The Law of Attraction is a bit of a contentious point for some folks. For those of you who don't know about it, it's what The Secret was based on. It boils down to the simple idea that like attracts like - if you're a positive person, you'll attract positivity into your life. If you're a negative person, you'll attract negativity.
This belief structure has some merit - it has been shown that happy people tend to be more successful, healthier, etc.. I tend to find that people who are trying to learn to be more positive really gravitate towards the Law of Attraction, and then get themselves all worked up about 'the right way to do it', and wind up stressing themselves out more. So I prefer this adaptation on the LoA here, where it's less of a law and more of a principle. This version means that people get less hung up on being afraid that they're doing it all wrong, therefore shooting themselves in the foot. This just seems straight forward to me, but I consistently get questions about it so I thought I’d write a post about it. First off, from a strictly Law of Attraction point of view, if you’re trying to avoid negative emotions for fear of attracting more bad things to you, you’re doing it wrong. It’s not the negative emotion drawing bad things to you, it’s the fear of that negative emotion.
This is the thing about the Law of Attraction… it attracts more of what you already are/have. So if you’re happy, you get more happy. If you’re sad, you get more sad. But that’s such an over simplification of a very complex series of things. There are intentions, and then there are unintentional intentions. Unintentional intentions are those underlying subconscious beliefs accidentally suffocating the intentional intentions you may be trying to send out. For instance, if you’re trying to set an intention that people like you, but you’re doing it because you’re afraid they don’t - guess which intention is actually being sent out to the Universe?
Law of attraction often has more to do with what you subconsciously believe about yourself and the world around you than the conscious, intentional thoughts and feelings we have. The process of learning how to master it has more to do with examining why you think and feel about certain things and changing those underlying belief systems than just ‘choosing better thoughts’. For instance, if you’re worried that people don’t like you and so you’re trying to set the intention that they do, you’re still ‘vibrating’ at the frequency that people don’t like you. So until you genuinely believe that people like you, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. That’s why they say you have to get yourself to a place where you really, really feel that what you’re trying to send out to the Universe is already true. And the best way to do that is to make sure you only ask for things when you feel confident and on top of the world. Which is the common error. People always ask for stuff when they feel like they need it, otherwise why ask for it? But again, shooting, meet foot…
So then, the question is, why don’t you feel like you deserve the things you’re asking for? Because people who already do feel like they deserve those things, give them to themselves. So the Universe gives you more of what you already have.
That’s why it doesn’t actually matter if you’re sad or angry or whatever. Are you the kind of person who is going through a hard time but believes they’re a great person who deserves love and support and all kinds of good things while going through that hard time and believes that they already have those things? Then you’re more likely to actually have those things already in your life.
It’s not the emotions themselves that make or break the law of attraction, it’s the deeper underlying belief structures that need to be brought to the surface, examined, and ultimately changed. So if you’re the kind of person who wants to be happy, you’re more likely to get rid of the people and things in your life that make you unhappy and do the work required to keep yourself there. If you’re the kind of person who wants to be sad, you’re more likely to pick circumstances that keep you sad, even when the opportunity to make yourself happy is also an option. In that case, you need to examine why you want to be sad.
Make sense? This does a pretty good job explaining the difference between transient positivity versus a positive base personality, or positive affect, which is what I'm trying to get at here.
Now, all of that said - it CAN be as simple as re-training your neural pathways to choose the more positive thought. That is a very important part of the process. It’s just not the ONLY part. Because you ALSO need to do the work when you come up against a blockage that you need to overcome. Sometimes you actually need to go into the ‘bad feelings’ to figure out why they exist in the first place so that you can change the underlying belief structure associated with them. Otherwise, the fear of facing that underlying belief structure means you’ll just keep being hit in the face with whatever those circumstances are. So not wanting to go into the ‘bad feelings’ is actually detrimental in that case and is, in itself, the blockage.
So don’t be afraid of the ‘bad feelings’. They’re just tools to help you discover why you think and feel the way you do so you can change the underlying belief structures. Once you lose your attachment to the feelings associated with those emotions you can look at them objectively. That’s the goal. The emotion itself is just a neutral existing thing. Why it’s there is the important part…
Don’t believe me? This guru monk fellow does a pretty decent explanation. ;)
Till next time, my dear Readers!