I do find affirmations do help sometimes. I like songs - they carry me past words to place in the heart. Josh Groban sings YOU LIFT ME UP and a song about THE PRAYER. Sometimes just experiencing nature without expectation gives me the feeling of what being young and innocent is. For me poems become aspirations.
"And I rest by the still waters,
And lay my burdens down,
And peace and love and onlyness
Embrace me and surround."
I just feel sometimes the stillness of the dawn and it just lifts me up out of my depression, and I move on into the challenges of my day. Another affirmation that keeps me from sinking in the quagmire of this world is All Roads Lead Home. I guess when I connect with that feeling no matter what I am going through it wakes me up to the fact that this will bring me to where I'm going.