Positively Well

Something For Every Body

By Millie Jackson

Our thoughts and beliefs are choices.  We can change our lives by changing our minds. Louise Hay, metaphysical teacher and author of many self-help books including You Can Heal Your Life and The Power is Within You, introduced me to the transformative power of conscious, affirmative thinking.

For well over a decade, I have been applying Hay’s simple and effective tools for transforming negative, unproductive thoughts into positive, life-enhancing ones. Changing beliefs and thoughts about my body has been an important part of improving my health and wellness.

Because we accept our beliefs as truth and act accordingly, they become self-fulfilling prophesies.  What we believe about our bodies, therefore, plays a big role in determining our health.  Hay encourages us to expand beyond the limitations and restrictions of our learned ways of thinking.  We can explore what our parents didn’t know to teach us.

“Self-talk”, Hay explains, sets up our mental atmosphere and becomes the basis of the words we speak.  Our thoughts and our words are constantly creating our experiences. What kind of atmosphere are you creating between your ears?

Becoming aware of what you say to yourself will help you identify opportunities to insert more positivity.  Anything less than a positive thought is headspace you could be using more productively.  When you hear yourself say something negative, think or say something like “erase”, “replace”, or “think again” and insert a more uplifting, empowering phrase.  Envision ideal outcomes instead of imagining worst case scenarios. You are in charge of your thoughts; you can cultivate a healthier mind from which to manifest a healthier life.  

I regularly use positive affirmations as suggested by Louise Hay.  All words and thoughts are affirmations--some positive, some negative.  Hay describes “doing affirmations” as making definitive, positive statements to create something in your life or to remove something from your life.

Hay likens doing affirmations to planting seeds.  A plant doesn’t immediately grow from a new seed, but over time with some attention and cultivation, seeds germinate, roots take hold and new life sprouts.  Repetition is important in cultivating new thoughts and beliefs.

Hay teaches that the key to getting successful results with affirmations is to keep them personal, positive, and present tense (the 3 P’s).  Keep them personal--“I”, “my”, “me” statements; we can only change ourselves.  Keep them positive--affirming what you do want versus using words like “not”, “don’t”, and “won’t”.  Keep them present tense-- “I am”,  “I have”.  Using “I will have” or “I am going to” puts your affirmation indefinitely in the future rather than active in your current reality.

Pay attention to what Neale Donald Walsch, in his book Conversations with God, calls  “sponsoring thoughts”--the thought behind a thought.  It is the sponsoring thought that becomes operative in a prayer, which is a type of affirmation.  For instance, if you pray for more money with the sponsoring thought “I need more money”, “need money” is operative and becomes what you affirm.  A more productive approach could include an affirmation like “money flows easily into my life”.

My recovery from chronic illness involved changing the view of myself as a helpless victim of a toxic world.  I eliminated the expression “my allergies” and replaced “I’m getting sick” with “I’m getting well”.  I reprogrammed my thinking and language to align with the health I wanted.

Do you label your body, claiming disorders and dysfunction (“my bum knee”, “my bad back”, “my arthritis, diabetes, …”, “I’m fat”)?  These are disempowering affirmations that contribute to perpetuating undesirable conditions.  Replacing unproductive labels with positive, loving affirmations plants the seeds for a healthier life.  Your body is constantly replacing its cells; insert productive influences into the creation of your new cells via positive affirmations (“my knees are flexible and strong”, “I have a healthy immune system”).  One great guideline for “self-talk” is, “if you wouldn’t say it to a friend, don’t say it to yourself.”

If you are not as healthy as you would like to be, try changing your mind.  Thinking is free and something you do anyway, so working with your mind is a cost and time-effective way to improve your health.  Affirm the life that you want and begin feeling positively well.