My problem with personal affirmations
They come from manager parts, are ultimately fragile, and obscure the parts that need the most help
There are two types of affirmations: personal affirmations and universal affirmations. Yes, I just made up this typology and maybe there are many more types, or better ways to name these types. But I want to argue against personal affirmations because I think they actually hold us back from growing in the ways we need most.
Now, I admit I’ve been biased against personal affirmations from the get go. My first introduction to them was as a pre-teen, listening to my maternal grandfather attempt to speak his wealth, health, and happiness into existence. Even as a child, I could see how this performance was covering something inside of him that did not feel wealthy, healthy, or happy.
And then in 1991, as a 14-year-old boy watching Saturday Night Live, I saw Al Franken playing Stuart Smalley and uttering the soon-to-be-iconic phrase: “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.” His character lampooned self-help culture and of course as any teen boy would, I laughed along.
I went back and watched that first episode (February 9, 1991!) and there’s so much I find endearing in that couple of minutes. Stuart is open and honest (“Yesterday was not my best show”). He attempts to be present (“Do today’s show in the now”). He owns his feelings (after deciding to not prepare for today’s show, he begins to panic: “It’s my panic, and I own my panic”).
It’s no wonder that from this 3-minute sketch, Franken built a mini-franchise from Smalley. He’s authentic, endearing, and absurd. But today, I think a lot of the self-help culture he mocks is actually quite helpful. It’s good to be honest with yourself (“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt”). We are all worthy of love and respect (he says often, “I am a worthy human being” and “You’re a human being, not a human doing”). It’s far healthier to focus on healing yourself than others (“It’s easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world”).
But I still can’t get on board with the personal affirmations.
Why we’re better off without personal affirmations
When you put on the lens of IFS, you get to see that you are not a unitary, singular identity. You are a system of parts, supported by a spiritual life force we call Self. From this perspective, a critical question arises: who is the one saying “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it people like me”? And to whom is the affirmation being directed?
Personal affirmations always come from parts
Self certainly doesn’t need the affirmation. But in my experience, Self also doesn’t give affirmations like this. It emanates love, therefore it doesn’t need to convince or teach or coach. We definitely have parts that do this! But Self does not. Why would the sun need to say to itself “I am warm”? Or even send affirmations to earth like, “You are warm”? It doesn’t. The sun is warm and it just makes you warm! No convincing needed!
When Smalley looks into the mirror and says, “I am a worthy human being,” there is at least one part of him that does not feel like a worthy human being. That part will not feel like a more worthy human being, no matter how many affirmations are directed its way.
There may arise, after a time, some sense of worthiness in the internal system. But it won’t be coming from the part that feels unworthy. That part’s feelings of unworthiness just get pushed away in the system as the continued drumbeat of the affirmation announces that any parts carrying unworthiness are not welcome. This is what we, in IFS, call “exiling.”
The new feelings of worthiness are not coming from an authentic source of worthiness (the Self), but rather from exiling the parts that feel unworthy. Other parts might be enjoying this new found feeling of worthiness, but they sense that the old unworthiness is lurking around here somewhere. Just keep up the affirmations and don’t look back!
The good feelings from personal affirmations are fragile
In the example above, the new feelings of worthiness are built on a shaky foundation. Because the part carrying the unworthiness is still in the system, even if exiled, then any people or situations that could trigger unworthiness need to be avoided at all costs.
The world becomes a landmine of potential disruptions to the carefully crafted feeling-environment created by the parts chanting the affirmations. At any time, the curveballs of life—the inconsiderate word, unrequited bids for affection, rejections in business and relationship—can cause the entire edifice to come crashing down.
The feelings of unworthiness start swirling from below, like clay soil, which seems stable enough to build a house on until the first heavy rain causes the foundation to heave, crack, and finally collapse under its own weight.
Affirmations exile the parts that need them the most
The paradox of personal affirmations is that they drive away the parts that need them the most. The repetitive mantras around worthiness, performance, or love are also denunciations of their opposites: unworthiness, inadequacy, and rejection. The affirmations announce that feelings that threaten the desired outcome are forbidden.
Instead of getting the care they need, the parts carrying these forbidden feelings of unworthiness, inadequacy, and rejection are cast into exile. Affirmations don’t do anything for these vulnerable parts except turn them into outcasts in the internal system. Their existence becomes doubly threatening: first, because the feelings they carry are already destabilizing, and second, because the new well-planned emotional environment can only function so long as these exiles stay exiled.
A better type of affirmation
You might be asking: is it better to have no affirmations and allow the feelings of worthlessness, inadequacy, and rejection to flood one’s internal system unimpeded?
My answer is that we can have better affirmations, ones that don’t try to convince our parts to feel something they don’t. Better affirmations will instead speak truths that help our parts reorient while respecting the jobs they do in our system and burdens they’ve been made to carry.
I call these “universal affirmations” because instead of affirming a particular quality of a part (“I’m worthy”), they affirm larger truths that allow the parts the agency to feel exactly the way they feel.
Here are couple of universal affirmations I use:
“All parts are welcome.”
“What we resist persists.”
“It’s ok to slow down.”
“You can’t heal what you can’t feel.”
“You are not a drop in the ocean; you are the ocean in a drop.”
“The Tao that can spoken is not the eternal Tao.”
“Be with what’s here, rather than blended in what’s here.”
You get the idea. These are affirmations for all seasons, all parts, all the time. They respect the relative autonomy of parts. They are anti-fragile. They lead us to the parts that need Self the most.
The next time you want to reach for a personal affirmation, try on a universal affirmation instead. Feeling alone and lost?
“All parts are welcome.”
Oh, ok. Then which part inside is feeling alone and lost? Oh, that one in my chest?
“What we resist persists.”
Yes, now I’m noticing there’s a part resisting feeling alone and lost. Can that part relax its resistance?
“It’s ok to slow down.”
Right. I don’t need to move so fast and fix it all at once.
“You can’t heal what you can’t feel.”
Yeah, it’s ok to be with the part that feels alone and lost.
“You are not a drop in the ocean; you are the ocean in a drop.”
Ah, there’s a much bigger space here holding that part that feels alone and lost.
“The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.”
Ok. I can let go of trying to put this all into words.
“Be with what’s here, rather than blended in what’s here.”
[Deep breath in, long, slow breath out.]