Depending on how helpful the idea is to you, one thing you may want to do is to drop the idea of subconscious mind as a label completely. I don’t prefer that term as it implies something that’s out of reach, outside of your conscious control and separate from who you are. Remember that the idea of subconscious mind started as someone’s belief, it’s not real per se.

As you know, affirmations are used to install new beliefs within your being. When you doubt the belief that you say you now want to believe it means that, really, you believe the opposite of whatever it is you want to believe in, so that’s what you’ll get.

I suggest that affirmations do not work for many people due to the following:

• Because they don’t really, truly, believe their own thoughts and words. Unless and until they do start believing in their preferred reality, they’ll continue to see evidence of what they don’t prefer.

• Their old reality came about due to a lot of repetitive thinking and it takes some time for the old reflection to fade out and the new reflection to fade in and stick.

• They’re impatient and start doubting the change that they’ve requested in their life, so the old well-established vibration will stick around.

• They fret and worry rather than relaxing and enjoying whatever their current reality is. So they don’t allow the new vibration, the new reality to take firm hold.

The thing that helped me the most when installing new beliefs and making them stick was inquiring into the true nature of reality. And understanding that the only reality there is, is any reality that you believe to be true. By understanding that there is no reality other than any reality that you define and then believe to be reality, you’re free to define and believe in any reality you prefer.

It’s not that there’s one fixed version of reality that you can compare any other reality to, but rather that any and all realities are fluid and fleeting by nature and thus, all realities can be bent to your preference as long as your belief is strong enough. Once this is understood it’s easier to define and believe in the reality of your preference and make it stick.

For instance:

Right now if you are at all tuned in or if you have an interest, you can follow the events of the Wall Street protests on the Internet. And while you may say (believe) that we’re in the process of changing the old corrupt system into something new…

Really, we’re starting to believe in the possibility of a new reality of integrity and sincerity. And as that new reality comes into focus, after a time interval we’ll see evidence of it and then we’ll believe in it more and more and finally we’ll be living in a completely new (from our current now perspective) reality.

The old corrupt reality still exists for anyone who prefers it and who buys into it by believing in it. In the same way that the new (from our current now perspective) reality has always existed for anyone who chooses to believe in it.

Remember that the reason we can confidently say that this is true is due to the eternal moment of now in which all realities exist simultaneously :)

Zee,

Your mind does not believe in those affirmations so when you say them, there is a big emotional jump from where you currently are to where the affirmation is, so your subconscious rejects it.

More than that, I personally believe that affirmations do not work effectively and consistently for more than 90% of the population. It's just banging yourself on a brick wall. I recommend looking into Stingray's "Manifesting Experiment 2", which is a way of affirming without causing resistance, since you gradually make statements that you already believe in.

Anyway affirmations and visualizations are just fancy ways of setting your vibration... Vibration is all that matters in the end.

Dear Zee, Your affirmations must be repeated often enough for your subconscious to take them as truth. This takes time. Your doubting isn't helping any. When you do your affirmations you must believe that they will be taken as truth by the subconscious and they will.

You want to do the reverse and I can assure you that the reverse is what you will get and not what you want. Before doing affirmations again you should encourage yourself and pump yourself up by telling yourself that the affirmations will work or see yourself with the affirmations already working in your life.

Doubt is a killer of hope and your doubts will prevent your subconscious from believing your affirmations. Remember your subconscious is a reactive mind and it reacts to doubt and disbelief if it was that way programed and it will take time to replace those beliefs and doubts with your new positive beliefs.

Just the idea that you want to do the reverse affirmations tells us that you yourself already believe that your positive affirmations wont work and that you will get the opposite of what you want. You on a subconscious level already accept this and it is the reason why that is precisely what happens. Please don't ever do that for you will be doing yourself a disservice and nothing good can come of it.

Stick to your positive affirmations but remember there are more than just affirmations. Use visualization and see yourself victorious. Instead of doubt and disbelief try to get excited about your affirmations and see them as already true and in time to come you will be surprised what miracles you will have in your life.

I wish you good affirmations.

Do you really Feel that affirmations will help you? Do your affirmations vibrate true ? If they don't this is where the doubt comes into play as Paulina described.
Take the gains that you have already made with other affirmations and apply those feelings/vibrations to to your current affirmations or modify the current ones to vibrate/feel true to you.
peace

It is actually not your affirmations that will help you, but rather the emotions and feelings through which you are using to say out these affirmations.

For instance, you might be using the affirmation:

"I want to be able to sing well and confidently in front of a crowd"

But if a small part of you actually do not believe it at all, this will actually backfire rather than help you. If that is the case then you might want to try and uncover some limiting beliefts first or just a softer affirmation that you feel confident of, maybe just "I want to be able to sing well in front of a small group of 5 people" and then build it up slowly.

I am sure you know what I mean - sometimes when you just say out some affirmations but you got the feeling of "Oh can I really achieve that...?"

The reason they are producing the reverse is because when you say the affirmations you are feeling the opposite. My suggestion is to just think about the words first, this will give you an indication of your beliefs. Then all you need to do is change your belief to match your affirmation which will automatically produce emotions and images, live in that feeling and you will see results.

From my own reading and experience, I would say that affirmations will never work because if you saying, for instance, " i am wealthy" you must be focusing on the fact that you think that you are poor. If you were wealthy you wouldn't be affirming it. i have come across a techique that bypasses this problem and it seems to be working very well. Before i tried it I was down to 29p and was eating porridge with water. i am now earning 250 pound a week and my house is no longer going to be repossessed.

It requires time you see, you are still experiencing your old belief systems and they still have a lot of momentum, you simply cannot go where you are now and where you want to be this way, you will need to allow your beliefs to shift in their own natural timing and no matter how hard you try you cannot ''force'' them to shift, this will only cause more resistance and hinder your progress. When you try and force your beliefs to BELIEVE what you want them to you are only giving them more power to fight back, meaning that you are simply reinforcing their resistance even further, this is counter productive. Shifting beliefs requires self forgiveness, self love, non judgment, and a whole lot of releasing and it's a bumpy path, before you even try to use affirmations you would fare much better by working with your current belief system and setting your goals from there. Sometimes we have to start from where we are and work our way up, this takes time, and patience is paramount, it is much easier to learn self forgiveness and self acceptance and go from where you are now, your higher self will lead you every step of the way. One of the hardest things about reality creation is that we want to believe that we can get from where we are to where we want to be very easily, but in the broader perspective this is a journey and we have to allow ourselves to develop and expand in our own perfect timing. You are well on your way so don't rush it, I guarantee in the end you will not be disappointed, the best is coming so keep going, GODSPEED!

Limiting beliefs can be subconcious so you don't even know they are there. Turn your affirmations into EFT scripts instead. Take your affirmation and then dissect it. Ask yourself what is keeping you from that goal or dream. Then write those down and tap on them using EFT. After you tap out the limiting beliefs and negative thoughts surrounding your goals/dreams, then tap in the positive affirmations.

Edit 3/22/12 There are other techniques including the Zpoint Process, Midline application techniques, and using questions instead of statements. I explain here how questioning is better than stating affirmations. Here is a clearing method I came up combining ideas from other methods. The main idea is to use the midline.

well zee you see that there is internall struggle with in your self. then the subcouncious mind is what you are hidding from your self. the real question is will you solve those duality to better your self? or will you deny your self and try to find a cause out side of you for those internall conflict? if you do not better your self with those stone and cast them outside of you in the end it will only burn you. so use those stone to better your self and drop them in their proper place. experience and enjoy.

Hi Zee, Affirmations don't work. I am in the same boat as you. Whatever I think, I get the opposite and I don't know why. I do not believe I am behind it all. It is my believe that a strange force I don't understand separate to my thoughts are responsible for not getting the life I believe I should be living. I won't be beaten. My need for a better life is far more important than a strange forces reasons to stop me. Hope this makes sense to you. Take care Chris

It's not so much that your subconscious mind is reversing the effects of the affirmations it's that your Conscious mind is doing it. nothing is secret and buried in the subconscious that cannot be discovered by looking at your conscious thoughts. You must practice paying attention to your thoughts. Everyday millions of thoughts go through our minds. We are thinking non stop and having conversations with ourselves. Start listening to yourself. what are you saying to yourself all day? So you have this desire to have more money, to be wealthy, and you say affirmations like "I am wealthy and happy and money flows into my life" and then as soon as you stop paying attention to your thoughts you are rambling in your own head that you don't have money for this or that, that you will never afford that car, or this vacation, that you can't pay your bills, that your clothes are shabby that your car is junky. At the grocery you buy the cheapest frozen pizza, and the beer you don't really like because it's on sale.... See the sabotage? You must become aware of your thoughts, as you become more and more awake and aware you uncover your beliefs. and you don't need to go to therapy to figure out what's been suppressed in your subconscious. Your conscious mind is telling you at every thought.

energy sent out, by laws
of nature, including thoughts,
return, causal factor may not be subconscious