Is Luck Within Our Control?

I’ve been meaning to share with you my thoughts about “Affirmations” for some time now. I have written this piece over several days and I am sure you will enjoy it.

“Affirmations” are positive statements, which you repeat to yourself. They describe your aims as if they have already been accomplished. For example “I am always truthful, positive and helping others”.

When repeated on a regular basis, such statements can transform the entire landscape of our conscious and subconscious mind (our thoughts, beliefs and images).

Affirmations were made famous by the French physician Emile Coue (early 20th century), who instructed patients to repeat positive healing affirmations to themselves while in a relaxed frame of mind. Thousands of remarkable documented healings occurred as he creatively combined western medicine with the power of affirmations.

Coue’s most famous affirmation was “Everyday, in every way, I am getting better and better.”

My friend Sunit gifted me the book “Heal Your Body” by Louise Hay, which uses affirmations to cure physical diseases. I experimented with it and the results were astonishing. People tried the affirmations I suggested to them (based on the book) and reported headaches, stomach aches, sprains, running nose, and even fever disappearing within minutes.

For a long time I was skeptical about affirmations. I believed that they merely added a new layer of conditioning over our confused minds and could not have a truly long-term transformational effect. Now, based on my own experience over many months and seeing their impact on others, I consider them powerful, beneficial and reliable tools for transformation.

True, affirmations are a form of conditioning, and cannot have permanent effects. However, even eating food does not have a permanent effect. Taking a bath does not have a permanent effect. Yet we do these things everyday because we realize that it keeps the physical body in optimal condition. Similarly affirmations are nourishing, revitalizing food for the intellect. And daily silent meditation is excellent food for the heart.

Can something as simple as positive self-talk help one live a happier, more fulfilling life? Consider this, research has shown that an average person talks to himself or herself about 50,000 times a day and 80% of this self-talk is negative! Well, if consistent negative self-talk can pull one down; certainly consistent positive self-talk can prove very empowering.

Everything we say or hear, we first experience before we understand. Positive or negative words and phrases actually trigger pleasant or unpleasant feelings within us. When repeated, such phrases can change our whole emotional tone.

We are already using affirmations – everything we say is a kind of affirmation because it reinforces our self created “reality.” This is especially powerful whenever we say “I am…” something…e.g. “I am forgetful/ angry/unhappy”. We are actually reinforcing these perceptions of ourselves each time we say it. Why not say instead “I am happy/peaceful/enthusiastic.”

We live in a conditioned realm and everything we experience here is interdependent. So perhaps the real question is not whether affirmations are conditioning or un-conditioning us, but rather whether we are conscious about what we are affirming anyway? Is it beneficial or not? The bottom line is, “How do I feel when I say or think like that?”

A careful look at any religion or spiritual tradition will reveal how they all use affirmations in one form or another to modify harmful beliefs and reinforce skillful ones. It may be in the form of a prayer, an oft repeated teaching, a catch phrase, reciting sacred scriptures and associated vocabulary, group chanting or even specific ways of greeting one another…these are all actually affirmations!

I wish to share an amazing story about the power of affirmations.

The following story describes one such incident – how one man discovered the power of his mind in creating coincidences. He went on to use this ability to become so successful that his work is almost a household name in America.

For the purpose of this story, let’s call this man Scott. His real name will not be revealed until the end to make this story more intriguing. This story was told in a book Scott wrote in 1998.

In the early 1980s, Scott had heard of a process called affirmations from a friend. The process he learnt was simple.

Visualize what you want and write it down fifteen times in a row, once a day, until you obtain it.

Scott was told that the process did not require any faith or positive thinking for it to work. Even more interesting was the suggestion that the technique would influence the environment directly and not just make you more focused on your goals. In other words, it would spawn amazing coincidences to move you towards your goals. The coincidences could be things that were seemingly unconnected to you and beyond your control.

Scott was very left-brained and logical in his thinking. He had his doubts about the process but figured that there was no harm in trying.

“Within a few weeks, coincidences started to happen to me.” wrote Scott.

“Amazing coincidences, strings of them. I won’t mention the specific goal I was working on, as it was a private matter, but within a few months the goal was accomplished exactly as I had written it.”

But Scott was not yet convinced that affirmations helped. Coincidences do happen on their own and Scott considered the test inconclusive.

So Scott picked another goal – to make some gains in the stockmarket. He wrote his affirmation down every day and waited for some inspiration. It came to him in a dream. He woke up one night with the words “Buy Chrysler” repeating in his head.

He bought shares in the inspired company during one of its most bleak periods, yet it began to rise soon after and he made some good returns on it. He repeated the experiment again and managed to pick another successful company, with stock-symbol “Ask”.

Armed with this confidence in the power of affirmations Scott decided to apply it to a more challenging goal – getting into the highly competitive Berkeley MBA program.

The problem was that he had already taken the entrance exam and only hit the seventy-seventh percentile score. He knew he needed to be above the ninetieth percentile to at least have a chance of being accepted.

Scott picked the outlandish target of ninety-four as his goal and again applied the affirmation technique.

Despite not being able to go much higher than the seventy-seventh percentile in the practice exams, Scott was surprised to learn that he did indeed hit the ninety-fourth percentile for the G.M.A.T – just as he had written in his affirmations. He graduated with his Berkeley MBA in 1986.

A few years later he tried pursuing a more serious goal: that of being a syndicated cartoonist. He knew the odds of his cartoon submission being accepted by a major newspaper were roughly 1 in 10,000.

He beat those odds and his cartoon was accepted. He was soon earning a decent living with his cartoon strip but he wanted to achieve something bigger.

He decided he wanted the most successful comic strip on the planet. Scott felt that the best measure of “most successful” would be number of books sold.

In June 1996 his book The Dilbert Principle hit the number-one spot on the hardcover nonfiction list of the New York Times. It stayed in the top three all summer. In November his second book, Dogbert’s Top Secret Management Handbook also made the bestseller list, giving Scott the number-one and number-two positions simultaneously for one week. For that brief period of time, Scott indeed had the “most successful” comic strip on the planet.

As you may have guessed, the person I’m talking about is Scott Adams, the creator of the highly successful Dilbert comic strip. Scott writes about these experiences with affirmations in his book The Dilbert Future. He does not profess to know why it works but leaves the conclusion to the reader. You can buy Scott Adams’ hilarious Dilbert books at any bookstore.

Scott Adams says, “Reporters often ask me if I am surprised at the success of the Dilbert comic strip. I definitely would be so, if not for my bizarre experience with affirmations. As it was, I expected it.”

(This story is from the website www.silvaultramindsystem.com).

Scott Adams’ experience with affirmations makes one wonder – is luck within our control? “

Reading this story that got me interested in affirmations about six months back. Since then I have had countless “coincidences” myself from using affirmations.

It’s really quite amazing how “what we think about and thank about, we bring about”! We are not merely a part of the universe, we are in fact leading edge participants in this unfolding universe.

So how can one use the power of affirmations for one’s benefit ?

Here are some guidelines based on my own experiments:

1) Affirmations should be stated in the present tense (”I am…”; “I can…”; “I choose…” etc.)

2) Affirmations should be stated in positive terms, which evoke the feelings of having already achieved the objective.

3) If possible, include at least one dynamic feeling word in your affirmations (e.g. joyfully) and one action word ending with “-ing” (e.g. deserving).

4) Keep affirmations specific, short and sweet.

5) Repeat affirmations often. Persistent repetition changes ones consistent thoughts, thereby changing one’s perception of reality.

6) Here are a few ways to repeat affirmations:

· Say aloud or silently 5 -10 times.

· Sing or hum affirmations while driving or any other idle time.

· Write down 10 – 20 times twice daily (like Scott Adams did so successfully).

7) Affirmations work best when:

· You can feel the emotional power of what you are saying in your body.

· You add visualization and can vividly see yourself living it and getting all the benefits.

· You release all desire and say them like they are already so.

· You say them soon after waking up and before sleeping; or when looking in your eyes in a mirror; or when gazing at sunrise or sunset set, after meditation, prayer, yoga, pranayama, yoga-nidra or deep relaxation etc. (These methods have a deeper effect on the subconscious mind).

Remember affirmations work without will-power. Add the words “easily” or “naturally” in your affirmations if you wish.

9) They work only when one wants the outcome 100%. If you feel hesitation about an affirmation, check for competing sub-conscious affirmations called “tail-enders.”

10) Some effective ways to deal with tail-enders are:

· Divide them into ‘aspects’ and apply EFT (visit http://www.emofree.com to learn more).

· Really feel the feelings (of resistance). Then simply release them. Allow them to flow out of your being.

11) Aim affirmations on yourself, not on changing others.

12) Occasionally say affirmations from a second and third person perspective for example “(Your name) you are…..” or “(Your name) is……” This makes it seem like someone else is telling us our good qualities and the subconscious mind has less resistance.

13) Add “….or something better” at the end of affirmations. This reduces fixation on specific outcomes. Allow the universe to surprise you with something better than you asked for!

14) Be patient! Try affirmations for at least three months before concluding that they do not work.

May you try and benefit from the power of Affirmations. May you live your highest life!

Don’t miss: Is Luck Within Our Control? Part Two (coming soon!)

You will like these as well!

• Is Luck Within Our Control? Part Two
• The Power of a Smile
• Confessions Of An Optimist
• Why Worry? Be Happy!
• Fortune tellers, positive thinking and personal transformation
• Make Your Glasses Green!
• The New Year
• Six Commandments for a happy Life…
• Every living moment should be one of gratitude
• A Tale Of Two Frogs

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