How often have you noticed yourself thinking "I knew this would happen" after something negative happened? Your future is often the product of decisions on a conscious or subconscious level that were made long before their outcomes fell into place. It is not just true that you can predict the results of your present actions will have on the future but it is also true that by looking at which subconscious choices you are selecting you are able to dynamically change the course of the future. 

The man who feared himself

There was once a man who was convinced that his girlfriend was cheating on him. He would keep track of all of her actions and kept accusing her of cheating on him. In fact she was not cheating on him at all. However after some time she started feeling like she wanted to. The reason that she started feeling like this was that on some level the man was encouraging her to cheat on him so that his own fear could be validated.

It is those fears that a person focuses on most that end up becoming realities. But what is that confirmation of?

Stating "I knew this would happen" can be taken to mean one of two things:

"Bad things happen to me all the time"

Or

"The outcomes of the future are results of the present thinking that I am using"

Detecting negative beliefs

There are a number of components in the law of attraction that are mistaken for magic when in fact those things are just elements of another law: the law of confirmation. If a person experiences positive reinforcement after gossiping about one of her co-workers then this becomes validating for her. She confirms that gossiping is the window to receiving acceptance from others.

However this is also true in reverse. If a child at school is being teased and he becomes upset then he also confirms that the teasing is valid. If someone yells out "Hey, loser" this becomes an invitation to confirm that statement. It doesn't matter if the statement is rejected, if it causes a feeling of upset, or anger, it does not matter what the actual response that it causes is, as long as there is a response. To respond is to acknowledge the statement first and therefore to confirm it.

So if someone gets cheated on in a relationship for the first time he or she might take this to mean: "this is a problem with 'me'". Therefore when this occurs in future relationships it becomes a confirmation of that original belief.

Each time something happens that causes us to confirm what has happened as being valid we then strengthen the core belief that lies beneath that confirmation. This is the single time that I have found the use of affirmations to be effective.

Reprogramming a negative belief using affirmations

Before a person gets familiar with reprogramming their beliefs it is difficult not to see all the behaviours of others as invitations to confirm our own self-image. But often that is not what we're doing at all, instead we end up confirming how others see us.

Next time someone makes a definitive statement about You take a moment to note whether on some level that statement is encouraging a confirming response. Now clear that entire statement and replace it with a more desirable one that comes from your own self-image.

Often we walk around asking others to define us — but we do not even know that this is happening. If someone makes a definitive statement about who we are then it might seem easier to go along with that rather than attempting to reshape it.

If we reshape a statement that someone has just made about our own character this causes an instantaneous shift of consciousness for all the people involved in the conversation. The single method we can use to reject confirming statements that others make about us is to reshape them with our own statements based on our own beliefs rather than the beliefs that others have made for us about us.

To reject confirming a statement causes the scales to shift where the other person is then forced to either confirm or challenge the new statement that we have made about ourselves.

One example of reshaping a belief

1. Person 1 is upset and states: "You are a terrible listener".
2. Take a moment to note whether this causes an invitation to confirm the statement on an inner level.
3. Let go of that invitation.
4. Find a different belief that is true such as 'I am a good listener'. Do not state this out loud but confirm it on an inner level.

The results of this exercise are positive for all of the people involved. Rather than focusing on the negative belief and letting it consume your attention you are able to replace that belief with a positive one. Doing this allows you to approach the situation on a more practical level instead of being attached to the negative emotions associated with the original suggested belief.