How do affirmations work?
In order to fully understand how affirmations work and the science behind the effectiveness, we must first look at the way our minds work. From the moment we are born, our brains are like empty computers waiting to be fed information.
First our parents and later our peers act as our programmers, supplying us with the knowledge which we channel through the conscious mind into the subconscious (think of it as our hard drive). The subconscious mind is the biggest hard drive ever developed – it stores everything we come in contact with and by no means is all of this information of a positive nature.
In fact, if we’ve experienced trauma in childhood, such as having dealt with toxic parents or being bullied in school, we must work a little harder to get our heads straightened out to use affirmations and the law of attraction to our benefit.
Over the course of our lives, we experience things through our senses, which contribute to our memories and our learning. Everything we experience, everything that we have heard, touched, smelled, tasted and seen – all of that is stored in the deepest parts of our minds. The subconscious mind holds on to this information until we need to recall it.
For example, when you were young, your curiosity may have led you to explore your surroundings. When you approached a substance that was dangerous, such as fire, your parents or guardians may have scolded you if you got too close to the flame. Maybe you even recall an incident when you were physically burned. It would be then that your subconscious mind began to relate scolding (or pain) with the intense heat of the fire and would, therefore, feed the feelings of the scolding incident back to you whenever you got too close to fire again, thus acting as an early warning system.
This is the mechanism used by our brains to learn. It is also the same method employed by the mind in every situation. The subconscious mind has a tendency to emulate what it sees – it tends to replicate its environment. This is why so many people find themselves in similar relationships and situations that they saw their parents in while they were growing up. Most people also hold very strongly or similar views of their parents. But if you want to create the life you want, you must correct your internal dialogue – and you can do this with affirmations.