written by Juli Somers

“It’s not about having any particular experience. The practice is about opening to whatever presents itself”  – Joel Goldsmith

A student asked me in a class recently what I thought about affirmations and intentions. It was a wonderful question to reflect on. The trick to using a compass is to know the direction you want to go from where you stand now. It helps to have a destination in mind otherwise you won’t know when you get there. Same with intention; it is good to have an idea of the direction you want to move in. The bible tells us, “ask and you shall receive”. The trick is to ask – set your compass in the direction you want to go – and then just walk. Trust the way life moves you.

Ever notice that sometimes you set an intention and then what shows up is vastly different from what you were intending? There is always a reason in the invisible realm as to why we are led in seemingly the wrong direction or why you have to go through a pond full of frogs before the prince or princess comes along. It is, after all, a souls’ journey and our souls are always nudging us to grow. Those nudges can take us far out of our intended direction. But they always lead us closer to Truth.

I may consciously affirm something until I am blue in the face but if the program running my subconscious isn’t aligned with that, then I’ve merely succeeded in getting a blue face. Say you are trying to lose weight so you affirm to yourself ‘I feel light in my body’. At the same time maybe there is a belief in your subconscious that tells you that you are fat. A positive affirmation may help you to feel better and possibly shift negative thoughts. That’s a good thing. However, to create lasting change you must heal the roots of that defeating message and change it to loving yourself.

Remember those old slide viewers? You could pop in a slide and look through the viewer to see the picture. Energetically we are always influenced by these “pictures” or experiences from our lives that have formed our sense of who we are. That message that you are fat may be there because your mom didn’t like having a chubby baby. In order to change what has been created you have to remove the old slide from the view finder that influences how you see yourself or the world. To just cover up the old with a new pretty picture won’t heal the invalidation inside.

I once had a friend that would frequently be on very strict eating regimes. Whenever we went to lunch, she would look at my food and commence to tell me all the reasons why the food was bad. Finally I had to tell her to stop putting her pictures on my food. I didn’t believe what she believed so my food was innocent of all that judgment. All my food wanted to do was provide me with sustenance and suddenly it was getting told how bad it was.

This same person was big on affirmations. What I would often notice is that her inner vibration didn’t match the thing she was affirming on the outside. Yes, she wanted to be there but her energy was nowhere near accepting that affirmation as truth. There are many stories of people who win millions in the lottery and then lose all of it within a couple of years. If the program in the subconscious says lack then lack is what has to return.

A good starting place is to bless whatever it is you want to change. Bless it with the knowing that there is a reality beyond appearance where all is perfect. With my above example, the key would be to love your body just as it is; it is the vehicle you have chosen to fulfill your soul purpose. A true affirmation moves you from wanting something different to allowing yourself to be in love with you exactly where you are.

There is nowhere to get to but enlightenment. Life is constantly offering us opportunities to awaken. The good news is you once accepted the unwanted program and you can now decline it. The ultimate affirmation is that God is All That Is. And in the meantime, may all of our intentions and affirmations lead us ever closer to living that truth. Come take a class at the Center and learn how to move out some of those limiting pictures with amusement.

Reverend Juli Somers is the Director of The Center For Inner Truth
She can be reached at 920-4418 or revjuli@newmexico.com