Affirmations in Self-Hypnosis: What They Are and How to Use Them

Positive affirmations make your brain look at the world from a different perspective. However, they are not always that effective, aren’t they? Simply sitting and repeating the same phrase over and over feels weird, awkward even. Sounds familiar? If yes, then you definitely need to try affirmations in self-hypnosis state!

Understanding the Role of the Subconscious Mind

Subconscious mind is that part of your thinking, that you are not fully aware of. It’s where your life experiences land, influencing your emotions, feelings, thoughts. Therefore, it directly influences your mood, choices and how you live.

Subconscious mind evolved (simplifying) to let us survive. The simplest example is that: as a kid, you touched a hot oven. Result? You got burnt, probably were in pain, and got scared of the oven.

What your subconsciousness did? It stored that experience (touching hot oven), linked it to the feeling (burn, pain) and emotion (fear, shock). Thus, as a kid, you didn’t touch it again, even though you might have not understood why you got burnt.

Of course — as an adult, you know how ovens work. But that memory is still stored in your subconscious mind and prevents you from doing similar things.

How is that linked to affirmation in self-hypnosis?

Most of the stuff in your subconsciousness serves to protect you. And it’s hard to overcome those limits, even though rationally they make no sense. Anxieties, procrastination, fear of change — you can’t just tell yourself “Oh I’m not stressed” and puff, you are not stressed anymore.

Affirmations in self-hypnosis serve to bypass your subconscious mind “guarding programs”, and program it the way you want it to serve you. It’s a powerful weapon in your journey to self-development.

Why Regular Affirmations Often Don’t Work

At this point, you might ask, “Okay, but what’s the difference between regular positive affirmations and auto-hypnosis one?”

First, let’s define “positive affirmations”. As Cleveland Clinics wrote:

Positive affirmations are short phrases you repeat to yourself to help build self-worth and resilience. You can say them aloud or in your head. They’re a way to push back against negative thoughts that can sometimes take over and make you doubt yourself.

The problem is: many times, it’s not enough to just say aloud, “I feel good.”

Regular affirmations often don’t work, because your subconscious mind has a kind of “guarding mechanism.” That guardian doesn’t allow coming inside information, that doesn’t align with already established views.

For example: as a kid, you gave a presentation in a class. But your teacher said it was bad, ridiculed your effort and made you feel miserable.

What your subconscious mind remembered from that? The less public presentations you give, the less embarrassment and pain you have to go through. Which is why you are afraid to make a speech in front of your boss and co-workers.

Simply saying “I’m prepared for my speech”, “I’m confident about my speech” often times doesn’t work. However, affirmations in self-hypnosis work in a different, more powerful way.

Hypnotic Trance: the Ideal Mental State for Affirmations

Hypnotic trance, simply put, is a state of mind, where your internal world feels more real than the external one. In that state, your subconscious mind is more suggestible. Simplifying — you can say it’s open to “talk” with you.

The guarding mechanism I’ve mentioned before is either weakened, or completely suspended — depending on your experience with auto-hypnosis. Thanks to that, you can:

Take a deeper look at your emotions, feelings, thoughts,
Realize what’s behind certain behaviors (why are you afraid of dancing at parties?),
Reprogram old habits, thought processes, mental cause and effect chain.

That’s why affirmations in self-hypnosis are more powerful, than in a regular state of mind. They are not “deflected” by the guardian. Instead, it’s sort of like treating your internal child. Your conscious mind takes a role of a mentor, that guides your subconsciousness.

If you want to learn more about hypnotic trance, check out my other free guide HERE.

Affirmations in Self-Hypnosis: Making Words Transformational

So, how can you practically use affirmations in self-hypnosis? Let me guide you through an example session for beginners.

Choose one topic you want to go through.
Write down 3 affirmations in self-hypnosis you want to go with.
1. 3 is a good starting point. It’s easy to come up with them, remember them, and not feel overwhelmed.
2. If you are familiar with affirmations, you can try more.
3. Make them similar to each other, related to one topic. For example: 3 affirmations linked to your procrastination during gym workouts and lack of motivation.
Read them several times, to get acquainted with them.
1. Personally, I prefer reading them aloud. I feel them harder then. But you can do however you prefer it.
Close your eyes, relax with your favorite method.
Go into a hypnotic trance.
Once there, find your safe space/safe heaven.
As always, take as much time as you want here.
Once you’re settled, summon your affirmation number one.
1. It can be done in various ways. You can just say them in your subconscious mind, or visualize them.
2. For example: if your safe space is sandy beach, you can make a “caption” from clouds.
Say it aloud and feel it at least 3 times.
1. By feel, I mean summoning the desired feeling or emotion in a certain situation.
2. For example: if you want to be more motivated during workout, visualize yourself full of energy at the gym.
Then, go to the next affirmation and repeat the process.
Once you’ve done all of them, repeat them slowly one-by-one.
1. Try to link them, if possible, in a sort of mental chain.
2. For example: “I’m motivated for my workout”, then “I’m always pumped at the gym”, and “My pull-ups are in perfect form.”
Stay silent for a moment. Run through your affirmations, visualizing just their meaning.
Once you feel like it, return to safe space, and then gently return to the external world.

There are other techniques you can try and numerous kinds of affirmations. But these process is the simplest, and at the same time highly effective. If you don’t know how to get into hypnotic trance, HERE is my step-by-step guide for beginners.

How to Craft Perfect Affirmations That Stick

There are several rules for crafting affirmations in self-hypnosis. Of course, you can go with the onces you find on internet, nothing wrong with that. However, the more personalized they are, the better they work.

I’ll explain that on a simple affirmation with base sentence, “I work hard.”

Focus on Emotions

Our emotions are a record of the past. The stronger they are, the better we remember certain things. The same is with affirmations in self-hypnosis. If you associate them with certain emotions, they work better. For example: instead of saying “I train hard”, say “I enjoy training hard.”

Use Present Tense

That one is tricky sometimes. Instinctively, many of us (me included) like to affirm with future tense, like “I will train hard.” But then you program your subconscious mind to work those programs in some far, far away future. It’s better to use general “I enjoy training hard every time.”

Be Specific

Another key element to include in affirmations in self-hypnosis is being specific. But a small catch: not all affirmations need to be super specific. Rather, if you go with three affirmations, make at least one specific. For example, use “I enjoy training hard every time” (general) and then “I perform my pull-ups with perfect form every time I train” (specific exercise, in which you want to improve in).

Focus on Positives

Usually it’s better to use positive statements in affirmations in self-hypnosis. What do I mean by that? Try to avoid phrases with “no” in it. For example: instead of saying “I’m not tired after my pull-ups”, say “I’m full of energy after my pull-up’s session.”

Don’t Forget About Curiosity

Last, but definitely not least: enjoy the process, experiment with different affirmations in self-hypnosis. They are not here to be another boring responsibility. They are here to help you to achieve your goals. So, treat them with curiosity, experiment, and see how much they have to offer. The more enthusiastic you are, the better they work!

How Affirmations Shape Your Inner Dialogue Over Time

Consistent use of affirmations in self-hypnosis gradually transforms how you speak to yourself. It’s not about repeating empty phrases, but about rewriting limiting beliefs from the inside out.

Let’s face it — our inner dialogue is often self-depreciating. Of course, there is nothing wrong being mindful about mistakes. But we tend to overestimate them, while not appreciating what we’ve achieved.

That’s how stress is often born. You can get stressed even about things that don’t happen. For example: you are stressed that you won’t make it on time to workplace, and get reprimand for that.

Then, you got 5 minutes late, and… no one even noticed. And you just stayed those extra 5 minutes. No big deal, right? Yet, you got stressed anyway.

That kind of overthinking happens a lot, and our inner dialogue doesn’t help. That changes gradually with consistent use of affirmations in self-hypnosis. First, slowly, but steadily, you will notice that you no longer criticize yourself for everything.

Which in turn makes you feel better with yourself.

As you get better and better with those affirmations, the cleaner and healthier your inner dialogue gets. Of course — you will still get stressed, experience problem, anxieties might arise from time to time.

However, as you use affirmations in self-hypnosis, you will discover that your mind doesn’t have to be your enemy. It is your greatest ally, if you know how to speak with it.