Pie in the sky and (still) awkward affirmations

Thinking about affirmations and revisiting an “I Am” post

Today’s letter is a reflection on affirmations and a layering of last year and now. There is a new letter followed by a reposting of a post from last October. This is a “pro”-affirmations post. Being a skeptic doesn’t mean we can’t learn, grow, and adapt systems to be helpful and nurturing.

“The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I Am.” — Eckhart Tolle 

Happy Sunday!

I hope you are enjoying a cup of something warm. By the time you read this, I will have spackled and caulked as I try to exert some kind of control over my surroundings. I am struggling with a level of overwhelm that I can’t see past.

I’m feeling dejected and anxious, a bit doomed, and a dash paranoid. This seems like a good time to talk about affirmations.

I will be moving into a gratitude space next week, a space that has always been powerful in its awkwardness. I feel the move almost as a physical one, a readying, but this week, I looked back and saw that this time last year, I posted the first, of what turned out to be many, posts on affirmations.

That first post set the stage with a tongue-in-cheek pie-in-the-sky perspective. My relationship with affirmations has been one mostly marked by skepticism—until last winter, when I did my 100 Day Project and crafted a set of personal affirmations that were not meant to bring me riches or friends but did carry me through the span of months and into the final hospitalization.

What I did in those 100 days felt a bit different than a typical spin on affirmations, but it was important. I wasn’t focused on pie-in-the-sky statements. It was a practical series, almost anti-affirmation at times, and yet it was affirming. It was bracing. It was hopeful. It felt poetic. It was open-eyed.

That’s so much of what I ask of myself… be open-eyed. Onto that, layer the softening lens of gratitude. Onto that, layer hope and positivity. That’s a bit of what affirmations bring, the voice of positivity. I think that voice is often a boisterous self-talk that I find a bit unbelievable. I have doubts, but last year I started to worry about the law of attraction, the idea that what you project to the universe has something to do with what happens. Over the last twenty years, my projections have hovered or circled or spiraled in a haze that is reflective but often dim. I live in the whirlpools.

Fake smiles are fake smiles. Right? I don’t think the universe would be fooled.

Maybe my authenticity is my undoing?

As for affirmations….I really do struggle to believe in things that are not true or are unlikely to be true.

Maybe I didn’t realize that was the crux until I wrote it just now. I don’t tell fairy tales about myself, and that so often seems like the undercurrent of affirmations, wishful thinking embodied in strident declarations.

Say it like you mean it. Say it a dozen times. Say it again. The more you say it, the more you will believe it.

As with most things, we need to find our own way in, whatever crack or twist will reveal the light.

My 100 Day diary comic series wasn’t laced with fairy tales. I tried to write affirmations that I knew were true, ways to spin my truth and, maybe, remind myself or give myself a new way to think about the words.

Last year, I tried for a while to make them a part of my daily notes. Every morning, I would write an affirmation at the top of my digital planner. I liked the practice. I found it to be a good mental exercise. It asked me for clarity.

Since June, I don’t think I’ve even thought about affirmations.

I am in a span of months now that feels like a veil. I have the shimmery feeling of “last year” at this time and the “count” of things that happened over the next ten months. I have a shimmery sense of writing my way through those months, months of uncertainty, multiple hospital visits, multiple emergency calls, and a second stint with my 100-day dress. They are also my favorite months….months of light and focused gratitude.

My relationship with affirmations is tenuous, fledgling at best, but it was with surprise that I realized the palpable lack of affirmations this summer.

I can do this.

Other than that one.

Maybe I’ve said that to myself a dozen, fifty, a hundred times.

My relationship with affirmations has grown in the last year. I took them and did a bit of slow stitching on the concept with my daily series, one that was mindful and a comfort in some way, a lifeline, and, maybe, one of my favorite creative projects ever.¹

My relationship with affirmations has changed, but deep down, I still have some of the same skepticism and hope that came through in last year’s post. I’ve reposted most of the October 2023 post below.

There are no metaphors this week, no flamingos or nebulas, or nexuses, no milk jug luminaries.

I often wonder what I have to give you. I am not a traditional cheerleader. But I do hope that I offer a reminder to stop, to question, to weave, to document, and to constantly adjust the system of lenses through which you view your life, past, present, and future.

I hope you take a few minutes this week to think about the affirmations you need right now.

Thank you for reading.

Amy

🎯 The Sunday post is free to all readers. Thank you to readers who have upgraded their subscriptions or made a donation. I believe in the value of our creative habits and routines.

For the best viewing experience, use the app or view in a browser.

❤🧡💚💛💙💜 It makes a real difference when you click like, leave a comment, or restack a post.

Pie in the sky and awkward affirmations

(Originally published Oct 22, 2023; the version below has been excerpted in spots and a few current-me notes added. Rather than extensively cutting the post, I decided to let it stand. I think last year’s me did a good job. This year’s me has now written an assortment of other affirmations posts. I’ve grown, so it’s hard to not want to “say everything” all at once. Links to other posts are at the bottom.)

Original intro letter…

I am enough.

Do I believe that? Do I need to convince myself? Remind myself? Find the right neural pathway to make this thought automatic? 

I choose joy. 

What kind of woo woo hokeyness is this? If I write it fifteen times. Or a hundred. Or every day for twenty-one or thirty, will it sink into my being, seeping into my skin and into my cells? If I say it often enough, will I begin to subconsciously take steps to make it true? Will the subconscious lead to intention, to deliberate steps, changes, the charting of a new path of being?

I could put any words in those lines. The ones I use are different from these examples, but the "what if" is the same. If we use affirmations, get beyond feeling they are silly, believe in them wholeheartedly (or maybe even halfheartedly), can we evoke change? Can we shift our current thought patterns to more positive ones, and in that shifting change our outlook, our lives, our trajectory? Can we manifest the things we most want or need? Are the answers within us and within our control?

I tend to be skeptical. But there is also a thread of whimsy that winds through my consciousness. I don't necessarily think affirmations are whimsical, but for some reason, today, whimsy is flickering in the wings trying to lay some kind of claim here.

I speak to the universe. I listen for answers. I pay attention when I see signs. 

These things are all serious, and yet somehow they are underwritten by something pure, hopeful, and resolute that is related to whimsy. 

Maybe it's just been a long week.

I don’t know why affirmations stood out as something that I need to try and try again. But as I thought about my morning routine and ritual and what elements I wanted to put into a small morning stack, affirmations were there, right alongside gratitude. 

Affirmations fascinate me. I have circled around them, again and again, but I’ve never found them a comfortable fit. It may be that I’m just too innately jaded to be able to give into them, but there is an allure, the glow of fireflies rising in the dusk.

I am worthy of deep bonds and connections.

[Old “call 911 moment”; removed for length]

I am strong. I do what I have to do. 

I find it even more awkward to share affirmations.

Even more so than gratitude, I think the things we chant or write over and over in this way are private, are deeply connected to who we are, to what we most hope and wish and need.

Original post:

Approaching Affirmation

Gratitudes, glimmers, affirmations. It feels like a trifecta, three spokes on a wheel of balance and perspective, of self-awareness.

Affirmations are positive statements that you repeat to yourself. These statements are a pep talk of sorts, a bit of self-encouragement. These statements are designed to remind you or convince you of something good about yourself, about your strength, about your ability to move through the world in ways you find meaningful, about your ability to survive and to thrive.

“Affirmations… are phrases that, when repeated regularly, can change negative thoughts and behavior patterns.” — Everyday Health

You might think these statements are mostly wishful thinking. You might think affirmations are silly. You might be as likely to visit a fortune teller as to put your hopes and dreams into little statements you repeat and rewrite, fervently hoping to catch some universal stream to actualization. 

I am ______.

I am strong. I am brave. I am resilient.

I am smart. I am creative. I am capable.

I am likable. I am generous. I am funny.

Maybe affirmations seem natural to you. Or maybe you just can’t quite put yourself in that space yet. Or maybe you find them interesting from afar, the animals at the zoo or the curiosities other people have on their shelves.

I am exactly where I am meant to be.

I am loved.

Repeating affirmations is said to create new thought patterns in the brain. It makes sense that extra positivity can be helpful, can boost our confidence or our courage, and can help us take steps to bring what we are telling ourselves into being. 

That’s the potential magic. If you say it with enough conviction, can you will it into existence?

If you say it enough times, can you make it happen?

If you repeat it over and over, will it be true?

Can you make yourself believe what you affirm? Can you make the universe hear you?

It’s easy to slide into lala land territory, but sometimes, the terrain that feels most awkward is exactly where you need to walk.

I am not afraid of the unknown.

I am able to handle what comes.

The same people who make the pretty lists about how to approach morning, and relationships, and life, of course, advocate affirmations.

I choose love over fear.

The examples I’ve included so far are philosophical and abstract. They are statements of fact, of a present state of being.

I am.

Sometimes you will see affirmations that are more along the lines of wishful thinking, wishes or hopes or dreams tied to specific things, successes and victories, marks of "winning."

[Section cut]

I will win the lottery.

I will win the lottery.

No matter how many times I write that, I don’t expect it will happen. Beyond the ridiculous odds, the simple truth is that I don’t play the lottery. I can’t afford to waste money even on the chance in a billion. (But if I wrote it enough times, would I buy a ticket?)

Pie-in-the-sky statements don’t work for me. They just feel silly.

Maybe I’ll never manifest my wishes precisely because I find them too silly, too preposterous. Is that the case?

I can’t bring myself to write (and rewrite) things that have no grounding.

Did I will my podcast (or Substack) away from success because I wasn’t willing to write 1000 times that I was a successful podcaster or writer?

The niggling worry that there is something to self-actualization always gets me.

(I’ve talked often about my Field of Dreams approach. It never panned out, and yet it is why I’m here writing. It is what keeps me coming back.)

I am accountable. I stick with things. I finish what I start.

I find that what I am looking for in an affirmation is reinforcement, a positive spin on something I am doubting, or something I need to believe. I am looking for the pep talk that I know otherwise won’t happen.

I am writing for thousands of paying readers.

It's just silly.

I am able to support (or even supplement) my life with my writing.

Again, laughable.

I am growing a readership. 

I have something to say worth saying.

I am worth reading.

I am going to eventually get ten more followers.

I write even for one person.

The chain of thought can easily devolve. Finding the right line, the right phrasing, the one you believe and that is carefully crafted seems to be the trick and the key.

Try Affirmations

Give affirmations a try.

You’ll find affirmations of all types. Some are concrete. Some are wishful or even wistful. Some sources say start with what you already believe. Some say ask a question instead. Some say the affirmation should be present tense. Some go for the pie.

Like gratitudes, and even glimmers, affirmations are personal. While there are blueprints out there, lists and memes and pretty social posts and videos and podcasts and meditation tracks that offer affirmations you can adopt, your own are within you. The blueprints can be a starting point, but listen for lines that speak to you, lines you need, either in whole or with your own twist, your own modification.

I think we each gravitate to a certain approach, a certain “voice” for our affirmations.

It makes sense to me that affirmations are personal. The ones I think I most need are ones that make me uncomfortable, make me teary. These are the reminders I need to hear, the conviction I need to believe. The change I hope to see.

Can I remap my brain with pathways of positivity and empowerment? I don’t know. But on the off-chance, affirmations are now part of my morning. I choose something different every day, a few somethings. I write a line. I write it three times. I don’t say it out loud, but I always hear my words in my head, so it feels similar to saying it aloud. I write another line. I write it three times, sometimes more.

I am probably losing the potential of anything to spontaneously manifest because I am doing too many or each one not enough times. But I feel good about the micro-affirmation process, this series of dominoes I am lining up, one by one. I write the affirmation. I hold it just long enough in the writing of it three times that I feel it steady beneath my fingers. It coalesces around me somehow, shimmering in vapors, almost invisible, part of a mesh of morning, diffuse like the peachy-orange creamsicle sky has been every day this week.

You will find your own, but here are a few sample affirmations to get you thinking:

• Doors are opening for me.

• I am capable. I am strong.

• I’m right where I should be.

• Everything is unfolding for my greater good.

• I face my challenges with courage.

• I choose joy.

• I am enough.

• I am liked.

• I am loved.

• I believe in myself.

• I have everything I need.

2024: I did order those little pies. I think they may have been disappointing, but then I’m not much on pie or dessert. Sometimes, it is the intention that matters. Sometimes, it is all in the symbol and in the ways in which a symbol or metaphor makes us think and reflect and bundle our intention and act with intentionality. Last October involved yet another in more than 20 years of 911 calls and hospitalizations, and the second in a back-to-back string that would dominate the fall months and into the new year.

---

Other Affirmations Posts

• Positively 100 Days

• Affirmations and Verbs for Manifesting

---

---

Weekly Bits and Pieces

• Prompts for Illustrate Your Week - Week 43

• Diary List Comics / 52 Weeks

---

Made It?

Thank you for reading along! I always enjoy your comments and invite you to chime in. Let me know what stands out for you, what you think after reading, or where we connect.

• Are affirmations a tool in your toolbox? Pink hammer if you are all in.

• Spackle if you have holes and cracks (in your affirmations habit) to plug.

• Couch if you would just rather not.

• Pie if you are a pie person; pie chart if that’s more your style.

• Pumpkin or squash

As always, feel free to rearrange, embellish, and add your own flair and whimsy. Feel free to share a joke.

Jump in in whatever way feels comfortable. If you enjoy the weekly post or know someone who might, please share.

---

Thank you for reading Illustrated Life. Writers need readers, and I am grateful for every reader!

Paid options are available for those who can and want to support Illustrated Life, the podcast, and the weekly #illustrateyourweek prompt series. Subscriptions not your thing? One-time donations are always appreciated.

All images in this post are ©️ A. Cowen. All rights reserved.

1. That sentence is one I really should examine, although I’m fickle at times. Last weekend, I was looking at the 52 Diary List Comics, a weekly that I’ve been struggling to keep up with, and I felt like it is one of the most powerful projects I’ve done, and one that I like to look at most. But then, I’ve thought that about my journal at times, too. Seeing the graphic panels from last fall, I love them. It’s always good to love what we do.