Affirmation Art – Learn how to create positive samskaras

Imagine to get from your house to the car each day, you need to walk across your yard.  When you first start taking this path, it is covered with grass. But after walking along this same route over and over, the grass begins to wear away and you create a path.  Eventually, walking this same route over and over, a deep rut develops. This path is the visual representation of the result of a repetitive action or thought.

Samskara

In yoga, a samskara is a psychological groove created by repetitive thoughts and behaviors.  According to Yoga Journal, “the word samskara comes from the Sanskrit sam (complete or joined together) and kara (action, cause, or doing).”  The more we revisit these thoughts and behaviors, the deeper the groove and the more ingrained that samskara becomes in our psyche.  

Simple affirmation art reinforcing a positive belief.

You can have both positive and negative samskaras.  A positive samskara is one that is developed by thoughts and actions in alignment with your authentic self.  Being in this groove feels easy – like you are sitting in a luxury seat in a bullet train, smoothly moving along.  This is often referred to as being in a state of flow.

A negative samskara however is created and reinforced by thoughts and actions originating from your conditioned self.  This is fed by the beliefs you have inherited and adopted from your family, society, and culture. These beliefs are embedded in your subconscious and are often in opposition to your authentic self.  When you are in the groove of a negative samskara, instead of the luxury seat on a bullet train, you are pumping the handle on a handcar, struggling to make it move along the bumpy tracks.

Our goal is to reinforce positive samskaras, while no longer walking along the tracks of negative samskaras.  But this is a lot easier said than done.

The human brain is complicated

While scientists are still discussing how many thoughts we have each and every day, even the most conservative estimates are in the thousands.  If you have ever tried to sit quietly in meditation, you know how hard it is to “police” those thoughts. Now imagine how much more difficult it is when you are not turning all of your focus to your thoughts and are also trying to cook dinner, drive a car, have a conversation, or work.  

While I try to redirect myself when I catch my thoughts and actions coming from what I know to be my conditioned self, I also know it is easier to think something than to not think something.  So I like to focus attention several times a day on reinforcing my positive samskara.

This is my set-up for making affirmation art – it really is as simple as a few pieces of paper, colored pencils, and a mug of tea!

I recently listened to a discussion on marketing, the presenter mentioned that you need to get your product or service in front of a consumer up to 30 times before they fully register it.  If you transfer this concept to the formation of our positive samskara, it means we need to be regularly revisiting the thoughts and actions which will form these grooves.

Additionally, there is a connection between writing something down in your own words and retaining that knowledge.  Research conducted by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer found “students who write out their notes on paper actually learn more” than their peers who use computers to take notes.  When we write something down, we not only reinforce it in the moment, the study also found we recall it more easily when referring to our own words in our own handwriting at a later date.

Why affirmation art

All of this brings me to why I love to create affirmation art and hang it up in places I will see it regularly.  Sometimes this is quotes I love, but often, it is the messages that come from a place of deep resonance within my authentic self.  These words are ones which uphold my core values and which help me to reinforce the creation of positive samskaras.

Through not only creating the artwork, but also regularly seeing and reading these messages to ourselves, we are working to develop those grooves which keep us in a state of flow and ease in life.  

A few important notes on writing affirmations

This is my draft – notice I crossed out a few words which did not feel authentic after writing them down. I also drew a template of the shape I wanted to use in creating my finished product.

You want to write the affirmation as if it is already realized.  Instead of writing, “I will have love in my life”, your affirmation would be “I have love in my life”.  This helps your brain to understand that it is not a someday goal, but a today goal. If you are looking at something as a long-term goal, you might miss an opportunity which is presented to you in the present.

Affirmations are simply words positively stating a situation.  A good way to start thinking about the types of affirmations you want to include is to imagine what your life would look like in five years if anything was possible.  Where would you live, who would you live with, what would you be doing, how would you feel each day? Creating positive statements which reinforce these concepts is a good way to begin with your affirmations.

If you need help getting your affirmation writing started, check out my Pinterest board for tons of inspiration!

Creating affirmation art

You don’t need anything fancy to create your own affirmation art.  You can work with just a piece of paper and a pencil or pen. I like to use colored pencils, but feel free to use markers, colored pens, paint, crayons, whatever you find enjoyable to work with.

Once you have gathered your materials, take a seat and get comfortable.  Close your eyes. Take several deep breaths, try to ground yourself and bring about a sense of calm.  If you are new to meditation or breathwork, I have several guided breathwork practices on the blog to get you started (this is a good introductory one).

For this piece, I used my affirmations to create the shapes of the flower petals, leaf and stem. I even added a few additional words to create the flower center.

After you feel grounded and ready to start, I suggest writing down all the affirmations you would like to include in your art on a piece of scrap paper.  Once you have them down, do a quick review. Is there anything on that list that you “should” have there? For me, should is a really quick indicator I am acting from my conditioned self.  As one of my teachers says – “stop shoulding all over yourself”. Cross out all of those should’s and anything else that feels a little sticky when you read it – we only want to reinforce positive samskara which resonate with our authentic selves.

Working from what is left on your list, now it is time to create your artwork.  I like to use a variety of colors and write in many different directions. Sometimes I use the words to form shapes.  Often I will doodle in pictures along with my words which reinforce the affirmations for me.

Once you are done, hang it somewhere you will see it often.  Take a moment each day (or several times a day) to read what you have written, to revisit those affirmations, filling your thoughts with the positive views of your life.

Other ways to use this technique

Here are my framed Big Why’s on display in my office.

This is a great technique to use anytime you have something which you want to reinforce for yourself.  I have a piece of art which hangs in my office to reinforce the big why’s in my life, both personally and professionally.  They are the reasons I sit down at the computer each day and create this content for you.

If you are making big changes in your life (and affirmation work can help lead to those), having your big why’s on a piece of art is a great way to remember why you are working through the discomfort of growing into the next phase in your life.

Once you have your list of affirmations, you may want to create several different pieces of art to hang throughout your house.  Perhaps you write your affirmation on post-it notes, decorate them and stick them all over so you are seeing these messages throughout your day.  If you bullet journal, this is a great option to add to your monthly page spreads.

Whatever you do – make sure it works for you.  This exercise only works when you follow your own inner knowing.  I want you to do this because it feels right to you, not because it feels right to me.

Wishing you a day filled with words that affirm and resonate with your authentic self.