OK, look—I love the Law of Attraction. But… I’ll be honest. I still feel a little cringey and embarrassed for loving it so much. Most of that, however, comes from a public lack of understanding as to what the Law of Attraction is and how it actually works. Despite what people think, true teachers of the Law of Attraction (LOA) do not suggest painting everything with a happy coat of positivity, or sending good vibes while sitting back in inaction.
However, I can’t tell you with comforting certainty, “THIS IS HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS AND I KNOW IT.” No one can.
I can tell you, though, that I believe deep down in my bones that using and understanding the Law of Attraction (correctly, that is) will bring about immense improvement in your life.
Law of Attraction 101.
Law of Attraction in 20 words or less.
The Law of Attraction says that you can affect your outside reality by adjusting your inner reality to match it.
That’s it in a nutshell! And in exactly 20 words (*pats self on back*). Let’s flesh this out a bit.
The Law of Attraction says that you can affect your outside reality by adjusting your inner reality to match it.
Thoughts are things.
The Law of attraction says that anything and everything that shows up in your reality has been manifested by you. Your spouse, your job, that $5 you won in the lottery, that crazy conflict with a co-worker—all you. Everything about your life, good, bad and neutral, is your creation.
How? Well, your thoughts aren’t just inside your head, knocking around. They become real. Thoughts become things.
This means that there are no coincidences, no random occurrences, and no helpless situations. You are, technically, in control of every aspect of your reality.
(And I know—that sounds great on one hand, cruel and cold on another. I’ll address the negative aspects of this in another post, but in short, it should only be used as a personal philosophy where it helps you, and it should never, ever, ever compromise your compassion, to yourself or others.)
But I don’t want this. How could I have manifested it?
Now, you don’t usually know what you’re manifesting. You have many levels of consciousness and could be manifesting from any one of them. So just wishing for a million dollars doesn’t mean it’s going to manifest. Forcing yourself to smile while you say it won’t make it come, either.
Source energy, your inner being, and you.
LOA references a higher power, but it’s pretty non-specific and non-human. It’s usually called Source, or Source Energy, or the Universe, and occasionally it’s called God. I like to think of it as a collective consciousness that unites all of us.
Abraham-Hicks, my favorite teachers of the Law of Attraction, use the toaster-electricity analogy, where Source energy is electricity and you are the toaster. The toaster is not the same as the electricity but the electricity flows through the toaster. Got it? Your inner being is essentially the part of you that is aligned with Source.
The 3 steps of LOA.
Understanding the Law of Attraction requires understanding its three-step process. When you want something, you automatically create a “rocket of desire” that alerts Source energy. That’s step one. You don’t need to think about it and ask for it—it just happens. Step two is receiving, where your inner being instantly aligns with that desire you just launched. Like step one, it’s automatic and instantaneous.
Step three is the tricky wicket. It’s allowing, and it’s your job. It’s also where things get stuck.
What you desire is energetically there, ready to be manifested. Think of it as a form you’ve submitted. You sent it to Source headquarters, Source signed it and mailed it back right away, and now it’s actually at your house, ready to be received. But if you’re not there to collect your mail, well… you don’t get it.
So how do you collect your mail? By matching the vibration of your desire.
Vibration.
Some teachers leave the vibration part out because it starts to sound a little “out there,” “woo-woo,” or pseudo-scientific. “Vibration” sounds science-y, and while it’s true that everything is waves (and yet, also particles), let’s release the need to have this rooted in science and think of it as a metaphor instead. A metaphor for energy. Or truth.
In order to manifest something, you have to find the right energy, or vibration, of that desire. If you hold that energy long enough, it will manifest into your reality. This is the “attraction” part: like attracts like.
Understanding how the Law of Attraction is not so crazy and how it will always help you.
The Law of Attraction is an easy target, so you can find loads of articles about why it’s absurd and doesn’t work. Generally, these arguments come from people who don’t have a full understanding of the Law of Attraction and/or don’t believe the universe is anything but objective.
I will say this, though: If you think LOA is dumb, damaging, terrible, etc., and you think it doesn’t help you, then let it go. Following LOA as a practice has to be self-motivated, and (in accordance with LOA, actually) if you don’t think it will work for you, it likely won’t. It’s just like the saying: “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.”
If you’re curious about the Law of Attraction, however, let me say this: You have nothing to lose by using the Law of Attraction and everything to gain. The benefits to your own psyche will propel you into a better life for yourself. Let’s look at a few of these concepts and how they aren’t as crazy as they seem.
“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.”
“Like…in what universe does like attract like?”
People love to glom on to this concept because it’s supposedly refuted by science. There’s always that person that says, “NO! What about MAGNETS, huh?!”
Yeah, magnets aren’t “like attracting like,” at least not literally. And I don’t care. What I do care is that it’s true for your thoughts, both in attracting similar thoughts and—this is the fun part—attracting things to manifest in your outer reality.
As for attracting other thoughts, I know this works because I use this every day. Try it. It’s called the Rampage of Appreciation from Abraham Hicks. It’s especially convincing if you’re in a bad place. Your job is to find one thing to appreciate and then from there, go on a “rampage” where you appreciate anything else that pops into your head.
It sounds hard and maybe impossible if you feel like you can’t appreciate anything. But I promise you, once you find one thing to appreciate, no matter how tiny, the other appreciations will flood in. The more appreciation you have, the more flows to you.
So thoughts, but also attitudes and emotions, can easily attract similar thoughts, attitudes and emotions. But do they also attract things outside your head? This, boys and girls, touches on the next “crazy” concept, that thoughts become things.
“Thoughts become things?”
It sounds crazy, but is it really? You know this to be true on a basic level. If you’re creating something tangible, like a project, a book, a house, a system, you first have to create it in the mind.
It’s true psychologically as well. The more you focus on something, the more it will come back into your reality. It’s a result of what’s called the Reticular Activating System (RAS), and it’s the reason that when you first hear or learn of a new concept, you then encounter it everywhere. The brain’s system for filtering out unnecessary information will flag those instances, whereas before, you might have just washed right over them.
RAS is also responsible for how we naturally cherry-pick facts that confirm our own beliefs. If you believe that aliens have secretly taken over your best friend’s body, for instance (and to have some fun), then the evidence that supports that theory will jump out at you more than evidence (or logic) to the contrary.
So yes, some thoughts do become things—or beliefs, moods or mental or emotional states—and we know and accept that. Does that mean that thinking about money will magically have it appear in your life? Maybe, but not necessarily, and not that easily. However, if you think about money a lot, you will also naturally be attracted to situations and goaded into actions that cause more money to flow to you—as long as you’re not thinking about the lack of money.
In other words, even if thoughts don’t become actual things, thinking about them steers you in the direction where those things at least become a greater probability.
“But Law of Attraction just makes you feel better. It doesn’t actually change anything.”
No matter what you desire, you only desire it because it will make you feel good. This is your ultimate goal, no matter what. So… what’s the problem if you feel better?
There are Law of Attraction methods using that teach you to focus on understanding your desire, fleshing it out, creating vision boards, and so forth, but all of this is in the service of making you feel good. You could, in fact, do or think about something completely unrelated to your desire and still have it manifest. Why? Because you’re after a higher vibration in order to allow your desire to manifest. The vibration doesn’t have to be specific to your desire.
It’s all so stupidly simple. You want to feel good. So… feel good.
But then there’s a part of you, probably, that feels like if you just feel good, then you’re abandoning your desire. Like maybe you’re telling the universe, “Nah, I’m good right here.”
Well, it’s not how it works. How do you know? Well, look back on your own experience. When there are periods of things staying the same for a long time, was it because you were happy where you were?
Probably not. In my experience, it’s usually periods where I’m desperately wanting change that things don’t change. And when things are going well, I get even more opportunities to do well. It’s the “feast or famine” phenomenon. It’s either everything coming in at once or nothing at all.
The bottom line is that you have to accept where you are in order to move forward. If you’re denying your current reality, then you’re creating resistance, and what you want will not flow to you. If you find happiness where you are, you’re dissolving your resistance so your desires can manifest. You don’t need to think about them in order for the universe to know what they are—it already knows. However, thinking about them often brings joy, and if that’s the case, knock yourself out.
Your own experience is the best evidence.
Think about your bad days. When you have bad days, you have bad days. Maybe you wake up tired, you spill your coffee, your kids are difficult, you’re late to work, your boss is terrible and nothing goes right. It feels like the whole world is conspiring against you.
On the flip side, good days can make you feel invincible. It’s common sense, really: Feeling good will bring you more benefit than feeling lousy. If you’re happy, then you feel more confident in your abilities, you perform better, people are drawn to you, and you probably are more willing to stretch your boundaries and your comfort zone.
Nothing to lose.
You have nothing to lose by understanding the Law of Attraction and making it work for you. How? That’s another post (or twenty) for another day, but in the meantime, look up The Law of Attraction online and find some tools. There are thousands. As you know, I love Abraham-Hicks, and while their books are wonderful, I think it’s more helpful to see them on video, at least at first.
Focus on your feelings and make it a priority to feel good. Stay away from things that make you feel unnecessarily bad. I’m not saying stick your head in the sand, but don’t dwell. Dream. Think big. Use your imagination to think of what you want in life.
You deserve it!