Can Christian Affirmations Help Displace Unhealthy Thoughts?

In her book, Discovering Your Purpose, author Ivy Haley states, “It’s difficult to change your behavior unless you change the
inner picture.  Here you must be diligent and watchful: watchful by staying aware of what’s going on in your mind and diligent to deal with negative thoughts by scuttling them and consciously turning your mind to something else.  It’s possible to change your attitude by refocusing your mind.”  Your successes in life all begin with what you believe.  There is a phrase that goes something like, “if you think can, you’re right.  If you think you can’t, you’re still right.”

The logical conclusion is to just stop thinking about what we don’t want to create.  Right!  Well yes, but for most people, it’s not quite so simple because these thoughts are not passing fancies, they’re actually embedded into our subconscious mind.  They have become a part of our mental script.  A genuine prayer or conscious act to change may work for a brief moment (remember those New Year’s Resolutions), but within several hours or days the old tape starts running again.According to Haley, we make unconscious beliefs and assumptions about ourselves all the time: This is who I am. I can do this. I can’t do this. People think this about me. This will work. This won’t. Our beliefs are the soil in which we plant the seeds that manifest into our lives.  Unhealthy soil creates thwarted seeds and stifled plants.   “Give yourself a target and program your mind everyday through explicit, visual messages that this is your actuality,” states Haley. “Our subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between a real experience and one that has been vividly imagined,” she declares.