Make Light of It: Creating Affirmations to Take the Sting out of Stress

What is stressing you out today? Though we try to stop, there is always the next thing.  Somehow it seems that even when things are going well, a stone is in your gym shoe.

At any time, any event can cause you stress, or not.  I have watched people deal with cancer better than I do taking my child back to college.  Surely the life threatening disease is more important, but that is the funny thing about the mind.  Deep in the lizard brain, I’m going to save him from the cold cruel world of hardship….

For me, more often than not rationality does not rule.  This means it is time to talk to the lizard brain in a way it understands, feelings.  Creating an affirmation from your stressor is not hard, just hard to remember under stress.

To develop your affirmation, first you need to figure out what is really getting under your skin.    For example, rather than saying, my son going back to school is stressful, we want to look at the root cause.  Freshman year it was the thought that my baby was leaving, but this summer it is different.  I have been relying on him for clever thoughts, using the fresh college way of looking at the world to break out of my preconceptions.  So really, hard as it is to admit, I’m afraid I’m not clever enough to blog without him (ouch!)

On to the affirmation.  My important words were afraid and clever.  So my affirmations would be something like “I am confident” or “Thoughts flow to me easily” or “I am a successful and confident blogger.”  It may change from day to day as I grow and change or it can stay the same for weeks.  I spent 8 months on “I am willing to change.”

How to use the affirmation?  Put it on your mirror and read it to yourself, looking in your own eyes, 10 times each morning and evening.  Put it on your dashboard, read it as you wait at stop lights.  Use it as a bookmark in your current book.  Find a way to make it part of your life.

Here are the steps, print this out. Feel free to use the back of the paper if you need more space.

  

What causes your stress?	Turn your words around, make an affirmation
(after you are finished, underline the Important words)	(only positive words!)