Affirmations for Improving Self-Esteem

Positive self-esteem is crucial to our happiness and well being as human beings.  Having positive self-esteem can make the difference in what we take on in life, and in which we go about achieving and creating.  Having positive self-esteem also allows us to have healthy and joyous relationships with others, to experience true intimacy.  Having positive self-esteem gives us access to genuine spirituality.   Poor self-esteem, on the other hand, creates the space for us to fill the void with negativity; including depression, anxiety, fear, stress, worry and loneliness.  Negative or poor self-esteem is also highly correlated with alcohol and drug dependency—it is used to numb or ward off the emotional pain whose root cause is emotional, mental physical and/or sexual trauma.

While it appears that the importance of positive self-esteem is somewhat understood, the unanswered question has been about how to improve or enhance a person’s self-esteem. Ones self-esteem is not given or to be obtained from without—external to the person. Ones self-esteem is achieved through going within.  “To not go within, is to go without.”  —Author Unknown

The key to improving self-esteem is through the use of positive affirmations.  Positive affirmations are very powerful for transforming how one thinks and then feels about oneself, ultimately influencing how one views and acts within the world and toward others.  The fundamental reason positive affirmations are so effective is that their nature or structure reflects the phenomenon that thoughts create feelings. These thoughts already exist in ones mind, thus the thoughts create the feelings one experiences.  Our identity or who we think we are, our current thinking patterns, are also a series of affirmations, composed fundamentally of mere words—a.k.a thoughts.  Everything we think, all the thoughts we have, are merely affirmations which create our reality.  Positive affirmations, when used consistently, begin to alter our prevalent internal thought pattern, as negative as it may be, ones inner self talk or dialogue that exists within.  The end result of the consistent use of positive affirmations is the transformation of an inner negative thought pattern into one that is positive.

The most effective way to use positive affirmations is with ones own voice.  While a person can have a beneficial result from listening to a commercially developed product that employs positive affirmations recorded by another, the transformative power of this technology is enhanced or strengthened by the positive messages being delivered in the person’s own voice.  By using a person’s own voice to transform the inner dialogue, there is less resistance to the transformational process due to the fact that the voice itself is the same or identical.  It is as though the negative voice or thought pattern that one hears repeatedly in life is altered or transformed by the consistent exposure and listening to that same voice but with the structure of positive enhancing affirmations.  Eventually the structure will transform from one that is negative to one that is positive.

The process of using ones own voice to record positive affirmations can be enhanced or strengthened with the use of therapeutic relaxation music.  While the use of ones own voice is very powerful for creating change in one’s life, the use of specially designed therapeutic relaxation music assists in creating the audio space for this process to be enhanced and strengthened.  People are more open or suggestible to positive affirmations or thoughts when they are relaxed.  When combined with binaural audio tones, the relaxing affect of the therapeutic music greatly strengthens the effectiveness.  When consistently practiced with the combined effect of the therapeutic relaxation music, and binaural audio tones, the positive enhancing affirmations that are delivered will have a profound affect upon improving and transforming a person’s self-talk and ultimately self-esteem.

Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD., an inspirational leader empowers people to meet life’s challenges as an opportunity for Personal/Professional Growth and Spiritual Awakening. Author of If I’d Only Known…Sexual Abuse in or out of the Family: A Guide to Prevention, speaker and seminar leader she has over twenty years experience.