Why Affirmations Work

• It makes no difference whether we believe it or not. The brain simply believes what you tell it most." - Shad Helmstetter from his book "The Self-Talk Solution" pg.
• Your emotions are controlled byt the thoughts that you entertain. Whatever is impressed upon the subconscious controls the vibratory rate of the body. 
• Your subconscious mind has no ability to think. It cannot choose. It cannot reject. It must accept.
• Your subconscious mind will accept anything.
• Whatever goes into the subconscious mind must be expressed through the body. It cannot differentiate between what it real and what is imagined.
• Whatever goes into the subconscious mind repetitively gets fixed there. It's what we call a "conditioned" mind.

That first principle was written by Shad Helmstetter. Those last five were spoken by Bob Proctor. Bob sometimes refers to the Subconscious Mind as your "Paradigm" or your "Emotional" mind. Have you ever noticed in your own life that you may decide to do something, but that you don't do it? And then you ask yourself why you didn't do it, even though you had made a deliberate decision. That's because your conscious mind had one thought, and your subconscious, your paradigm, had another. And your subconscious mind runs the show. It dominates your actions. Which lead to your results.

The conscious mind is where we experience our life, where we watch "our movie" so to speak. The subconscious mind, however is writing, producing, and directing the script. It's really the one in charge.

If you have a subconscious mind that is working against you, it can be reprogrammed. It takes time. Just like losing weight or learning a new language takes time. Learning a new language may be the best metaphor because when you practice turning old negative thoughts into new positive ones, you really are "learning a new language"! That's for sure.

There are many therapies for reconditioning your paradigm. Some involve listening to recordings. Some involve reading "scripts" of the right kind of language. Some involve making your own recordings and scripts. Another type of therapy is when you are simply living your life like you normally would, but you become aware and catch yourself whenever you find yourself saying, either internally or out loud, a statement that is negative, that is putting you down or otherwise working against you.

Here's a perfect example: Today I intended to meditate. I did mediate for about an hour, and I felt great, but then I stopped. Because of all the negative news, it was almost like I couldn't help myself, I turned on a couple hours of negative talk radio.

As I knew I was doing the wrong thing, or at least something I didn't want to do, I caught my internal voice saying, "I know because I'm such an idiot!"

Now putting the behaviour aside for a second, think about the statement as a program for my Subconscious, emotional mind. I may have been doing the wrong thing, but the "program" was only reinforcing the unwanted behaviour!
At that moment what I should have done, no matter how I felt in the present, was turn that statement around to it's opposite to something like this:

I am a genius. I am a very smart person. I always do what is best for me in any given situation, and I make my life work.

What's most effective is to say this statement, this new positive affirmation out loud and with feeling. Make it a fun game. Almost like those fun games you played as a kid in the back seat on a road trip where you tried to point out the cars with one head light out. Make a game out of catching your negative affirmations and turning them around to their opposite. You'll immediately feel better. You may even laugh, and you'll be taking an important step towards long term re-conditioning of the master controller of your life: your Subconscious Mind.