Verbalizing thoughts (also known as “affirmations”) doesn’t really do anything other than memorization and is a ritual unless your goal is memorization.
You’re supposed to see anicca, dukkha, anatta, and when you do it causes dispassion, like realizing your finger is getting burned by the stove top/fire and removing it.
Right now you aren’t seeing the dukkha, and when you do see it, when the 5 hindrances are suppressed, you’ll naturally pull back and want to avoid it in the future. Getting to that point takes work though.
The Buddha says he was only able to attain jhanas once he saw sensual desires as painful, and then deeper jhanas by seeing the previous jhana factors as stressful:
“That’s so true, Ānanda! That’s so true! Before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I too thought, ‘Renunciation is good! Seclusion is good!’ But my mind wasn’t eager for renunciation; it wasn’t confident, settled, and decided about it. I didn’t see it as peaceful. Then I thought, ‘What is the cause, what is the reason why my mind isn’t eager for renunciation, and not confident, settled, and decided about it? Why don’t I see it as peaceful?’ Then I thought, ‘I haven’t seen the drawbacks of sensual pleasures, and so I haven’t cultivated that. I haven’t realized the benefits of renunciation, and so I haven’t developed that. That’s why my mind isn’t eager for renunciation, and not confident, settled, and decided about it. And it’s why I don’t see it as peaceful.’ Then I thought, ‘Suppose that, seeing the drawbacks of sensual pleasures, I were to cultivate that. And suppose that, realizing the benefits of renunciation, I were to develop that. It’s possible that my mind would be eager for renunciation; it would be confident, settled, and decided about it. And I would see it as peaceful.’ And so, after some time, I saw the drawbacks of sensual pleasures and cultivated that, and I realized the benefits of renunciation and developed that. Then my mind was eager for renunciation; it was confident, settled, and decided about it. I saw it as peaceful. And so, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, I entered and remained in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected. While I was in that meditation, perceptions and attentions accompanied by sensual pleasures beset me, and that was an affliction for me. Suppose a happy person were to experience pain; that would be an affliction for them. In the same way, when perceptions and attentions accompanied by sensual pleasures beset me, that was an affliction for me.
https://suttacentral.net/an9.41/en/sujato?layout=plain&reference=¬es=asterisk&highlight=true&script=
Notice the practice is a about stopping thoughts, not creating thoughts:
In the same way, a mendicant who is committed to the higher mind has coarse corruptions: bad bodily, verbal, and mental conduct. A sincere, capable mendicant gives these up, gets rid of, eliminates, and obliterates them.
When they’ve been given up and eliminated, there are middling corruptions: sensual, malicious, or cruel thoughts. A sincere, capable mendicant gives these up, gets rid of, eliminates, and obliterates them.
When they’ve been given up and eliminated, there are fine corruptions: thoughts of family, country, and being looked up to. A sincere, capable mendicant gives these up, gets rid of, eliminates, and obliterates them.
When they’ve been given up and eliminated, only thoughts about the teaching are left. That immersion is not peaceful or sublime or tranquil or unified, but is held in place by forceful suppression.
But there comes a time when that mind is stilled internally; it settles, unifies, and becomes immersed in samādhi. That immersion is peaceful and sublime and tranquil and unified, not held in place by forceful suppression. They become capable of realizing anything that can be realized by insight to which they extend the mind, in each and every case.
You need to be a happy person (aka have jhana) first to know what dukkha is. You need to know what is good before you can know what is bad.
Mahānāma, there is a quality that remains in you that makes you have such thoughts. For if you had given up that quality you would not still be living at home and enjoying sensual pleasures. But because you haven’t given up that quality you are still living at home and enjoying sensual pleasures.
Sensual pleasures give little gratification and much suffering and distress, and they are all the more full of drawbacks. Even though a noble disciple has clearly seen this with right wisdom, so long as they don’t achieve the rapture and bliss that are apart from sensual pleasures and unskillful qualities, or something even more peaceful than that, they might still return to sensual pleasures. But when they do achieve that rapture and bliss, or something more peaceful than that, they will not return to sensual pleasures.
Before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I too clearly saw with right wisdom that: ‘Sensual pleasures give little gratification and much suffering and distress, and they are all the more full of drawbacks.’ But so long as I didn’t achieve the rapture and bliss that are apart from sensual pleasures and unskillful qualities, or something even more peaceful than that, I didn’t announce that I would not return to sensual pleasures. But when I did achieve that rapture and bliss, or something more peaceful than that, I announced that I would not return to sensual pleasures.
