Today is the 6th day of the new year. I wish for each of you a very meaningful and happy new year. Today, instead of New Year’s resolutions, I offer you some affirmations that might help my wish for you to be realized.
How we think, feel and behave is highly influenced by our own individualistic perceptual world. If we view the world as threatening, we will behave defensively. If we perceive it to be friendly and supportive, we will be open and curious. How we interpret our perceptual world determines how we choose to function within it.
Our perceptual reality is like a colored glass bottle in which we live. Everything we experience as outside ourselves is distorted or clarified by the shape and color of the bottle. Likewise, everything we express from within ourselves is colored by our view of “how things are.” Six people viewing the same event will experience the event in six individual ways. All six will be correct — from their point of view.
When we are unhappy with our partner in a relationship, we need to change the nature of the “bottle” in which we live. One of the most powerful methods for changing our images of life is through changing the nature of the language in which we habitually think. Positive affirmations can have a transformational effect on our relationships and on us.
Healing affirmations
Irv Niece, a marriage and family counselor in Redlands, Calif., shares the following set of affirmations with couples. Can you imagine the healing transformation of a marital relationship if both partners agreed to, regularly stated to one another, and habitually behaved according to these affirmations?
-- I want to know and give attention to your needs.
-- Your emotional needs are more important than my desires.
-- I want you to be right instead of me having to be right.
-- I want to quit blaming.
-- I want you to feel loved, valued, understood and listened to in our relationship.
-- I want you to feel confident that you are my best friend, the top person in my life.
-- I want to generate positive energy in our relationship.
-- I want to quit feeding the negative when we disagree.
-- I want you to help me to not offend your spirit.
-- I want to listen to your feelings and honor them.
-- I want to help you raise your self-esteem all the time.
-- I want to be a forgiving, trusting partner to you always.
-- I want my daily behavior to be loving behavior toward you.
-- If I give you unloving behavior, please alert me so that we can talk about it.
-- I want to make our relationship and home joyous, loving and enthusiastic.
-- I accept responsibility for creating the climate of positive values in our home and relationship. Please help me.
-- I want to learn how to process anger creatively. I give you permission to be angry. I promise not to attack you when I’m angry.
-- I need your help with my anger. Help me to express my anger in a way that does not hurt you.
-- I want to do more learning and less protecting of myself.
-- My intent is to learn and truly understand, rather than to defend and protect my ego.
-- I want to explore our thoughts behind our negative emotions so that we can correct them, understand each other better, and live together without threat.
-- I want to build comfortableness and harmony into our relationship more and more.
-- I want to explore how you are affected by my behavior, so we can both gain more freedom and more intimacy.
-- I want you to be able to share your pain and receive my warmth and caring in return.
-- I want to learn to say, “I’m sorry” when I have offended your spirit.
-- And I want you to know that I’m grateful for you, and want us together to enjoy an increasingly fulfilling and loving relationship.
Can you imagine the healing change that would occur in 2009, if the grown-ups viewed themselves and their relationships from a bottle colored and shaped by those affirmations?
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