It's been a long, long road to discovering that my fantasies and imaginings about what could be - either in a broad context or regarding a specific issue - is just a waste of time. Then, emotional investments I make in each little "movie" I create, prevent me from exploring the truth and then thriving as a result of capitalizing on that knowledge. So, I sit back, hope and pray that I get rescued or that something falls into my lap.
I used to think The Law of Attraction was kind of interesting - it certainly tapped into my idealistic, fantasy-prone way of operating in the world. But then, I gave up on it, which is very strange, given how frequently I fostered a series of fantasies about my career and relationships, as well as my place in the world. In my head, I'm always the hero.
During the past few months, I've really attacked that life-long approach, chronicling my progress and setbacks in this blog. Looking back I can see how isolated and confused I was, not knowing which way to turn or how to make decisions, even. I've been searching for the information and intel on how to do that, resigning myself to my ENFJ personality type and hoping for the best.
Along the way, I came across a random blog post having to do with this topic, called Three Ways People Fail At Using The Law of Attraction.
The full post is short, so I've pasted the whole thing here:
The Top 3 Ways People Fail at Using the Law of Attraction
"Thought, backed by strong desire, has the tendency to transmute itself into its physical equivalent." -Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich
The Law of Attraction explains that you attract into your life whatever you think about. With the recent popularity of The Secret, and resurgence of books such as Think and Grow Rich, there has been a lot of new attention focused on The Law of Attraction. Science has also started providing new evidence to support The Law of Attraction- neurologists have found that simply thinking changes the brain. Recent books, such as Evolve Your Brain, explain the science behind The Law of Attraction in great detail:
The more we think the same thoughts, which produce the same chemicals, causing the body to have the same feelings, the more we become physically modified by our thoughts.
-Joe Dispenza, Evolve Your Brain
Unfortunately, the popularity of the Law of Attraction has also made available a lot of new material on the subject that is either 1) dumbed down for the masses, or 2) inaccurate. Clay Collins wrote and excellent post about this. The inaccurate information about the Law of Attraction leads to frustration when people try to manifest their intention and fail. In my own experience in manifesting my intentions, I’ve found three failures/mistakes that inhibited “the secret” from working:
3 Ways to Fail at Manifesting Your Intention
1) Not accepting your present reality
So long as we cannot accept what we are at any moment, we cannot change. Put yourself on the side of reality versus trying to fight reality.
-Nathaniel Branden, Honoring the Self
Before you can even begin to manifest your intention using the Law of Attraction, you must first accept your current reality, your current emotions, and your current life in its entirety. When you have a perfect vision of what you want to manifest in your life, but don’t accept your present, that is a recipe for disaster. You must fully accept and validate yourself and all of your emotions, with the goal of achieving your vision.
2) Basing your intention on a false belief
If you are basing your intention on a false belief, such as believing that more money will make you significantly happier, you will fail at manifesting. You may enjoy imagining how happy you will be after manifesting on your completely unrealistic, false belief. But your imagination is as far as the manifestation will go if it is based on a false belief.
3) No energy/emotion in what you are trying to manifest
Steve Pavlina wrote a great article about this, which explains, “Great content + no energy = an intention that won’t manifest anything but frustration.” For example, if you recite or meditate on your intention each day, but have no emotion attached to it, you won’t see results.
This also ties in with the #2 way of failing to manifest (basing your intention on a false belief), because if you are trying to manifest an intention based on a false belief, there’s only so much energy/emotion you will put into manifesting before you realize you are fooling yourself.
Regardless of what I think about The Secret or LOA, basing my intentions of a false belief, not following through on my intention, and not accepting things for what they are, all appear to be a common way of operating for me.
Back in the 80's, I bought a set of New Age beliefs about how to be happy and successful. It was a crappy concoction of myth, excuses, and magical thinking, that placed me firmly in a VERY narcotic role of being able to solely determine my future. It's sad to think about how much time and energy I wasted on this philosophy - and how it is handicapping me right now.
Successful people, from what I can see, work with what they've been given, but keep looking for ways to expand, grow, learn. They build and build and they have accomplishments to show for their effort. They are logical and practical. They dont "fake it till you make it" or give themselves over to spiritual gurus or allow themselves to become heavily influenced by movie plots and characters. They dont let astrology guide their decisions and actions.
They certainly dont spend hours and hours imagining they are some kind of war hero or business hero or highly-desirable lover or act out their sexual fantasies, directed by a stream of imaginary mistresses.
I've done all that over the years. I've let the above + my impatience and emotional immaturity overwhelm me and intoxicate me. I've run away from my problems as much as trying to fix them. I've let my ridiculous pride (of what??) prevent me from admitting weaknesses to others and then seeking / collaborating on solutions. I've allowed myself to become something of a joke because I pretend all the time, thinking that it will become reality.
It's hard not to judge myself, but I know beating myself up is counter productive. Instead of making sweeping visions, I think I simply need to be doing what's right in front of me, for the time-being, anyway.
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