All my adult life I have had to work at being optimistic in the face of an assortment of crushing and deadly adversities and I have learned a lot about how to do it. So today I am going to start a category of posts on affirmations because I have been using them for over 30 years now and there is both an art and a science to being successful with them. My objective is to put in my gentle readers’ hands tools that have helped me and which will help them, too.
My biggest religious influence has been the work of Catherine Ponder, who is a minister of the Unity Church. I recommend every single one of her books, starting with her first, The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity. On page 11, she writes:
Success Adores the Prosperous Attitude
Another of the shocking truths about prosperity is that thoughts of our mind have made you what you are, and thoughts of your mind will make you whatever you become from this day forward. The more you realize this, themore you will come to know that people, places, conditions and events cannot keep your God-given prosperity and success from you, once you decide to deliberately employ prosperous thinking as your ally for success. Indeed, you will discover that the things, people and events that have previously worked against you will either begin to work for and with you, or they will fade out of your life, and new people and events will appear to help you succeed. That is the power of prosperous thinking.
Some authorities believe that one prosperous thought is more powerful than a thousand failure thoughts; and that two prosperous attitudes steadily held and expressed are more powerful than ten thousand failure attitudes! Success adores the prosperous attitude — of that you can be sure. A loving Father seems to adore the prosperous attitude, too. Surely others adore it and are attracted to it and work for it. More about these things in the next chapter.
Meanwhile, remind yourself often that God is the Source of all your supply and then make spiritual contact with Him, His rich substance and rich ideas that await your appreciation: I am the rich child of a loving Father. I now accept and claim his rich good for me in every phase of my life. My own God-given success in the form of rich ideas and rich results now appears!
The affirmation to use is the text in boldface. Elsewhere Dr. Ponder recommends decreeing an affirmation aloud or writing it by hand at least 15 times, or as long as it takes to get a sense of peace about the problem that concerns you. If this is something that resonates with you, or you are so desperate you are thinking, “What have I got to lose?,” then I suggest you start with this one because it is focused and she has tested its success power.
The mistake most people make when they compose their own affirmations is that their affirmation is a conglomeration of desired outcomes and a conglomeration does not have success power. I’ll write more on that in the future.