Affirmations

Affirmations.

I’m not a real fan of affirmations. From the age of 21 to 35, I affirmed a full head of hair: I saw myself in front of the mirror combing my hair, in my head heard compliments about the unusual luxuriousness, set aside enough money for the most expensive hair products and beauty salon. I visualized it and then let it go, as I was instructed, confident the Universe would take over. And, I still went bald. Come forty, I affirmed eternal youth, unbounded riches, world fame.  I am at the age now to tell you, ‘It didn’t work.’ That’s one of the benefits of growing older: you can look back over your life and see what worked and what didn’t.  

I’m looking for something that works a hundred percent of the time, not just now and then, and when it does work, it’s mostly for everyone else but me.

Your run of the mill affirmation is a lot like goal setting, (see previous blog post),: sometimes it works, sometimes not. ‘I will be a millionaire before I am thirty,’ both a goal and an affirmation, sometimes it comes out good, sometimes it’s a waste of time. And who’s to know which is which until push comes to shove and frustration is all we have to show for all our industriousness?

This is not to say that affirmation does not have its place, so long it remains in the present moment. Which is shitty because that means I can’t plan on having a million or a best-selling book sometime in the nebulous future. The upside is: I can affirm happiness in the present moment and feel the positive effect of that affirmation no matter what the future has in store for me.

I am happy. I am sad. Both states of being that have little to do with our outside circumstances. Certainly, things outside myself can happen to make me either sad or happy, but this is only on the level of form, not on the level of my true being. I can be happy in any situation if I realize that I have the power to affirm my happiness in any given situation.

True happiness is a choice, not a result of an outside circumstance. When I finally realized that, I realized I had an incredibly valuable tool in my hand to see me through the doldrums of anything this world could work on me.

Except for the Trump administration. I’m still working on that…