Positive Affirmations for Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is essential to our health and well-being. Self-esteem affects every aspect or domain of our lives. Whether our self-esteem is positive or negative, it will affect our work and vocational aspirations, finances, relationships, and mental and physical health. When we have negative self-esteem and think and believe that we are not good enough, we tend to have a negative self-fulfilling prophecy and, as a result, self-sabotage.
Many people attempt to create positive self-esteem by having, doing, or by other people's opinions of them. Some believe that acquiring things of monetary value, like an expensive house or car, will make them think and feel good about themselves. Others believe they will feel good about themselves if they can do something, like a valuable job or essential profession. Still, others will think that getting others to like or think highly of them will make them feel worthwhile and increase their self-worth.
Many believe they can improve their self-esteem by utilizing the abovementioned methods, but none create lasting, authentic self-esteem. There is only one genuine way to improve self-esteem. The most effective method for improving or enhancing self-esteem is cognitive restructuring. Cognitive restructuring is a technique that helps you identify and challenge negative thought patterns and replace them with healthier, positive ways of thinking.
Cognitive restructuring can involve using positive affirmations to help you redefine or transform your current negative self-image and, as a result, improve your self-esteem. An affirmation is anything that you say or think. We can transform our self-image by repeating positive affirmations throughout the day. While this process of transforming oneself is simple, it takes work. Transforming your self-image using a cognitive restructuring strategy with positive affirmations takes time and must be done daily to have the desired effect.
Positive Affirmations have a powerful and profound effect on our psychological and physiological well-being. Using positive affirmations decreases stress, reduces anxiety, increases positive self-worth and self-esteem, controls and eliminates self-sabotaging thoughts and speech, improves academic performance, improves mood, improves problem-solving, promotes positive coping, helps individuals be open to behavior change, improves work, improves relationships with others, improves your ability to be more optimistic, enables you to sleep better.
As a practicing psychotherapist, I have created positive affirmation recordings. I utilize these positive affirmation recordings to help my clients learn how to reduce their negative thoughts and increase positive thinking. This results in improved self-image, self-esteem, and confidence. When my clients use the positive affirmation recordings as prescribed, they get positive results.
My positive affirmation recordings use ten positive affirmations recorded and presented to the listener in a loop fashion. My therapeutic relaxation music is mixed with the positive affirmation recording to relax the individual listening. Research has shown that when a person is relaxed and comfortable, he is more open and receptive to fully accepting positive affirmations.
The optimal way to listen to this recording of positive affirmations is with good-quality headphones. It is also important to rest comfortably in a chair and in front of a full-length mirror while listening to my recording. Ensure you will have no distractions while listening to the positive affirmations on this recording. You must give your full attention to the positive affirmation recording.
When you eventually hear a positive affirmation, there will be a pause of about seven seconds before you hear the following positive affirmation. During this seven-second pause, you will repeat the positive affirmation you just heard aloud. It is essential to say the positive affirmation to yourself in the mirror. During the recording, keep your attention only on the recording of positive affirmations and the image of yourself in the mirror.
If your attention wanders from looking at the picture of yourself in the mirror or listening to the positive affirmations on the recording, gently bring your attention back to the positive affirmations and the image in the mirror. Keeping your attention focused on the positive affirmations and your image in the mirror is part of the meditative experience of the recording. Listen to the entire positive affirmation recording until it ends.
As the recording ends, choose one of the ten positive affirmations to rehearse verbally during the day. This is your positive affirmation to repeat to yourself throughout the day. Choose another positive affirmation the next day, and so on, until you have verbally rehearsed all ten of the positive affirmations on the recording. Continue this practice daily.
Each recording of my positive affirmations is approximately 30 minutes long and costs only $2.95. In addition, each recording comes with a full money-back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied. Click below to experience my positive affirmation recording and to buy it today. When you buy the positive affirmation recording, it will be emailed to you immediately.
Dr. Harry Henshaw
Loving yourself is the only solution
Loving yourself is the only solution to addictive behavior and mental health issues. To change and transform the current trajectory of a person's life, to end an individual's addiction and dependency upon drugs and alcohol forever, and to find an actual resolution to mental health problems will require that the individual learn how to authentically respect, approve, accept, acknowledge and eventually come to love himself just as he is now, in the present moment.
Learning what loving himself is all about and bringing the knowledge of self-love into his life will give him true wisdom and genuine happiness. Experiencing authentic self-love is simple but requires commitment and dedication to transformation. The individual will need help from others and, as a result, must be open and willing to accept and follow all of the suggestions from others who know about and live the principles of transformation.
To transform himself, the individual will need to learn the knowledge necessary to transform and practice it daily to experience and bring the wisdom of self-love into his life. An individual can transform only if he changes his negative thinking about himself, especially his thinking about his perceived value and worth as a human being, into that which is authentically positive. Any negative ideas, thoughts, beliefs, or considerations about oneself must be given up absolutely and replaced with positive ones.
When a person comes to think and believe positively about himself, he will come to think and believe that he is perfect, whole, and complete, that he genuinely matters, that he is good enough, that he is enough, just as he is in the present moment and will cease all self-harm. When a person comes to think positively about himself, he will come to love himself authentically, he will no longer have a desire or need to use drugs or alcohol or feel depressed, anxious, and worthless, and he will be accepting and approving with who he is in the present moment, in the Now. As stated above, self-approval and self-acceptance are the keys to genuine self-love.
Dr. Harry Henshaw
Cause of Addictive Behavior
The actual cause of drug and alcohol addiction, addictive behavior, is a thought or belief. The exact cause of an individual's addiction or dependency to drugs and alcohol and many, if not most, mental health problems is that the individual thinks and believes that he is not good enough or less than others, and as a result, there is a lack of self-love due to his negative thinking about his value and worth as a human being.
When a person believes that he is fundamentally not good enough, referred to here as his core or self-limiting belief, he will continually engage in self-destructive or self-sabotaging behaviors that will support, reinforce, and even validate his negative thoughts and beliefs about his perceived value and worth as a human being. What a person thinks and believes about himself will affect, if not determine, how he feels about himself and how he treats and behaves toward himself.
As a result of his negative thinking about himself, he will also source or attract specific dangerous experiences and substances into his life, including and especially drugs and alcohol, that will not only validate his perception of himself but will harm, if not eventually kill him if he continues with that type of behavior. The cause of a person's addiction to drugs and alcohol is in his mind, his mental health, psychology, and thinking, especially in his thoughts and beliefs about himself and not in his body!
Drugs and alcohol are not the real problem; they never have been. Drugs and alcohol are merely symptoms and instruments a person uses to inflict self-harm. More precisely, I believe that drugs and alcohol are simply the instruments that someone uses to self-execute. The actual cause of drug and alcohol addiction is the belief that I am not good enough, inadequate, and do not matter. This principle applies to all other addictive behaviors, including gambling, food disorders, porn, and sex addiction, as well as many, if not most, of the mental health disorders.
Dr. Harry Henshaw
