You have probably been using or at least are familiar with positive affirmations. Yet you might, at least at times, doubt their efficiency or even believe they are pointless. You might have questions or doubts. You might have bad days when certain questions keep bothering you.
How can I keep a positive attitude towards my life and myself? How can I stay away from that negative voice inside my head that keeps creeping out, telling me things like “You don’t really think you can pull that off, do you?” or “You’re not as strong as you think you are” or very simply “You’re not good enough, just give up already!”.
Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you are somehow battling against yourself, trying to get those words and sentences out of your head? Do you ever feel like it’s hard to have a positive voice overcome the negative one?
Well, I did feel that way, and sometimes I still do. There are days when it’s easier, days when I feel more motivated. And days where it’s much much harder. And in those tough days, I think about a story I heard some time ago that struck me and made me realize how everything is in my power.
A story of two wolves
It’s a Cherokee story about two wolves, that you might have heard of. The first time it was told to me, years ago, it was given a slightly different interpretation from the original one, that I will now explain.
The story says that one day, an old Cherokee was talking to his grandson, teaching him about life and the struggles that we all face daily. He was saying that inside each one of us there live two wolves, a black one and a white one. The black wolf represents all that is negative: darkness, hatred, fear, envy, pride, and intolerance. The white wolf represents all that is good and positive: peace, forgiveness, hope, light, patience, and love. These two wolves keep fighting against each other, every day.
At this point, the grandson asked the old Cherokee “So who wins the fight?” and the old man replied, “The wolf that I feed more.”
The two wolves, in the version of the story that I heard, were compared to the little voices inside our heads. There is a black one, negative and discouraging, and a white one, positive and motivating. We all have these two voices in our heads that are either pushing us down or lifting us. They can be discouraging us from attempting anything for fear of failure, instilling in us the belief that we are not good enough or we don’t deserve whatever it is that we are trying to achieve. Or they can motivate us to take action, feed us with the energy and the fire to reach out for our goals, with the belief that we can achieve anything we set our mind for.
The power of positive affirmations
Which voice will win? Well, the one that you feed the most. The one that you allow to talk to you. And it’s really all up to you. You truly have the power to shut those negative voices up and give space to the positive ones.
And if those negative voices keep trying to make their way out, you have the positive one speak louder and louder. Until you can no longer hear the negative ones.
Here is where positive affirmations can change the way you live your life. Maybe, in the beginning, you can say them but deep down you don’t really believe in them. That’s when you have to keep saying them!
The more you practice positive affirmations, the more energy you get from them. And the more energy you get, the more motivated you will be to do what it takes to reach your goals. And the more you do, the more results you will get, and those results will finally prove to you that you actually can achieve what you set your mind to. This is what is going to help you believe in the power of positive affirmations.
It’s not rocket science, it’s actually very simple. You are what you believe. It’s the self-fulfilling prophecy, ever heard of it? I will get back to that in the next article. For now, I will leave you with a Hindu quote from the Bhagavad Gita:
“You are what you believe in. You become that which you believe you can become”
Now go ahead and practice those affirmations until you believe in them!
