Why do positive affirmations feel so negative?

Positive Affirmations…I’m not a fan. Personally, they annoy the hell out of me. If they happen to work for you, that is great, keep at it; This particular blog post is not for you then. But if you are like me, and you find the experience of trying to embrace positive affirmations…well…not so positive, then keep reading. I’ve got a different approach.

I was reading an awesome book this week. It was absolutely rocking my world, challenging me in some really important ways, and teaching me a lot. About half-way through, the author changed her approach and embarked on a flowery sermon about positive affirmations. She lost me instantly. So, you are probably wondering why I am so negative about positive affirmations.  I’m a therapist, I’m supposed to be feeding you all this think-positive-stuff, right? It’s important what we think, right?

Yes! Of course, it is important what we think! Our thoughts that we have about ourselves might very well be the most important contributing factor in the quality of life that we live. Our self-reflections literally direct the course of our life. What we think about ourselves is interwoven into our self-esteem, self-worth, all of the decisions we make, and ultimately determines the types of experience we have. So, yes, absolutely, your inner dialog is incredibly important. You should not just accept all of the negative crap that you believe about yourself. This will not benefit you or anyone in your life. And, if you do not feel good about yourself, you need to work on changing that inner dialog.

So, how do we do that? Most people (therapists, mentors, coaches, etc.) claim that positive affirmations are the way. These inspiring leaders will often suggest that you write little sticky notes that say wonderfully positive statements such as; “I love myself” or “I am worthy” and paste them all over the house. The intention is that you will read them multiple times a day and begin to reprogram your brain. And if you are really serious about making these positive affirmations work, then you are supposed to stand in front of the bathroom mirror, (naked, of course), look yourself in the eye and say; “I love myself. And if you continue to practice this, you will magically convince your brain, that you do, in fact, really love yourself. And then your self-esteem will soar.

It has been my experience, (and if you are still reading this, probably your experience as well) that this simply does not work. What really happens, is that as you are standing there, (shivering, because you are naked) gazing at yourself in the mirror, you probably have trouble looking yourself in the eye…because it feels fricking weird! So right from the very first step, you already know that you aren’t doing this right. And then, you force yourself to say to your mirror image something that feels corny like, “I am beautiful.” And this is what happens…your brain argues with you! “No, you’re not,” it says. “Have you seen the size of your thighs? You need to lose 10 pounds and you know it.  By the way, your hair looks like shit too.” (etc.).  At this point, you have 2 choices: you can either give up on the positive affirmation thing or you can engage in a ridiculous battle with your own mind in which you try to bully it into believing what you are telling it. And, ultimately, you walk away feeling frustrated. Heck, sometimes, you actually walk away feeling a little bit worse about yourself because not only are you hideous, and unlovable, but you can’t even do a simple thing like positive affirmations. So, all you have managed to accomplish is reinforcing your belief that you are hopeless, can’t do anything right, and might as well not even try.

Even though I have just ranted about positive affirmations, I am not actually against them. What I am against, is how we approach them. To have positive affirmations be effective, they need to be believable. You need to tell yourself something that you can actually accept. They have to be something that is reasonable; Something that your brain is not going to argue with or try to refute. Positive affirmations are like running: You don’t start with running a marathon the first day. You start with a quarter mile, then build up to a half mile, then 1 mile. You build up stamina, and tolerance so that you can successfully reach your goal.

Back to the bathroom mirror. Instead of charging out of the gate saying, “I am beautiful” you might want to try something more accessible, a statement that you actually might be able to believe such as; “I have really beautiful eyes” or “When I smile, I am really beautiful.” And then your brain will most likely respond “You are so right, your eyes are beautiful, and everyone tells you this all of the time. You really need to start believing the good things that people tell you…” And this is how it works. For positive affirmations to be effective, you have to get your brain to buy into what you are saying. Your mind knows when you are lying to it; It knows when you do not believe something. So, your positive affirmations need to be phrased in a way that your brain will believe.

For example, if you want to work on your self-esteem and your positive affirmation, “I love myself” is not resonating, you could try altering it to something like; “I am working hard to love myself better” or “I honestly want to love myself.” You could adjust an overreaching, “I am worthy” to something more specific like “I am a good person and worthy of good people in my life.” Positive affirmations are most useful when they are specifically tailored for you. Here are some of my favorite examples from clients:

“I am capable of learning new things.”

“I am learning to love myself.”

“I am making better choices.”

“I am proud of myself for trying.”

“I am becoming the person that I want to be.”  

“Every day I am closer to my best-self.”

“I am starting to heal my trauma.”

These types of positive affirmations work because they are statements that your brain cannot refute. They are powerful because they retrain your brain to focus on the good aspects of you rather than just the negative. And, these types of statements are foundations that can easily be expanded. For instance, with a little practice and time, you can increase the reach of your affirmations with statements such as; “I am making a lot of progress” and “I really like who I am becoming.” At some point, your positive affirmation might actually become; “Even if I am not perfect, I feel really good about myself.”

So, in the end, I am not really suggesting that you ditch positive affirmations, but that you ditch your old style of positive affirmations. If positive affirmations have not worked for you, or you have felt that they are annoying or silly, try this different approach. Experiment a little and see how it feels. I promise, it won’t feel as phony, or forced. When you give yourself positive feedback that you know is honest and believable, it feels easy. It’s not a battle. You can take it in. And that’s the point of positive affirmations telling yourself good things that you can actually accept and ultimately believe.  Good luck with your small steps towards, “I really do love myself!”

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