Working with Affirmations Beyond Positive Thinking

Inner Alchemy Through Words, Energy, and Time

You repeat the affirmation, maybe more than once, trying to feel it, trying to believe it, but there’s a part of you that doesn’t quite accept what you’re saying. It feels like you’re just saying the words, and it seems like you’re pretending something is true when it isn’t. You wonder if you’re doing it wrong. It can feel like affirmations just don’t work for you, or like they’re not real in the way you’ve been told they should be.

And still, something in you wants to keep going. You sense there’s something more to this than just repeating words or trying to convince yourself to believe them.

When we work with affirmations, we’re not just changing our thoughts—we’re working with energy, intention, and alchemy to attune ourselves to new truths. The work goes deeper than that.

Through decades of personal practice, I’ve learned affirmations work best when we stop trying to convince ourselves of something and instead work with ourselves. Affirmations aren’t about forcing positivity. They’re about attuning ourselves to new truths over time.

I approach affirmations as a living, embodied practice, honoring repetition and patience. This recognizes the subtle alchemy that happens when we allow words to settle deeply within us, reshaping us from the inside out. To understand why this works, it helps to look at what’s happening beneath the surface.

How Affirmations Actually Work

Affirmations are more than a positive thinking technique. They are grounded in how vibrations affect our bodies and how our subconscious brains work. When spoken aloud, they create a sound frequency that vibrates within us—physically in our cells and spiritually within our souls. This attunes our thought waveforms and energy to the same wavelength—frequency—of the affirmation, reshaping how the subconscious mind receives and integrates new beliefs.

Affirmations work because of how our minds, bodies, and energy systems respond to repetition and intention. This is often the part that’s missing when affirmations feel like they’re not working. Our subconscious mind doesn’t distinguish between what we tell it and reality. Scientific studies have shown that the same synapses in our brains fire when we imagine doing something as when we actually do it. Affirmations tell our subconscious mind new truths and beliefs about ourselves. The more we feel the emotion behind the words, the faster our subconscious mind believes it as true.

Creating Affirmations That Land

Affirmations tend to work better—and speak more intimately with the subconscious mind—when they’re phrased in the present and in “I am …” statements, as if they’re already true. It doesn’t matter if you write your own or use mine or someone else’s. What’s important is that the words speak to you and are something you would say. There’s a cumulative energy effect that occurs when you work with your affirmations on a consistent daily basis, and the repetition turns into transformation.

In my practice, I like to write the affirmations I’m working with on index cards. They are easy to hold while reciting them. Putting them on my nightstand reminds me to say them either in the morning before I start my day or before I go to bed. Experiment to find the best time for you. I put the date on the card so I know when I started working with those particular affirmations. I put one affirmation per line, and I write them positive, present tense, and first person, such as I love myself, rather than I will love myself. The “will” puts it in the future that the subconscious doesn’t understand. Most start with “I am …” to reinforce that it’s something I am doing or that I have or believe.

It’s a good idea to limit how many affirmations you work in each session. If you include too many, you may feel overwhelmed and stop working with them. At the same time, you need enough to create a strong energy field. I’ve found about ten works well for me. I tend to work with two or three sets of affirmations at a time. It’s taken some trial and error to find what works best for me. Try different things to find what works for you.

Working Through Resistance

When you begin working with affirmations, internal resistance often surfaces. At first, when you read them, they will probably be just wishful thinking, and your ego-brain will say, “Sure … right … no, you really don’t love yourself. Your life really is awful and the only abundant thing in it is crap.” Like with meditation, this is a natural part of the process. It helps to acknowledge the thought, take a breath to drop back into your body, and continue with your practice.

Even if the statements don’t feel true yet, keep saying them. Not because you need to force yourself to believe them, but because belief is something that develops through experience, not pressure. When you stay with them long enough, something in you begins to respond. You may not be able to name it right away—but you’ll feel the shift. Over time, as you work with your affirmations, your energy shifts, and you will begin to feel and know the truth of the statements. At this point, the critiquing, nay-saying part of your mind shuts up. There’s a moment when affirmations stop being simply words you’re repeating, and begin to feel like something real inside you.

How Affirmations Begin to Shift Your Beliefs

Affirmations work subtly in the background, and it takes time to notice their effects. I work with my set of affirmations until I don’t feel like I need them anymore. When working with a set, I keep in mind that it often takes 40 days to create a new habit. Your affirmations are creating a new habit of thinking and believing. Knowing all of this, you can step into the practice with a different relationship to what you’re doing. This is where affirmations begin to move from something you say into something you experience.

An Embodied Affirmation Practice

When you begin your affirmation practice, take a moment to settle into your body by taking several deep breaths. With each breath, imagine dropping your attention from your head and down into your belly, until you feel fully present and in your body. This will not only calm your body but also open your subconscious mind to the work ahead.

Once you feel grounded, begin reading the statements you’ve chosen for the day. Affirmations work with repetition, and I’ve found reading them three times every day builds the cumulative effect faster than only once. I like to read the entire card, then go back and read it again rather than say each line three times. Or you could read them three times throughout the day. You may need to experiment to find the number and timing that works for you.

It’s important to read it out loud! This creates an energy field with the vibrations and sound of your voice. I’ve discovered that speaking them out loud seems to circumvent the conscious mind, allowing your subconscious mind to hear the statement and believe it as fact.

Going Beyond Repetition

This is where most people stop their practice. However, I take it a step further. I use a visualization practice that anchors the words I’ve said and the energy I’ve created deeper into my body.

When you finish reading the card out loud, pause for a moment and allow the words to linger. Notice if something has already begun to shift before moving on. Close your eyes and feel the energy your words have generated flow into your body. Imagine (or visualize, or sense—whatever way works for you) the energy sinking deep into your body and entering every cell, even into your DNA. Imagine, see, or sense the energy rewriting, recoding, and realigning your DNA to be supportive and in alignment with the truth of your affirmations. Then see, imagine, or sense the energy filling your etheric or auric body. Feel or sense this in the way that’s right for you, staying with it until it feels complete. For me, I feel an amazing energy that makes my body tingle, my mind seems to expand, and I feel at peace.

As you finish, pause for a moment, then, when you’re ready, say or think to yourself:

Sit with this for a few minutes, letting what you’ve just spoken and energy settle into you. Allow it to move where it needs to. Allow yourself to just be in the energy. Pay attention to how your body feels, any other sensations, or thoughts that come up. When you feel complete, either finish your practice or read the next set of affirmations you’re working on until you’ve finished your session. You may want to take a few deep breaths to return to your surroundings before you move on with your regular activities.

Integrating the Practice

As you go about your day, you may notice that you move differently throughout your day or find yourself randomly repeating an affirmation. These are some of the ways you may notice your subconscious and your guides are working and conspiring with the Universe to make your affirmations your reality. Pay special attention to any inspirations and ideas that come up, and if they feel right, act on those promptings. Over time, these small shifts begin to accumulate in ways you can see and recognize.

When the Words Become Real

I’ve experienced how powerful affirmations are in transforming my beliefs. I’ve kept the affirmation cards I’ve used over the years. It’s interesting to glance through them periodically to remind me how much I’ve changed. The affirmations I once found challenging have become my normal way of being, or a normal part of my life.

Over time, the words you’ve been reciting stop staying on the surface. The new beliefs move through you, not through force or control, but by allowing them to settle deeper within you. What once felt like something you were trying to believe begins to feel familiar and true—like something that has been finding its way back to you.

You may not be able to name exactly when the shift happens. But you’ll recognize it when it does.

Before moving on, you may want to stay with what’s come up for you here. Not to figure anything out or arrive at an answer, but to notice what you’ve felt, what you’ve recognized, and what may be shifting beneath the surface. These reflections are simply a way to give that space to unfold a little more.

1. Is there a part of you that resists or questions the affirmations you’ve been saying? What does that part seem to be responding to?

2. What feels different about the idea of working with affirmations as something you experience rather than something you try to believe?

3. If you were to return to affirmations from this place, what feels more open or possible now than it did before?

Continue Exploring with the Goddess

Sacred practices can become more than something we do. They can become part of an ongoing relationship with the Goddess—and with ourselves.

The Goddess Remembrance Guides offer another way to explore that relationship through reflection, devotional practice, meditation, affirmations, and other practices centered around a particular Goddess and the wisdom She brings to our lives.

If you feel called to continue exploring in this way, you can step into the Goddess Remembrance Guides. Discover how these devotional journeys invite you into relationship with the Goddess—and deeper remembrance of yourself.

I invite you to join the conversation on my Substack, Lunar Ink & Alchemy, to share your experience and insights from reading this essay.