One Reason Your Affirmation May Not Work

It's often said, "Be careful what you ask for -- you might get it." And I've noticed, over the years, working with clients, friends and myself, that a better way to say this is, "Be careful what you ask for -- you WILL get it." This is sometimes referred to, with a rueful laugh, as the Law of Unintended Consequences.

I think I've figured out how this works, at least for those of us who use affirmations to create what we choose in our lives:

1. An affirmation is a positive, present tense, first person statement of what you are choosing.
2. By repeating it over and over, you are implanting it as a belief in your unconscious mind. And, as Seth (channeled through Jane Roberts) said, about 30 years ago, you create your reality through your beliefs.
3. The unconscious mind is very literal, so it will draw to you, or have you notice in physical reality, the manifestation of the words of your affirmation/new belief.
4. Because it is so literal, the unconscious mind will screen out everything BUT what you are stating in your affirmation.

And I've only just now realized point #4! A case in point: for many years, I have had the affirmation that "By being who I am and doing what I love, I now prosper beyond my wildest dreams." And I am who I am, in pretty much all circumstances. And I do what I love a lot. But I also feel like I need to do things like honor agreements, even when I don't particularly feel like it, and do chores like brushing my teeth, even when I don't feel like it. For the last couple of years, I have tried many, many ways to market my services, to very little avail, that is, business has not increased on the trajectory that I would prefer. No matter how hard I worked, no matter what I tried, it didn't seem to help.

Now I get why! My very literal, unconscious mind, was saying, "If I am who I am, and do what I love, I'll prosper." Period. It interpreted my doing something I didn't love, as me not choosing prosperity. Every time I made myself do something I didn't want to do, it shut down the prosperity thereby negating all the actions I took! Duh!