Affirmations Don’t Fail – They Diagnose Your Beliefs
- Brainz Magazine
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 12 hours ago
Written by Sylwia Krawczyszyn, Subconscious Healing Guide
Sylwia Krawczyszyn went from creating illusions on screens as a VFX Artist, to dismantling illusory limiting beliefs as a Subconscious Healing Guide. She helps others access the innate genius technology they already carry, so they can dissolve the root causes keeping them stuck in a life they don’t love.
Want your intention to land? Don’t repeat it into submission. When your body says “no”, get curious, that’s where the real work begins and where results finally stick.
Do affirmations work?
Ask my colourful vision boards and miracle journal from five years ago. Something in me was resisting, and I didn’t yet have language for it. Why did my careful optimism keep handing me the same old day? For a while, the gap between what I “affirmed” and how I felt made me wonder if I was forever broken or just bad at healing. After all, even science seemed to suggest they should work.
Quantum physics, especially John A. Wheeler’s idea of the “participator,” is often read as a hint that observation matters. With a growing body of research in quantum biology, it’s reasonable to suspect that our thoughts shape our lived experience more than we realise. I explore this bridge between physics and consciousness more deeply in another piece.
Words, of course, are one precise way to aim those thoughts, which might be why affirmations (also known as intentions) are so incredibly popular, a modern prayer of sorts. Unfortunately, many people who use them fail to experience tangible or long-standing results. I was one of them for quite some time.
How they didn’t work for me
Affirmations played a significant role in my journey back to health. I followed manifestation and “positivity” teachings religiously, weekly intention setting, miracle circles, vision boards, Dr Joe Dispenza’s mind movies. Yet the results were mediocre at best, especially with what I wanted most. I wanted to feel beautiful despite severe skin issues and to feel comfortable and healthy. That became the central focus of my healing journey. Some days, repeating “I am beautiful” over a face that hurt to touch didn’t feel empowering. It felt like gaslighting myself.
What finally shifted things was seeing failed affirmations as a means to surface what was resisting them. The sentence is not just a wish, it’s a litmus test.
But let’s start from the beginning. Why do affirmations so often fall flat?
Three things to avoid
1. Future tense equals future results
Phrase your intention as later, and your system keeps it later. “I want to…” or “I will…” file themselves under not yet. The third person does something similar by pushing you outside the scene, as if you’re watching someone else’s life unfold.
Say it as now, in first person, for example “I sleep deeply and wake restored.” or “I am enjoying my career as a prolific, well-paid artist.”
Notice how these lines place you inside the picture rather than at a distance. A tiny tweak helps, swap will/should/want to for am/feel/choose, read it once, and watch what shifts.
2. If you can’t feel it, you won’t believe it
Flat lines don’t anchor, they skid off. Belief tends to land through sensation first. When a sentence carries no charge, no warmth, softening, excitement, not even a clean ache or scepticism, nothing in you has moved yet, so reality rarely follows.
As a 10-second somatic check, say the line once, breathe four times, and name one sensation, such as “jaw tight”, “chest warm”, “eyes wet”, or even “numb.” Numbness counts, it often means a protective part is pressing the brakes. Similar with cringe, this might be your inner critic protectively judging you as undeserving. Simply observe where this lives in your body.
To make a sentence more feelable, trade vagueness for micro-pictures. Instead of “I am confident”, try “I hold eye contact for three breaths.” Tiny and doable, the doing backfills belief. It also makes the result more predictable. Otherwise, you may be very surprised at how creative the Universe can be.
3. Mantra spam is not progress
If you drown out discomfort, you rehearse denial. Fifty repeats can numb the one signal that would actually help you, the flinch. Over-repetition trains attention to step over the wire instead of noticing where it is.
Rule of thumb? Repeat to notice the flinch, not to override it. One clean repetition is plenty if you listen to the response. If you're feeling some resistance, that is not a failure, it’s useful data.
What to do instead
4. Use the affirmation as a diagnostic phrase
This changes everything, what if your intention isn’t a magic spell but a resonance check? Say it once and watch what answers back. That response is the map, not the enemy.
Micro-protocol (about 3 minutes):
Say the line once.
Close your eyes for half a minute. Where does the body react (tight jaw, fluttery belly, flatness)?
Name the dominant feeling (sad / angry / scared / ashamed / numb).
Believability 1-10: What number is it right now?
Write one sentence from the resistant part: “I don’t feel safe because…” or “If we believe this, then…”
Treat every dissonant signal as information, not a problem to fix. A tiny log (date plus sentence plus score plus one body note) keeps it honest. If nothing shows up, that’s data too, often a sign of protective numbness. Be gentle with yourself.
If you're getting close to 10 and only warm, expansive feelings around it, congratulations, your wish (or something even better) might just be around the corner! You can gently supercharge this state by feeling grateful for it as if it were already yours.
5. Meet the wounded aspects with love
For years, I wondered why some intentions landed instantly while others stalled. It only clicked when I realised the sceptical, sad, or frightened parts were protecting me under old rules. They didn’t want “beauty” or “comfort” because those words were linked with risk. Once they could state their reason and were taken seriously, something shifted quietly. The same sentence sounded different, the body loosened, and daily life began to tune to it.
This will look different for different people, there is no right or wrong way. What creates the major shifts for me is setting time aside to sit with those aspects with full presence, patience, and compassion. Personally, I don't even use affirmations anymore. Unless I need a precise diagnostic tool, I usually go straight to the dissonant feeling.
You don’t need complicated protocols for this. A simple intention to connect with the fragmented parts, and a willingness to stay lovingly present with their discomfort, is enough. This is where the pure gold lies. Resistance can dissolve only when you allow it to exist.
Closing note
If this topic resonates but you’re unsure how to go about it, I’d be honoured to hold a safe and focused space for your self-healing process. I work with Compassion Key®, a method centred on precise compassion statements to transform protective patterns living deep in the subconscious. You’ll find details and resources via email.
Wish to read more of my musings? Subscribe on Substack to receive them straight to your inbox, or check my existing articles on spiritual bypassing, limits of mental understanding in healing, and the science of consciousness.
Read more from Sylwia Krawczyszyn
Sylwia Krawczyszyn, Subconscious Healing Guide
Sylwia Krawczyszyn is a Certified Subconscious Healing Guide and Energy Healing Practitioner. Her severe chronic eczema and TSW struggles led her through conventional medicine, diets, affirmations, natural therapies, and manifestation techniques, eventually revealing the profound innate self-healing technology we all share. Through her writing and artwork, she loves exploring the meeting point of science and spirituality, including noetic sciences, hermetic philosophy, grounded mysticism, and these insights subtly inform her 1:1 session work. She focuses on two alternative healing modalities that brought her the deepest relief in her own journey: Compassion Key® and Quantum-Touch®.
