Get & Stay in Denial: No, No, No, It Is Not So

In my circles, people are really into affirmations, but seldom denials. With the week in American politics we just had and the year we’re facing, I think some denials are in order.

Most people know what affirmations are, but in case you’re blanking on them, refresh yourself with Al Franken/Stuart Smalley’s mocking/deadly serious affirmations below.

In current spiritual parlance, denial is a bad word that means “a refusal to accept the reality [of addiction].” But it’s also clearly a powerfully effective practice:

Pop quiz:

which of these denials did Donald Trump (successfully) pound on the campaign trail?

• I did not steal classified documents
• I did not try to overthrow an election
• I am not anti-abortion

Answers: all of them, and more!

As one of my role models, the great author and minister Catherine Ponder in The Dynamic Laws of Healing, puts it:

You do not deny the existence of the adverse condition nor do you hesitate to seek [technical treatment for a cure] but along with this you also begin to go deep within your thinking and recognize the adversity for what it is: a diseased appearance created by your own diseased, thinking.

This isn’t about putting our head in the sand and pretending that appearances aren’t what they are. It’s about excavating the diseased thinking that bore this fruit.

So what’s a denial? If affirmations are planting seeds we wish to bear fruit, DENIALS are ways to pull weeds that are choking the seeds we’re planting.  We talked last week about issuing our own executive orders (those are affirmations). What can we issue as a denial?

Some of Ponder’s sample denials are:

• No, No, No. It is not so. You have no power. You are nothing.
• No, No, No. It is not true. I refuse to believe this. It is a lie and there is no truth in it.
• It simply cannot be. It is not so. I do not accept this condition. It is nothing. It has no power.

and, the old standard (a clean-up on aisle 9 of “get thee behind me, Satan”):

• Get thee hence!

When we issue denials like these with passion and authority, we also change reality.

So for the next week, please humor me, as you read the news or get a diagnosis or anything you don’t want (and DO continue to stay current), say aloud “No, No, No. It is not so. You have no power. You are nothing. Get thee hence!”

Let me know what you notice.

Note: If you remember anything about the trajectory of U.S. Senator Al Franken’s career, Senator Franken might have stayed in office had he used some DENIALS instead of affirmation. Do you ever stop to think what a whacko political environment it is where happily married Al Franken is forced to resign from office because 20 years before there was a woman who says he kissed her and Donald “grab them by the” Trump is President?