The I AM, Not the I Was

Faithful to Towne (The Life Power and How to Use It, chs. “Affirmations and Wheels” and “The I Was and the I Am”; Just How to Concentrate, “Concentration and Poise”):

1. Relax and settle. Begin loose and easy — Towne’s affirmations ride on a relaxed, unstrained state, not gritted effort.
2. Drop the “I was.” Refuse to rehearse the old, failed, sick, or anxious self. The past tense has no creative power for her; only the present “I Am” “does things. to-day.”
3. Claim the quality in present tense. Affirm what you are now, not what you hope to become: “I am poised,” “I am well,” “I am calm and capable,” “I am self-commanded.” Towne’s whole stack of affirmations — “success, faith, wisdom, power, good, love” — is meant to “wake your latent forces,” not describe a distant goal.
4. Mean it — supply the feeling. Rote saying does little: “Mere repetition of ‘I Am Success’ statements will avail little”; the lift comes from energy behind the words — “The more enthusiasm you can conjure into the affirmations the more quickly will you realize” the state.
5. Use it to grow gradually. Frame self-development as daily increase, not overnight transformation: in Towne’s own affirmation, “I am daily growing in the ability to acknowledge the ‘I Am’ God in all my ways.”
6. Train the conscious to re-shape the subconscious. Her bridge to lasting change: “Insist upon right conscious thinking, and in due time you cannot fail to have right subconscious thinking.” Keep choosing the new self-talk; the deeper pattern follows.
7. Carry it as poise through the day. Off the cushion, hold the bearing. When jostled, recover composure deliberately — the Concentrate move applies: a slow full breath, straighten up, return to your chosen “I am.” Poise is the held result. (Sourcing note: quoted lines are Towne’s; the numbered sequence is attributed paraphrase across the named chapters.)

Elizabeth Towne (1865–1960), New Thought publisher and editor of The Nautilus, made the present-tense “I Am” the hinge of self-development across The Life Power and How to Use It (1906) and her self-development booklets.

The “I Am” identity-claim is the great New Thought motif (Eddy, Hopkins, Cady, later Goddard); Towne’s particular emphasis is the explicit rejection of the “I was” past-self and the elevation of poise as the practical goal — steadiness one can keep in ordinary life. → Contrast (don’t duplicate):

• Larson’s “I AM” enthronement / poise under action is a close cousin; Towne’s version is plainer and pivots on dropping the “I was” and conscious→subconscious habituation.
• Trine’s affirmation of health targets bodily wholeness via oneness with Infinite Life; Towne’s here targets poise and self-command as a developed bearing, broader than health alone.
• Coué’s autosuggestion drills a formula mechanically and warns against effort of will; Towne wants enthusiasm and meaning poured into the claim.
• Dresser’s poise / attitude of soul reaches poise contemplatively; Towne reaches it through present-tense self-claiming.

Flat recitation. Towne herself: mere repetition “will avail little.” Supply enthusiasm and felt meaning.

• Over-reaching the self-concept. Claiming “I am” states you flatly disbelieve can backfire; lean on the “I am daily growing into.” form, which the evidence favours.
• Clinging to the “I was.” Re-telling the old failure/sickness story undercuts the claim; deliberately let the past tense go.
• Mistaking a calm session for a fixed trait. Poise is built by repeatedly recovering it in real life — breath, straighten, return — not by one good sitting.
• Reading “I am well” as a medical verdict. A felt state is not a diagnosis (see Safety).