A Better Life: You Have to Know You Deserve It

In order to change our lives, we have to be convinced that a better life, one that we know would be better for us and everyone around us, is possible and that we deserve it. No one can change our lives except us. If we really don't believe we're deserving of a better life, it will never become reality.

The final part of positive life changes are what most people, and their teachers, put first. Visualization and affirmations work, but they're not as important as being totally involved and immersed in what we want to accomplish. Once we know what isn't working in our lives, have our objectives in mind, are living in the present and not the past or future, then we can begin to reap the benefits of visualization and affirmations.

In order to be totally involved in improving our health, we have to be able to see ourselves in our visualizations. Some people a have a hard time visualizing themselves. If that's the case, try the following: find an old picture of yourself that depicts how you would like to be now. Next, put it on a table or other flat surface and get a light, like a desk lamp, that highlights the photo. The picture has to be very well lit and stand out from the desk or tabletop. Then, concentrate on the photo until it stands out in your mind and your vision. You can't let your eyes or mind wander, you have to keep the picture centered and immobile in your vision. The result should be similar to the blue spot you see for a period of time after someone has taken your picture using a flash. You have made up for the flash by keeping the photo fixed in your mind and static in your view.

Once your picture is embedded in your mind, close your eyes and change the image to gold or other color that you can relate to as being heath giving. With that in your mind's eye, repeat an affirmation such as the following: "I'm thankful for my radiant, perfect health, now and in the future." Keep the affirmation simple, to the point and in the present. Wishing for something in the future keeps it in the future. You have to feel, and believe that whatever you want is here and now. You have to wish with it, not for it.

We have to have a clear mind for visualization and affirmations to work best. For most of us, those times are either when we first wake up or the last thing we think about before going to sleep at night. Life, for most of us, is too hectic and overfilled to be able to get maximum benefits from either during the rush of daily life. Personally, I try to quickly run through what I'm thankful for from my day just before going to sleep. No matter how our day went, we can always find something to be thankful for. The first thing I do upon waking is to visualize how I want my day to go. Finishing a project by the end of the day is more likely to happen if I visualize it that way before my day starts. It took awhile to realize I could actually make projects go faster and more smoothly by visualizing them going well at each end of the day. In the beginning, I felt I was spending time that I couldn't afford and it was difficult to concentrate. I wanted to jump out of bed and get on with the day, or I'd go to sleep with bad news on my mind and then carry bad news baggage over to the next day.

My affirmations include having perfect health or being able to recover from some problem, like a cold, quickly and easily. Since good health is the most important issue in our lives, I always put it first, use the present tense and visualize it. Included in my affirmations are having enough wealth to meet my family's needs, not to be confused with wants and being thankful for all the things that happen in my life, present, past and in the future. Seeing the beauty and joy that has happens during the day and accepting people for who they are and not whom I think they should be, are also part of my daily affirmations. Affirmations for those visualizations are as individual as we are.

Seeing the beauty and joy of my day and accepting others for whom they are, have been the most difficult for me. Like most of us, I've wanted to dwell on the negative, possibly because we're subjected to it so often during our day. Expecting everyone to see things and act the way we do is extremely difficult, giving up our belief systems (our BS) can be just as hard.