I have already mentioned that my first introduction to doing affirmations was when our close family friend gave me “You Can Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay. You can find this book here:
I read it cover to cover, and it made complete sense. We are what we eat. We are also what we think. So, a mind that is depressed and is constantly thinking depressing thoughts cannot all of a sudden be happy and expect a happy life. A person needs to put in positive energy through thoughts to get happiness. Louise Hay has beautiful affirmations in the form of poems. She believed that even if these new thought patterns may seem strange initially, as we get used to them and start believing in them more, they become more powerful and manifest into reality. This is true. There is a missing component, and it is taking action. Someone who is overweight and who is thinking about being skinny will not lose weight just by thinking and not making the life changes needed to get in shape. Hence, affirmations are most effective when they include small action steps that help reach goals.
There is another manifestation technique called lofty questions. I heard about it for the first time from Christie Marie Sheldon and Vishen Lakhiani, the creator of the Mindvalley platform. Please see the following video:
After seeing this video something clicked in me and I have realized its power. Examples of me using it in unintended ways started coming up. One such example is me thinking to myself “What did I do to deserve this?” about my chronic migraine……another example is Why am I going through this unfortunate circumstance (replace with the misfortune of your choice)? These patterns are part of our daily lives. They are so common that they may seem to be undoing the affirmation work and creating an illusion that it is not working.
Instead Lofty questions can be used in conjunction with affirmations to speed up manifestation. Since the universe projects to us our current state why not ask it to project to us the state that we want to be in? An affirmation rephrased as a question with an action step becomes an excellent lofty question. For example,
“I am effortlessly taking the steps to reach my dreams” becomes “Why is taking the steps to reach my dreams so effortless?”
The idea is to picture reaching your goals and dreams as achievable. And while there is of course effort required, it is not overwhelming in a way that would prevent taking these steps.
