Benhayon is not one of these people. He is the only person I have ever met who lives with absolute transparency – everything he lives, is what he presents – they are one and the same, there is no difference and no affirmations in sight – only the absolute livingness 24/7 of love, truth, integrity, commitment, dedication, purpose and service for humanity.
This is super power-full. No doubt about that. Affirmation is gold when truly spoken from our hearts. It helps us to be more real, down to earth and actually enjoy living life once again. Self-Critique, self-judgement, issues, tensions and dramas all are created to get in the way of this simple affirmation and joy-full living way. Shows how simple living life truly can be and how complex we have all made it
“With the choice to stop and to feel who we are, in our own bodies, in this very moment, is it possible that all anyone ever truly wants is to be love and to be loved?”
Today there is much mistrust & cynicism around the word love and I can understand why. For we have put great emphasis into the word, the expression, the doing of it but what Serge Benhayon has clearly pointed out, is that love cannot have any real & true depth if we are not first committed to self love and hence live and express the enormity of the love that comes from within.
Thank you Cherise for a blog with a powerful message for everyone that “the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us”.We definitely can’t use this fact as an affirmation either – I have tried! The fact that we are love definitely has to be lived through our body and the choices we make.
It’s interesting as it reminds me of something which is happening across many primary schools, which kids are given what you could call affirmations to support them in not seeing mistakes as a bad thing – but what’s interesting to watch is, that what is being said does not match what is being expressed through their body – their bodies are saying very different things.
I have actually seen this in adults too, and I was once one of them, seeking all these new age. self help, yoga and health books. I might have been saying all this so called ‘ great’ stuff but my body and life was a mess. I was totally caught in the illusion and very much the arrogance of I was better than everyone else.
Hi Gyl, you are completely right, our bodies show us where we truly are and could be in a complete mess while we are proud about how good we are developing ourselves. Honesty to our-self and listening to our bodies will bring us the livingness of love that we all carry within us. We only have to unleash it and from there nourish only that way of living as that will liberate us from the imprisoned life we have created for ourselves.
We are lacing our minds and manipulating our thinking to believe an utter and absolute lie when what we tell ourselves has no lived reality in our body.
Gorgeous Cherise. As you share we cannot drill into our minds that we are ‘worthy’ and ‘amazing’ through repeating the words of others; no matter how many magnets there are on our fridge it comes down to whether or not we understand that there is something pretty special inside of us, and if we can appreciate this fact.
“cannot drill into our minds that we are ‘worthy’ and ‘amazing’ through repeating the words of others;” love that Susie. The words of others is a great point. we are all different and so would express things in a different way. If we are trying to force the words of others and believe it, aren’t we fighting our own expression and how we may want to go about things?
Exactly Emily! We haven’t been taught to appreciate our natural selves. The “feel good lines” are nothing compared to the awesomeness that a person already is.
Absolutely Emily, and no matter how much we try to manipulate or push others into saying the right things and confirming our ideals and beliefs, everyone has their own expressions and it’s impossible that they will act in a way that exactly mirrors our expectations.
Appreciation is certainly key and I agree, no amount of mantras on cereal packets, magnets on fridges and affirmation calendar messages will deliver us unto the Love we are if we do not accept the fact and Live its way.
Thank you Cherise, I know that ‘telling ourselves’ or anyone else for that matter is not loving or supportive for our body. Being told, is one of the worst things you can do, it’s deeply damaging on many levels, dishonoring and lessening of a person and their sensitivity. It’s basically saying we are not good enough as we are, or that we don’t know any better – which is far from truth. As inside everyone of us is a place of pure, unequivocal divine wisdom and love.
Accepting we are love and choosing to confirm that in all we do completely changes our internal dialogue and replaces the need for affirmations.
Well said Helen – Accepting we are Love and embodying the Love we are is IT. We need only Live and deepen our Love, not wish it or think it with our minds.
This is a great point Cherise, ‘Our bodies know when something feels hot or cold, good or bad, and so they definitely know when words are just words and are not truly felt or lived in full – when they are not a part of our Livingness.’ In the past I have tried saying ‘positive affirmations’ I would try in the mirror, but this always felt strange and never truly changed how I felt about myself, I always felt like I was trying to achieve something that I did not already have, the presentations of Serge Benhayon have supported me to feel that I am already love, and that I am already enough.
Thank You Cherise for this blog, what you’ve shared here is that we are not bound and held by our minds and the chatter that is non-stop for I would say almost everyone on the planet. When we make the choice to reconnect to our bodies there is a different language that often I have found needs very few words. Sometimes one word or even none, just a feeling that later expands out into words.
I’ve had the desire to buy a few self help books over the years, but now I understand and can appreciate that to love myself is something only I can trigger for myself, and it is actually quite an easy switch to flick, it just requires a commitment to not accepting all the muck that gets in the way of knowing I am enough and have lived with this love before. When we know we have this love inside of us then it is much easier to see that this is where we can easily return to living.
Cherise I feel you are spot on where affirmations are concerned. In the past I tried them to no avail and as we are love within already, we do just need to acknowledge this and be in the livingness of this truth. Something we all need to be reminded of as children, so that we grow up with this truth.
What we tell ourselves has to be truly felt otherwise our hearts are not in it.
When we use affirmations to achieve or gain something they are endeavours to counter beliefs we already hold rather than confirmations. Therefore they are ‘lies we tell ourselves’.
I felt this too when I was reading this blog. I used to use affirmations and they did seem to work but I know now that I was only kidding myself because the same issues would reappear and the confidence I gained was in truth a false confidence. Confirmations on the other hand come after the fact, so to speak. We already have felt, for example, beautiful and we are confirming that so that we can not only accept our own beauty but appreciate it too.
‘that we are already everything – that we are already enough’. I am just deeply appreciating this knowing….
We are everything – magnificent, divine and stupendous beings.
We are everyday and all-knowing.
Years ago when I smoked, there was a new drug that was meant to help people stop smoking but was by prescription only. I went to my doctor to try this new method and he told me he refused to prescribe it because people smoked ‘because they choose to’. Not being love was also something I chose not to do. The great thing about choices is there is always time to make new ones. Smoking for a long time can and does have lasting affects but you can choose to quit so you don’t compound these problems, being love is always the same when you come back to it waiting patiently, no matter how hard you chose to ignore it.
Thank you for sharing Steve. What great insight your doctor had! It is wonderful when another person reminds us of our accountability as Cherise and your doctor have done. Using affirmations instead of truly dealing with the energy behind the issue is much the same as using a drug to quit smoking. The symptom of the issue is glossed over yet the cause remains.
Steve, what a wonderful Doctor! and love your sentiment, ” being love is always the same when you come back to it waiting patiently, no matter how hard you chose to ignore it” This is heart warming.
The ultimate patient is Love’s Limitless patience.
Some years back I tried to p practise positive affirmations but nothing really changed in my life, because it felt like it was based on wanting to be someone or something better than what I was currently experiencing. At best it is a bandaid.
Actually my life got worse Julie. Because the affirmations of the “thought of the day” variety did not work, I started to pound myself with the belief that there was something really wrong with me.
Saying nice words whilst there are terrible thoughts underneath it all tears us to pieces – it is an ugly pretence.
Th body would never address itself in such an awful, self-destructive and false way.
I agree. This is the reality of what is going on for most of us – telling ourselves one story and running with the preferred picture of choice at that time and convincing ourselves it is based in reality when all the while, we are living and running a completely different show, often running our bodies into the ground and dishonouring the Truth of who we are.
This reminds me Julie of my own attempts to plaster affirmations in my head — it literally was like that — a drive to plaster and stick things in my brain that literally wouldn’t stick! All the sticky notes in the world, on the fridge, in the car, on the mirror didn’t really make any difference because what I wasn’t connecting to all along was me. Without the foundation of me those positive thoughts and affirmations were simply plasters on my brain wall that would lose their hold very quickly and fall off. But in the knowing of me that I have now, that’s an anchor that can never fall away. It comes from my body, from me knowing who I am and why I’m here and rejoicing in that fact — and that is the only affirmation truly needed.
I agree Katerina – Our knowing and our bodies lived wisdom are a powerhouse couple.
I have also tried practicing positive affirmations only to find that they felt like an unattainable state of being as it was always a momentary feel-good illusion of attaining that which I was searching for. It never lasted as I could not hold this state through my daily living for long. I now understand that this is because there was no guidance from within me as how to live this, or the understanding that we already are greatness, but rather that we were less than this first and this was something that we had to become, to achieve before we could be it. Hence the feeling of such a vast distance between the words and knowing it to be true and living it throughout the day. It is so true Julie it serves only to band-aid the hurt of not knowing and living the greatness we already all naturally are.
I agree Julie. I have never tried positive affirmation, this was suggested to me by friends and to fake it ‘til you make it but I didn’t feel to follow it through. It felt forced, fake and empty. Now, I realise it is more powerful and true to live love than to repeat it with just words. Words alone seems completely meaningless unless it is truly and consistently lived.
Thanks Julie, we can all benefit from the teaching and presentations by Serge Benhayon. When we align to the truth, which is, we are all equally the Sons of God, a life lived in this truth / love becomes much simpler with no “bandaids”.
Affirming as you mention doesnt really work, it is just a repetition of something we know.. which always feels empty as this “something” that we don’t, but we are trying so hard to make ourselves believe. In living and through this knowing that we are love, then it changes and makes total sense. It isn’t about the mental knowing, but feeling it in our bodies that we already have everything we need, which is the quality and energy of love.
Beautiful Cherise. When we connect to and feel the love of our essence we know where we come from, who we are and where we are returning to and we know we are already everything as we are a part of the everything that is God.
Wow I love this. True affirmation is the confirmation of knowing we are love through the choices we make every moment of the day.
Lieke this says it all for me too ‘True affirmation is the confirmation of knowing we are love through the choices we make every moment of the day.’
Me too – making a living way about the truth which is felt and known inside – we are love.
Yes Lieke – you have summed this up so beautifully as it is through the way we live that we affirm our Divinity and as such live Heaven on earth.
I have bought countless self-help books and many that have included affirmations. My experience has been that within minutes of reading or saying the phrase, it was forgotten and I was back to living the way I normally did. My learning has brought me to the understanding that it’s no good just saying the words. There has to be an action, and an ongoing commitment to a loving way of being that makes the real change. As you share Cherise its about the way we chose to live.
Absolutely, a commitment to living with love in our ‘being’ and ‘activity’ is essential to feel love grow within our experience of life. Otherwise it will remain abstract and in the head and not lived by the body.
Great insight – words by themselves are empty when they are not based on and backed up by a living way, the way we move through our everyday life and do what we do.
Absolutely – well said Gabriele ‘words by themselves are empty when they are not based on and backed up by a living way, the way we move through our everyday life and do what we do.’
Absolutely right Debra. It is the choices that we make in every moment of every day that confirm who we are. When we live this love, there is no doubt about who we are.
Nailed it Debra – ” There has to be an action, and an ongoing commitment to a loving way of being that makes the real change. “
Yes Cherise. I was on a training course the other day and we got asked the question, ‘who do you talk to the most?’ I said my husband, others said friends, work colleagues etc, but actually we have an ongoing dialogue going on in our head almost every moment of our day. It makes sense that we should become close observers of what we say to ourselves. It has a huge impact on how we feel.
Brilliant Debra, what an awesome question. When I read your question I replied ‘I talk to myself the most’ so, yes I totally agree it is hugely important to be aware of what we say to ourselves, is it harming or confirming? Wow, what a great reminder to be aware of what we allow into our thought and therefore our body.
This is so revealing Debra. I find I pay close attention to what other people say about me and yet I am switched off to much of my self talk! If other people spoke to me the way I speak to myself I would be furious! This goes to show that I place far more importance on the way others feel about me than the way I feel about me. What a set up considering that Cherise’s article clearly reveals that the way I feel about me is the key to everything I want.
Beautiful Cherise. Choosing to feel and be the love that we are is all the affirming required. When we connect to our body and to our inner-most place of being, there is no need for bits of paper stuck on the fridge to tell us something that we already feel as our truth.
Yes, Cherise, I too went through the affirmations stage without ever finding that they brought me love, joy, help or anything of positive worth at all. They were supposedly the shining stars of the spiritual days, according to many of the books and talks of the gurus of those days, whose names I shall not bother to mention, and on whom I wasted a great deal of money. Fortunately I found Serge Benhayon and his Universal Medicine many years ago and learnt the beautiful truth that real love is available to us all at all times, free of charge, simply by connecting to the love inside us. What a joy and what a relief this is.
Love this Jo “learnt the beautiful truth that real love is available to us all at all times, free of charge, simply by connecting to the love inside us. What a joy and what a relief this is.”
“the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us”. Yes, yes – how crazy is it that we have forgotten this and are not taught this as an essential guide to life.
I agree Sue. We are living in a world where people desperately seeking love and are destroying themselves by looking for it outside of themselves. “the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us”- this changes everything.
I agree, my life has transformed through considering that I am love in origin and this is something that I can reconnect with and now it is a known, I live it from by body. The issues and hurts are being let go of and unveiling more and more love. I felt a sadness in my life because I was missing something, it was this knowing of this love and it was there all the time. Agreed lets share this with the world, it is what we all are in equally.
Very very crazy Sue… and the state of the world today with the immense suffering that exists is a testament to this; we are living as a humanity in a way that is absolutely unnatural and abnormal to how we are meant to be living.
Thank you Cherise for providing this understanding on affirmations. The way that affirmations have been spoken about in the past has never made sense to me. Your definition of an affirmation deeply resonates with me – “What if a true affirmation was actually something that was felt in our own bodies, already known absolutely and just simply remembered as a configuration within our every living cell: that we are already everything – that we are already enough.” An affirmation then is something that is used to confirm what is already known and not just some wishful thinking.
The quality of affirmation described by Cherise is like a home built on solid foundations. It is an unshakable structure that cannot be buffeted about by life.
Affirmations made of empty words, and wishful thoughts are like straw houses – the slightest puff of wind, disturbing event and they are blown away.
Our bodies hold a quality that is greater than time, utterly enduring in the face of the events of this life.
Beautifully explained Elizabeth.. Makes much more sense than any definition so far – as, darn, to me this definition is actually resonating a deep truth within my body that what is shared about affirmations is absolute truth.
And so what is shared in this blog is : life, what life is all about: the love we are is simply a fact that already lives inside us. So our only job is to come back to that love and let it out all the way – in our daily living, with each other – we will find our way back and so who we are. In our own pace.
This is beautiful Cherise, especially the last paragraph brought to me a real clear revelation that is; we are love in essence love in our inside, but yet we have living body and being that seemingly is not living knowing that it is all of that love. So life teaches us that when we confirm this essence, this love, we are able to make love our everything so from inside fully out , an expression from our body – and so our living way (livingness).
Beautiful Danna. I am love yet I have not lived in a way that allows for the body to know this. Now it is as though I am teaching the body this again so that I can express all the love that I am. That love is a bit trapped at present! Yet no matter what my body does, this love does not alter – only my expression of it which comes through my body.
And that the truth is, that not only does our body know this truth, but the driver of this body (which I know is our spirit) has had its hands full driving the body in a way that is not in regard to the body’s natural laws – and hence the disregard and illness and disease the body is in, which had to be brought up in order to clear itself – so it is our driver (spirit) we have to discipline to be simply loving again – something it has not done for quite some time – but, deep down, it knows inside out. Re-learning is everything. And so, by re-connecting to our body’s truth.
It is indeed a process of re-learning – it is not new to us. Our bodies know love, they know how to move in a loving way – so much so that they bring up illness and disease to correct the fact we have not moved with love. That is awesome and a deep confirmation of what love we are.
And so our body brings us back to love – to re-learn, and learn until we know it consciously and can live it again.
Cherise, so true, we can keep repeating words but it is only in knowing and feeling it by living it that it becomes a lived truth that emanates as the Light and Love we are.
Yes Susan, the reciting of words do not change anything only gives our power away to what is outside of us. The truth is that the Beauty is already within and so it is up to us to claim and live it.
That’s it Susan, which is why affirmations only go ‘skin deep’ — the whole teaching behind them is about training the mind but ignoring the body. It’s from the body that we can reckon the truth — that we are made and are from love — and the only real affirmation that there is, is to simply accept that fact.
Beautiful said Susan, this is exactly how I feel. It is deeply empowering and inspiring to live ‘truth that emanates as the Light and Love we are’ than to search for it outside ourselves which only gives us the false version of truth.
‘ is it possible that all anyone ever truly wants is to be love and to be loved?’ When I feel this question in my body my body lets go of the tension I hold it in in my drive to succeed, my drive to better myself, to try, to struggle. Could life be this simple? Could I let go of all my many hours of pushing/punishing myself to get somewhere when actually I was here all along; I had not wanted to feel this after opting for recognition over love.
What is beautiful is I can explore letting go of complications and living from love again. That’s not to shy away from the practicalities of life but to know that they are practicalities and not the means of getting love. Love comes from who you are and feeling this is what expresses love through the what you dos.
I can not truly think or affirm me into something great. As hard or seemingly lovingly I may try it – it will never last or be enough. That’s because I try to become like something I imagine it would great to be. But as you said Cherise, we ARE already. And in fact we are more vessels for energy then anything else and so we choose what is coming through us, but not controlling it. But one energy we belong to and the other is an creation that ‘tries to be’. And so we are either surrendering to what we belong to or run after a goal we never will reach, because there is no truth in it.
‘Trying to be’ has its own failure already built in to it. As you have beautifully said Sandra, it is running at a goal that can never be reached.
The trying wears us out. It is never enough…never reaches a satisfactory end point. At the same time it distracts us from the fact that there is a steady warmth inside of us, a stillness as old and deep as the ages…harmony that need not fight and struggle against life, and a knowingness, that does not need a book to tell it what to think and believe.
The biggest and oldest illusion of all that we have been sold, is to search on the outside for solutions when all the love and answers are found within, how mad is that? But we all fall for it.
Is completely mad Kevmchardy, I agree, and now the only thing I am falling for is truth and then greatly appreciating when that truth is delivered and felt in my body.
To say no to and drop that illusion will bring out the love which was there all the time.
Indeed kevmchardy it seems we have trained our eyes to see all that we are not, yet the wonder of these receptors is their power to read and confirm all that we know to be true.
It was sold to us. And we bought it. Hook, line and sinker. It’s important to me to remember this – because as did I choose to buy into this illusion, then so to do I also have the absolute choice not to. Remembering that is very empowering.
So true Kev, magazines, tv commercial etc all thrive off this- selling the idea that you need to get somewhere and when you live like that you think you never arrive but in truth you were already there.
Mad…yes! And we have swallowed it whole. Now to undo what is done and come back to all that already lies within.
Yes Kevin, wise words indeed. When we feel that we want to get more out of life we look outside of ourselves and find a whole self help industry that panders to us and feeds the illusion that we need to bring something into our lives to make us feel complete.
Absolutely Kev. This illusion keeps us constantly looking OUT for the answers but never in, and many continue feeling empty for many, many years because society (the outside) confirms them in their misery.
Yes Kevin, a big one! Something we all fall for, we have everything we ever need inside us! The solutions are not out there, they come first from connecting with ourselves. Often when I do this I found that its so important to even fix things, but to just go “phew I know the truth”
These affirmations are just like sticky labels we stick on top of us and hope will keep everything sweet. Rather than adding in ‘positive’ things, your words remind me Cherise, how life shows us that actually it is the beliefs, ideals and pictures we carry around that obscure the divine beauty that lives underneath.
Knowing we are already everything we need to be, make affirmations redundant. Affirmations keep us imagining we are small, and constantly trying to affirm something about ourselves, from the outside in the way of your ‘sticky labels’ Joseph. When we go beyond ideals and beliefs and connect to our deepest divinity no more is needed.
So true Joseph, so often these affirmations are gathered from the outside, a collective bundle of aspirations that we continuously strive towards yet are ultimately unfulfilling because they have not been impulsed from within.
I agree Joseph, it’s actually just adding more ‘beliefs, ideals and pictures’ to the gamut of ‘striving to be better’ that is out there already.
Love that Joseph. And it sure gets uncomfortable having to walk in a way to keep all those sticky notes on! So much more space without them:)
So true Joseph, when we use affirmations, it simply exposes how invested we are in the pictures and ideals we are holding ourselves up to. As you say, they only serve to ‘obscure the beauty that lives underneath’.
That is so simple Cherise. Love is actually so simple and what would be more important than to be able to feel this all the time inside of ourselves and to use it to confirm who we are every single day? It would change how we view and live life completely!
I agree Adele, and for many students of Universal Medicine this is what I witness already taking place, which is confirmation that this is the way.
Doug, it feels so liberating, what you are expressing. When we get rid of all complexities in life, life will become very simple and joyful.
Cherise there is true wisdom in the sentence “There can be great simplicity in the relationship with ourselves and this begins with knowing who we already are, from the very inside of our bodies, and in our hearts.” Once known we need look no further for answers or information … that only complicates the journey away from who we already are.
Love is often an affirmation issued by one person to another one as in I love you. Yet, in truth love is what we are, we are love. So, establishing a relationship with love cannot but start with oneself.
Again Eduardo, another simple truth that cannot be altered or changed based on what we think we want.
As I read your comment Eduardo I also noticed how affirmations are often more about the giver than the receiver- they can be delivered for a self fulfilling purpose or agenda.
Absolutely Eduardo. I have experienced the emptiness of the words ‘I love you’ when it comes from just words and not from the heart or lived experience of true love.
Beautiful Eduardo. The words “I love you” can be very empty when not lived. If I don’t feel the love that I am, no amount of someone telling me they love me will fill me up. I may seek it as bandaid to my ill feeling but I will constantly need more and more. “I love you” is an empty affirmation. Love can only be felt when we realise we are love.
Yes Eduardo and this applies to everything else – for example – when we want to care for other people, we have to learn to care for ourselves.
Very true. We cannot love another without knowing and being love ourselves.
An affirmation is like an oil slick that floats on the surface, it never truly becomes part of the consistency of the water. The water is already all it needs to be – the essence of Love. We are the water, we are the love and all we need to do is claim it. Thank you Cherise for claiming the love you are from within and living this in the world.
ch1956 affirmations never become part of us, but are ‘ like an oil slick that sits on the surface’ What you says is beautiful ‘ the water is already all it needs to be – the essence of love.’
I like your analogy ch1956, the oil slick a mere superficial film whereas the waters potential depth is oceanic.
Me too, and I also love the way you have expressed it lucindag.
Beautifully expressed – i agree that affirmations are superficial and stand out a mile when they are not lived and therefore not equal in quality to the vessel receiving them.
I love the analogy you have drawn here ch1956.
Gorgeous Christine. We are the Water. We are the love. Accepting this is the key.
ch1956 This blew me away as I read it. I so get that, “we are the water” which is “already all that it needs to be”. Trying to convince ourselves that something is true by repetitive phrases does seem crazy when expressed this way, no matter how hard we try (and I have tried affirmations also) we cannot make the words stick. It must be felt and lived in the body and requires us to attend to healing our hurts before this is possible.
What an awesome description, Christine. You nailed it.
Thank you Cherise, I was never able to do affirmations as they always left me feeling empty and to be honest… worse. Words are pointless if the energy we say or write them in is the opposite of what the words portray. I could tell myself I am beautiful 100 times but if I say this in an energy believing I am ugly this is what I will falsely confirm. We can confirm what is true when we allow ourselves to feel that we are the love we seek.
So true it is going through the motions and often feeling you have failed at yet another thing that is supposed to help you rather than connecting to the love we truly are and appreciating that.
That feeling of failing ‘yet again’ – I know it well and agree that affirmations are a sure-fire way to set ourselves up for it.
Absolutely Leonne, we are the love we seek. When I read this I could feel my shoulders dropping and an ease return to my body.
And I feel the smile coming back to my face too Simone, and all the cells in my body bouncing off each other with glee in the knowing that they are coming back to their natural harmonious state, which is love. The only thing that I ever want to affirm, is the love inside me, which IS me, so all I need to do on a daily basis is appreciate, accept, allow and trust, which will lead me to surrendering to mySELF and all the power and grace that I am.
I agree that affirmations fall way short, they don’t capture your essence and so it feels shallow and doesn’t honour the depth of who you are and what you bring.
What a fantastic point MW. Your comment inspires me to get to know my essence so I can affirm who I am from a place of truth.
They feel shallow because they are shallow MW, only coming from our minds which can never be the truth. The only true truth comes from the depth of our inner hearts and if we let go and surrender to that then we will all have more than we ever need on this earth until be eventually return to where we came from.
It’s at this point that I find it helpful to change the way I hold myself and deepen my dedication to looking after myself – this might mean making changes to what I have been eating or going for that daily walk I always enjoy and feel better for. One time I cut sugar out of my diet for a week as an experiment, it was astounding to feel how by the end of the week the thoughts I have about myself had changed. I remember looking into a mirror and thinking how beautiful I was!!!! This was so natural but something I had never truly experienced before, up until that point I didn’t realise the negative impact sugar was having on my body.
Thats Amazing Abby, it goes to show just how huge an impact sugar has on us all. Imagine if sugar was just no longer available in any form, how that would transform the world.
Bingo Leonne. Kids are brilliant barometers for this. Say something to them without truth behind it and it falls on deaf ears. So, if they can discern – then so can we all. Kids play.
Well said Leonne, brilliant observation and sharing. It’s amazing when we discern the energy behind words truth is revealed.
The weaver of never ending stories, the mind, loves affirmations, they are an ocean of indulgence that never satisfies the thirst for love. The ocean’s salt leaves me even thirstier if I choose to drink from it.
Absolutely Leonne. Affirmations have always felt like I was trying to rev myself up to be something that I am not, they never felt true and hence I never really did it. Conversely, Appreciating that which I am has been very powerful.
Agreed Leonne, when ever I tried to say affirmations they felt pointless and imposing. I would try and say them but I could feel how meaningless the words felt and I really didn’t want to say them. After all I was trying to convince myself I was beautiful when I didn’t feel it, no amount of affirmations was going to change that. It was only when I started to accept who I was and that beauty had nothing to do with looks that I was able to accept that I had an inner beauty that was untouched that could be seen and felt.
Absolutely Leonne, that’s the false confirmation and appreciation that we are sold, that it is just the words and the positive attitude, but it is not, it is the quality we hold in ourselves. And this quality we can develop and then have it as a marker in our body.
Gorgeously expressed Leonne ‘We can confirm what is true when we allow ourselves to feel that we are the love we seek.’ – how true and truly felt this is.
Good point Leonne. Affirmations do nothing to address the energy we are in. Saying I am successful or beautiful will do nothing if I hold the belief that I am neither. Affirmations do not address the underlying root problem. Appreciation works wonders at shifting things on a much deeper lever, whereas affirmations work on the surface.
I can hugely relate Leonne, often I would feel much worse about myself because the affirmations just never felt true to how I actually felt about myself at the time.
Wonderful expressed Leonne – only words are really pointless. I like especially the attempt to stick something on the fridge in the hope, one day we will embody it. But this won’t work. What we can do is to connect to the love and wisdom which is in our body. And then we are able to feel our love.
I agree Cherise, affirmations are one thing but appreciating and confirming who we are and what we bring is a completely different level. Affirmations for me largely are based on the outside and external influences whereas appreciation and confirmation is based on our bodies and is deeply felt. We are love and by deeply feeling and appreciating this fact my body knows it, so it is not a mind thing.
I agree James. Affirmations very often seem to be driven by a need to both see ourselves and to be seen by others in a specific way, which is usually determined by something decided by someone other than ourselves.
In other words Naren, affirmations can be pictures about how we want or need life to be rather than what is true or real for us. They can be used as a coping mechanism for life rather than supporting us to return to living a truly loving way. Whereas appreciation is a whole new level, accepting that we are already divine and do not need anything from the outside.
Said so perfectly, James!
To me affirmations are a possibility, something to aspire to, not a reality.
The way Cherise has presented this and you have expanded on it is beautiful James. To me it feels like affirmations are a trick we can use our mind to convince our body of something we are not. Where as appreciation is something that has to be felt as true in our body, I can’t appreciate what is not there, but appreciating what is there further grounds this in my body.
Thank you Lee, the more I appreciate who I am and what I bring the more I find there is to appreciate about myself but also others. It makes a huge difference to the way I used to live, which was finding fault with myself and everyone else!
That makes sense James, affirmations are from outside whereas appreciation and confirmation are from inside. Affirmations are like tying to obtain all the things we imagine we should be whereas in truth we already are far more magnificent than we can even imagine. We don’t need to try and be something as we already are everything. Appreciation and Confirmation are about connecting to and embodying the all that we already are.
Well said Nicola, “we already are far more magnificent than we can even imagine”. That is something important to remember especially when we are feeling down.
Great to know at all times because even at a so called high point, there is always so much more and that more is not outside of ourselves!
I have tried affirmations and they certainly don’t work. I agree, they are certainly based on what comes from the outside and we can’t control that. What we can control, however is our inner being and from that we naturally pull in, or constellate, the truth which can be far greater and grander than any expectations we may have which come from our minds.
The more we focus on our inner being and stop worrying about outside forces and influences the stronger we will become within ourselves. As I have experienced as a result of Universal Medicine I am now far more confident, not because I know more, but because of the steadiness I now hold within my body, something I lacked before. I have a marker to go back to, something I know. Whereas when I look to the outside it will tell me whatever I want it to good or bad depending on what I am wanting to see.
In my experience we can’t actually “control” anything, but we can choose to surrender to ourselves and the grandness of our essence.
I agree James, affirmations have always felt hollow somehow and very much about the external, the mind and outside recognition. Whereas appreciation and confirmation of self comes from within and is something that I feel when truly felt emanates out with such a solidness.
I agree Jade, it the solidness of appreciation and confirmation which I find the most supportive. It grounds what we already know and feel and makes it more tangible. It is not about bringing anything new or trying to be more rather appreciating and confirming all that we already are.
Beautifully and powerfully said James there is no knowing that we are divinity from the mind alone it can only be deeply felt in the whole body/mind.
Thank you Jenny, most of my life I have tried to think my way out of situations and think my way into becoming a certain way but it has never worked. It has only been since starting to truly listen to my body that I have felt the love that I am and have always been. Seeing life from my body makes it very straight forward and simple, for me it sees things as black or white, as love or not love, and so the choices I make are now much clearer.
It’s external vs internal. Affirmations are coming from the outside and aim to tell us what we are or can be (tell being the key word). Whereas appreciation and confirmation come from inside us and are confirming of what we already are. When it comes from the outside it carries with is the notion that we are not enough and we need to be this or that. There is a goal to be more than what we already are.
Well said Nikki, and how strange that we try to be more than we are when we have not even touched on the ALL that we all already are!
Beautifully said Nicola. There can be a focus and so much effort put into being more, but what a distraction away from what we are already. Who we are already is what is worthy of our focus.
Great point Nikki, by seeking something from outside of us confirms that we are not enough, whereas when we appreciate and confirm we accept that we are already divine.
Spot on James – affirmations are sought from the outside, where as true appreciation comes from a fullness that already lies within the body and the being and is simply felt and allowed to express itself. If it becomes a mind thing, it comes from the outside and will only last so long, and needs constant feeding and an effort to keep it going. But when it comes from the heart, from within, appreciation feeds itself and unfolds into its natural grandness, often far grander than we ever fathomed to lie within us.
Yes James, what I’m realising is that the more I deepen my appreciation and have this as a solid base, accepting what the loving choices I have made mean to me and to so many others, what these choices then reflect back, doubt cannot come in. The appreciation then deepens further because my body moves differently, I clock the grace and glory of my movements and literally bathe in this gorgeousness and grace. That then is the foundation, the just keeps deepening and deepening.
That is great to hear Katerina. I find, like you, that the more I appreciate myself and what I bring the more my movements support me to feel this and to deepen it. I have found that it is amazing how the way I move can deeply effect the way I am feeling.
Thank you Marika, I also find that when I speak with this knowingness from my body people are far more receptive to hearing what I have to say.
We are what we align to. We are living as we were thinking individuals and in this illusion we are longing for the confirmation of the individual. When we live as the vessels of energy we are we will stop looking for the individual recognition and live a life of responsibility of our own choices. The appreciation is then about what we have chosen as we know that we are not the initiator or creator of anything, but the mere vessels of the energy we have chosen.
Which then takes away any personal factor, as often we get caught in reacting to another behaviour by making it a personal issue when actually it is simply the choice of energy one has chosen and that is all.
Spot on Rachelandras; ‘ The appreciation is then about what we have chosen as we know that we are not the initiator or creator of anything, but the mere vessels of the energy we have chosen’.
The appreciation of what we have chosen and what we continue to choose in each and every moment. This is not a one off choice, we have to continue to choose it. This is where the commitment and consistency comes in.
WOW rachelandras, powerful words, and a confirmation of what we all already know deep inside of us but for many, are choosing not to live.
Sandra it never fails to stun me when I consider the fact that we do all know that we are choosing not to be the love that we are. What a rort! 7.125 billion people all pretending that they don’t know that they are made from the body of God, it’s extraordinarily ridiculous and nearly everyone’s in on it! And it’s thanks to the fact that we are all pretending that we don’t know that we can opt out at any time that we continue to roll around in the misery that we have created! It’s past ridiculous.
Yes so true and indeed it is a powerful comment rachelandras. When expressed in this way it becomes evident that we each have a responsibility to carefully choose the energy we align to and thus how we express ourselves in the world.
And how we move our bodies therefore completely changes, and then the quality in which we are with ourselves completely changes — ‘thoughts’ do not dispel a body that is in the solid knowing of what it is here to do, that is to reflect how divinity can be expressed on earth — through the physical body.
Well said Katerina – Having experienced this, it it gorgeous to feel the quality of our movement and how very different this is when connected with our body rather than thinking about it. How beautiful that we actually have a body that we can express divinity through.
Indeed Katerina, thinking or saying affirmations will never get us out of low self-worth as it is the energy by our negative self-talk which created the issue of self-worth to begin with. The quality that we carry ourselves in is everything.
Rachel, I love it. Truly delivered with power and truth. What an awesome reminder of who we are and what we are here to reflect. God’s Love/God’s light. We get identified with what we create but in truth we are here to simply co-create.
‘The appreciation is then about what we have chosen as we know that we are not the initiator or creator of anything, but the mere vessels of the energy we have chosen.’ Yes – we take it from the personal, reduced, individual, egoic being to the magnificence of who we really are inside it all.
Yes, appreciation is not about what we did as an individual – what we are fundamentally recognising, feeling, appreciating and celebrating is the divinity that comes through.
There are many people on this earth who would vehemently protest that they are ‘mere vessels of the energy we have chosen”… and that is why the world is in such a mess! But you are absolutely right rachelandras, as we are indeed what we align to and until this fact is felt by all we will continue to complicate life. It was a bit of an ouch for me too, but now I know, and have felt the difference, it becomes a responsibility and a simple matter of choice, because who I am in the moment affects everyone.
Beautifully expressed, Rachel. Escaping the illusion that we are ‘thinking individuals’ rather than a vessel of energy is profound and life changing.
Very true Rachel – we are vehicles of expression. The only choice we have is we can choose to what we want to align to – love or not love.
Affirmation comes from the Latin affirmationem “solid assurance.” The truth is that we have a solid assurance of something only when we felt it in our body in a clear and distinctive way. Only then we KNOW.
I agree Eduardo, this is the simple truth of it.
Absolutely Eduardo, the ease with which something is lived and expressed through our bodies is what makes it truly accessible and tangible for all.
Wow Lucinda. I have spent so much of my life accepting disregard and abuse basically to feel included. I used to justify this by telling myself that I wouldn’t be accessible to those I loved if I truly honoured and loved myself to the level I know is possible. And here you have blown this entire and entrenched pattern out of the water with one truth filled sentence. The more we truly love ourselves the more accessible we actually become.
When we feel love for another it confirms that equal love in ourselves, and when we feel and know that love in ourselves it also affirms in another.
I have tried the affirmation thing, it never sticks because you never fully believe it, you feel the tokenism of all that stuff.
Me too. But, on the other hand, it is so easy for me to buy into negative, self-bashing internal dialogues.
This is a great point Fumiyo, we let so many thoughts in that run us down, constantly. It shows how great we in truth are that we need a constant stream of thoughts to bring us down.
So true MW, the words are empty and cannot be embodied because the body does not have a lived experience of the love that it is.
Nice knowledge Eduardo – like that!! Thanks.
Yes Eduardo. A knowing from what we feel and live rather than a knowing just from knowledge.
Correct Eduardo. Once lived we have the authority of knowing absolutely on all levels.
Well said Eduardo. And hence there can be no true affirmation of who we are without the livingness of love first… I love the title, it says it all and the whole article is felt in those first 6 words.
This is very well said Eduardo. The simplicity and absoluteness with which we know from our body is so solid it’s literally no match for mind-induced affirmations.
Absolutely Eduardo. If it is not solidly felt in our body then it is baseless. As is any of the negative self talk that comes in at times.
Hear, hear Eduardo. Affirmation felt in our body through our lived experience is true affirmation, words are not solid or confirming unless it comes from within.
Absolutely true Eduardo. We can only truly know something when we have felt the experience of it directly in our own body.
Yes, the word ‘assurance’ is the key here. If it is not assurance it is an attempt to manipulate ourselves and that may not be a great idea.
Beautifully said Eduardo. Felt and lived from within.
Yes Eduardo, to the truth in your words. No talking ourselves into anything, it is simply known.
The knowing of the truth in our body far exceeds any amount of knowledge that we hold in our heads. We spend lifetimes in the pursuit of knowledge when that inner knowing is there, waiting for us to connect to it. I have felt this “solid assurance” inside my body, and when I do there is nothing that can shake me from the truth.
Thanks for sharing this Eduardo, it’s great to hear the true background of affirmation. Indeed, it is only through the body that we know.
There is an enormous difference between knowing something from the body and telling ourselves something from the mind. The former one confirms what is already there and the latter one tries to convince, or coerce what can’t be yet felt. Either way the intelligence from the body will always hold the trump card.
Absolutely, knowledge is only truly lived when we have embodied it, when we have felt with our body what we all innately know.
Love this Eduardo and it makes such sense as what we feel in our bodies we trust solidly. From there it simply can become a part of our livingness and a marker that says we know and have felt truth.
Thank you Eduardo, it’s amazing when we go back to the root meaning of a word, where it came from what we can break down and feel deeper. Affirmations as we know them today is another example of how we desperately look outside of ourselves for a replacement of what we have within, never to find it of course. An affirmation to the head, the mind, can never last — the solid assurance we seek can only come from within our body.
Awesome! super simple. In other words, we can not be told affirmations.
Yes, one is flimsy and the other is solid.