Five Types of Affirmations for Personal Development

An Article By Jeanie Marshall

Five categories or types of affirmations support you in experiencing powerful personal transformation. These five types of affirmations have emerged from my consulting work with clients and workshop participants over many years.

DailyAffirm for Personal Development

Popular Affirmations

Many popular affirmations are beautiful, indeed, they are quite extraordinary! However, if you don't believe them, they can be useless or even counterproductive. If you say an affirmation you don't believe, saying it repeatedly won't make you believe it without a lot of effort or frustration. Actually, the repetition can build up greater resistance to believing it.

The "fake it 'till you make it" school of thought can work for some people for a while. My experience is that deep transformation rarely takes place with that approach, unless a lot of other techniques are practiced concurrently. Also, when intention is really strong, any technique at all will work!

Consider this example: Sam feels unworthy. He has had many experiences that he can point to that justify his feelings and his belief in his own unworthiness and low self esteem. Saying "I am worthy" is not likely to erase his feelings of unworthiness, and, instead, is more likely to prompt an emphatic reaction, such as, "Oh, no, I'm not!" If Sam doesn't deal with the resistance to the affirmation, he carries a conflict with him as he repeats the words and lives his life.

The Process

I developed DailyAffirm as a process so that you can work through the ideas day by day. The process begins in the same way that I suggest you begin anything, with intention. Further, I suggest that you write your statements of intention.

If you prefer, you may work with affirmations in every category concurrently, or you may focus on a different category each day or each week. It's important that the affirmations you select feel natural and appropriate, which may require that you change words in the ones I use as examples, or let these inspire you to create ones you prefer. You can also develop your own from scratch when you understand the principle of the five different types of affirmations.

An empowering personal development process emerges by using these five types of affirmations in a systematic way to assist you in embracing an affirmation that you desire to believe but initially do not. If you have an intention and a desire to say and believe "I am powerful," start by releasing powerlessness, open to the possibility of being powerful, affirm an intention and readiness to live in your power, claim your power, and let the idea of powerfulness integrate into your life.

That last sentence gives you the entire process succinctly. Following are the five types of affirmations described with a few examples of each type.

Releasing/Cleansing Affirmations

The purpose of Releasing and/or Cleansing Affirmations is to let go of unwanted and unneeded stuff. Especially, they help you let go of resistance. They allow you to purify your system. These affirmations stimulate the release of toxins, such as, negative thought forms, repressed or suppressed emotions, old memories, negative bonds with others, depressing consensus reality, and illusions of all sorts. For many, this is the most difficult of all the five types of affirmations.

Examples:

• I give myself permission to release toxicity from every level of my energy field.
• I rescind outdated vows of poverty, celibacy, struggle, silence, and unworthiness.
• I release resistance.
• I let go of old programs that keep me stuck in old patterns.
• I let go of everything I do not want or need for my highest good.
  

Receiving/Accepting Affirmations

The purpose of Receiving and/or Accepting Affirmations is to open to allow something to be. They allow us to receive goodness from the Universe. They neutralize the misuse of energy; that is, they can reverse illness or other density. In addition, they help us shift the attention from disempowering actions such as, "getting" or "taking" to more freeing concepts such as, "receiving" and "allowing" and "accepting."

Examples:

• I open to the gifts of the Universe.
• I allow abundance to flow through me.
• I accept support when I need it.
• Dear God, please let me know what to do in a way that I can understand.
• I accept peace and joy in all aspects of my life.

Being/Intending Affirmations

The purpose of Being and/or Intending Affirmations is to ground your purpose, especially your higher purpose. These affirmations enhance conscious awareness of your intention about something or about your mission in life. In addition, these affirmations can deepen your understanding of your reason for being and/or acting generally or in a specific situation. They can be used to enhance any and all actions that follow.

Examples:

• I know that this is for the highest good of all concerned.
• I deepen my awareness of the consciousness from which actions spring.
• I live my mission.
• My intention is to live free from struggle, fear, and hopelessness.
• I remember.
  

Acting/Claiming Affirmations

The purpose of Acting and/or Claiming Affirmations is to bring something into manifestation or to direct the energy of your intention to appropriate manifestation. These affirmations bring into the physical experience those ideas that you hold in your mind and/or heart. In addition, these affirmations help you to claim your power and establish boundaries in relationships.

Examples:

• I act with high intention and purposeful awareness.
• I step into the world to live my mission in every word and action.
• I demand my good right now.
• I make every act an act of love (or freedom or mastery or hope, etc.).
• I am powerful. I am worthy. I am loveable. I am free.
  

Integrating/Embodying Affirmations

The purpose of Integrating and/or Embodying Affirmations is to allow the energy and meaning of the affirmations to merge with your consciousness. Affirmations and ideas that don't fit or resonate, drop away. Integrating/Embodying Affirmations support you in knowing more deeply -- integrating -- what you have learned rather than introducing new information. While you usually have only 2-3 days for integrating, they are essential for closure of all the types of affirmations in the process.

Examples:

• I integrate trust into every aspect of my life.
• I breathe love into my job, my body, my relationships.
• Yes to Life!
• Today is an opportunity for peace.
• I breathe in abundance, letting my whole body feel its energy.
  

Affirmations in Your Life

As you work more and more with intentional affirmations -- written, spoken, read, chanted, meditated upon -- you'll make them part of your lifestyle. If you decide to work through this DailyAffirm process with its five different types of affirmations, you'll master a process for moving through any stumbling block to help you to manifest what you truly desire.

Affirmations are already working for (or against!) you. It's your job to select the ones you want to live by. Remember, you're already using affirmations every time you think or speak. If your current words are disempowering, you can intentionally change them to ones that you choose to live by.

Copyright © 2008 Marshall House. All rights reserved. Jeanie Marshall, Personal Development Consultant and Coach, has developed Empowering Personal Development to encourage you on your path at http://www.empowering-personal-development.com

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This Article focuses on the Types of Affirmations explored in DailyAffirm

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