Subscribe
Posts
Comments

Talking vs. Listening

Waiting not Listening

listening

The opposite of talking isn’t listening.
The opposite of talking is waiting.
Fran Lebowitz

Curiosities

Related Posts

Links of Interest

Boring People

What is a bore?

listen bore boring people

A bore is someone who talks when you wish he would listen.

Ambrose Bierce

Curiosities

Related Posts

Links of Interest

Peace

Expectation for Peace?

peace sri chimnoy

Peace begins when expectation ends.

Sri Chimnoy

Curiosities

Related Posts

Links of Interest

integrity

Sin isn’t the breaking of divine commandments,
it is the breaking of one’s own integrity.
D.H. Lawrence

Curiosities

Related Posts

Links of Interest

Adventure

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
G.K. Chesteron

adventure

Curiosities

Related Posts

Links of Interest

Closed Minds

Open Minds

A good idea can never drop into a closed mind.

closed minds open

Items of Curious Interest

Related Posts

Links of Interest

Original of the Species

Links of Interest

Soul Traveler

The Road to Anywhere/Nowhere

soul traveler

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.

Curiosities

Related Posts

Links of Interest

Life Loves Rain

Celebrate the Weather Every Day

Some people walk in the rain. Others just get wet.  -  Roger Miller

love life

Positive Affirmations Are Negative in Nature

What do we do with the fact that almost 100% of positive affirmations are negative in nature? You disagree with the numbers?

positive affirmationsMost affirmations I see being mouthed are being initiated from a place of deficiency, a wanting to change our state or circumstances to some idea of better. A large part of the effort exerted in positive affirming seems to be an attempt to convince ourselves that we (or life) are more than we believe ourselves to be in the moment – I’m successful. I’m lovable, the world is abundant, God is on my side, etc.

The whole motivation is coming from an unacknowledged and under-explored sense of lack and deficiency. More than that, it is a complete rejection of reality as it is in the moment – the reality that we believe we (life) are lacking.

As I write this, I am sitting in my office. I don’t know of anyone who could come over here and move this building 6 inches with their physical strength much less with a positive affirmation. And yet, there are many people trying to push the entire universe around, to warp and shape it to meet their ideas of what they think they need to be whole or complete or happy.

Why are positive affirmations so appealing? Mostly because they help us avoid pain and suffering – or so we think. Much of the effect of positive affirmations is nothing more than hiding from what we really believe deep down inside, in the dark places we wish to ignore.

happpy affirmations negative thoughtsIt’s a sad, tragic and, at times, a comic affair.

Imagine a lion walking around affirming – I’m king of the jungle, I’m king of the jungle. And yet this is exactly what people are doing with positive affirmations most of the time. The lion’s very nature is that it is a lion. Being king of the jungle is mostly an idea .

Fortunately lions are not as confused as human beings. Lions mostly walk around being lions without suffering from being disconnected from themselves and having a bunch of ideas about who or what they should be.

The most affirming experience we humans can have is to land in our true nature.  A moment of perceiving the real is more powerful than a lifetime of words. Well intentioned, but misguided efforts at positive affirmations would be better spent in learning how to settle down and allow what is truly real in us arise into consciousness.

The world is abundant. Life is on our side. We are awesome and wonderful. It’s the true state of affairs. If we can’t see it, then the more productive course of action is to explore – why not. Trying to convince ourselves that the sky is blue when, in fact, the sky is blue – is crazy behavior.

As the saying goes – the only way out is through. Explore the deficiencies, the hidden beliefs. Open them up to the light of awareness. The truth will set us free. The false dissolves. Only the real remains.

Related Posts

Links of Interest

Older Posts »