Law of Attraction

[Tzuyu]

idk about “pure energy”, when it gets too mumbo jumbo-y i kind of stop reading and assume its bullshit
there is definitely something very real and tangible about affirmations, that stuffs my shit

not exactly Laws of Attraction, just good old self affirmation w/ a bit of magic
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/64539.ham

I've had rather a number of readers ask me in recent months for tips on affirmations. Affirmations? Yes! ;-) Those were one of the standard working tools of the New Thought movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and have been borrowed -- not always intelligently or productively -- by the New Age movement and pop psychology more recently. They've been neglected and, indeed, often derided by the more overtly magical end of contemporary pop culture. There's a rich irony here, because sigil magic -- currently one of the most fashionable methods in the avant-garde end of occultism -- is simply a variation on the same method.

Like most magical practices, affirmations make use of an ordinary human habit to get results that don't have to be ordinary at all. Most of us talk to ourselves in the privacy of our own heads, and that self-talk plays a large role in reinforcing our self-image and our views about the world. Very often, that works to our disadvantage. How often have you berated yourself inwardly in the wake of some failure or other, saying "Why am I so stupid?" or what have you. That reinforces a negative self-image and makes it more likely that you'll behave in ways that correspond to your conception of what "being stupid" amounts to.

The subconscious mind listens to such things. To a very real extent, it operates on the principle uttered by the Bellman in Lewis Carroll's madcap epic poem The Hunting of the Snark: "What I tell you three times is true." You can turn the same principle to your advantage by the simple expedient of working out something to repeat to yourself that moves you toward what you want in your life, rather than simply keeping you down in the doldrums.

You use affirmations by choosing a simple declarative sentence that expresses your goal and repeating it to yourself, over and over again, at least a hundred times a day -- yes, I mean that! -- and preferably more often, It's especially valuable to repeat an affirmation many times whenever you catch yourself getting into negative self-talk, but don't just do this; repeat it often, and then repeat it some more.

There are certain rules for affirmations I recommend, which we can modestly call the Seven Laws of Affirmation. Here they are:

1. Change yourself, not the world. The single most important cause of failure in affirmations comes from trying to get the world to cater to you, rather than adjusting yourself to face the world more successfully. You can say "Lots of money comes to me" all you want; the money isn't listening, and you'll simply talk your subconscious into expecting money that won't arrive, with bankruptcy as the usual result. (I've seen this happen many times.) Instead, use something like "I see opportunities to make money wherever I go." You will, too, and if you take advantage of those opportunities, the money will come.

2. Avoid the language of entitlement.For closely related reasons, avoid as you need not mere plague the kind of affirmation that starts "I deserve..." or that fixates on how wonderful or special you are. That sort of thing will simply make you vain, arrogant, and clueless. Choose something that motivates you to act and change, not something that inflates your ego and encourages you to sit on your precious pink rump contemplating your supposed wonderfulness.

3. Focus is a source of strength. Especially at first, don't try to change your whole life at once. Choose something specific, aim an affirmation squarely at that, and keep at it until you get results. Then go on to the next. For the same reasons, one or two affirmations at a time is enough. If you have a flotilla of different affirmations, none of them will get enough attention to matter.

4.Put affirmations in the present tense. For example, "I am strong" rather than "I will become strong." If you put something in the future tense, the results will always be in the future for you, never in the present; you'll always be traveling, never arriving. The one variation here is that if you want to be changing in a particular way, rather than arriving at a particular goal, you can use the imperfect tense -- "I am becoming" and so on. Emil Coue's famous affirmation "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better" used this approach.

(Nearly everyone, when they encounter this rule, asks, "But what if the affirmation isn't true?" Of course it isn't true; if it was true, you wouldn't need an affirmation. An affirmation is a spell, not a simple statement of fact; put another way, it's a tool, not a truth. See rule #6 for getting around the discomfort that comes from knowing that you haven't achieved yet what your affirmation will bring you.)

5. Use positive language. For example, "I am strong" rather than "I am not weak." New Thought teachers used to say that the subconscious doesn't hear negative particles such as "not" and "no," so if you say "I am not weak" your subconscious hears "I am weak." More generally, affirm what you want, don't try to negate what you don't want. They're affirmations, after all!

6. Use your imagination. This is one of the things that most often gets left out of the formula, and explains many of the failures of the method. As you repeat the affirmation, imagine that it's true. If you're using the affirmation "I am strong" to try to build strength of body and mind, imagine yourself strong, in mind, in vitality, in muscle. Feel the potency of your will, the life force surging through your veins, muscles rippling in your limbs and torso. Imagine the emotional state, the overwhelming confidence of knowing that you're the biggest, strongest, toughest son of a gun in the whole county. You don't have to believe that this is true; imagine that it's true. The more vividly you imagine it, the sooner it will become true.

7. Keep at it! Affirmations take time to work. You're probably going to have to overcome the mental inertia of a lifetime of negative self-talk, and that won't happen instantly. Your subconscious mind will also very probably throw up roadblocks, trying to distract you from your affirmation or convince you that it won't work and you should go back to wallowing in misery instead. Ignore the distractions and keep at it, and the results will come.
A useful note: A lot of old-fashioned New Thought practitioners got very good results by doing two affirmations, one general and one specific. The general affirmation was done first thing in the morning: you get up, you go to a window (preferably open to fresh air), you stretch thoroughly, and then you breathe in and out twenty times or so, slowly and deeply, timing the repetition of your general affirmation to the rhythm of your breath. Then at other times of the day, you use your specific affirmation as often as you like. For example, there was a while when the general affirmation I was using -- once common in certain Druid circles -- went like this: (on the inbreath) "I am one with the One Life of the Universe;" (on the outbreath) "it flows through me to accomplish all my worthy desires." The specific affirmation then varied depending on circumstances. It worked well, too.
Another useful note: don't talk about your affirmations. "To know, to dare, to will, and to be silent" applies to this as to all magical practices. Talk about them and you diffuse your power. Remain silent and focused, and your power grows.

edit: One more useful note: I have found that affirmations work even if you don't believe they will work and don't put any faith in the process..
Imagination and repetition are much stronger than belief.