I am very fond of calling this phenomenon - the self-fulfilling prophecy. "I make the universe in my own image" is a much more profound way of saying it. Implicit in it is the view that all the people around me are in fact mirrors of myself. Again, if I see you as rich and stupid, I might be projecting all my attitudes and beliefs regarding rich people on to you. Viz. that rich people cannot be smart, that smart people cannot be rich, that smart people are too intelligent to concern themselves with acquiring material possessions. Therefore if I am smart I must be poor.

I must admit that the above statement is a rather outdated notion and that economic well-being or at least financial self-sufficiency is more the vogue. But having started out on this note I shall continue, for it is only to illustrate a more important point, that of self-determining reality in the metaphysical sense.

So why is everyone not rich and successful and beautiful and smart and wonderful in all aspects? For surely if I am determining my own reality that is what I would want for myself. Now it is not quite so easy, because although that is what I might want to be; there are other programs running in my brain/being, which tell me otherwise. For example, I might be fat and ugly and the mirror (the glass mirror as well as other people in the kind of looks they give me) tells me so. So, no matter how often I repeat to myself that I want to be beautiful it does not work. Now, when I say I want to be beautiful I am already, in a sense sabotaging my beauty belief. For I am saying that I am not beautiful and I desire to be so. Whereas if I define reality as one, wherein I am already beautiful then I give myself a chance. Now reason kicks in with full strength and declares "but that is just lying to myself". Just a moment ago I stated that the mirror tells me that I am not beautiful. Now my contention is that the mirror is only reflecting my inner reality and my belief that I am ugly. When I take charge of this belief and redefine it, I consequently redefine my reality.

Now how can I do that? One way might be to stand in front of the mirror and to repeat to myself "I am beautiful" as many times as possible. Let us say, at least twenty times a day and to note the accompanying feelings and thoughts as I do this. Or else, I take pen and paper and write it down twenty times a day. As I write this down I also write on the other side of the page all the feelings that come up inside me while I write the affirmative statements. So I am not merely pushing the old belief down underground, but rather giving it a chance to metamorphose into something else. I pay keen attention to my inner reality as I work at reconstructing it, so I do not live in denial. People who have worked a lot with this technique are rebirthers. Rebirthing allows one not only to change one’s belief system but also to cleanse one’s emotional being of old feelings and their residue through the practice of conscious connected breathing.

Example
A typical session of working with affirmations might go something like this:

I am beautiful.	Yeah sure on the inside.
I am beautiful to look at too.	Who are you kidding have you taken a look in the mirror?
I appear beautiful when I see myself in the mirror.	Hmmmmmmm the eyes are not bad but that nose ugh
I am beautiful to look at, with the face that I have.	Oh well the nose is rather striking looking ha ha ha
I am strikingly beautiful.	Well if I turn my hair so it does put my nose to advantage, and Barbara Streisand had such a nose, but everyone thinks she is beautiful.
I am beautiful.
I am beautiful.
I am beautiful.	This is really embarrassing.
I am beautiful and I enjoy appreciating it.	I never thought I might become vain about my looks!
I am beautiful and I enjoy appreciating it and that is not vanity.	Sure it is. Looking at oneself in the mirror and repeating ad infinitum ‘I am beautiful’ is nothing but vanity.
Appreciating beauty is not vanity, and I deserve to be appreciated.	Yes I deserve to be appreciated for the work that I do, not for my looks!
I deserve to be appreciated for my looks as well as for other things.	In that case I can only count on myself to do the appreciating for no one else sees me as beautiful.
I am beautiful and it is for all to see and appreciate.	Well we will wait and see.
I am beautiful to look at and anyone who has eyes can see that.	Anyone who is in love with me might see that since as they say love is blind (snigger snigger)
I deserve to be loved and appreciated	Hoooooo that is a tough one, especially with these looks
I am beautiful and I deserve to be loved and appreciated.	Then first of all I need to love myself
I love myself and appreciate my beauty.	I do love myself, beauty I don’t know.
I am beautiful and I love myself	Well there is a special glow about me
I am beautiful and I love myself
I am beautiful and I love myself	Ok I can let it rest here.