Used to be, I never “got” affirmations, but I think I’ve finally figured out how to use them. I’m dying to share the way I found into using them, so you can use them, too. They’re free, so why not?
Using affirmations is part of using a tapping script. With a tapping script, you feel a twinge of some physical feeling that you’d rather not even have, a feeling that hampers your enjoyment of the world. Like, in my case, abject terror.
A tapping script begins with a flat-out declaration of something you’d rather not feel, and you tap points on your body, face, head, and hands while stating it, acknowledging it, accepting that, yeah, you’re having this icky feeling. A couple minutes of tapping seems to drain the icky feelings of their energy, their importance. You can fine-tune by adjusting the language you use however you like until you find words that work. You check the feeling in your body and rate it again to see how it has changed.
Tapping, step two (This is the affirmation part):
After you feel fairly neutral about the feeling that used to oppress you, you shift into tapping on the feeling you DO want to have instead. Interestingly, tapping on a feeling you DO want does NOT diminish it, but rather anchors it. You tap until you feel comfortable with it and your body feels different.
Here’s how I first learned to use affirmations, by deploying the affirmation part of tapping:
Several years ago, I was visiting my sister Kam in Austin, Texas. I’ve been in love with Austin ever since I first visited her there sometime in the last century. I love the vibe I get, I love the way weird is normal there, I love the way people there value art and music and respect artists and musicians. I love the mix of cultures and ethnicities. I love the coffee culture, I love the food culture. You can find great food and great coffee in Austin everywhere you go. (YAY! Amy’s ice cream!) The summers are hot but not muggy, so I’m more comfortable in Austin in August than I am in Kentucky (which I also feel very connected to).
Immediately I wanted to move to Austin.
But because Austin is SO cool — perhaps especially my sister’s friends are so cool — that I felt I was not cool enough to live in Austin. Like I didn’t deserve to live in such a cool place. I didn’t measure up. I wasn’t badass enough, I wasn’t audacious enough, I wasn’t artist or musician enough. I was just some mediocre nerd who was limited only to visiting Austin on her vacations from her mediocre job.
Luckily I became aware of my feelings, and when I did, I looked at them more objectively. Would I say nasty things like these to somebody else?
No. It would never occur to me to say this to anyone else. Not even under my breath. So it’s not fair for me to talk to myself this way, either.
I imagined observing someone who was just like me, but not me, and who wanted to live in Austin, and who felt she wasn’t cool enough to live there. What would I say to her?
I’d say, “That’s bullshit. Of course you’re cool enough to live in Austin. And you can become even cooler when you live here.”
It was easy for me to believe about this person who was just like me but not me, that of course she deserved to live in Austin, that she was cool enough to fit perfectly in the home of Amy’s Ice Cream, the Salt Lick, and The Backyard.
So I started saying those encouraging and true things to myself while walking around a cool neighborhood in Austin and tapping. I walked the sidewalks, admiring the brightly painted little bungalows with their funky xeriscaped yards full of tough and native aloes and fig trees, heirloom China roses, and NO lawns, making mental notes about what I saw that I wanted to plant in my sister’s yard.
Nobody even looked at me strangely.
Tap, tap, tap on my forehead. . .
“I deserve to live in Austin.”
Tap, tap, on my cheekbones. . . .
“I’m cool enough to function in Austin.”
Tap, tap, on my collarbone . . .
“In fact, I’ll be a great addition to Austin’s smorgasbord of creative people.”
Tap, tap . . .
“I belong here as much as anybody.”
Tap. . .
“I belong here.”
“I belong here.”
“I belong here.”
Although I do not currently reside in Austin, I am often, when I visit, assumed to be a native. Somebody who grew up in Austin. I love these moments. And they feel true.
Maybe in some important way, I AM an Austin, Texas, native, who is looking for a way to get back there comfortably and joyfully.
Except I’d hate leaving my music friends here in bluegrass country.
References
Craig, Gary. The EFT Manual, 2nd ed. Energy Psychology Press, 2011.
Ortner, Jessica. The Tapping Solution to Create Lasting Change, 2nd. ed. Hay House Inc., 2019.
Think UP! 