Overcoming Self-loathing and Anxiety, Self-compassion, Self-Love and Self-Directed Kindness

Affirmations for People Who Hate Affirmations

This post is about affirmations for people who hate affirmation. And I can understand why people sometimes hate affirmations, because I used to hate them, too.

Affirmations are a tool a lot of people use to boost their confidence and peace. And I’ve known this for a while. But for many years I was highly suspicious of affirmations because I thought they sounded fake and inauthentic.

Surprised by Affirmations

Imagine my surprise when later on in my life, I rediscovered affirmations and realized that certain kinds helped to heal some problems I had dealt with for years. I was a person who needed affirmations for people who hated affirmations.

As I have explored affirmations over the last six or seven years, I have learned several important lessons.

Lesson One:

Not all affirmations are the same. Some affirmations focus on building self-esteem. Other affirmations help us honor our own dignity and to practice self-compassion.

Generally speaking, I don’t find self-esteem affirmations helpful. Affirmations like this often focus on culturally-defined standards of worthiness, beauty, or success. To be honest, these cultural standards are often stupid and inauthentic.

In addition, some self-esteem affirmations focus primarily on encouraging continual awesome, carnival cruise-type feelings.

This doesn’t work for me.

One of the most important lessons I have learned in is that sometimes life is crappy. Sometimes I make big mistakes and fail. And sometimes I feel miserable: all of that is okay and normal.[1]

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Affirmations for people who hate affirmations must recognize that life is hard sometimes. 

I need affirmations that reinforce true things about myself. And I need affirmations that help me when I feel successful and also when I feel like a miserable failure.

So, in my experience, affirmations that focus on our dignity and on self-compassion are the most helpful. And that brings me to my second lesson I have learned.

Lesson Two:

Good affirmations do five things:

  • First, they remind us we are worthy: Being worthy doesn’t mean we are perfect. Being worthy means that we all have a special light in us that contains seeds of love, wisdom, compassion, and creativity. We can never lose this light.

  • Second, they remind us we are capable: Being capable means that all of us can nurture these beautiful seeds. We can all become a more loving, wise, compassionate, and creative person. We do it through intentional thought and practice.

  • Third, they remind us we are powerful: The more we nurture these seeds through our thoughts and actions, the more powerful we become. We build authentic, life-giving relationships with ourselves and others. The more we do this, the more we can solve painful problems in our lives, in our relationships with others, and in the world.

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Affirmations for people who hate affirmations should focus on dignity instead of self-esteem.

Stay With Me

  • Fourth, they remind us we are essential: We have a purpose here on the earth—every single person does. That purpose is to nurture our seeds of goodness. In doing so, we join our light with the light of others to create a more just, beautiful, and loving world. How we do this is the Great Puzzle we must solve. As cliché as it might sound, YOU are an essential piece of that puzzle. So am I, and so is everyone else.

  • Fifth, they help us show compassion for ourselves when life is hard. No matter how wonderful we are, we suffer sometimes because of various reasons. It might be because of our own personal ignorance and frailty. Or we might suffer because of the cruel and careless ways people treat us. Good affirmations give us a strong internal anchor that steadies us during our suffering.

Affirmations are Like…

Fitting affirmations are like a balm to the wounds in our spirit. These wounds develop because of harsh, negative, and unloving criticism from others or ourselves. Fitting affirmations also heal us by remedying deficiencies we possess. These might be deficiencies in self-compassion, hope, or the ability to recognize our own dignity.

Fitting affirmations are also like water and sunlight that help water the seeds of your potential grow. A fitting affirmation should resonate with you and make you feel excited, free, hopeful, and alive.

If an affirmation makes you feel angry, incredulous, skeptical, or worse about yourself, it is not a fitting affirmation for you.

Be Open, Be Aware

There may be times when you first start using affirmations that you feel some doubt and uncertainty. That’s okay. It will probably feel something like this: “I wish this could be true, but I don’t know if it really is.”

If you feel this way but feel willing to try, you can say to yourself, “I am willing to practice using these affirmations for a while to see if it nurtures growth in me. I can always change my mind later.”

Why Even Care About Affirmations?

It may seem at this point that I am making a big deal about just “saying nice things to ourselves”. Why do affirmations even matter? It is perfectly reasonable to ask this.

To answer this question, I would ask you to consider something.

Very little about the world is given to us in a fixed and permanent way. Instead, we create most of the world we see around us through our collective decisions and actions.

And how do we decide to act? We act according to the things we think about ourselves, each other, and the world around us. In other words, we act according to our view of the world.

This should concern us when we realize that many of us (perhaps most of us) often walk around saying things like this to ourselves:

I’m a loser.

I feel worthless.

My life sucks.

Things never change.

I am fat and ugly.

Everyone hates me.

People suck.

Life is horrible, and that’s just the way it is.

Now let’s be clear

We have imperfections, and so do other people. There are also really bad things in the world. We cannot deny these things.

But remember, good affirmations do not deny suffering. Good affirmations remind us we are worthy, capable, powerful, and essential. They also help us show compassion in suffering.

When we forget these foundational truths about ourselves, we develop fear, shame, self-loathing, hopelessness, and despair, to name a few painful feelings. And when we act out of fear, shame, self-loathing, we create a world permeated with this worldview.[2]

Good Affirmations Can Change the World: Truly

Because of this, good affirmations help to heal our suffering and help to cultivate love, peace, and hope in the midst of suffering. (And they are just one tool to do this. There are others, too.)

And when we act out of love, peace, and hope, we begin to create a world that nourishes ourselves and everyone else, too.

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Affirmations for people who hate affirmations should help us realize that we do affect the world with our thoughts. It’s common sense. 

Would You Like Some Good Affirmations?

If you were asking yourself, What are some examples of good affirmations? you are in luck. I am going to include some down below. In addition, I will be writing other affirmation posts in the future.

The main thing to keep in mind is that one of the best things you can do for yourself and the world around you is to learn to speak to yourself in a kind and compassionate way.

As you do this, you will create more love, peace, and hope in your life. And as you act, you will bring these beautiful things into the world.

Thank you for your light, Friend. Love you.

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Below are some affirmations for people who hate affirmations. You have seen a few of these already in the post. I have included them here, along with some more affirmations about our Light in general and about our body, as many of us often struggle feelings peaceful about our body.

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If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it on social media.

Here is a set of affirmation cards that I find helpful. Maybe you will find them helpful, too:  Melodie Beattie, The Language of Letting Go

You might also like these posts:

Bigfoot Affirmations for a Groovy State of Mind

Peaceful Thoughts for Rough days

Peaceful Thoughts for Both Wonderful and Miserable Holidays

Affirmations for When You Feel Politically Overwhelmed

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[1] If you find self-esteem affirmations helpful, good for you. Affirmations are kind of like clothes. Clothes that may not fit you may work perfectly for someone else. Some affirmations won’t work for you, but they will work for other people, and that’s okay. Or, you may need to tailor affirmations to help them fit you.

[2] Most people’s worldview is made up of a mixture of good and bad thoughts about themselves and the world.

23 thoughts on “Affirmations for People Who Hate Affirmations”

  1. I believe point [3] is very true – I’ve seen it at work in someone I knew, who always seemed to take a poor view of both themself and the world, with very negative results. For myself, I make many tiny affirmations through the day – e.g. ‘I’ve worked well on this and I’m making progress’. It really helps to create a positive, confident state of mind.

  2. This is so good Shelly. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Also, loved your art. Just leaving a bit of light here. 🙂

  3. Those are all lovely affirmations. I admit I rarely use them, and I have never been good about talking nice to myself. Any time I make one little tiny mistake, that negative voice inside loves to rip me apart. And I’m not sure if this counts as affirmations, but I did tell myself recently that I just have to start talking nicer to myself. I have to be forgiving towards mistakes. Anytime I hear that awful little voice, I really try to focus on gentler language with myself. I’m surprised how well it’s really starting to work!

  4. Like you, I grew up thinking and feeling affirmations were a bit hollow. I like your affirmations though because they take in the reality: that life is challenging.
    I don’t know if these count as affirmations but these sayings have got me through some tough times. ‘This too will pass’ and ‘Even when you can’t see the sun, it’s still there’. I also love Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If’. That first verse got me through the worst period of my life.

  5. Can I just say what a comfort to find an individual who actually understands what they’re talking about on the web. You definitely realize how to bring a problem to light and make it important. More people have to check this out and understand this side of the story. It’s surprising you’re not more popular because you most certainly possess the gift.

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