I often hear that people start repeating positive statements, then give up or resistance appears - ultimately disappointment. I want to share my knowledge and experience about the mechanisms of attitudes and the nuances of affirmations. So, affirmations are a statement that is constantly spoken out and consolidates a new image in a person, helping to improve mood and stimulating positive changes in life. These are the general words. What's it like in reality? Imagine a garden bed. A bed densely planted with flowers and root vegetables (like any metaphor - it conveys the general meaning, without details). What is hidden from the person himself and from the entire society, roots, is the unconscious. And flowers and leaves are what a person calls conscious or consciousness. Here we have everything that we understand. What is the root made of? It is formed from soil and air - the surrounding world, and nutrients originating in the foliage (descends from consciousness). Example: A man is 5 years old, his parents sent him to his grandmother in the village. He is well-fed and dressed, but he is bored and lonely - his grandmother is busy with business, making sure “everything is in order.” He doesn’t know how to play with himself - they didn’t teach him. And one day our hero runs out of the gate on his first journey. On the way, he comes across local boys who are playing happily and ask him: “throw the ball”, a large shaggy dog ​​licks his hand and allows himself to be petted; finally, grandfather Vasily talks with him as with an adult about life, and even makes a horse out of sticks. What's going on in the hero's head? At first, just an assessment at the mental level - wow! Interesting! Feelings immediately appear - excitement, curiosity, delight... A good, cheerful mood. And a solution appears - “if you’re bored, you need to run “out of the gate” and it will be great!” (of course, my explanations, although based on Adler’s “Individual Psychology,” are quite primitive; I want to draw a general mechanism, so I don’t pretend to be scientific). Returning to our hero, I can assume that if the event was bright and contrasting, and then , when my grandmother found it, she groaned at something, and it was erased from her memory; a behavioral algorithm emerges from the decision. When I'm bored and nothing happens, I leave and look for where it's interesting. And this is already an attitude that lives in the unconscious (roots). Like any attitude, it can be appropriate, but sometimes not so much. Often a person likes the setting and does not change anything. He will never sit and wait for a miracle. Active in search. But, sometimes, he is dissatisfied that he is not assiduous, does not know how to entertain himself, and seeks entertainment through others. Then a person gets an interesting job, also highly paid, in which there are periods of stagnation. You have to be able to wait and no one entertains you. A person has a choice - either quit or do something with himself. And he chooses the second. Through affirmations. He begins to inspire himself that “I love a state of complete peace, I enjoy when everything around me freezes” or “I myself am the source of joy and fun in my life.” What is happening? They are trying to push a new plant into a garden bed where everything is densely planted. Moreover, “shove” is a very precise word in this context. Where it leads? Other flowers can easily displace the “new settler”. Is it easy for a bush to take root if it is stuck and shoved? It’s very difficult - the roots need a hole sprinkled with fresh soil. Therefore, the following happens in real life: we grab onto the affirmation, onto what we lack (a plant that is not in our garden bed), and begin to “take root” by force. As a result, resistance is triggered (other flowers) - our other beliefs and attitudes do not allow the new one to take root, or we ourselves abandon this matter (we stop caring for the newcomer). This is how the affirmation mechanism works, very schematically. Moreover, if in our example with the boy everything was good, then another time it could be bad - a solution can arise both there and there. For example, he ran away, nothing interesting happened, a strange dog barked, and when grandma found him,…