The Law of Attraction is a system of thought, basically grounded on positive thinking. I was first introduced to this over twenty years ago, and back then it was referred to as Concious Creation. Later, it’s also been called the Secret – there’s a movie, and many, many authors has written about the Secret. There are also numerous celebrities speaking of the Law of Attraction, including Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Jim Carrey and many others.
The idea with the Law of Attraction (LoA) is that you get what you think. If you think positive, you’ll manifest positive things in your life. If you think negatively, you’ll end up in misery. It doesn’t seem that bad or difficult at a first glance, does it?
But let me tell you, there are some major faults to this – at least in my book. I’ve spent over twenty years trying to manifest a better life for myself, with no success whatsoever. I’ve managed to manifest tiny little things, like a CD I’d been wanting for a long time but didn’t find until that one day. But never have I been able to manifest something significant for myself. On the contrary – my life has for the most part, sucked.
In general, I do believe that the LoA actually works. When you have a positive mindset it’s easier to create a better life. But – and that’s a big, fat BUT in bold letters, it requires that you have good core values about yourself to begin with. Without those strong, positive core values about yourself, you’re bound to fail. And failure only brings guilt and shame, and the circle continues.
I just happen to know quite a few people working with the LoA in various ways – for themselves and/or in their businesses, and it seems to work fine for them. What they have and that I lack, are exactly those core values. With a covert narcissistic mother, I wasn’t taught that I am good enough, that I am deserving of good things et cetera. It just wasn’t there, and these things are extremely hard to re-learn if you don’t know how.
Now, I do happen to be one of those people who believe that the power of our thoughts are way greater than one might think. What we think about ourselves is mirrored in how other people percieve us, which effects how they treat us, and everything becomes a vicious circle if we’re not careful. It is extremely important, especially for those of us who grew up with emotional abuse, to learn how to change the way we think of ourselves. It takes enormous amounts of time and effort, both intellectual and emotional, but I think it’s worth it in the end.
Something else that I feel very critical to when it comes to the LoA is how people engaging with it seems to think it’s the only universal law in motion. It’s not. If you’re into any sort of spirituality, you’ll know that there are so many things in motion, and if you do one thing it’ll create ripple effects that you can’t even begin to realize in the beginning. This includes the LoA, but the people who uses it seems to have forgotten or even ignore it. I find that it is a somewhat egoistic system of thought, at least in some ways.
However, my main complaint is the fact that the LoA takes for granted that the people using it are whole and healthy. We all know that this isn’t true. Not everyone are whole and healthy people. Some of us are broken and damaged and unable to focus on the positive, simply because we don’t understand what it is and how it can serve us. We do not feel we are worthy or deserving, and so – it won’t work. And trust me – re-directing these core values really is extremely difficult.
But if and when we manage to do that, then I think this thought system can be quite useful. Personally, I’m more fond of systems that include the entire experience of being human, such as a lousy upbringing, and a little more how-to on changing those core values. For me personally, there are other systems that work better for me. I’ll get back to that in another post.
If you’re interested in knowing more about the LoA – perhaps you’ve gotten further along on your journey of recovery than I have, I urge you to look at the links above to find out what it’s really about, how it’s done et cetera. I just… you know, there’s something about people yelling Hallelujah about certain things. It screams cult in my ears, and I have a tendency to pull back from that very quickly. The LoA does that for me, and I don’t like it. Hallelujah-people are freaky and scary and my entire being turns itself inside out if I get too close.
As you can see, despite the fact that I’ve spent so many years trying to make this work for me, I don’t really like it. To me, there are other, more thourough ways to get what you want – starting with yourself. I prefer working myself through the core issues rather than cheating myself around it. But that’s just me. I want that brutal honesty with myself, and the genuiness that comes with it.
I hope I haven’t scared you off with my criticism. These are just my own, private opinions on a thought system that works for many – just not for me. These are also my conclusions as to why it won’t work. Now, the LoA is very popular in the US, I think, and over there (from me in Sweden, that is), financial success seems to be way more important than it is over here. Since most information about all these things originate in the US, my ideas of it are of course quite strongly biased. Should a Swedish person write about this, it may be something completely different. I’ve never read anything like that, though – so here I am, being all critical and anti-positive to it. 😀
If you choose to pursue, please let me know how it goes and how you feel about it. I’d really like to know. ♥
With love.
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