Affirmations Are Like Spells and Here's Why You Should Incorporate Them into Your Routine

This story was originally published on Tigress Mag for Girls

I started using affirmations after I read Louise Hay’s The Power Is Within You. Despite the cheesy book title, I quickly learned that Hay and her affirming techniques are pretty prime for getting to where you want to be and—well, your general well being. After reading some of her books, I slowly immersed myself into the metaphysical (not a word to be afraid of! It’s just another title for the study of life’s big questions: What are we doing here? How can we be cool about it? The answer: Meditate, affirm, be present and so on, ya dig?). 

Hay taught me everything I needed to know about letting go of the past and negative vibes and the first step to doing all that is affirming. Curious? Read on, my friend.

So, What Is An Affirmation? An affirmation is in the name. It’s a positive statement made in the present moment. It’s having control over your subconscious thought. It’s an attempt at changing your narrative by literally changing the narrative. It’s about having more control over your thoughts than you once did. Thoughts become things, so might as well keep your thoughts positive.

Affirmations Are Kind Of Witchy: I like to think that an affirmation is like a spell, which makes you a witch and how cool is that? With an affirmation, you’re telling the universe, God, etc. exactly what you want and exactly how you want to feel. You’re not going to get instant results (like a spell), but you’ll get everything you want or need in due time as long as you keep at it and believe in your thoughts as well as in yourself.

You’re Not Lying To Yourself: When I first starting using affirmations, I used them to affirm my self-love. I would look at myself in the mirror and repeat: “I love and accept myself just as I am now.” A little voice at the back of my head would pop up and call me out. “LIES,” it would say. It was rough, but I kept repeating my affirmation. Eventually, I found myself opening up to new experiences and immersing myself in activities that brought me joy. That little voice disappeared and loving myself feels like much less of a struggle these days.

Any new radical thought that you tell yourself is going to feel like a lie, but you’re changing your narrative, which means that you’re trying to make a change in your life and that’s kind of huge. It’s going to take some getting used to.

Start Affirming Now: Make it a part of your routine. Do it before you shower, while you get ready in the morning, or before going to sleep. Here’s how: look at yourself in the mirror; smile at your gorgeous face and say cool calming things out loud (it feels straight up WEIRD at first, but you’ll get used to it). If you want to work on self-love, tell yourself you love yourself. If you want to work on becoming money-positive, say some money positive things to yourself (ex. I am a money magnet. Sounds corny, I know).

If you can’t think of any affirmations, you can use the Internet for help or read some books by Louise Hay (the queen herself). It’ll take some practice but affirm away and see what cool awesome new developments pop into your life. Despite popular belief, it’s all in your hands, babe.

The Teen Witches I Wish We're My Friends IRL

This story was originally published by HelloGiggles

Teen witches get a pretty sweet deal. They usually start out as shy, sometimes nerdy, teenage outcasts that grow up into killer babes with all the power in the known universe. They have the ability to make things happen, like really happen.

Sometimes all it takes is a snap of their fingers, a wiggle of their nose or a complicated spell, complete with a cauldron full of steaming potion. Either way, teen witches get sh*t done. In honor of October and Halloween, here are some of pop culture’s baddest teen witches.

AHS: The Coven

It’s hard to say who out of Miss Robichaux Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies was the baddest. A solid argument could be made for any of the girls on the show. Even the witch considered the weakest of them all, Zoe Benson, who had a —um, a killer talent (anyone she sleeps with dies instantly of a brain hemorrhage), grew into her powers. The plot line of The Coven ended up being a confusing and complicated rigmarole that few viewers could follow, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that these ladies, despite their age, had the ability to kill, destroy and resurrect. Plus, it gave us Madison Montgomery’s famous one liner. Oh, you know the one.

Hermione Granger (and the rest of the female Harry Potter gang)

Duh, Hermione and her fellow teen witches from the HP series are on this list, and they may be the baddest of them all! Ginny was a kick-butt Quidditch player, Luna Lovegood surprised everyone with her strength and wisdom and —well, Hermione was Hermione dang Granger. Not only was she under constant stress from school (and still succeeded with flying colors), but she also fought some of the world’s top dark wizards while keeping Ron and Harry in check. If Weasley is our king, then Granger is most definitely our badass queen.

Willow Rosenberg

Ah, Willow. She started out as an unassertive, quiet nerd and turned into one of the most powerful characters on the series. She may have begun Buffy as a wallflower, but her true nature began to blossom as she slowly became more and more assertive. She grew up from teen to powerful-as-hell teen witch. By the end of the series she was using her magic to resurrect folks, almost end the known world and take her rightful spot as the most powerful witch around.

Bonnie Bennett

Bonnie Bennett is a teen witch extraordinaire! Not only will she offer a warm shoulder for you to cry on while you try to understand your feelings for a set of vampire brothers, but she’ll also save your ass from a doppelganger or an Original or whatever supernatural being they’ve got on The Vampire Diaries. Vampire hunter? Anyway, Bonnie is and has always been ready to sacrifice herself for her friends and those that she loves; to the point where she actually sacrifices herself over and over and over again. She’s suffers some serious trauma in order to save everyone, so I’d say that gives her some pretty bad teen witch cred.

Sarah Bailey

The teen girls of The Craft used their powers for some dark stuff that, in the end, led them to fight each other while killing off a couple of guys along the way. Before all that, there was sisterhood and declaring weirdo-hood to bus drivers, which was great. Yet, things took a turn for the worse when Sarah Bailey started questioning the groups true intentions as witches, leading to a major stand off between herself and coven leader, Nancy Downs. Sisterhood over. In the end, Sarah’s balance and light led to winning the battle, making the group’s powers her own.

Honorable Mention- Louise Miller the original Teen Witch, herself. Sure, her “bad” level may have been a little more PG than the rest, but she was still able to manipulate people into singing random musical numbers like no other!