Positive spiritual affirmations, also known as affirmative prayer, is a form of prayer or speech designed to promote a positive response to your words and actions. People who engage in positive spiritual affirmations create words or phrases that reflect positive outcomes that they are seeking, as if the event already happened and the positive outcome has already appeared.
For example, if someone is searching for a new career and is hoping to send positive messages and energy out into the universe, they might say aloud, “I am so happy and thankful now that I am thriving in my new career.” This metaphysical technique sends out messages of positivity and happiness to the universe and develops a sense of destiny in the mind, helping you act out in pursuit of your goal everyday. …show more content…
This is in direct contrast to those who affirm a sense of hope or longing, which does not produce the same energy and leads to vastly different outcomes. Someone who says “I hope that I get this job” is not creating a sense of destiny or certainty. They are sending messages of want and desire into the universe, which will respond by keeping them wanting and hoping.
History of Positive Spiritual Affirmations
Positive spiritual affirmations are present in nearly every major religions across the world, and are especially prevalent in eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Both Buddhism and Hinduism, including all of the sub-types, rely heavily on the use of affirmations during mediation to cultivate specific positive emotions and to translate those thoughts into physical reactions. For example, the historical Buddha is noted as saying, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”
Although long restricted to eastern religions and a few select subgroups among the Abrahamic religions, the ability of affirmations to promote positive changes were first realized by the secular community in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Most famously among the secular promoters of the effectiveness of positive affirmations was Napoleon Hill. In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill became the first mainstream author to educate the American public on the history of affirmations, as well as its application for success in the business world.
Around the same time that Napoleon Hill began spreading the idea of affirmations in the business and entrepreneurial communities, proponents of the New Age movement began to import some of the spiritual ideas found in the ancient eastern religions as a solution to many of the problems faced by westerners in the modern world.
Since the early days of the New Age movement, the power of positive spiritual affirmations has remained a focus of the movement, and the importance and power of this metaphysical technique has been embraced by the mainstream scientific community and the major media personalities in the United
States.