Experience Your Greatness: Affirm Your Magnificence

A Self Development Technique

Greatness is within you. And within everyone. That is true whether you recognize it or not. It's true whether you try to hide it or exaggerate its opposite. It's true whether you affirm it or not. It's true whether you are focused on your personal development and growth or not.

I notice that many people are determined to acknowledge or affirm their disease, inadequacies, hard-luck stories, and other struggles — often in graphic or humorous detail. Even many in the helping professions advocate this, accusing people of "denial" if they don't discuss and fully acknowledge and repeatedly tell stores about the not-wanted conditions in their lives. Unfortunately, they don't understand that when focusing on the not-wanted conditions, they're denying their greatness and their magnificence.

You get to choose the focus of your attention. In fact, that dynamic of choice is what makes this such a grand and expansive world.

Affirm Your Magnificence

I advocate that you affirm your magnificence — in your thoughts, your words, your songs, your imaginings, your dreams, and your actions.

Every thought is an affirmation. "The sky is blue" is an affirmation. If the sky you're looking at is actually filled with dark clouds at the time you say "the sky is blue," then you're affirming something you don't believe, which means that you're contradicting yourself. You have a right to do that.

On the subject of the sky, a contradiction will probably not make much difference in your life. However, in other situations, contradicting yourself can keep you from experiencing whatever you most want to experience.

"I want the sky to be blue" is also an affirmation.

The Focus of Your Attention

What do you do if what you're observing is not to your liking? You have options. You are constantly making decisions for empowering your life, or for disempowering it.

If the subject you're focusing on is really important to you, start by understanding that the more you observe it, think about it, comment on it, or energize it in any way, the more you hold the condition in place and/or create other similar situations. So, if you don't want to create more of the same, a valuable next step is to identify what you want to affirm, even if you cannot not yet fully affirm it.

Affirming what you want to believe is a powerful bridge to move you in the direction of the changes you want to make. The direction in which you're moving is the direction of your creation. What you focus on, you create.

What you believe is important. What you believe is what is true for you, although not necessarily true for others. That's an important point, one that usually people can readily agree to as a general idea. However, when it comes to a specific situation, this can be much more difficult. Beliefs change (Thank Goodness!). Beliefs change all the time. Just ponder for a moment what you believed on a specific topic when you were in elementary school and what you believe now on that same topic.

Even though what you believe is important, what you want to believe is also important. If you believe in your inadequacy, but want to believe in your greatness, do you know which will win out? It's whichever is stronger in you.

Beliefs and desires are potent. So ask yourself, "which do I want, non-greatness or greatness?" Your experience of either will unfold according to the extent to which you give your attention to one or the other. You can find greatness everywhere: in yourself, in the mountains, in the clouds, in the flowers, in other people.

Affirming Your Magnificence

Not all your affirmations need to be said out loud or repeated incessantly. Remember, "the sky is blue" is an affirmation. What you speak about you affirm; what you think about, you affirm; what you focus on, you affirm. "Affirm" means to say yes to, to maintain as true. You say yes to what you give your attention to.

You're already in your own unique relationship with experiencing or not experiencing your greatness, with affirming or not affirming your magnificence. Either you affirm your magnificence easily, occasionally, rarely, or never. Find your own starting place, and start there. If you're a helping professional, you may assist others in developing their relationship with their magnificence. If so, keep in mind that it's important to help them find their unique starting places.

Finding the Starting Place

Choose one of these four scenarios you relate to the most closely. Or read them all! Suggestions for each follow below:

You have trouble affirming your magnificence generally.

Generally, you affirm your magnificence, yet in specific situations you cannot.

You find it easy to affirm someone else's magnificence.

Professionally, you help others affirm their magnificence.

You have trouble affirming your magnificence generally.

If you're one who has difficulty believing in or affirming how wonderful you are, start here.

First, find peace that you're where you are. Let it be O. K. that you believe as you do.

Next, make a decision: do you want to believe in your own magnificence?

If the answer is yes, then affirm that you want to believe in or affirm your own magnificence. That can be a very powerful step to move from not believing to landing on the thought that you want to believe in your magnificence. Make the decision.

If the answer is no, then I do wonder why you're reading this and suggest that you go do something you enjoy and return to this when you can say yes.

Next, live with and affirm your desire to believe in your magnificence and/or your greatness. As the resonance of the desire becomes familiar, you can more easily step into affirming your magnificence. Take your time; enjoy the journey. When the desire becomes familiar, you'll begin to believe what you want to believe.

Generally you affirm your magnificence, yet in specific situations you cannot.

If this describes you, you may find that you ordinarily make a big deal about your disappointing experiences and minimize your great experiences. If so, you may only need to reverse the emphasis: dramatize or exaggerate your empowering experiences and minimize your disempowering ones.

First, it's helpful if you accept that you're inconsistent about your relationship with your magnificence. After all, it means that you have experiences of your greatness.

Next, identify a situation or place in which you do or did experience your magnificence. Instead of discounting this experience, expand the idea and feelings about your magnificence in that situation or place. Breathe the energy; resonate with it; identify clearly the essence of magnificence.

Next, transfer the essence or feeling to another situation (or day or place or relationship) where your magnificence eludes you. If you drop the essence along the way, say "oops" and pick it up. Be gentle with yourself.

Repeat, as needed, at least ten times a day.

You find it easy to affirm someone else's magnificence.

If this describes you, start here. Enjoying affirming one person's magnificence.

Feel what it's like to be in the energy of affirming magnificence. I'm not suggesting that you become or emulate that person; I'm suggesting that you feel the resonance of affirming magnificence in a situation that's easy for you. Affirming magnificence is affirming magnificence. You'll be fed by this energy, regardless of the intended receiver.

When the essence of magnificence has become familiar in one scenario, transfer or translate it to yourself. Breathe it in.

Repeat, as needed, until you resonate with magnificence so strongly that touching non-magnificence is uncomfortable.

Professionally, you help others affirm their magnificence.

If you assist others to experience their greatness and affirm their magnificence, you play an extraordinary role. You already know the skills to move from a disempowering to an empowering situation. Consider:

One of the greatest gifts you can give another is to hold a vision of another's magnificence until the person can do it for himself or herself.

Help the person to minimize the negative story-telling and maximize the positive story-telling. Listen quickly to the negative stories; linger on the positive stories. This person creates what he or she gives attention to; you'll give a gift of encouraging a more wonderful future by gently shifting the person's attention from the negative to the positive.

Your client (or friend, or employee) has a starting place. You'll be in another place. Find a way to honor this person's history without energizing it or joining him or her in the pit of despair. Become more interested in where a person wants to be than in where a person has been.

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Find Patterns of Speech that Support Good Feelings

Of course, the possibilities of phrases, statements, or affirmations about magnificence are unlimited. And some are very obvious. For example, you could think or say "I am great" or "I am magnificent." Those, incidentally, are true statements, whether you believe them or not.

However, I'm not suggesting that you go around saying out loud to everyone, "I am magnificent." That would definitely be a deterrent to positive relationships. However, resonating to the idea or essence of that statement will draw others to you who either already believe in their own magnificence or who want to believe in their own magnificence. Like attracts like.

More important than the precise word or phrase that follows "I am . . ." is understanding that you're affirming anything that follows "I am . . ." So, as you're considering how to apply the essence of this article in words and phrases, you might want to simply pay attention to what follows "I am . . ."

Practice, Practice, Practice

You create your life by the thoughts you practice. The more intentional you are about making your thoughts positive, the more you will experience your power, greatness, and magnificence.

This Technique is about Greatness and affirming it

See Additional Techniques in the Self Development Techniques Section

See also, The Power of Intention and Writing a Statement of Intention

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