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I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I stood in front of the mirror in my old bedroom for many, many months and said those three words to myself every single day.

With a smile and a sharp look, I uttered every word confidently and made sure it would pierce my soul and rewire my brain.

To make it sound more real, sometimes I would say my name and raise my voice so I could hear myself better.

“Elyane, I love you.”

“Elyane, you are well loved.”

I also sobbed and wiped my tears in front of that same old mirror. I may have even called myself stupid for not knowing any better. But then I would remind myself that I love her because of the positive affirmation I had vowed to repeat until I could actually experience that love.

But I didn’t and couldn’t experience it. If my mirror could talk, it would have called bullsh*t on all my positive affirmations. My reflection knew something that I didn’t back then: my words were utter lies.

I could have repeated that affirmation a thousand times more, but nothing could have changed the fact that I was nowhere near self-love. I didn’t even know what it meant or how to practice it. But I was adamant that I wanted to improve myself and I had just learned about the power of words and the vibrations they hold at their core.

In the past, positive affirmations were a big part of my spiritual journey. I built and repeated many phrases that were supposed to alter my way of thinking. You may have also used positive affirmations at some point to improve your mood and feel empowered. And maybe, you have also realized that (ahem) they don’t always work.

When I stood in front of my mirror and told myself that I love her, I was neglecting one important thing:

Inner work.

Yes, words are powerful. And yes, positive words vibrate higher than negative ones. However, for words to serve their purpose, we need to check where they’re coming from. If the source is our old conditioning and traumas (aka subconscious mind), the words we say won’t have a positive effect. Nothing will change. In fact, we might even feel like a failure if we repeat the same positive affirmations but keep getting the same old result.

Having said that, I didn’t love myself back then and had low self-esteem. Furthermore, I had thought that I was doing the necessary inner work by repeating a positive affirmation. But the inner work I needed to do was way deeper and more complex than saying a few words.

I’m still doing the necessary inner work and still learning how to trust and love myself. Maybe, if I repeat those words today, I might believe them. That’s why only 10 percent of positive affirmations might work. It really depends on how far we’ve come—and I’ve come a long way since then.

If your positive affirmations work, that’s great. But if they don’t, check in with yourself. Do you believe what you’re saying? What’s the real message that your subconscious mind is telling you? Let’s suppose we want to feel empowered and successful. So we keep saying “I am strong, successful, and powerful.” But if deep inside we think that we’re not worthy of success, our positive affirmations won’t work. If, also, we have been bullied, abused, or mistreated and haven’t yet worked on healing our childhood wounds, our positive affirmations (again) won’t work.

So start from the inside out and look for the barriers that are hindering your progress. Remember that you’re looking for permanent results and not quick fixes. So while saying positive affirmations might boost your mood for a few seconds or minutes, they might not help in the long-run.

The only way to know if they’re helpful is by paying attention to your emotional reactivity. How are you dealing with life’s ups and downs? How are you handling your messy and complicated emotions when they rise to the top? If nothing has changed for you, then positive affirmations are only providing you with a short mental boost—not a long-term solution.

~