The critics of the law of attraction, judge it as illogical and magical thinking – How can one attract things, and experiences in one’s life, simply by the power of his or her thoughts?
They are not completely at fault here, if this is how the law of attraction was explained to them. And to be honest, this is how, many know the law of attraction, and explain it to others.
Being of a more logical mind, I needed to understand how and why it works; because proof that it works, I had, over and over again, both by looking at past events in my life and through experimentation with the law.
In my opinion, the most famous book, and video, about this subject, The Secret, in a way, does it a disservice.
The Secret is a good documentary, but in my opinion, leaves a lot unsaid, and it definitely puts off the logic mind. Thank God, it was not one of the first books I read, on how, we can use the power of our mind, to transform our lives.
Many who watch the video, go away thinking that you can attract anything you want in your life, simply by thinking about it and visualising it.
But as they find out, it’s not as simple as that!!
However, this article is not about how to make sure the law works for you, but why it is not magical thinking.
Let us go through an example. My nephew was looking for his first car. He narrowed down his choice to a particular model, that was within his budget, and he liked.
One day, he told me, that he was starting to see more of this car model on the streets.
How did that happen? Did these cars materialise from nothing, simply because my nephew was thinking of one?
Had their drivers, been magically hypnotised to drive towards him, just because he was daydreaming about owning one?
No of course not.
The Reticular Activating System (RAS)
The brain processes 400 billion bits of information a second but is only aware of 2,000 of those. At any one time, we receive thousands of bits of data, about the things around us, their colours, shapes, sounds, words, people, and what they are doing, and other things happening around us.
The Reticular Activating System (RAS), is a system in our brain that filters, changes, and generalises incoming data, to make it easier for us to absorb and deal with the information. What determines what goes through the RAS, and how it is processed, is our sense of identity, our values, our strong beliefs, needs and our automatic responses coming from our upbringing and social conditioning.
So ultimately, what makes it through to our conscious awareness, depends on all this.
In the example we are using here, now that my nephew, had narrowed down his desire to a particular model, this model went through the RAS more easily, than other models.
The Power of Our Thoughts and Attitude
Let us take this further. Let us imagine you have some garden furniture to put together. And let us assume, that you believe you always mess things up; expect it to be difficult; you are acutely aware that you have to do it on your own, and you are inexperienced.
The first difficulty you encounter, will confirm and emphasise your beliefs. This will make you feel worse about yourself, and about the task at hand; making it more likely to do even more mistakes, or miss out on an important step. Eventually, you may give up, or make a fatal mistake.
Another, equally inexperienced person, has the same task. However he finds challenges exciting; believes that he gets things right, most of the time; expects it to be challenging, but also knows he will keep pushing until he gets it done; and is in his mind’s eye he can see his family using it.
When he encounters the first difficulty, it will be just a challenge to overcome. He might get nervous, but his self-talk is mostly positive, i.e. that if he will make it, like all those other times. He will find satisfaction in every step completed, and his confidence will grow and grow.
What made things different here, is that the second guy, is “programmed” to concentrate on, and emphasise, victories not setbacks. He expects to reach a goal, even if faced with difficulties, and he could already see the job completed. In fact. he could not imagine it any other way.
Repeated thoughts become our beliefs, and our thoughts and believes, form our attitude.
Actions taken from a space of hopefulness and positivity, are way better and more productive, than any amount of action taken from a space of hopelessness. In fact, hopelessness may deter you from taking any action at all.
So yes, bottom line is, your thoughts do shape your reality!!
And all the true teachings of the Law of Attraction, teach you how to retrain your mind to expect positive outcomes. What’s more, they teach you how to become happy now, before it manifests, and detach from the outcome.
It sounds all good to me!!
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