Creating

Affirmation:   (1) I embrace prospective travel with grace and ease.  (2) I travel joyfully.

I was preparing to leave on a trip, a fun trip.  I was going with my friends on a Caribbean cruise.  I can hear my 90 year old mother-in-law’s voice, “I hate, I hate to pack.  I hate it with a passion.”  I’ve been lucky enough to travel quite a bit and to many fascinating places but to be honest, I think sometimes I like the idea of travel more than I actually like the experience. 

I was lucky enough to visit my friend/counselor/massage therapist before I was to leave.  She is a remarkable therapist and as she worked on me, we talked.  At one point she said it was obvious to her that I was preparing to travel.  She’s known me now for more than ten years and I see her as often as possible.  She said whenever I’m preparing for a trip; my body gets knotted up especially my stomach and my back.  I told her that my affirmation was, I travel joyfully.  She told me, that was good but it was more about how I had physically responded to travel in the past.  The response was etched into my cellular memory. 

Dr. John Sarno tells us that to change how our bodies response to our emotions we have to work on it until it seeps into not just our subconscious, but our unconscious.  It can happen, he says, it simply takes time.  It takes some of us longer than others.

The next morning as I journaled I created another affirmation to change how my unconscious responds to upcoming travel.  This is what my stream of consciousness produced:  I respond to travel viscerally and I have worked on the unconscious, although that seems to require a change.  I travel joyfully. I travel with ease. I relish the preparation and know the adventure will open my mind? I gracefully anticipate or embrace the whole experience?  I invite this new way of thinking into my tissues and my cells.  I must know, I must practice, I must work it out so that when travel looms my body responds with calm and with joy.  What words do I want to use for this affirmation?  I embrace prospective travel with grace and ease.  I think that will do it.  Let it be so. 

I am sharing this journal entry because this is the process I use to create my affirmations.  I listen for hints about what I need to re-frame in my mind to make my life richer, easier, less anxious.  Then, i write about it in my daily journal.  After I've examined my response, I look for the words, the sentences that resonate with me or perhaps the ones that don't resonate but that would change something that isn't working for me.  I write and write until the sentence comes alive.  Then, I transfer it to a few pieces of paper and I place them in places where I can't miss them, e.g. the bathroom mirror, the car dashboard. 

It’s only been one day and I’m feeling calmer but I know this is not something that can be resolved overnight.  But, hopefully I will respond with grace and ease while anticipating my next trip or the one after that.