Art can provide a powerful and visceral experience of the dynamics at play in the Law of Attraction. Last week, in my Law of Attraction Study Group, we explored how our focus shifts what we attract. The Law of Attraction is always at work – a quick look at our thoughts can show us what we’re really attracting.
I had the group do a quick vision board collage of just a few things they’d like more of in their lives. Here is what mine looks like:
Now, if I’m truly focusing my INTEREST, ATTENTION and EXPECTATION on those desires for easy, smart money, chill-out weekends, travel and a buff “very real power” body, then why have they not manifested for me up until now?
Taking just one of my desires as an example: If I am honest with myself, it is probably because I’m a lot more INTERESTED in paying ATTENTION to the chocolate cake on the counter than to running several miles a day. And my EXPECTATION is that losing weight and getting in shape will be difficult, time-consuming and boring.
The main thing that gets in the way of manifesting whatever we desire is our habit of tacking “buts” onto the end of every wish. I’d love to have easy, smart money BUT making money is hard. I desire relaxing weekends BUT if I want money, I’ll have to trade all my free time for it. I would love to travel more BUT in this economy, there’s just no way I can swing it. I’d love to run and bike more BUT I just don’t have time for exercise. I’d love to have a powerful lean body BUT I don’t believe my body could ever look like that.
Guess what we’re doing with all those “buts?”
When you look at it graphically, it’s easy to see that we are putting up bars and building a prison between ourselves and our desires.
Mary Manin Morrissey tells a wonderful story about Nelson Mandela that illustrates how we can shift our perspective about all those “buts.” She says that when Mandela was first arrested he despaired. He thought, “My dream of the end of apartheid can never happen now.” That thought played over and over in his head. “It’ll never happen now. It’ll never happen now.” One day, a new thought came into his mind: “Maybe it could still happen.” It was just a glimmer, not at all a certainty. Yet he grabbed on to that thought like a drowning man grabs a life preserver. “Maybe it could still happen.” He trained his mind to focus on that thought and after a little more time he thought with wonder, “Maybe this is what it looks like while it’s happening!” From that moment on, he had a new zest for doing whatever he could, even though he was still imprisoned. He began a letter writing campaign and soon gained the attention and support of the U.S. Eventually, he did realize his dream. So, no bars are too strong if the mind is stronger!
If you have built a prison of “buts” around your dreams and desires, I challenge you to shift your perspective. How might it be that “this is what it looks like while it’s happening?” Does it seem like a sluggish economy is stopping you from being successful? Maybe a sluggish economy is exactly what your road to success looks like. How can you turn it to your advantage? Do you want to travel but feel like there’s no money or time for it? Maybe that longing for travel is exactly what could bring you more money and time through a travel-related career.
Take all those buts and turn them around. Turn them into assets rather than liabilities. Look at them from a different perspective. Or tear them down and get rid of them.
We ended our program last week by removing those bars from our vision boards and burning them. Whatever it takes.
Great post, Claire! It’s amazing how many times people shut down the possibility of something new almost as soon as they have the thought!
If you want to create something new, you have to be willing to speak of the possibility of it~ not the lack of it! Good news is, we are all able to shift our thinking and commit to a new story…at an moment.
Many blessings,
Nancy