Incantations: Why I'm Spending 10 Minutes A Day Yelling To Myself
For the second time in my life, I find myself on a personal development binge.
My first was back in 2010 when I consumed book after book, mostly about understanding the role of consciousness in my life. Books such as Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth and The Power of Now, as well as the entire Conversations with God series by Neale Donald Walsch, were integral in changing the way I saw and experienced life.
My healthy overindulgence this time around is focused on practical rather than spiritual self-mastery, with one of the most prominent figures I am now regularly reading, watching, and listening to being Tony Robbins.
As a good friend of mine describes him, Tony Robbins is the perfect life coach for extroverts, something that, when being my most genuine self, I certainly am.
The CD (yes those still exist) I am currently listening to is The Power to Shape Your Destiny: Seven Strategies for Massive Results. One tool Tony encourages us all to make a part of our daily life that I've found particularly helpful is incantations — in fact he suggests it so strongly that he insists one hasn't applied his teachings effectively until they have set aside at least 10 minutes of every day to practice them.
What Are Incantations?
Incantations (in the non-magical sense) are statements you repeat with the intention of bringing yourself to fully embody and believe them. To do them most effectively, Tony suggests you say them with force and let your body language match the intensity with which you deliver them.
In other words, you literally yell to yourself for 10 minutes a day.
Sound crazy? It is, but in my experience so far, it actually works. Day after day I find myself astonished by how much my approach, mentality, and feelings toward life can shift through this exercise.
To better explain what an incantation of this nature might sound like, here are some examples (some of which have been modelled on samples Tony gives on the CD):
Every day I am getting stronger and smarter.
No matter what happens, today is going to be a great day.
Abundance and wealth flow to me.
I am courageous and fully capable of overcoming the challenges ahead of me.
The statements can also get a lot more specific, as I often gear them toward aspects of my life that I am currently dealing with.
Incantations vs. Affirmations
I think it is critically important to distinguish between incantations, as I've outlined here, and affirmations, a practice that largely became popular through the law of attraction. Tony himself addresses this difference in the following video, as well as describes the power to be harnessed through making incantations a part of your daily life.
A Bonus Reason To Try It Out
Unexpectedly, doing these incantations has lessened my feelings of self-consciousness. Yelling at yourself is certainly not a common behaviour, and is easily something that can raise some eyebrows if practiced in public.
While I have yet to do them in a fully public setting, nor do I see a reason to ever do so, I often make these statements while driving in my car. As we all know, cars are far from sound proof, and you can only look like you are yelling at someone on your speakerphone for so long.
At first this felt awkward, but I've since stopped caring about what other people might think or how silly I look. Doing this exercise is important to me, and it's okay if I have to raise some eyebrows as part of the process to becoming a greater version of myself.