The Law of Attraction and Meditation
THE LAW OF FEAR: ‘I don’t want to be fat’. ‘I don’t want to smoke’. ‘I don’t want to be broke’. ‘I don’t want to be lonely’. ‘I don’t want to be unhealthy’. ‘I don’t want to feel this way anymore.’
We are conditioned to focus on what we don’t want, and what we fear. Even if you say ‘I want more money’, most of your thoughts will lean toward ‘if I don’t get more money, ‘I’ll have to move’… ‘my parents/friends will think I’m a loser’.
Our primal selves seek survival, but our 21st century selves want to go beyond mere survival, and thrive!
What we need is connected to survival, but what we want is connected to an inner need. This is the evolved human condition; a bunch of unmet inner needs and feelings that get mistaken for outer needs. Most of what we call “thriving” is an inward journey (hang tight, more on that later).
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Because of the old primal biology, we get accustomed to running from danger and avoiding what we don’t want instead of running toward what we desire.
Even when we identify what we want, we get stuck worrying whether we’ll get it. Then we get what we want and we’re worried it won’t last or it’ll get taken from us.
In order to get what you want, you have to evolve.
THE LAW OF AVOIDANCE
More of the primal human condition: Change is often instigated when someone is really uncomfortable. But as soon as the uncomfortable feeling is over, they go back to their old ways.
Yeah sure, I’ll go for a swift sprint…when a scary clown is chasing me. Otherwise, pass!
People embark on new and improved habits mostly when they’re super uncomfortable with something in their life. They’re very aware of what they don’t want and in this moment, they seek homeostasis, which means extinguishing the problem (problem-focused).
Example: Suppose 250lbs. is the tipping point for someone. Seeing that number on the scale triggers them, makes them super uncomfortable, and ready to do something about the “threat”, maybe even work up a sweat.
However, as soon as they start losing a few pounds and feeling better, they relax into their old ways because the big bad “250” is no longer “chasing them”.
Homeostasis for them is anything under 250. That means they could stop at 240(ish) and feel better, but still not reach their ultimate goal.
You could finally be debt-free and no sooner than a few months later, you’re piling up the bills again.
If you get close to your goals then fall short, that’s how you know you’re living in your primal self (running from) versus being the creator of your circumstances (moving toward your goals).
If 250 is the problem then you’re likely to go back to your old behavior once you lower your number below 250 and you’re out of “harm’s way”.
This is pendulum behavior. It occurs in all aspects of our life and habits. The diet industry has a name for it— yo-yo dieting.
The issue is people don’t tend to reach their goals when they run from what they don’t want- that goal would basically be homeostasis, but you have goals like earning 15k/month or running a full marathon (where’s the clown?).
How do we create what we want rather than run from what we don’t want?
How do we outsmart our primal conditioning?
THE LAW OF ATTRACTION WAS BORN!
This essentially turns survival behavior upside down. It works from the inside out.
And if you think about it, our whole experience of life is from the inside out. We think a new car is an experience, a trip to the next continent is an experience. Nope! It’s not the car or the continent, it’s all happening internally!
In this way, you can create your own experiences!
After all, another continent may make someone else miserable so a trip isn’t happiness in itself.
The internal experience of The Law of Attraction: When you engage in really feeling and identifying with your end goal/result, you will remain uncomfortable until you reach it.
Instead of running from something that makes you uncomfortable, you are running toward something you want, because without it you are uncomfortable.
These feelings turn into behavior that moves toward what you want and even divinely connects you to it.
You are more likely to engage in behaviors and notice opportunities that align with that goal in order to relieve the uncomfortable feeling of not having it.
You’ll no longer be problem-focused, but rather vision/purpose-focused (from the inside out).
A friend of mine who used to work with troubled teens explained that they have no vision, no purpose, no goals so they’re wandering from one problem to another. Eventually the immediate focus turns into relieving the problem (getting out of trouble). When the stress of trouble is gone, they get back out there and re-offend.
When parents hold a vision in mind for their kids, they play with them and talk to them accordingly rather than repeatedly scold them for what they don’t want.
Some of us may already have a vision of what our life should look like; our expectations, standards, etc. and you’re pretty much living in that pocket.
Our expectations though, don’t usually surpass what we’ve already known in life, such as the lifestyle you grew up with UNLESS we create another experience internally.
To achieve more or something better, you have to experience a little now. But how?
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THE LAW OF ATTRACTION AND WHAT’S MISSING
The FEELING is perhaps the most important aspect of receiving what you desire.
The feeling is important because that’s what you really want!
Goals are representations of a feeling (or something) you are missing within yourself. Probably something you didn’t get enough of in childhood.
A lot of our subconscious tendencies evolved in early childhood because feelings were the currency during this time. You didn’t need money when you were 5, but somehow you’re now driven to want more and more money? Doesn’t add up (no pun intended), does it? That’s because it’s not the money, its an inner need or feeling that’s missing.
I learned pretty quickly growing up that my voice didn’t matter. I even tried escaping situations by fainting.
When I was at my lowest, in the circumstances leading up to my autoimmune condition, I remember feeling voice-less, powerless. Why bother asking for help? ‘Why bother’ was a theme in my early years.
And when I did ask for help, nobody listened.
Now I must listen to myself and listen to my body.
If good health is my goal, I can listen to myself in whatever shape or form I’m in right now, wherever I’m at, whomever I’m with.
It may seem like good health is my goal, but it actually represents being/feeling heard. Every time I choose healthy and practice self-care, I am listening to myself. I am heard! Fulfilling this need will only move me closer to what I want.
Waiting for others to listen to me is something from my past, something I avoided in a variety of unhealthy ways by doing too much, basing goals on people-pleasing, etc.
But providing myself with the feeling of being heard and mattering is something I can experience now!
It’s crucial we give ourselves the internal experience of what we’re missing in order to get what we want.
Your mind, body, and spirit says YES I want MORE of that so you naturally attract more, produce behaviors and mindsets to activate it in your life…leading up to your ultimate goal.
You’re simply manifesting more of what you already have so there’s no running from anything or acts of desperation.
PLUS there’s no unknown fear to be triggered (remember fear at the beginning). There’s no stepping out of survival’s comfort zone because we already know how it feels to experience a taste of what our goal provides us.
In some references of the law of attraction, you’re instructed to feel yourself in your brand new home, for instance.
Imagine opening the door, catching a whiff of the new paint smell, new wood, walking in and feeling like home. Imagining all the memories that will be made here. The light coming in at just the right angle. Notice colors, sizes of each room, and the views from the windows.
In that way, you are feeling what it’s like to have what you want by envisioning the thing (goal), but the thing will never feel as good as the inner feeling it represents for you.
Of course this imagery produces great feelings and you can really imagine yourself there, owning this beautiful home.
However, once that image is gone, you’re back to where you’re at right now and there’s a disconnect.
It leaves room for your old subconscious beliefs and negative thoughts/doubts to start creeping in.
However, if you already have some of the feelings you desire now, feeling is believing. It manifests externally!
We all have dreams that we can see or imagine, but what’s missing is a link or a bridge between where you’re at now and what you desire.
How can we want it, but not feel desperate?
How can we almost…taste it, to maintain motivation?
We need a trail of bread crumbs so we can have a taste of what we want along the way.
The link is the feeling that the new house represents. BECAUSE you can produce that feeling now and any time on your way to getting that new house. It could mean freedom to you.
How to identify the feeling:
- When you get that one thing you want, how will it make you feel? Free, Loved, accepted, special, seen, heard…what unmet need within is it fulfilling?
- How can you give yourself that feeling in your life now?
- Meditate on this feeling.
THE LAW OF ATTRACTION AND MEDITATION
If you want the same…feel the same, do the same, think the same. When you do this day in and day out, it’s called autopilot.
Icing on the internal experience: When you seek changes or you want to attract the good stuff, you have to alter your state, which means something other than autopilot.
Meditation is an altered state. Hypnosis is an altered state. Imagination and imagery is an altered state.
In these altered states, we suspend our beliefs about what is possible.
That’s how athletes break records…when they’re in the altered state of flow.
Any kind of goal achievement or change requires an altered state.
Two or three times a day, spend a few minutes in the state of your feeling through meditation and imagery (imagine/memorize this or record your own version of it and listen back. Some people can read this and be positively affected):
Take 3 deep breaths in and out and on the third breath, close your eyes. Imagine what it is you want until you get to the feeling it represents.
Now expand that feeling, let it wash over you and within you- you can see it as a light or a color…or just the feeling.
Let it expand in your imagination too, larger and larger… that you have such an abundance of it, you can give it away to others too!
[In my example above about being heard, I can extend that to others, seeing myself listening to others so they feel heard]
Enjoy the feeling. Live in the moment of that feeling. This feeling operates on it’s own frequency…connect to it. Hooking up to that now and downloading that feeling.
Imagine all the ways you can experience that feeling in your life now.
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Every day, in every way, the feeling becomes more familiar and pleasant and your subconscious will want more of that so it will automate it.
This feeling will be automatic now. Imagine automatically feeling it and gravitating toward this feeling in all that you do, faithfully being led by it and to it like an inner GPS.
You are creating a state of having what you want!
You are in a state of receiving, enjoying, and having enough to give as well.
A decision has been made to flow with this feeling in all that you do, seeing life through the filter of this vision.
Hold this experience, have the feeling it represents internally, and so the subconscious will manifest it externally.
Take a few more deep breaths, count to 5, release the state, and come up from meditation. Repeat as needed.
THE LAW OF ATTRACTION AND GRATITUDE
Practicing gratitude is part of the law of attraction.
Not everyone resonates with “gratitude”.
Personally, I feel disconnected from it as it’s not a word I would normally use and now it’s over-used thanks to the self-help industry.
[Sort of like Narcissism. This was taught in Abnormal Psychology as a serious mental illness, but now since this term has been thrown around in self-help so often, every selfish person is suddenly a narcissist- NO they’re not! End of rant.]
Genevieve Davis offers another way to be grateful in her book, “Becoming Magic“:
Replace “grateful” with “love”.
You can look around and say to yourself, or out loud, what you love.
“I love my family.”
“I love soft blankets.”
“I love the internet.”
“I love my car and all the places it can easily take me.”
“I love the change of seasons”.
Consciously bring more awareness to what you already have and love. This, just like gratitude, opens you up for receiving.
Peace and Be Well,
Laura
Let me start by saying, you won’t find me dressed in monk-garb meditating on a mountaintop in Tibet, but you will find me practicing mindfulness and meditation effectively and successfully in my life!
This is an awesome share. I like to visualize, yet today reading this the word heard stood out and listening to myself as I am now as I work towards my future. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed this Angie! It’s fun how our subconscious opens up to things at the right time!
I love this, Laura. Obviously, since every time I try to like it, I’m told that I already have.
P.S. For some reason, I can’t “Log In.” It says my e-mail address is incorrect. That can’t be right, because I get your “Inspired Meditations” to this e-mail.
Computers. Sigh.
Yes. Computers. I check my blog once a week for comments and this just came up yet it is dated a few weeks ago. I am looking to get another website overhaul/update as it’s been a couple years and nothing lasts a couple years anymore ;-)) I’m glad you enjoyed this post though and hope you are doing well.