The Value of Affirmation
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“I am good looking.”
“I am strong.”
“I am intelligent.”
“I am a giant.”
“I am a Rockstar”
Positive affirmations.
I can’t think about affirmations without seeing that Saturday Night Live “Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley.” And I laugh. Al Franken played Stuart Smalley. It was a parody and a bit of a jab at some of the self-help trends at that time(Early 90s).
"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."
Franken would stand in front of a mirror and say his affirmations which were crazy ridiculous. Comedy Gold. It was a recurring skit. They did them from 1991 until around ‘94-‘95. He’d have the week’s host, or another SNL cast member on as guests to talk about their “problems.” He would often anxious stumble over a line, then say:
“That's okay... I'm in a program."
Truly classic comedy. I’ve always like e dry era of SNL, but the 90s and 00s were the ones I watched live.
Anyway, if you’ve ever seen a therapist or read a self-help book, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of “Positive Affirmations.”
Just like on SNL, the idea of this sort of complimenting yourself in front of a mirror can seem pretty silly. It’s a reason some people refuse to try affirmations.
Here’s the thing though. If you’re battling depression, anxiety, issues of self-worth, or anything at all like that, affirmations do actually work.
Even if you think it’s dumb. If you do it every day, it’s like reprogramming your brain. When Depression settles in for a long hall(Even as long as a few months), it changes our inner monologue.
You feel awful. No one much wants to be around you. You are extra hard on yourself about things someone who isn’t depressed never even considers. The longer you are depressed without any real relief, the worse your thoughts get twisted up. This happened to me. I didn’t even notice.
My thoughts, and my mind, well, those were my happy places as a kid. If I needed to cope with something, I’d read. After I started driving I’d go to the library and bookstores for hours every week. But the way depression hit me, it felt sudden.
Most people don’t see a nervous breakdown in their future. The signs are there. But we aren’t taught how to identify and handle excessive depression or anxiety. Some self-medicate. I did for a bit before my breakdown. Never thought I’d feel and truly believe I might die any second. That’s a panic attack.
I fought the meds and therapy. My brain was the thing that had given me every good thing in my life. The idea that it was sabotaging itself was unthinkable. So, I went a long time without any improvement.
It’s been 21 years. Nothing has helped my mental health problems well for very long. I tried every suggestion. Every random advice. Every pill. Every type of therapy. Nothing worked.
Years later, I was able to gain actual clarity by disassociating. When you feel like you’re outside of yourself, that constant thought pattern is very clear. I realized immediately that depression had warped my entire identity. Starting with my self-worth.
There are a lot of medications doctors will get you to try when the usual suspects aren’t helping. They made me clumsy. I acted like I was drunk. I walked into things. All kinds of stuff.
My brain was taking healthy thoughts, and twisting them. If I fell down, I’d think, “Yup. That’s me. Just a clumsy asshole.”
When you start saying that over and over, it becomes the reality. The negative thoughts are everywhere and often. Soon you rarely ever think or say good things about yourself.
This is why those “Positive Affirmations” work. The negative thoughts started slowly. But they became the norm.
Positive thoughts can also do that!
Standing in front of the mirror, saying, “I am…” feels absolutely silly. It was a long time before I really even tried. It seemed so dumb.
But, saying these things, even when you don’t believe them, or think the exercise is stupid and couldn’t possibly help.. if you keep doing them, your thoughts will change.
Would you look at that? I did a quick search to make sure I hadn’t screwed up any of the SNL names, and it turns out that those skits even spawned a movie, “Stuart Saves his Family.” 1995. I have not seen it. I’ll make that happen.
Back to those pesky thoughts that’ll hold you back. The thing about doing something every day is that it becomes a ritual. Though less common now, throughout human history, rituals were employed in a great many ways. The simple breakdown, though, is that ritual is a type of learning.
By repeating the same actions until they’re memorized, we are creating a feedback loop. Once memorized, the daily performance actually releases dopamine and probably a few other important neurotransmitters.
I’ve actually already written an article about why ritual does this, explained as building up a collection of something. When you collect baseball cards(Just a random choice on my part) you usually buy sealed packs. Opening those packs, and pulling out a highly desirable card triggers a dopamine release. Then, once it’s in its home display or whatever, whenever you go back and look through your cards, you see it, and boom, dopamine. This also works with taking notes.
So, ritual. Rituals are dramatic performances of an agreed upon script. They are mostly used in group settings, because the drama, the memorized review, seeing others doing the same, and being told that this part is representing a person or storyline, you hit dopamine repeatedly, and everyone their makes a bonding memory.
Why is this related to affirmations? Because rituals are a bit like coding a program into a full group. It builds solidarity. The repetition becomes a reward highway.
When you do positive affirmations a very similar thing happens. These things are normally alone, but they have ritualistic elements. And, just like rituals, even if you think it’s horseshit, it still creates that brain link over time.
Focusing on things you really don’t like about yourself, and make an affirmation that says the opposite. Slowly, a thought like, “I’m so damn forgetful!” Gives way to an affirmation like “I am smart and conscientious. I remember my friends’ birthdays.”
Say it enough, and the negative thought changes into either a non-thought(You just don’t talk about forgetting as much), or it becomes a motivator, like, “Oh, my cousin’s birthday is this month. I’ll go get her a card.”
Obviously, I could give you much more aesthetically pleasing examples in nearly every example above, but this isn’t about making the beauty of language shine. It’s about mental health, and an effective exercise that is almost always dismissed without even trying.
That is the thing. The results. Your mileage may vary, but making thoughtful affirmations that assert a positive attitude or trait in yourself, will change some negative wiring.
It’s not magic. You will get nowhere if your affirmation is “I am psychic.” Won’t change anything. lol.
I’m publishing this. I’m not going to proof it. I’m sure my finger slipped a time or two, but I want to assert my confidence here. Confidence is something depression took from me. I took it back. And I did it by looking in the mirror and telling myself I was confident. True story.
My mental health issues will never be completely gone. It would take an absolutely Light Bulb level new Tech to do that. I have managed to regain qualities I’d lost though. Affirmations were a big part of it.
As always, I’m Jack Lhasa.
You are amazing.
👊🏼👊🏼Solidarity👊🏼👊🏼
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