Why You Shouldn't Lie to Yourself

[Acting Like Godot]

There is a finer point about the LOA, positive affirmations etc which many people miss. This article examines the problem:

July 3, 2009
Think positive? Think again

WASHINGTON - REPEATING positive statements such as 'I am a lovable person' or 'I will succeed' makes some people feel worse about themselves instead of raising their self-esteem, a study showed on Thursday.

'From at least as far back as Norman Vincent Peale's (1952) 'The Power of Positive Thinking,' the media have advocated saying favourable things to oneself,' said the study by Canadian psychologists, which was published in 'Psychological Science.'

It cites a popular self-help magazine that advises its readers to: 'Try chanting: I'm powerful, I'm strong, and nothing in this world can stop me,' but says the practice doesn't work for everyone.

Positive self-statements make people who are already down on themselves feel worse rather than better, found the study conducted by psychologists Joanne Wood and John Lee of the University of Waterloo and Elaine Perunovic of the University of New Brunswick.

For the study, the psychologists asked people with low self-esteem and people with high self-esteem to repeat the phrase: 'I am a lovable person,' and then measured participants' moods and feelings about themselves.

What they found is that individuals who started out with low self-esteem felt worse after repeating the positive self-statement.

'I think that what happens is that when a low self-esteem person repeats positive thoughts, they probably have contradictory thoughts,' Ms Wood told AFP.

'So, if they're saying 'I'm a lovable person,' they might be thinking, 'Well, I'm not always lovable' or 'I'm not lovable in this way,' and these contradictory thoughts may overwhelm the positive thoughts,' she said.

Although positive thinking does appear to be effective when it's part of a broader programme of therapy, on its own it tends to have the reverse effect of what it is supposed to do, said Ms Wood, urging self-help books, magazines and TV shows to stop sending a message that just chanting a positive mantra will raise self-esteem.

'It's frustrating to people when they try it and it doesn't work for them,' Ms Wood told AFP. -- AFP

EXACTLY. The idea is NOT to tell yourself things which aren't currently true. For example, if you feel very frustrated about a certain matter, the correct approach is NOT to tell yourself "I feel great about it!" because you obviously are not.

The correct approach is to pick your way around your thoughts, finding more positive ways to look at your situation, which are genuinely believable and plausible to yourself. And the way to know whether a particular way of thinking is more positive or not is to pay attention to your emotions.

Eg if a certain line of thinking leads you from feeling "very frustrated", to merely "frustrated", then that's a positive line of thinking. If another line of thinking then leads you from feeling "frustrated" to feeling "slightly annoyed", then it is also a positive line of thinking. And later on, you find thoughts which lead you from feeling "slightly annoyed" to feeling "calm", then that works too.

As you align your thoughts, your reality changes along with them, allowing you to push it gently, gently, gently into a more pleasing form. But the process is never about deceiving yourself about what currently is true for you.

[Daffy Duck]

100% agreed. This is the same thing I learned from Brian Tracy and others about self-talk.

Positive self-talk only works if you believe in it. If you tell yourself "I'm awesome" but don't really believe in it, then you're just lying to yourself and making things worse.

[MacFly]

very interesting

I always thought about it as a critical part.

[TheColonel]

There's an EFT methodology that's been helpful to me lately..

'Even though I've been feeling anxiety about money lately, I choose to feel excitement and gratitude for the financial opportunities which are opening up to me from expected and unexpected sources'

[StacyT]

Originally Posted by TheColonel

'Even though I've been feeling anxiety about money lately, I choose to feel excitement and gratitude for the financial opportunities which are opening up to me from expected and unexpected sources'

I love this - thanks for sharing it!

[What3ver]

And that is why I never do intentions.

[StacyT]

I used to never do positive affirmations, because they made me feel really uncomfortable and phony.

Just recently I began doing them again, and with great results. Now, I only use affirmations that make me feel good (not uncomfortable). I can tell right off the bat if I'm saying something that doesn't jive with my level of consciousness. Then I take it down a notch - it's definitely a slow building process.

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by What3ver

And that is why I never do intentions.

Ah, but we all do intentions.

Every day it seems I hear someone say, "Ahh I was so dumb" or "I can't do that" or "I'm not that smart" or "I'm really frustrated." I also hear people say "I did it" and "I'm ready" and "I completed this" and so on. Every day people are throwing out these intentions and affirmations.

The two important questions are:
1. Are they saying these things consciously?
2. Is it working for them?

If the answer is yes to both, then that's great.

[Strem2]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

...

The correct approach is to pick your way around your thoughts, finding more positive ways to look at your situation, which are genuinely believable and plausible to yourself. And the way to know whether a particular way of thinking is more positive or not is to pay attention to your emotions.

Eg if a certain line of thinking leads you from feeling "very frustrated", to merely "frustrated", then that's a positive line of thinking. If another line of thinking then leads you from feeling "frustrated" to feeling "slightly annoyed", then it is also a positive line of thinking. And later on, you find thoughts which lead you from feeling "slightly annoyed" to feeling "calm", then that works too.

As you align your thoughts, your reality changes along with them, allowing you to push it gently, gently, gently into a more pleasing form. But the process is never about deceiving yourself about what currently is true for you.

This is great! And there are two parts of your mind, your conscious and your unconscious. Your conscious brain only controls about 5% of your thought and activity so we don't have to worry about what's logical or timely. It is your unconscious that we really have to aim at. That's why night time affirmations work better than day time ones, or meditative ones better than wide awake ones. Affirmations done in the mirror are very powerful because it is someone (else!) saying these things to us.

And, as ALG says, since it's not going to help too much if we say A, and our feelings are saying, no, no, it's B. We are canceling out the affirmation. So, there are some tricky ways to get the message across:

Anything we hear goes into our subconscious. So, if we are saying mean and demeaning things to our partner or our children or about the neighbor next door or the guy who just cut us off on the highway, our unconscious takes all that in as if it was said to us!

Conversely, if you don't believe that you are great, but you believe that your partner is great, say it out loud A LOT. It will help you too. This is the other reason to celebrate another's success. It will help you to believe in success.

- Nancy

[CarolM]

EXACTLY. The idea is NOT to tell yourself things which aren't currently true. For example, if you feel very frustrated about a certain matter, the correct approach is NOT to tell yourself "I feel great about it!" because you obviously are not.

Thanks for sharing the article/study.

I agree with this. It's pretty self defeating to lie to ourselves to build ourselves up. We may want to feel great about a situation or an event, or about ourselves, but that doesn't make it equate in our brain if it is not true to us in the first place.

I think this is where radical acceptace comes into play. "No, I may not be a loveable person at this time, but I am moving towards being a loveable person." That may actually get a person to a point where they know, believe and hold as a truth that they are loveable. Sometimes the smallest steps are the biggest.

Just my 2c

[Dreamline]

I have no problem with 'fake it till you make it.' Seriously. It's been an excellent technique for everything from prepping for job interviews, to dating, to seducing, to managing my employees, to LOA, and overcoming debilitating shyness, speaking in public, dealing with relatives, meeting and conversing with strangers comfortably.

You just have to be sane, first of all. Not everyone is, actually. If you aren't, this may not be the technique for you.

Telling yourself something that isn't yet true is a tool to help you get in the feeling place and mindset of what it will be like when you ARE that thing, whatever it may be. It's not a lie. 'Belief' that it is true is the overrated aspect of this. You don't have to believe it's true, only that it will be.

It's not a lie, it's a trick. Not a mean trick; a useful trick. The subconscious mind literally believes everything the conscious mind tells it. The more it hears it, the faster it tunes in with that reality. It has no inherent ability to discern between real and fake. It has no protection from the conscious mind run amok. Which is why physically normal people can be mentally ill.

You aren't fooling yourself. You are retraining your subconscious mind when you do affirmations. Filling in the deep ruts of dysfunction with fresh, alternative ideas. Energizing the subconscious to reflect upon these new paradigms instead of listening to the same old recordings it normally plays over and over.

My favorite and most powerful affirmation along these lines is: When I am feeling unwell, weak, tired, worn-down, or in pain....I say to myself "I am young, healthy and vibrant. I have the energy of ten strong people. I can seemingly go for hours.." or a variant of that basic theme. It's like energy just flows from my brain to my body. Aches and pains vanish instantly. I almost tingle with power. Once I realized how easy it is to change state simply by using power words, I use it on myself for all kinds of issues.

Another technique I use that I have never heard of before is: When you have passive moments, do a little game with yourself like Success A-Z. Choose a word that means something successful to you that starts with A, then B and so on. I also do it for health-related terms. Some of the letters are quite difficult but you can make stuff up like "Zing!" for Z. I find it keeps my mind on good ideas and off of bad ones. When I was in the darkroom on and off every few minutes, it was a great game.

Jennifer

[Daffy Duck]

I see "fake it till you make it" as something that fits into the idea that you must believe in order for it to be effective. You said that you believe it works well and so it does.

Compare that to someone who tries "fake it till you make it" but also thinks, "this fake it till you make it stuff isn't going to work..." They probably will not have good results consistently. You need to be "good" at faking it.

[magic1]

On many levels, I see manifesting as not your thought...its beyond thought, yep definatley address them but in terms of learning to manifest, this is stage one...because true creation takes place beneath your thought, in your heart and your true essence...it takes place in a quiet mind, and comes from your soul/heart.....not a mind TRYING to do this or that......you are in ego when in this space, the ego is trying to control the manifestation, by thinking you have to do something to get it, it thinks you have to clean up your thought have what you have asked for.......when really you don't,

Even the thought you have to do something, creates an illusionary wall that keeps your manifestations from coming into your space...

I shouldn't write this but this is the thing, many of you will clean up your thought and still not get it...because its not where creating happens....