Affirmations and Control
Surrendering to Authentic Growth
We’re often told that we need to "fake it until we make it" or that the key to success lies in relentless positive thinking. But what if the real power comes from simply being honest with ourselves? What if it’s not about pretending or forcing a mindset, but rather about aligning with who we truly are and what we genuinely want? Affirmations aren’t magic words. They’re tools to help us rewire, refocus, and reconnect to our authentic desires. It’s about stepping away from the noise, shedding the limitations, and embracing the freedom to live without fear of judgment or unknowable outcomes.
When you think about affirmations, what comes to mind? Is it the idea of "faking it until you make it"? Is it about shifting your mindset? Or is it about confirming for yourself the path you’re on — reaffirming that you are genuinely pursuing something you truly want, supported by building the framework of what you need to achieve those desires?
The New Age movement offered some useful ideas and insights, but it also misled those seeking alternatives to their religious pasts — those moving away from the paradigms of a volatile, vengeful God. Something clearly wasn’t resonating with the old formula, and the truth was beginning to emerge. New Age thinking, in many ways, was just another distraction, a variation on a theme. However, it created a far less structured and disciplined approach to self-improvement, while subverting the attunement to what is authentic, real, and true.
Instead of asking God for forgiveness, confessing to a priest, or attending church every Sunday, people would now profess that all is love and light, everything is acceptable, everyone is loved, and to simply "follow your bliss" — while still attending some variation of a church service on Sundays. But this is an inversion of how reality works. So, if neither of these perspectives is entirely true, what do we have?
We have the ideas of transformational coaches and a more matured version of what the New Age movement introduced. But in truth, nothing about the "New Age" offered new ideas at all — they’re some of the oldest and truest concepts that have existed throughout time, across cultures and societies, both past and present.
While affirmations — when repeated with full emotional charge, intent, and conviction — can bring about small changes in your reality, these shifts usually come from subtle, but eventually fundamental, changes in attitude and behavior. All of it comes from within. By repeating an affirmation, you’re rewiring your neural networks, reshaping your habits, and teaching yourself to walk in a new way — revealing a new path that’s more aligned with the real you.
This, in fact, is the only way affirmations can truly work. Much like prayer, they’re entirely ineffective and meaningless unless you apply them in your life — not just with imagination, intentions, and words, but with action, follow-through, and the willingness to break old habits and patterns that have shaped your mind, body, and spirit up to this point. Look at the world around you and be honest: If affirmations and prayer really worked, would there be so much unhappiness, divorce, depression, violence, conflict, disease, and death? Fantasy might work in movies and novels, but it's delusional and damaging when applied to your real life.
You are, in essence, deprogramming yourself from the world around you. You’re taking responsibility for removing the conditions, limitations, and mind control that have been imposed on you — brainwashing and indoctrination that you’ve been subjected to throughout your life. This conditioning has been layered on top of what you learned from your family, your community, and every other external influence that has solidified beliefs deep within your neural and biological processes.
So, the best way to use affirmations isn’t to simply stick words on a post-it note or plaster them on your mirror or screen. Instead, it’s about affirming whether you’re being authentic with your true soul’s wants and desires. Are you being honest about your actual needs — are they real, not imagined? And can you accept that there’s essentially nothing you can control in this reality, except for these fundamental prerequisites to manifesting the life you’ve envisioned? That original spark you came in with when you decided to take another shot at this game of Earth?
Once you accept that you aren’t in control, you can dive into life with reckless abandon. You can love more deeply, communicate more genuinely, and pursue your desires and needs with earnestness — without fear of judgment or conditions, without attachments to outcomes or eventualities. It's fluid, organic, and largely unknown. When you accept that you’ll never “get it all done,” and that, in the grand scheme, it doesn’t really matter, you can stop chasing outcomes — whether fearing failure or success. You’re here for a short time to experience, learn, and explore. In this freedom, you can be fully who you are, and pursue what you truly desire. You can pivot at any time, reorient yourself to what is more true, more real, more authentic, as you journey down this path of liberated soul and spirit.
There are no shortcuts. There’s no way to lie to yourself without doing harm — either to yourself or others. You will not "fake it until you make it," because, deep down, you’ll know you’re faking it. But when you start moving toward your desires — genuine needs and authentic aspirations — pay attention. Have confidence and trust in those intuitions and impulses. They may be “wrong” in some way, but that doesn’t matter. Commit to learning as you go, growing as you evolve — unraveling, unburdening, unveiling the original story behind the mask — and following through with no attachment to outcomes. It’s all just more data. More information. Reaffirm, recalibrate, and keep walking.
You’re not here for a long time, and, again, you’ll never “get it all done.” Stop comparing yourself to others, or ascribing some magic to their runs of luck, surprising successes, or coveting their happiness. You don’t know the whole story. You don’t know the hows, whats, whys, or whens… You have assumptions, presumptions, speculation, and judgment. That’s a perspective rooted in self-denial, self-reproach, and only ever foments victimhood. We all have a unique, individual purpose — a unique, individual path to our existence. What you see outside of you, in others, in the world, is information. Data. Use it as a tool, nothing more. You may indeed find satisfaction along the way, that’s your choice. But ultimately, you need to let go of the need for control and free yourself from that psychic or spiritual weight. Raise the anchor and free your vessel to move.
As Garret Kramer says:
"Understanding that we’re not in control allows us to jump into the game of life freely, without fear of outcomes or consequences. We cannot truly live and love if weighed down by the specter of personal burden."
Solvitur ambulando