How Do Affirmations Work?

I share regular musings in my private email newsletter. Interested in signing up? Click here.

As I’ve started to talk more about affirmations in my work, I’ve received a little skepticism from my fellow lovely witchy folks.

What the hell is an affirmation, anyway, and why should you care, as a witch? Don’t we just do magic and call it a day? Well, yes we can, of course, and many do - but over the years, I’ve come to realize that affirmations are such a powerful tool for personal transformation, and are beneficial to everyone, witchy, just plain spiritual, or even atheist.

In this lil blog post I’ll answer some of the most common questions I get about affirmations! Because there have been… a lot!

How do affirmations work? How can they influence our thoughts and help us change our behaviour? 

Affirmations involve working with energy and vibration to change your life – ideally, to transform it quite radically for the better - through changing what's going on in your brain: specifically, who you believe you are, and what you feel is possible for you.

Sounds kinda like magic and witchcraft, right?

The idea behind ‘why’ it works is multifaceted, and can be explained psychologically, scientifically, and spiritually.

Psychologically, affirmations allow us to, through repetition, reprogram our brains and our thought patterns. When we replace limiting, negative thoughts and beliefs with positive ones - even if it feels fake at first - eventually, it becomes our reality. We stop believing negative things about ourselves and our potential, and instead start to genuinely believe that we are capable of great things. Thoughts are habits, and harmful thought patterns can be broken with affirmations. Our defaults can change - and that can also change our cell structure.

There’s a lot of research work done by psychological professionals and scientists about the power of belief in improving health outcomes. A positive, optimistic mindset can often help us heal faster - belief can change how our cells behave. No joke. There are limitations to this, obviously - but positive belief can help more often than not. For more on this, check out the research on neuroplasticity and post-traumatic growth.

(And here’s my disclaimer to still go to the doctor!)

Moving on to consider affirmations and how they work from a spiritual perspective, affirmations are a way of working with energy, and shifting our energy signature in a conscious way. If we vibrate at a particular frequency, we’ll likely attract people, situations, and circumstances that are on the same wavelength that we are. You’ve probably seen this in your life before – misery loves company, for instance, and positive people tend to be attracted to other positive people. When we expect good things to happen, they often do. We tend to get what we think we can have.

Affirmations help open us up on a spiritual level.

Affirmations can also be a direct challenge to complacency.

Affirmation practices challenge people to expand their idea of what they think is possible for them, and how good life can feel – in regard to money in particular, how much money they think they could earn or attract. This may be a controversial thing to say, but people often sell themselves short with their earning potential - and even living potential, around things like love and self worth - as well as what luxuries they allow themselves (and not just material things, either).

Affirmations can help us break that ceiling, or at least become more comfortable with challenging it and moving towards expansion and growth

How can affirmations build confidence? 

A great first step to working with affirmations to improve confidence would be to write down whatever negative, self-defeating, limiting beliefs or fears you have. This could be a quality or habit, or belief that you feel is holding you back.

Write it down. Then, switch them - and write the opposite.

Let me give a little example. Let's say someone's internal dialogue is, "I suck at my job, I'm afraid of my boss, I'm ugly, no one likes me, I'll never amount to anything." If I were to coach that imaginary person and help them create some affirmations, I might suggest something like: "I am talented and capable. My boss and coworkers respect and appreciate me. I am confident and comfortable at work. I look great, I love my body, I love myself. I attract and am surrounded by people who 'get' me. I am worthy of greatness. I am destined for success." And so on, tailored specifically to what that person's challenges and goals are.

The point here is to think big - and to state all affirmations in the present tense. I always recommend that my clients recite their affirmations out loud or mentally multiple times a day - in the morning, at lunch, and right before bed. Think them, journal the affirmations - write them down again and again - visualize what life would be like, and how it would feel to be the person they're affirming themselves to be. It can feel silly at first, but it actually does work wonders. For some people, they'll internalize it best by reading, others by listening to affirmations again and again. I suggest my clients copy and paste the affirmations 100 times on a word document and print it out, record themselves saying their affirmations a ton of times, etc - and listen to it as much as possible.

Of course, simply stating an affirmation won’t always change how our boss (or whatever) treats us - a crappy boss is a crappy boss. But, working with an affirmation in that example could help someone step into an empowered energy which inspires them to either stand up for themselves at work, or move on to another position where they are absolutely valued. Or, in a situation where the boss is actually fine but it’s a negative self-image that’s the problem, affirmations can help reorient perspective there too.

How do I come up with affirmations that work?

DO: Say your affirming phrases around what you want to manifest in the present tense, even if they haven’t happened yet.

DON’T: Say your affirmations in the future tense! This will always keep it in the future. We don’t want that!

DO: Repeat your affirmations often. Repetition is key to creating belief and faith.

DON’T: Give into feeling embarrassed, like a fraud, or like you’re doing something that is stupid or won’t work. Your skepticism will work against you and will negatively impact your energy and the success of your affirmations.

DO: Journal your affirmations, visualize them in your mind, create vision boards, and spend time feeling how you think you’d feel if you achieved what you want to manifest through your affirmations.

DON’T: Do your affirmation once and then totally forget about it.

If you’re curious about all this, one very low-stakes way to experiment with affirmations are to do them every single day, if you can. I personally read my own long ass list of affirmations every single day, morning and night, and it’s made a massive positive impact in my life and on my mindset.

If you’re not too sure where to start with this, or if having some outside guidance would be helpful to you, you might want to consider signing up for my Claim Your Magic Affirmation Series - you’ll get 10 audio recordings with transcriptions, including 6 affirmations on everything from self love to self worthiness, from the spiritual to the practical, and 4 recordings with information on how to best work with affirmations and how to incorporate them into your life and your magic.

Interested? Enroll here for instant access: https://sabrinamscott.thrivecart.com/claim-your-magic-affirmations