BellaOnline Forums Relationships Relationships Better Relationships using The Law of Attraction

Dear friends,

I'm not sure if you have heard about the Law of Attraction? I've recently talked to my friend about it and he said that he uses it in his relationship.

The Law of Attraction basically states that You will Attract what you believe. Therefore, whatever is happening in our lives is a result of what we think.

I'm not sure what you think, but there is a report that talks about it. Do check it out and tell me what you think:
www.developingapositiveattitude.com/freereport Positive Attitude

Well I believe I should have been born into the aristocratic levels of society. I've believed this all my life, but so far sdo bad....!

Seriously though - if you set sole store by this specific 'Law' - be prepared for disappointment.
This has been discussed and mentioned on this forum elsewhere, and personally, as a practising Buddhist, I hold it with suspicion.
Our aim is not to achieve everything we want, but to give up the empty desire of believing we need them in order to attain a happy Life. happiness is not 'having' things, but dispensing with 'wanting' them.....

I think Kwanbox may be selling something. I seem to have seen this in another post.

I read a review of a book similar to this concept - I forget the title. It's written by a woman telling you basically that everything you want you just have to think on positively, and in the right way (she can teach you how!) and basically it will come to you. However she also firmly believes that anyone who has experienced war, famine, tsunamis and disaster has invited it. Bit harsh that....
The review says that everything in the book you can basically condense into four A4 pages,and that she must be raking it in, by inviting gullible impressionable people to buy her book....
Yes.
Quite.

Weeeeeeeeeeellllllll, okay... let's get into this subject.

It's nice to hear you do not blame victims of war, famine, etc. Because they should not be blamed, and it's surprising how many people do. All you have to do is bring up the topic of welfare in mixed company and you'll get a lot of, "they bring it on themselves" and, "tell 'em to get a job." I have an aversion to that kind of judgment. Whenever i've made the mistake myself of judging someone, i've often learned later what an absolute hard-hearted fool i was... that i hadn't known what it was like to walk in their shoes and they deserved my respect and compassion.

But that ISN'T what the law of attraction theory is about. Now before i start, let me say i have not read "The Secret," but it's concept is not new, and there is something to it. Sometimes though it isn't explained or understood very well.

Some would have you think that it has a magical quality to it. I can't say if it does or doesn't, but i think it unlikely. But the human brain is an absolutely amazing thing, and very powerful. What you believe, and what you choose to believe, has tremendous impact on what you will find in life and experience: in how you interpret events, in how you find opportunities and fortune, and in how your relationships fare.

Scientists have done research on what actually happens to a person's luck when they are an optimist as opposed to a pessimist and it is astounding!

In one blind-test experiment, subjects were told they needed to take a written test in one building, and then walk across campus to another building to take another test. Hidden in the first test were questions to determine how optimistic or pessimistic their subject person was. Then... on the route from the first building to the second, the researchers had placed, partially hidden, a certain number of dollar bills. When the subjects got to the second building, they were asked how many dollar bills they found, and as you might expect, the optimists found FAR more bills than the pessimists, even though there were the same number of bills, hidden in the same locations, along the same route!

Conclusion: EXPECTATION AFFECTS OUR FORTUNE.

This is just one experiment and there are many others which corroborate the same conclusion. Let's hypothesize and take the case of war, since you brought it up. Say you put a pair of men (or women) in a small room together, and another pair in another room, and you left each person (all four) with a loaded gun. But let's say the first pair were told before they went in their room that they are there to discuss the problems of guns and our youth, but the second pair were each told seperately that the other person in the room with them wanted to kill them.

Can you see it? This is what that author meant by those who have experienced war, invited it. Poorly stated, I think. But certainly, if in your mind you view the people around you as being out to get you, you yourself are going to be more aggressive. Anthropologists have noted that since the dawn of history, nations which have more armament or more modern war technology, are also the most overtly aggressive nations.

That what we believe largely affects what we find in life does not mean we should go around and judge everyone for every bad thing they've ever experienced and tell them it's their fault.

What it does mean, is that we can each look in our own life, and remember, as often as we can, that our lives will be greatly affected by what we expect to find. If we are kind and loving and see everyone as our friend, well... we may not make friends 100% of the time, we may get robbed once or twice... but i guarantee you... if you go through life that way you will have more friends and experience more good will from others than if you go through your life thinking it's a hard world and you need to protect yourself from all the bad people out there. You might even diffuse some situations that would otherwise have been scary, or recover faster from any problem that does happen.

And if you walk into a job interview believing your the best person for the job and that they should be falling over themselves trying to get you... you will be a lot more likely to get the job than if you go in afraid they're going to throw you out because you're not even qualified to apply.

Whatever happens in our life is result of past deeds/karma.

Great post, hollyelise! the mind is a miraculous thing and no one knows what things it's really capable of at this point.

The law of attraction isn't about "getting things" or material things at all, unless that's what you make it. Many are earning money right now teaching people how to attract wealth so that's what's in the media, etc. Really it's about the old sayings "you get what you give" "what goes around comes around" (like karma)"every action has an equal and opposite reaction". It's about being a good person and seeing good in others and being closer to your spiritual source at all times. People see what they expect to see (as in your dollar bill example) and if you expect to see good in others, this will be lived out in your experience. If you expect ot see bad in others, that is what you will see.

The law of attraction is also about being detached from the outcome of what you are focused on. You can focus on what you want in life, and I believe everyone should be conscious of the path they are traveling instead of just wandering through life observing and reacting to "what is". Being a Buddhist is about conscious living too, I believe? I think the law of attraction has basically a lot in common with the Buddhist beliefs of living a good life, traveling a good path, because "you reap what you sow".

The detachment comes from faith that you will always be taken care of in the best way possible for you-to help you grow spiritually and learn what you came here to learn.

people who focus on the material aspects of the law of attraction are missing the whole point really, IMO.

Something I should have added since this is a relationship thread. People usually end up with the sort of mate or partner that, down deep inside, they feel they are worthy of. This is the law of attraction part. If people attract alcoholics or abusive relationships then on some level this is what they feel they deserve, even tho on a conscious level they are saying "no" to this. I believe most programs to help abused women focus on helping these women to achieve a feeling of self-worth, to know they that DO NOT deserve this treatment and they help them to feel better about themselves to get away from these types of relationships.

Also, if you read much of the Law of Attraction literature, it is saying DO NOT focus on wealth and attracting money. What it is about is creating a life where you are happy and by doing that, you make others happier around you and you have much more to give. Most teachers will say, think about what you are passionate about and go do that-and DO NOT focus on the money aspects of it.

There is a saying "Do what you love and the rest will follow." I believe if people did think of what would bring them happiness and joy and followed that path, they would discover they don't need the money or wealth. They mistakenly thought money would bring them happiness but they find that by following their bliss, that living the life they want to live is what brings happiness. If you are happy with your life, you don't need a million dollars.

You have to think about the life you want to live and not focus on the money. It's definitely taking a leap of faith for many to stop focusing on material things.

joanj said: "The law of attraction isn't about "getting things" or material things at all, unless that's what you make it. Many are earning money right now teaching people how to attract wealth so that's what's in the media, etc."

Well, i think there is more to it than that. Anytime something is highly popular, there are going to be a few greedy, shallow, people who try to capitalize on it. From what i've seen of the advertisement posts that have been cropping up here and there claiming to be part of "The Secret," or have additional "secrets" i don't think they are really related to the Secret at all... in fact i would bet at least some are scam artists. It's a shame.

But... regarding attracting material things with belief, i have a funny story to tell... we (friends) used to tease my ex about this for years! It was many years ago now, long before "The Secret," but as i said the idea is an old one, and sometimes it's been called manefestation. Anyway, my ex had been reading about that kind of stuff and he was getting excited about it, sort of imagining "real magic." And one day he'd been talking also about missing Boulder, CO and the kinds of trees they have there which they don't have in Ohio, and the next day he was coming home from work and saw a tree that looked very like the ones in Colorado! He came home and started saying, all happy and excited, "I MADE A TREE! I MADE A TREE!" It was so cute! Anyway, it cracked us all up! But the thing is... he had been walking home by the same route each day, and never noticed it until that day he tried to "manefest" it, so he was CONVINCED it hadn't been there the day before!

Well of course it was. But he hadn't LOOKED for it. He hadn't been THINKING of looking for anything similar here in Ohio. As soon as he did, ouila! ...it appears... it comes into his PERSONAL reality, where it had never been before. So... if you're doing spring planting and need a free tree, just give my ex a call.

Have you ever read Illusions by Richard Bach? (he's the guy who wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull). It is the story of a "reluctant messiah." It's a great and quick read, and it talks about this stuff too, but in the form of fiction. Anyway, in the book, a messiah is teaching the messiah-in-training (LOL) how to manefest things. The messiah-in-training... i'm going to call him a student because it's shorter to type! ...of course is completely skeptical that any of this works, so the Messiah asks him to think of something he wants to appear as proof that he really can manefest anything. The student says he wants for a blue feather to appear.... and a little later when they are sitting at a lunch counter, a truck pulls up outside... The Blue Feather Dairy Co. or some such. There's your feather, says the Messiah. So you see... sometimes it requires a little adaptability too. If you want a tall, dark and handsome man to find you the love of his life, well, you should be open to short, heavy, balding, but sweet guys too!

So i think there is something to manefesting material things too. I know you were thinking specifically about the advertisers trying to attract customers with the lure of learning how to attract money and the articles that appear in magazines and on tv... but you can attract money too, i suppose because it will work with anything. BUT PLEASE NOTE....You don't need any special equipment, and you don't need to BUY anything folks or any special reports... it's just simple visualization and expectation, and you keep noticing what you want to attract, being grateful for what comes your way, and find tuning your attitude and habits to be in harmony with it. In other words... if you think about attracting money but keep spending it on lottery tickets, well... considering most wealthy people did not get that way through winning the lottery, you might want to consider if you are really harmonizing with wealth, particularly if you are spending everything you earn.

I find in my own life, this kind of thing, "the secret" "manefestation" --whatever you want to call it-- it requires focus and fine tuning. Some things can happen overnight, but some times we are so out of harmony that we have to work a while to change our pessimism or our habits over to a new way of thinking. But i AM convinced that it works.

...hey... i have LIVING PROOF... i have a Colorado tree!

Hi Hollyelise,

Well, after your writing, I don't need to write a thing - you said it all and I am in total agreement. I am also living proof of it in many areas of my life. Whatever you focus on negative or positive, you attract!

Sandy