The power of Affirmations and how they relate to your finances

Affirmations:

Affirmations are power statements that you can say to yourself over and over leading your sub-conscious to believe they are true, thus eventually making them true in real life. Affirmations must be stated in the present tense as this is the only way that our subconscious can consider them. Relevant affirmations could be as follows:

1. "I am debt free".
2. "I don’t use credit cards"
3. "I only eat out twice a week"

How long does it take for an affirmation to work – the question is similar to how long is a piece of string. It could take 500 times it could take 2000 times. But the important thing to remember, 2000 times isn’t that much as long as the goal is worth it. From step 5 above, you should have ascertained that the goal is worth it!

Affirmations can be both positive and negative. How many times have you said this won’t work and it hasn’t? Affirmations also work in the animal kingdom as well. Circus Lions are lead to believe that the light whip that the tamer carries will hurt them – they have been brought up with this through their childhood and carry the fear in there later life. In Thailand, elephants are lead on a piece of string that they believe they cannot break. This is because in their childhood they are trained with heavy chains that cannot break.

Are you using positive or negative affirmations in your life or when talking to your children? Below are two of my favourite examples, both actual scientific experiments (the second one would be easier to try at home than the first!!!)

Negative Affirmation Example :

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here – a very negative affirmation as the end result could be starvation as no monkeys will go near the banana.


Positive Affirmation Example

This is an experiment you can do at home, you need one chair and six people. To start have one person sit on a chair, choose four people to life the person on the chair and one to instruct.

Get the four people to stand around the person in the chair ready to lift. The four people should clasp their hands together with their first fingers from both their hands sticking out together. Two people will life the person up on the underams, the other two will life from under the knees. On the count of three have the four people simultaneously try and life the person – chances are that they won’t or they will struggle.

Now the teacher plays there part. Putting a hand down on each of the persons head (finishing with the person in the chair) they say ‘heavy as lead’. Once this is done they place a hand on everybody’s head taking it off saying ‘light as a feather’ again finishing on the person siting down. The four people are then instructed to life with a surprising result – the person in the chair is lifted quite easily into the air.