Negative Thoughts as Affirmations?

After being restless all night, and now feeling tired and extremely
unmotivated, Sarah Jean turned off her alarm clock and rolled over in bed to
face the wall. She stared at the wall wishing her life was different... Her only thoughts were those of disgust with herself and her
living situation. Her day had already been ruined, and she knew it. 

 


As usual, it was going to be another no–good, intolerable day. She rolled
over again to lie flat on her back and stared at the ceiling above her.
Thoughts of despair grew and grew as tears rolled down both sides of her face. “Oh
no, another day,” she grumbled and cried in silence... as she whispered audibly, “I hate my
life!”






Sarah Jean’s feelings of despair didn’t begin in the morning; they had
been strengthened enough to become a habit. This habit became nightly, and she’d
go to bed every night in the same manner: crying in the dark. And in the
silence of her own shrinking little world, her feelings of despair just brought
her closer and closer to the end of her rope.






“I wish, I wish, I wish …” she’d cry in despair. Sarah Jean wished
the same wishes every night at bedtime and then the same wishes every morning
upon awakening, the same old wishes:






I wish I was pretty; then maybe somebody would love me (wanting to be
loved)
I wish I had my own house (wanting peace and quiet)
I wish I had my own room (wanting privacy)
I wish I had my own food (wanting to eat healthy)
I wish these people were not here (wanting her own space)
I wish I’d never gotten married (having regrets)
I wish I’d never had kids (having more regrets)





    “I
wish, I wish, I wish …” went her list.








But how could Sarah Jean escape that vicious cycle of wishes and regrets?
Having sought solutions to her living situation by reading literature on
positive thinking, she had already read and heard others talk about how
positive thinking could change her life... Positive thinking
was just idle chatter. How could she even try to do that again?










The term ‘affirmation’
has come to be a common household word today, but what exactly is an affirmation?
And what’s the ultimate purpose of an affirmation? To affirm means to declare
positively that something is true, so an affirmation is the act of affirming—declaring
positively that something is true, asserting support or agreement, asserting
the existence of something to be true.






Oops
… I Found Out the Hard Way






But here’s something really interesting that I found out the hard way. Wishes,
like those Sarah Jean was repeating, are also affirmations, but in the negative
form. Unbeknownst to Sarah Jean, her wishes only reinforced the lack in her
life. The wishes became stronger as negative affirmations, which included how
much she hated her life. It’s really sad that many of us, like Sarah Jean, are
unaware that thoughts and wishes are very powerful affirmations. Yes, even
negative thoughts are very powerful affirmations.






We usually think of the term ‘affirmations’ as being positive simply
because ‘to affirm’ means to confirm something as positively or absolutely
true.

 

Sarah Jean had tried positive affirmations before but considered them to
be useless and a waste of time. Why? Because she didn’t get the immediate
results she wanted. That’s another problem some of us have encountered. We
expect results immediately after we’re done saying the affirmation!

 



For years I too was very impatient like Sarah Jean and expected immediate
results from those and any other types of self-help techniques. I thought affirmations
were just some hokey-pokey, mumbo-jumbo lies people told themselves to feel good
temporarily... 




Using false statements just to feel good was no way to live, as far as I
was concerned, and no one was going to convince me otherwise. Like Sarah Jean,
I thought that anyone in his or her right mind could see that affirmations were a
waste of time and energy. I used to be one of the worst persons to talk
to about affirmations—till it happened
to me! Who would’ve thought? Personal transformations can happen to us when we
least expect them...





Today I attest that positive affirmations are very
real. Within those positive affirmations I’ve discovered life-giving powers.





(Excerpt from "Your Positive Potential: Action Steps for Self-Empowerment" )
  

~Positively Writinghood