If you thought affirmations were a faded self-care trend, you could not be more wrong.

Mental health awareness is a sternly overlooked subject when it comes to self-care and self-help trends and it remains crucial to remember that everybody should be able to find and seek the help they need without confusion

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In the past months, affirmations have become a thorn in the flesh of self-care lovers. Titles have flourished in the press about how affirmations are useless, dangerous or overly used for the wrong reasons. Immediately categorized just like tantric meditation and trigger warnings in the category of the faded and not-so-useful trends; affirmations still remain a pillar of psychology that contains many interesting, valuable and fruitful assets IF used and practiced wisely and knowingly.

Positive thinking VS Positive Psychology

The first step to understanding what affirmations are all about is to grasp what the fundamentals of positive psychology are and above all, to not mistake this important branch of psychology with the treacherous concept of “positive thinking”.

Positive Psychology is indeed a relatively new discipline in the spectrum of modern psychology. Researched and theorised by Dr. Martin Seligman, positive psychology is referred to as the “scientific theory of happiness”. However, a lot of people still think that “positive thinking” and “positive psychology” are the same thing.

They absolutely are not, and they should under no circumstances be confused!

Positive Emotions constitute one of the five elements in Dr Seligman’s PERMA concept. ONE ELEMENT only. Indeed, pursuing meaning in life and maintaining healthy, nourishing relationships is as important as it is meaningful but it is essential to remember that positivity is not a means to an end. As a matter of fact, seeking the concept of “happyology” at all costs can become dangerously deceptive and lead to serious psychological consequences.

Which is also why, it is safe to say that affirmations have been seriously taken out of context and out of the real therapy process that they are a part of and have been misused as a self-care trend for years. As such, affirmations can indeed become dangerous and appear useless if you try to ignore or repress negative emotions. This is not the use or purpose of affirmations. Always remember that the goal is not the desperate pursuit of happiness. A lot of self-harm is done by negative self-talk we impose on ourselves daily. This is precisely where affirmations should not be undermined, they are actually a useful and precious tool in the therapy process to work on the negative self-talk destructive habits.

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Unlearning Negative Self-Talk

Have you ever caught yourself repeating day after day these same horrible things about yourself? This systematic negative self-talk, that is a serious form of self-harm when it reaches a critical level, can reveal core convictions that we have been holding against ourselves for a long time. Sometimes we have been dragging this negative thoughts since childhood and their weight increases year after year, raising the standards we hold for ourselves to an unbearable degree.

Unlearning negative self-talk is a serious, long and demanding process that goes through several stages of therapy and self-consciousness learning. Realizing that you are talking yourself down is one step towards analyzing, accepting and correcting your behaviors towards yourself. This is where affirmations come in handy, as one of the many tools psychology and therapy give us to improve our self-perception and move towards a more positive version of our self-esteem.

Of course, if you are telling yourself : “I am ugly and nobody will ever love me” or “I am such a loser and I will never achieve anything in my life”, throwing in statements like “you are beautiful” or “you are smart” will not change this feeling. Affirmations are not magic and are certainly not a miracle solution to a deeper issue. They are a means to an end, they are a precious tool in your self-perception toolbox. Every time a dark thought comes in mind, counter it with a positive thing about yourself or something you are grateful for in your life or personality, like the fact that you are trying really hard or that you are an amazing dog parent or chef in the kitchen. Once again, this will not fix negative self-talk in a snap. However, it will give you the opportunity to perceive yourself with a complex series of qualities that will shift, orientate and influence change in the way you perceive yourself.

For some, a useful work to do with affirmations towards improving negative self-talk habits is writing down the recurrent negative things we think about ourselves. Processing these by putting them down on the paper will actually trigger our brain to think twice about these. Writing them some things that we are grateful for, some things we admire about ourselves or feel proud of, will also remind our brain to analyze in a more concrete way how we perceive our personality. With some work and patience, we can actually create healthier patterns and find a more eleemosynary version of our reality.

These affirmations can be as simple as these examples :

1. I always go around obstacles even if they’re scary

2. I faced my fear of …

3. I have great courage

4. I rocked at …

5. I am ready for whatever today brings. Let’s go!

6. I forgive myself for …

7. I am always present for my friends

8. Regardless of my setbacks, I always have a comeback in me.

9. I have achieved so much at work this year

And after all… Practice makes progress, right?

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The self-care trends should not win over genuine therapy practice

Self-care is a radically important notion and I cannot express how important taking care of ourselves is. In some cases, it is however unhealthy and stressful to see some genuine therapy practices and tools become popular trends taken way out of context and misused in a dangerous way.

Affirmations became a trend used and abused all over the internet, including by gurus all around the world to be practiced as this “miracle method” to make you feel better and put your negative thoughts on the side. This was a mistake all along that took the bona fide raison d’être of affirmations as a psychology tool out of the equation.

Other useful tools used and created by psychology professionals are slowly being taken out of their authentic use and meaning by popular culture and social media. For example, trigger warnings and active listening have been largely deviated from their initial purpose recently. Where trigger warnings were created to specifically and very earnestly prevent us from being exposed to content that would hurt us, trigger remnants of trauma and bad memories; they are now being used for all kinds of trivial purposes or… simply diminished, mocked or ignored.

Active listening, one of the core principles of therapy, is now being used by many independent counsellors or consultants to provide a seemingly sympathetic ear. This practice, as attractive as it may seem, may pull people away from seeking genuine and qualified help from a healthcare professional and cause disastrous consequences.

Even if the affirmations “faded trend” as many defined it seemed harmless and “fun”, it has influenced many people to delay their healing process or undermine negative impacts of trauma or PTSD. By misrepresenting this concept and describing it as a benign self-care practice, this important notion has been devoided from its real benefits : being a tool in the unlearning negative self-talk process.

Psychology concepts being taken out of context by brands and social media influencers should be an everyday concern and a serious matter to consider. Mental health awareness is a sternly overlooked subject when it comes to self-care and self-help trends and it remains crucial to remember that everybody should be able to find and seek the help they need without confusion.