Shifting Affirmations: 90 to Try and How to Make Your Own

I am shifting. Those three words are the simplest of all shifting affirmations, the short present-tense lines reality shifters repeat to settle their mind on their desired reality (DR). Pick two or three that feel true to you, and say them during your method or as you drift off to sleep.

Shifters believe the right words help carry you to your DR. Nothing has proven that, so we treat affirmations as a calm, focusing ritual rather than a promise, and the lines below are sorted so you can find yours fast.

Brand new to shifting? Start with what reality shifting is, where DR, CR and the other terms are explained. Affirmations slot into nearly every one of the main shifting methods, and before you try them, read our guide on whether shifting is safe.

What Are Shifting Affirmations?

A shifting affirmation is a statement that tells your mind shifting is possible for you, or that it is already happening. Most are “I” lines, such as I am in my desired reality or I have shifted. Others talk about shifting itself, like Shifting realities is easy and natural, or about the moment you arrive, like When I open my eyes, I see my DR.

You will also see them called desired reality affirmations, since nearly all of them point at your DR. If you came looking for lines about this life, like a new job or a better grade, those belong to manifesting, and our law of assumption affirmations are written for that.

○ Where Shifting Affirmations Come From

Nobody can take credit for inventing the lines you will find here. They spread with the shifting boom itself, which the researchers Eli Somer and colleagues trace to the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020. In the study they published a year later, Somer’s team noted that general statements and affirmations “are commonly used to enhance DR experiences”.

Somer and his colleagues also spotted a cousin of the habit among lucid dreamers, who tell themselves before bed that tonight they will have a lucid dream. When you affirm before a shift, you do much the same thing, only with a bigger destination in mind.

The habit of repeating a hopeful line is far older, though. Wikipedia’s biography of Émile Coué describes a French pharmacist who lived from 1857 to 1926 and taught people to repeat “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better”. His ritual was to say it as many as twenty times a day, especially first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

How Do Shifting Affirmations Work?

Shifters believe that what you keep telling yourself shapes what you experience. Say a line often enough, the idea goes, and your mind stops arguing with it, until shifting feels as ordinary as walking into another room.

But psychology will tell you a more careful story. You may read that psychologists explain affirmations through “self-affirmation”, though that research looks at something else. As Cohen and Sherman explain in their review of the field, self-affirmation exercises usually ask people to write about their core personal values, not to repeat a line.

Psychologist Joanne Wood and her colleagues tested repeated lines directly, the way you would use this list, and the results were uneven. People who already felt good about themselves got a small lift from a line about being lovable, while those with low self-esteem came away feeling worse. In the team’s own words, such statements can “backfire for the very people” who want them most.

As for shifting itself, Wikipedia’s article on reality shifting gives the scientific view plainly. Science has no way to move a mind into another reality, the article says, which is why shifting is treated as something you experience inside yourself rather than a change to the world.

So use affirmations to calm and focus your mind before a method or before sleep. Pick lines that feel true, or nearly true, because a line that makes you feel worse is doing the opposite of its job. For a fuller look at the studies, read the science behind shifting.

How to Use Shifting Affirmations

There is no rulebook you have to follow. You can pair affirmations with any method, use them on their own, or skip them on nights when they feel like a chore.

○ During Any Shifting Method

Some methods build the lines right into what you do. In the Raven method, as Somer and his colleagues describe it, you lie spread out like a starfish, count to 100 and recite positive affirmations between the numbers.

Our guides to the Raven method, the ADHD method and the Intention method each show where the lines go.

You can add affirmations to methods that never mention them, too. Say one while you picture your DR in detail, or when the sensations shifters call shifting symptoms begin, just before you open your eyes.

○ Out Loud, in Your Head or on Paper?

Any of the three works, so choose the one that keeps you relaxed. When someone asked on Reddit whether people who have shifted affirm out loud or in their head, one reply said only in the mind, because speaking “causes tension”, while another switched between the two.

Whispering is a good middle ground if you share a room (and it saves you an awkward question from your little brother).

Writing is your third option. Many shifters copy a few lines onto paper for the pillow method and sleep with the page under their pillow, and others keep a short card on the nightstand to read once before lights out.

○ How Often Should You Say Them?

Fewer lines, said with attention, will serve you better than a long list rattled off. The person who started a Reddit thread asking for the most powerful affirmations said they use only three, because ten is too many to focus on. We think three is a lovely number to start with.

For timing, a few calm minutes before your method and a line or two as you fall asleep are plenty. Coué’s ritual above is a piece of history, not a target.

During the day, a line can fill a spare moment, like waiting for the bus or brushing your teeth. But keep it out of class and out of conversations, because your life here deserves your attention too.

○ With a Subliminal or Your Own Voice

Plenty of shifters play an affirmation loop or a subliminal from YouTube while they lie down, and that makes a fine partner for a written list. Choose a track whose lines match yours, so the words in your head and the words in your ears agree.

Our roundup of the best subliminals for shifting compares the popular tracks and explains how to listen safely in bed.

You can also record your own voice reading your three lines slowly, with a pause after each. You may find your own voice easier to trust than a stranger’s.

○ What Is Robotic Affirming?

Robotic affirming means you repeat one line over and over, flatly, without trying to feel or believe it. It spread through law of assumption creators on YouTube, and it belongs more to that approach than to any one method.

If you are curious, our page on law of assumption shifting explains where it fits, and the guide for non-visualizers shows how robotic affirming works without pictures. Keep the sessions short, and check the safety notes further down before it becomes a daily routine.

How to Write Your Own Shifting Affirmations

Many shifters say their strongest lines are ones they wrote themselves, or ones they changed until they sounded like them. These four habits help any line land better.

○ Keep It in the Present Tense

Write each line as if it is true right now. I am in my desired reality states a fact, while I will be in my desired reality quietly reminds you that you are not there yet.

The rule comes from Neville Goddard’s law of assumption, which asks you to think and feel as though what you want is already yours. Shifters call that living in the end.

In practice, drop words like will, soon and going to. Swap I want for I have, and I hope for I know.

○ Will “I Am in My DR” Confuse Your Mind?

This worry turns up on Reddit all the time. Under a much-upvoted post of affirmations, one shifter admitted worrying that saying “I am in my dr” would make their subconscious “believe my CR is my DR”.

The usual answer should reassure you. In another Reddit thread on the same worry, one reply put it simply: you know what you mean when you say DR, so your subconscious knows too.

If the worry still nags, choose a different kind of line. A process line, like I am shifting right now, describes the move rather than the arrival. An identity line, like I am someone who shifts easily, is about you, and a permission line, like My body and mind are free to shift, simply opens the door.

○ When an Affirmation Feels Like a Lie

That jolt you feel, the sense that this is not true, is normal, and it is worth listening to. Remember Joanne Wood’s study above, where people with low self-esteem felt worse after repeating a line they did not believe.

So build a bridge instead. Bridge lines are softer and easier to accept, such as Shifting is possible for me, I am learning to shift or I am open to shifting tonight, and once one feels comfortable, you can step up to a bolder line.

A reply on Reddit to a shifter whose lines felt like lies suggests another trick. Say a few things that are plainly true about the room around you, then slip in one that is not true yet, and keep going until the new one stops jarring.

If every line leaves you feeling low, put the list down for a while, and share that feeling with someone at home you trust.

○ Say It Your Way

I am is not the only way in. Some shifters who are plural systems, meaning they experience several selves sharing one body, write their lines with we, as one reply in a Reddit thread about “I am” lines explained.

Others find my body or my mind easier to say, as in My body is ready to shift. And if talking about yourself feels awkward, make shifting the subject: Shifting is safe, simple and natural.

Keep each line short enough to whisper without stopping for air, and clear enough that you never have to stop and work out what it means.

90 Shifting Affirmations, Sorted by What You Need

Every line here is in the present tense, and each group suits a different situation. Read a group, notice which lines make you relax or smile, and keep two or three of those. Swap the words in square brackets for your own details.

○ Short Affirmations for Beginners

Use these on your first nights, or any time you want something plain and easy to remember.

1. I am shifting.
2. Shifting is easy and natural for me.
3. I give myself permission to shift.
4. I am a shifter.
5. Shifting feels familiar to me.
6. My mind knows the way to my DR.
7. Every breath brings me closer to my DR.
8. I am more than this body and this room.
9. I shift easily with any method I choose.
10. My desired reality is real, and it is mine.
11. I deserve to shift.
12. I enjoy every step of shifting.
13. I know how to shift.

○ Affirmations for Doubt and Fear

These are for nights when a little voice tells you it will never work. Several are bridge lines, so start with the gentlest.

14. My doubts are only thoughts, and thoughts pass.
15. I can have doubts and still shift.
16. I am learning to trust myself.
17. Shifting is possible for me.
18. I let go of every old story that says I cannot shift.
19. Each try teaches me something new.
20. I am patient and kind with myself.
21. Fear does not decide where I go.
22. I am stronger than my doubts.
23. I release the need to force it.
24. I am ready, just as I am.
25. My past tries do not limit me.
26. I shift in my own way, at my own pace.

○ Safety Affirmations

Lines like these have been part of shifting from the start, so you are in good company using them. In their 2021 study, Eli Somer’s team listed a line saying you cannot be traumatized in your DR, and another saying you cannot get too attached to it, among the things shifters often script.

Choose a safe word for getting home before you lean on these.

27. I am safe in my desired reality.
28. I never get too attached to my DR.
29. I can come back to my CR whenever I choose.
30. My safe word brings me home at once.
31. Nothing in my DR can harm me.
32. I cannot be traumatized in my DR.
33. My CR self is safe and cared for.
34. My body sleeps soundly while I explore.
35. I can pause or leave any scene in my DR.
36. I stay in control of every shift.
37. Every shift is calm and gentle.
38. I always know which reality I am in.

○ Affirmations for Bedtime and Sleep Methods

Say these slowly as you drift off, or between counts. They suit every routine in our guide to sleep shifting methods.

39. As I fall asleep, I drift toward my DR.
40. When I open my eyes, I see my DR.
41. My last thought before sleep is my DR.
42. I wake up in my DR bedroom.
43. My body is heavy, warm and ready for sleep.
44. Each number I count takes me deeper.
45. The words under my pillow guide my dreams.
46. Sleep comes easily, and so does shifting.
47. The air I breathe now is the air of my DR.
48. I drift off calm and wake up somewhere new.
49. My dreams lead me home to my DR.
50. Each slow breath loosens my hold on this room.
51. I rest deeply in every reality.

○ Affirmations for the Void and Awake Methods

These are for lying still and wide awake, or for the moment everything goes dark and quiet in the void. They also fit the awake shifting methods, where you stay alert from start to finish.

52. I reach the void easily.
53. I am in the void, and I feel calm.
54. In the void, I choose my DR.
55. I am pure awareness, free to go anywhere.
56. I feel my DR all around me.
57. I hear the sounds of my DR.
58. The scent of my DR fills the room.
59. All my senses are tuned to my DR.
60. I am awake, aware and arriving.
61. This room fades as my DR grows clearer.
62. My awareness moves with ease.
63. Everything around me is shifting to my DR.

○ “I Have Shifted” Affirmations

These speak as if your shift is already done. They suit anyone who feels calm, even pleased, saying them, and they are the lines law of assumption shifters lean on most.

64. I have shifted.
65. I am in my desired reality.
66. I live in my DR.
67. I have shifted many times before.
68. Shifting is something I do all the time.
69. I am a master shifter.
70. Each shift is easier than the last.
71. I have already arrived.
72. I remember my first moment in my DR.
73. Every morning starts in my DR.
74. I am home.
75. I am physically, emotionally and mentally in my DR.
76. I am grateful to be in my DR.

○ Desired Reality Affirmations

Make these your own by filling in the brackets from your script. If you have not chosen a DR yet, browse these desired reality ideas or start with our shifting script template.

77. I am in [your DR].
78. My name in my DR is [name].
79. [Person] is waiting for me in my DR.
80. My DR self is happy, healthy and confident.
81. My DR self feels at home in their own skin.
82. Everything in my DR matches my script.
83. My DR home is warm, safe and familiar.
84. I know my DR as well as I know my own room.
85. My DR family and friends are happy I am here.
86. I have every skill I scripted for my DR.
87. I am in my waiting room, and I can stay as long as I like.
88. I am a student at [school in your DR].
89. I speak, dress and act as my DR self.
90. I belong in my DR.

How to Fit Affirmations to Your Shifting Method

General lines are a fine start, but the strongest ones fit both your DR and the method you are using. Take any line from the list and ask what it would sound like inside your method’s story.

○ Train Method Affirmations

In the Train method, you picture a train carrying you to your DR, and you arrive when it pulls into the last station. I am shifting to my DR works on that train, but lines that belong to the ride work better.

Try The train is carrying me to my DR, Every stop brings me closer to my DR or These tracks lead straight to my DR. As the train slows, switch to We are pulling into my DR’s station, and I have arrived, and if someone is meeting you, add [Name] is waiting for me on the platform.

○ Shifting to Hogwarts on the Train

Now say your DR is Hogwarts, you are a student there, and you are still using the Train method. Your lines can follow the Hogwarts Express through the countryside: The Hogwarts Express is carrying me to school. Green hills and lakes slide past my window, and the castle gets closer.

As the train slows, try We are stopping at Hogsmeade station, and I am ready for the new term. Then add someone you are excited to see, like Neville is saving me a seat at the Gryffindor table. Shifting to Hogwarts has its own guide, with the rest of that DR.

○ Raven, Pillow and Void Examples

For the Raven count, keep your line short enough to fit between two numbers, and let it change as you go deeper: one, I am letting go, two, my DR is close, three, I am arriving.

For the pillow method, write three lines that cover where you wake, who is there and how you feel, such as I wake up in my cabin by the lake, My best friend is knocking on my door and I feel rested and happy.

In the void, many shifters use just one line, the clearest one they have, such as I am in my DR now, and then let go of words completely.

When Shifting Affirmations Don’t Seem to Work

Plenty of shifters affirm for weeks and still open their eyes in their usual bedroom. That says nothing bad about you, and the three problems below are the ones people raise most.

○ “I’ve Affirmed for Months and Nothing Happened”

Start by looking at what happens between sessions. On Reddit, the first reply to a post about affirmations not working after months asked whether the poster had been contradicting the lines in the meantime, and added that it is “not a contest of who affirms more”.

So try less, not more. Pick fewer lines, stop any track that plays all day, and take a short break before you begin again.

After the break, change just one thing, like a new method or a softer line, and give it a fair run. Our shifting tips for beginners and the guide to why you can’t shift yet have more to test.

○ “I Feel Nothing When I Affirm”

You do not have to feel anything. In a Reddit thread from a shifter who felt nothing after affirming, one reply put it kindly: if you are calm and relaxed, “falling asleep is perfectly fine”.

There is no final push or special signal to wait for. Let the lines go soft as sleep comes, and count a good night’s rest as a win.

○ “I Have Aphantasia or No Inner Voice”

Aphantasia is when your mind’s eye stays blank, or nearly blank, as you try to imagine a picture, and some people also have no inner voice. One shifter with both said on Reddit that affirmations did nothing but keep them awake, and that imagining movement suited them better.

If that sounds like you, write your lines instead of saying them, or swap them for a feeling, like your DR hoodie on your shoulders. Our guide to shifting methods without visualization collects more ideas for minds like yours.

How to Use Shifting Affirmations Safely

Affirmations are gentle, but too much of a gentle thing can still hurt you. In one Reddit thread, a shifter who had been affirming from the afternoon until almost midnight mentioned migraines, a heavy mind and a strained face, and was still going.

If you feel pain like that, stop. It is a warning, not a sign of progress. Put the list away, drink some water and rest, and if a headache is severe or keeps coming back, see a doctor.

Watch for affirming that stops feeling like a choice, as if you have to finish the list or something will go wrong. Among the compulsions of OCD, the NHS includes repeating words inside your head and seeking reassurance.

The NHS adds that OCD is unlikely to get better on its own, though treatment and support are available. If this sounds familiar, talk to a doctor, and see when to take a break.

Affirmations are not medicine. If your body hurts or your mood stays low, a line about feeling well cannot replace a doctor’s visit, so get real help first and keep your affirmations for your DR.

Protect your sleep, too. For anyone aged 13 to 18, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends 8 to 10 hours in every 24, on a regular basis. A quiet loop inside that sleep is fine, but staying up late to affirm is not, and our sleep guide explains why you should never trade sleep for a shift.

Last, affirmations cannot fix a real crisis. If you are leaning on them to get through something painful at home, at school or inside your own head, or if you ever feel trapped in this life, please talk it through with a parent, your school counselor or any adult you trust. The crisis lines and other people to call are in our shifting safety guide.

Pick Your First Three Lines

Say your DR is a seaside boarding school in Japan, where you captain the volleyball team. Tonight you might choose I give myself permission to shift, I am safe here and in my DR and I wake up to the sound of waves outside our dorm.

You write them on a card, read them once, and whisper them in turn as you get sleepy. Maybe you wake in your own bed with a dream of salty air and a ball in your hands (a very good first line for your notes, by the way).

Your DR has waited in your notes app long enough. Pick your three lines, say them kindly, and happy shifting!

Frequently Asked Questions About Shifting Affirmations