Journals for Positive Change

A friend of mine recently told me about a self-improvement philosophy promoted by Noah St. John, Ph.D., who is in the Jack Canfield camp.  For years, Dr. St. John subscribed to the theory that positive thoughts can create a more positive reality to help us achieve our goals.  The theory further states that we create positive thoughts by intentionally repeating positive statements, also called affirmations.

He notes that many of us are advised to repeat affirmations ad nauseum as a means of changing our thinking.  He also notes that affirmations alone have not been spectacularly successful for a lot of people, himself included.

Noah believes that affirmations appeal primarily to the conscious mind.  But the root of our belief system, especially the beliefs we hold about ourselves, lies in the unconscious mind.

Now, the unconscious mind is very responsive to questions.  Ask it a question and it zeroes in like a bulldog to find the answer.  Ask it the right questions and it can come up with creative ideas and new perspectives to answer those questions and in the process, drive us towards achieving our goals.

Most of us have negative questions we ask ourselves on a regular basis.  Examples are: “Why am I such a failure?”  “Why can’t I get that promotion?” “Why am I still fat / unhappy / lazy / poor / fill-in-your-own-miserable-adjective?”

Dr. St. John recommends converting those negative, disempowering questions into positive, empowering questions by turning them around.  “Why am I so successful?” “Why did I get that promotion?” “Why am I so svelte / happy / productive /wealthy / fill-in-your-own-attractive-adjective?”

He calls these kinds of questions “afformations®,” because they help form powerful and positive belief systems that can propel us to successful positive change.

Do I have doubts about this?  Sure.  But do I think it’s worth a try?  Yes.  Let me know if you’d like to join me in an “afformation®” experiment.  I’ll share my results. Will you share yours?

You can download the first three chapters of The Great Little Book of Afformations® for free, but be prepared to be greeted by a quick starting video.

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Yesterday, I did my very first Blog Talk Radio interview.  It went really well, thanks in large part to the wonderful interviewing skill of the host, Deborah Wilson.  Deborah is an intuitive Angel reader / healer, and a most powerful and awesome personality.  If you missed the live broadcast, you can hear the archive at BlogTalkRadio.

I have to admit that I had a LOT of fear and trepidation about doing this.  There is a large part of me that simply wants to stay cocooned in my tiny little office, churning out journals, blogs, Examiner.com articles, tweets, Face Book posts and web-site copy — safe from outside scrutiny and criticism.  All good things, of course… but I need to do more.

I need to realize that I have a message worthy of delivering to people who are interested.  I need to answer all calls to deliver that message – not pick, choose or refuse the ones that feel too risky for my delicate ego.

When I drove up to Boulder to meet with Deborah, she had me penciled in as a guest on the show in about the first five minutes.  Fortunately, she had the grace to let me choose the date, and naturally I chose one far enough in the future that I didn’t have to hit the panic button right there in her Angel room.

But of course, the scheduled date kept getting closer.  To combat my nerves, I decided to be diligent about preparing ahead of time.  I listened to quite of few of Deborah’s archived shows so I could get a feel for the tone, the structure and her audience.  I paid close attention to how she interacted with other guests, so I’d understand the process.  I reviewed my own website so the content would be fresh in my mind, I made notes and I practiced a few inner dialogs.

So I was as ready as I could be when we started yesterday.  I believe that preparation paid off and I’m really pleased with how the interview went.

But more importantly, I feel empowered.  Facing my fear, stepping out of my comfort zone, believing that Spirit would be there with us, taking a big breath and forging ahead is powerful stuff.  Even if the show hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped, the act of suiting up and showing up would have been enough to be able to say to myself “You did it!  Yay for you!”

So friends, if you are called upon to do something so out of the ordinary it unleashes an explosion of self-doubt and sweaty palms (but generates a spark of excitement at the same time), I hope you will choose to ignore the fear and accept the challenge with gusto and grace.  And I hope that by doing so, you get to enjoy the feeling of exhilaration and empowerment that comes from walking through fear and getting to the other side.

Yours in Positive Change, 

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