Affirmation, it's for Everybody!

"I am good enough, I am smart enough, and doggone it...people like me"--Stuart Smalley, played by now Minnesota Senator, Al Franken from Saturday Night Live in Daily Affirmations

Unlike the character from SNL, affirmation usually comes from others, not self affirmation.  We need people to speak into our lives whether it is corrective or affirming.  Affirmation can come in the words, "I love you", "you look great", "you're really good at fixing cars", or "I wish I as patient as you are".  Affirming someone is telling them that they have a strength or admirable quality.  By speaking like this into someones life, it empowers them to keep doing what they were doing all the more.  By speaking into someones strengths, helps the individual recognize that they have something significant to offer.  Affirmation helps to form another's identity, it gives them clues that either they are on the right track or shows them something about themselves that they did not believe existed in themselves.

Living without affirmation leaves a blank.  When there is no one to help us fill that blank about ourselves, it seems our default mode is to fill it with negative ideas about us.  We all have had plenty of negative comments or developed negative beliefs about ourselves, this is the stuff we fill the blanks with.  Rarely will we fill the blank with something helpful or good.  Isolating yourself for any length of time can produce the blank and therefore left to fill it ourselves.  I don't know about you, but I always think I personally have good ideas about myself.  As experience has taught me, my ideas usually are not very good.  Left on my own, I am my own worst enemy with wrong thinking, false ideas and feelings that I don't deal with well.

When we hear legitimate, sincere, and well spoken affirmation it is both humbling and invigorating.  I can think of 2 or 3 instances of receiving well spoken, for real affirmations, they changed how I thought about myself and directed me into good things.  Someone helped to fill in the "blank" in my life. 

In a relationship, especially if it is a marriage, affirmation is the most powerful tool to building a better relationship.  Be specific, be personal, focus on character and not always on appearance or just abilities. 
Never use affirmation to manipulate(blog posts to come on that topic).  A gift is best given without strings attached.  So take your time, choose your words well and give the gift that can transform people's lives.

Shawn