Many psychologists believe that every adult has a child hidden inside him or her, an “inner child,” if you will, that lingers long after we grow up. We may carry debilitating and false beliefs with us from childhood—that there’s something wrong with us, that we aren’t good enough, that we’re doing everything all wrong.

These subconscious beliefs cause us to feel unfulfilled, to self-sabotage, to shy away from commitment and intimacy, to be overly critical of ourselves and others.

Working with an experienced counselor or therapist is an important way to finally make ourselves whole and begin to heal the pain still suffered by our inner child, but another critical step we can take is to practice affirmations.

An affirmation is an affirmative statement that is carefully structured to address a negative pattern or thought and inject it was positivity. The affirmations in this guide are designed to program our minds into believing the stated positive concept, and replacing the bad, hurtful, destructive statements with good, nurturing, and healing statements