Do You Want to Know a Secret?

Last night, another client talked about having failed or not done something correctly, because she hasn’t attracted yet what she wants. Despite this perspective, she went on to tell me she had a breakthrough in responding to a tough family situation in a new way and felt empowered rather than victimized.

I call that success and “attracting” more of what she wants into her life. In fact, she made a different choice responding to a familiar situation and got a very different outcome. She “saw” and experienced a new possibility.

There seems to be a great deal of frustration among people who have heard of the Law of Attraction principle through the movie “The Secret” or through books by Esther and Jerry Hicks. The impression given by these sources is that what you focus on is what you attract to you. There are lots of examples of big houses and fancy cars in these stories as things that people can attract to them. I see two misconceptions present:

1)   We don’t attract, we become aware of what was there for us all along.

2)   Our egos want to attract things in the physical realm, but the law of attraction actually functions in the realm of the heart.

Mark Silver goes in depth with this subject in a clear, concise way through the spiritual teachings of Sufism. His article “Backwards” can be found at http://www.heartofbusiness.com/backwards/.

The Law of Attraction is a principle about bringing qualities of spirit or being into your experience—peace, love, enthusiasm, strength, wisdom, connection and so on.

These qualities are available to you at any point, and yes, the more you focus on and take the actions that elicit these qualities, the more they will be part of your experience. They are always there for you and as you focus on them, they become more apparent and grow. There is an unlimited amount of these qualities—one can truly experience abundance through these states of being.

In our consumer culture, we are urged to spend our money, often more that we have, to get the new car or clothes or latest gadget that will make us feel _________–fill in the blank–adventurous, powerful, rich, sophisticated, recognized, accomplished, attractive, lovable, peaceful—all qualities, states of being.  The marketing of endless products puts us in a trance we must wake up from if we are ever to experience true, lasting satisfaction in ways that really matter.

We are becoming more and more aware of the physical limits of our planets. By consuming more and more stuff, we are depleting resources, polluting our planet and still remain unfulfilled and unsatisfied. So more doesn’t seem to be it.

There is this idea that we HAVE, DO, BE: that we need to HAVE certain things in order to DO what we want to do and then BE who we want to be. It is actually the opposite: as we decide who we want to BE in this life of ours, we DO the things that support that choice and then HAVE the realization of the creation.

And yes, no matter how hard we may try, pain and grief are a part of our lives. It doesn’t mean we have done anything wrong; it is just part of life. By allowing ourselves to fully experience all that is happening in our lives, we can open to the presence of all that is there is help us heal and regain our balance.

When we recognize that underneath everything we do there are these states of being that we are really trying to attract, we can consciously choose those qualities that are important to us individually that will enhance the overall quality of our lives.

We can choose how we want to bring these qualities in: in ways that cause us to live beyond our means and give us a temporary or false sense of abundance, or ways that are more freely available to really bring about these states in a deep, meaningful way.  Then we have the opportunity to experience true abundance.

The very best to you~

Diane Ingram

Wake up to the wonder, bursting with surprise
Elements of magic, right before our eyes.

Radiant perfection, Glowing in our hearts
Open up and feel it, let it light a spark.

D Ingram