To make an affirmation work, consider worshipping it as if it is your religion. This is where the idea of the Temple of You comes from. The Temple of You is a way to honor who you are. You will more likely achieve your dreams and aspirations when you create an atmosphere that supports you in being disciplined and consistent with what you want.
I tell people to write down their affirmations and to keep them handy. I had a friend who printed up her affirmations and kept them all over the place. You can use your bulletin board, your notebook, make bookmarkers, or keep them with your business cards. Give them away and you affirm them to the rest of the world.
The way that religious disciplines remember spiritual principles are through various practices of the discipline. I like to think of them as using the five senses — sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Sight and sound are the most popularly used.
Mandalas are visual religious symbols that help in spiritual practice. You can create your own mandala by bringing together, in a picture, the objects or symbols of what you stand for. I created a mandala with a circle of gold in the center, standing for the “chi” vital energy. Above it rested a smaller circle of the taichi symbol. For me, this stood for the balancing principles of the universe and macrobiotics, which uses yin and yang in nutrition. Above the taichi went an even smaller circle to represent the crown chakra, the energy center of high illumination. My mandala also includes a background of leaves which represent people in my life as support, webbing between the circles to represent my muscles and the health of my physical body, and rays from the crown chakra which symbolize the connection to all of the universe and unlimited potential.
Without getting so elaborate to create your own mandala, you naturally keep posters or pictures that make up who you are. What I am suggesting is to be more conscious about what you put around you and to have a more definite purpose in what you want to create for yourself. Keep pictures of people that inspire. These could be holy men, authors, scientists, or great thinkers. They could also be important relatives or other loved ones.
Create a place of worship in your home. This can be as formal as an altar or just a peaceful alcove. On my altar, I have a statue of a figure doing taichi in counterpoint with a statue of the Chinese god of longevity. The altar also includes medals signifying achievement in sports and academics. Among the other objects of power, I have a cross, an energy rock, a gourd, a netsuke of a man in an impossible yogic posture.
You might simply choose a room of the house or a part of a room for meditation or contemplation. Make it a place where you can retreat to achieve a sense of peace. Often we need to go out of doors to a place in nature to get peace. Wouldn’t it be much easier to find a place in your own home? Or is your life so chaotic that you have no room for that kind of place? If you don’t have a place to put aside for this special kind of tranquility, does this reflect on your lack of priority for this as a whole?
Mantras are religious syllables or phrases that have deep meaning and are usually recited out loud or in your mind. I adopted a “mantra” that I made up of nonsensical Japanese sounding syllables when I was singing in the shower one day. It had such a good feeling and made me happy. Later I noticed that it had all the vowels in it and the “mm” sound, a common thread in may languages throughout the world. Play around with phrases that you like out of songs. A friend of mine would always come up with a song whenever he was struck by an important word in conversation – “wasn’t there a song….?” Joni Mitchell? Gospel songs are fun and soulful especially if you get to their deep meaning.
Express the essence of your soul in your affirmations and your lifestyle statements. Believe, “If I am myself, the Lord will support me in being me.” Being yourself is asking for what you stand for and creating it in every part of your life — in the Temple of You.