There was a brief and desperately credulous moment in my life--a moment of transition, when an old world was gone and a new one hadn't yet come into focus--when the "law of attraction" seemed like a lifeline. For those who've been living on Mars for the last couple of decades, this is the name given to a philosophy grounded in the assertion that life returns to us the energies encoded in our thoughts, which have the power to control outcomes.
Like most philosophies that fall into a lucrative category (you know, download a free PDF that leads to online courses and weekend seminars), there's a kernel of truth here. Attitude matters. If I go into an encounter expecting conflict or boredom, I am much more likely to experience either than if I see it simply as a generative opportunity, open to possibility. If I focus anticipation on what can go wrong, my anxiety mounts, filling the hours with imagined suffering; but if I consciously anticipate good experiences and outcomes, at the very least I get to relax on my way to discover what actually awaits.
Understood that way, the wise woman's "think positive" does make sense. The trouble is, that isn't the whole story. The idea that our thoughts create reality often slides lickety-split into the notion that people bring bad fortune on themselves. Get into a car accident? You probably forgot to visualize the safe journey before you got behind the wheel. Or perhaps you saw another driver make an unsafe move and allowed an image of possible disaster to invade your thoughts. Well, you can see where this goes: a bunch of crap about how those suffering from afflictions brought them on themselves.
The wise woman is right: I need to put my attention on the beautiful and good just as much (if not more than) on the broken and distorted.
I know from both experience and study that all of the wise woman's words carry good advice. I offer it to all those teetering on the precipice of burnout, and all those who, like myself, have the desire to burn in, to change out our old self-punishing stories to stories more loving, accepting, and nourishing.
Now, if you have a wise woman (or man) in your head who wants to tell me what will help me take this good advice, I'd really love to hear it.
I like this version of Sly and the Family Stone's 1973 hit, "If You Want Me to Stay" by Gregg Martinez.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
