Affirmation Activity

If someone asked you, “What makes you amazing?” Could you answer that? 

Or if they asked for your positive characteristics or what you like about yourself, do you have an answer longer than a couple of words you fumble over? 

It can feel like such an awkward thing to consider, what makes me great… add in some limiting beliefs about humility and how girls.. Christians.. (pick an identity) should be humble/not boast and thinking about this can feel ick. 

Brains are wired to keep us alive and not keep us happy. Survival is the goal. By age 7 (prior to kids developing higher level thinking skills), a child has developed their perception (subconscious) and the way they see the world and themselves. This is when limiting beliefs and negative cognitions begin. The brain is looking for danger, interprets a situation as such, and then intensifies the search in an attempt to keep you safe (which can look like anxiety then or down the road). 

In EMDR, phase 5 (of 8) is called installation. It’s a time to install positive beliefs about yourself.  

(Disclaimer- As a therapist, I do not follow the EMDR protocol in a strict manner, and I usually integrate EMDR with other things, like IFS/parts work. So if you are one of my clients you might be wondering- “When did we do that?” haha. We might not have, in an official-way). 

Working with a client a while back, we were doing this hybrid-trauma-work strategy of EMDR/IFS. She was resting comfortably on the couch while holding the tappers in her hands. I asked her to share some positive thoughts about herself. Generally, people struggle with this. I anticipate a few sentences, max. To my surprise, she talked for more than 20 minutes. She wasn’t in her cortex/thinking part of her brain. She was in a deeper part of the brain and the words just flowed. It was an intuitive, inner-wisdom that was expressing this and not just a rambling of “fun facts about me.” It was absolutely beautiful and emotional to witness. Juxtaposed against the hardships she was facing and the stories her brain had been telling her, this positive energy was a gift and shift in her therapeutic work. 

I write and reflect often, but generally it is sporadic. I get this burst of inspiration, and if it is just a little thing I text myself, something more extensive, I grab my writer’s notebook. I switched from paper to digital a while back. I love using my Ipad and the app One Note (I will do a separate post/video later explaining this if you need help with organization).

I have written a lot in 2025, the last 4 months daily (multiple times a day). Multiple purposes and benefits I won’t go into now, but the reason I am saying this here is because of how I was able to use this for the strategy I am going to share with you. 

Anytime I get on FB for a couple of minutes, I feel equally grateful and disturbed/confused about how my phone stalks me enough to know what little video clips to show me that match exactly the challenge I am going through right now. They can be encouraging or validating, but what often happens is you can get sucked in and find yourself scrolling and wasting 30 minutes before you realize it. 

These were some of the whys/thought processes behind what I did recently that I think could really be helpful for you, so I am sharing. Let me tell you I have been fighting myself about making this post. Almost all my parts are on board knowing that being transparent and vulnerable are what we are supposed to be doing. Then I have a super sharp, critical part that has tried to negate, with examples, many of the positive things I said. Let me explain. 

Instead of looking for positive videos or messages, I decided to take words I had written in my journal over the last several months and put them together in one space. It is a combination of positive affirmations and these declarative statements that kind of feel like manifesting. Another thing about the brain to mention is when you have a negative thought or make a negative statement, the brain uses that information to then filter your world through it. Your beliefs become your reality. The opposite is true as well, if you speak positively, your brain and the universe align with this. Your brain looks for the positive. Your brain can’t distinguish between something that really happened and something you created/visualized. This is the work I focus on as a therapist in helping clients with memory reconsolidation (changing the way negative memories are stored so they no longer cause distress). It is incredible. 

I wrote out this statement, and then I recorded myself reading it on my voice app on my phone. I have not been a fan of listening to recordings of myself, and I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a dumb idea, but I didn’t have anything to lose. Quite the opposite has been true. I love having instant access to my best-friend-hype-girl (aka me) saying all of these really kind, positive things to myself. I start my day doing red light therapy and vibration plate while listening to it several times. When I listen, sometimes I will tap my shoulders back and forth at a slow to mid pace, like I would if doing this as the installation phase of EMDR. BLS (bilateral stimulation) is incredible, short version info here is that it is helping me bypass my cortex/thinking brain and integrating my brain and storing this information at a deeper level. If I start feeling anxious or in my head too much, or if my body shows signs of this throughout the day, I press play on my 5 minute pep talk. Instant reset. 

Teacher-part of me is saying, “You know you have to share your writing and recording. Great teachers model their thinking- show not just tell. This will connect to people.” 

Some part says back- This isn’t demonstrating how to write a paragraph about elephants. These are really personal thoughts. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. 

And I struggle with how much of me believes every single thing I said. At some point I believed it, I wrote it down and it still resonates with me, but if I sit on it too long, inner critic jumps in to break it apart. Example: 

Line from my writing: I am an incredible mom. 

Most of my parts- 100% You sure are. Seriously, the best. 

Inner critic- Really? What about your kid telling you this week that they were mad about something you did in February (this is July). What a crap thing you did. Incredible.. really…  it’s giving fraud vibes to me. 

Then another part of me jumps in- You never said perfect. You are incredible. Praise you have the relationship you do with your kid that they felt comfortable sharing this (and don’t overthink the timing of it). And you didn’t just dismiss it, you waited to speak privately and apologized. You asked if there was anything else they wanted to share. You didn’t text but made it a face-to-face conversation so they could hear the sincerity in your voice, and you could make sure they said all they needed to say. You cared and followed through. Your child felt seen and loved. 

Inner critic- shut up a minute, but doesn’t completely let go of the negative view. 

I say all this to say if you try this activity and it is not easy for you, it wasn’t easy for me either. It took me months to come up with these nice things, and even then I can waver on how strongly I believe them. I noticed putting it all together as one, long statement gave the words more power and credibility. It was like one sentence built onto another, and together they have more strength than as stand alone reflections in my journal. The compilation was more than the sum of the parts. 

Here is the link to the written version: 

Here is the link to the audio recording: 

On a personal level, you are welcome to borrow any of my words that feel helpful to you if you need that until you come up with your own. If you do this activity, let me know your thoughts. Thank you for reading.