In any coping skill for mental health recovery affirming yourself is essential to your emotional health. Another way to say this is being careful with what you say to yourself.
Affirmations are positive self-talk. You can use them as a way to construct positive thoughts directed at yourself to help improve your mood, elevate your thinking, or even focus your mind on one task over another.
Positive self-talk is an important part of coping in a healthy way, yet for many, it doesn’t happen naturally or even easily. In fact, this may be something that is very hard for you.
Perhaps, your internal dialog is such that you take anything positive and turn it into a negative. Something like saying, “I am o.k” to yourself is too strong for you. Now would be the time to start increasing your positive self-talk as slowly as you need. The goal isn’t to say things that are unbelievable to yourself, rather say positive statements that you can grow into believing. For some, this process evolves very slowly.
Perhaps, you use affirmations all the time and know what you are doing. Continue to use them. It will continue to benefit you.
For the person who has never used affirmations, now might be a good time to start. Find a saying that resonates with you. It could be, “I can do this” or “It will be ok”. You want the affirmation to be something you can speak or read to yourself often to reinforce the sentiment behind the words, even if you’re not fully sure it’s true or you believe it 100% in the moment.
You can read it when you need it most or you can look at it several times a day. You could even print it out (make an art project with it) and put it in a safe place so you can see it often.
However, you use your affirmations, over time they work and reinforce your growing sense of wellbeing and health.