As a rule, I do not review books that I haven't completed, but this post just goes to show you that rules are meant to be broken. This week Noah St. John answered a lifelong question for me. Why don't affirmations work all the time?
If you live a life of spiritual practice, you'll be familiar with affirmations. My definition is: a positive statement that produces a desired result. Affirmations are present-tense statements. I am wise. I am rich. I am married to my right and perfect partner. I am losing weight. The classic one is Emile Coue's Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better. I've used affirmations for years and they don't always work.
Why? Enter Noah St. John, author of The Secret Code of Success. Dear Noah, bless him, has turned affirmations and their practice on its head.
Affirmations don't always work because the mind is ninety percent unconscious. The conscious mind decides which statements we want to be true of ourselves, and in repeating those statements, the subconscious calls us a liar. Simply put, we don't believe the statements, ergo, they aren't true. Further, because we don't believe, they can't manifest.
The age-old response by spiritual practitioners has been to encourage the affirmer to believe more. Easy to say; not always so easy to do. Truth is, not one of us has any real idea of what lurks in our subconscious minds!
Noah St. John, however, has discovered a method that flushes out the subconscious mind. It's plain. It's simple. It's elegant. Don't do statements, he says. Do questions.
Take what you want, say: I want to lose weight.
Afform: Why is it so easy for me to lose weight?
Another: I am rich.
Afform: Why do I always live in financial surplus?
Another: I am married to my right and perfect partner.
Afform: Why is my marriage to my right and perfect partner so joyous?
The idea behind affirmations is to make firm what we want in our lives.
The brilliant idea behind St. John's afformations is to make form what we want in our lives.
Big difference!
His premise is delightful. The human mind is like Google. It is designed to answer questions. In fact, lots of us have had the experience of trying to find or remember something before bed, and awakening in the morning with the answer. That's the googleness of the human brain. It's made for questions!
Even better, St. John says we don't ever have to answer our Afformation questions. What we get to do instead is, like Rainer Maria Rilke, live the questions, or, as he says, give ourselves to the questions, and let our brains do the work. The effect of his remarkable tool is that we end up focusing on what we want rather than what we don't want. And that's the most powerful tool in creation!
I've thought for a long time that asking the right questions is the key to a life of fulfillment. The work of Noah St. John is a quantum leap toward the art of spiritual living.
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