Law of Attraction

Yesterday I came across a Web site on meditation methods. One of the topics covered, which perked my interest, was the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction is, it explained, that our lives depend on our thoughts and emotions. It is based on the premise that everything is a form of energy and you are influencing everything around you. As such you are able to attract what you want and thus create a life of abundance. That, sounds like a wonderful concept, using your thoughts and emotions to attract into your life abundance of whatever you want.

Here's the rub though, our thoughts and emotions can attract both desirable and undesirable things. As soon as we start sending out negative emotions we undermine the positive things we are hoping to attract. If you think about it we all recognize that principle to some extent. No one likes to be around an angry person, nor a depressed person but we love being around happy, positive people. The negative vibrations we send out though, can sometimes be much more subtle.

These negative vibrations have often built up over a lifetime. They can be difficult to recognize and even harder to change because they are being maintained by our subconsciousness. Our subconsciousness serves a very important role, it maintains our bodily function at status quo. If we get too hot or cold our subconscious kicks in to regulate our body and brings us back to a normal temperature. If we are lacking salt, our subconscious sends out a signal giving us the urge to eat something salty.

Unfortunately the same "return to normal" function works with our thoughts and emotions too. If we have spent a life time feeling negative, then as soon as we start feeling positive, the subconscious kicks in and wants to bring us back to that negative state that we are used to.

Here's a personal example from a couple of days ago. I was chatting with a friend, and we got talking about a mutual friend who I have an interest in. I had been feeling quite positive about this interest for a while, but as the conversation continued about how great this person was, I found I began to devalue myself, a habit built up over a lifetime. The process is probably one many of you recognize. It went something like this. She is a great person, lots of guys are interested in her, she could have her pick of guys, I've not got much to offer, how can I compete with them, she's really out of my league, why am I even bothering.

All of a sudden, a potential relationship that I had been feeling very positive about had been ruled out. Ruled out, not because she doesn't like me (though that has still to be determined), or she said no, but because I was talking myself out of it before I had even started. And why? Because I have spent a lifetime down playing my own value and here was my subconscious sensing normal operations had stopped and hitting the reset button.

So am I doomed to forever sending out those negative vibrations? Not at all. But what is needed is some reprogramming, and that takes effort. In the LDS Church we have a concept termed "Worthy music, worthy thoughts." It is based on the idea that our minds are stages for our thoughts, and there is only room for one act. So when we get unworthy thought we need to drive them out by replacing them with something positive. In this case an uplifting hymn or other positive music.

The same principle applies when it comes to trying to rid ourselves of those negative vibrations. Every time we catch ourselves thinking or feeling something negative, we need to find something positive to replace it. We all have positive things in our lives, even if everything seems to be going wrong. About 4 years back I had a friend suffering from depression. All her thoughts and comments were negative. I gave her a challenge to start an online thread and post just one positive thing each day to it. She wasn't allowed to make any negative comment on it.

For the first month she struggled each day and I often had to help her find something she could accept as positive. Often she would state something positive but then negate it by follwing with a negative comment, or couching it in negative language. It took time and lots of encouragement from me, but eventually she started to look forward to her daily postings. The one positive thing turned in to lists of positive things. Her general conversation became more positive and she complained a lot less about the difficulties she faced in life.

Likewise, each of us can slowly learn to reprogram our subconscious and to drive out those negative vibrations. Avoid expressions like "I don't want" or " I can't have." Any time you find yourself think or talking about what you don't want, stop right there and ask yourself what you DO want. And then focus all your efforts and willpower on what you want. It may not be easy, and like my friend it may take time to reprogram, but keep at it, reinforce those positive thoughts and emotions each day. In doing so you will be able to use the Law of Attraction to draw into your life an abundance of what you want.

As for me, I'm once more thinking positive things about that potential relationship. It may not happen, after all that's dependent on someone else, but if it doesn't, it won't be because I'm ruling it out before I get started.