The Law of Attraction: Is it Truth or Myth?
When the book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne came out in 2006, people around the world were excited by this theory. According to Byrne, The Law of Attraction states that when we want something, we need to send our desire for it out into the universe and stay very positive (which will increase our energy frequency) to draw our desired outcome to us. And presto, it is ours!
I gravitated to this theory as I have traditionally liked to feel a sense of control in my life, and this theory embraces that. What I want, I will get just by setting my sites on it in the right way.
And, I did feel this theory resonated with me as there have been times in my life when I felt I was in a really good space and good things just kept flowing to me. So when I read Rhonda’s book, that idea resonated with me fore sure.
For years, I have subscribed to this way of thinking or to use self-help terms, I will say ‘manifesting.’
And then one day recently, I changed my mind.
The past few months, I have been facing some challenges on the personal side since getting hammered with COVID, feeling overwhelmed raising two super active, awesome children by myself, and the serious diagnosis of an illness to someone very close to me. At times, I have felt seriously broken. I look at the loss I have faced over the past 10 years and think about the law of attraction and I feel pissed off.
I have been resilient. I kept trying. I stayed positive. I believe in good things. I manifested. I am kind to others. There is no way that I or anybody I love is manifesting these hard times to happen.
There are terrible things that happen to innocent children. Do I believe they or their parents have manifested this? No way!
I began to allow my mind to start throwing stones at the glass house that was once my belief in the law of attraction.
So, if I don’t believe in elements of the law of attraction anymore, what do I believe?
I believe where we put our focus often grows. This isn’t about manifesting. This is about creating goals and doing our best to achieve them in a way that feels right for us.
I do believe in the ‘right moment’ or divine timing. Sure we can’t sit back and wait for the ‘perfect moment’ to appear as that is a recipe for letting life just pass you by, but you can put yourself out there for what you want, and then you just need to let go. I do believe many things are beyond our control. We need to rely on others. I do believe in God, too. You decide what your beliefs are and then trust that you are not alone in making things happen, but you do need to take a role in going for what you want.
I believe sometimes bad things happen and nobody deserves that. I don’t understand why some people are so challenged in the world, but I do believe we each can play a role in helping others through challenges. I was recently told by an advisor that “Life is full of struggles, but what we do know is that when people feel supported, challenging times are much better to navigate.”
I believe that our bodies eavesdrop constantly on the thoughts within our minds. So if we are in a negative headspace, our bodies pick up that and may respond in a way that echos a feeling of stress or dis-ease and also vice-versa when we are speaking to ourselves kindly and being gentle with our thoughts.
I believe when I am in a positive state of mind and happy, I attract people and things to me. I am not really sure if this is manifesting or just simply people and opportunities are drawn to me as I am in a good flow and drawing others to me for that reason. If I am in a bad mood, sometimes it feels like one bad thing after the next can happen. I believe that is because when I am not feeling like my ‘best self,’ I am less open to meeting or talking to people. I am more likely to be irritable with my children. I may not feel like exercising as much or I may make poor food choices. Then it becomes a bit of a negative cycle.
We all get a chance to start new the next day and the day after that and have a fresh start to reset again. Not every day is going to be sunshine and roses and that is okay. Sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we don’t. That is life. That doesn’t mean we didn’t do a good enough job of manifesting. The law of attraction felt like it was putting too much pressure on me, and when life was giving me lemons, I felt like a failure because I wasn’t manifesting right! So, now I feel empowered when I remind myself that life unfolds as it may. I do have a choice in how I behave in the world, but sometimes the best lessons are being open to life when things happen completely outside of our control.
There are still so many things about how the world works that I don’t understand and I probably never will during my time here. I am open to changing my viewpoint on this again, but experience has led me to challenge my beliefs. I embrace this opportunity to grow and learn.
