​This article continues on from our last: “Law of Attraction: not just for the good stuff” so if you haven’t read that one already please go back and read it.
In this piece we take a deeper look at the Law Of Attraction by focusing on what we hold in our unconscious mind. This is the past of our experience that we don’t have much control over unless we learn to heal. This may be the stuff that you can’t actively hear in the voice of your thoughts, such as a deep belief around how you will always be poor, unlovable etc.
Anything in our unconscious mind attracts into our lives, whether it be positive or negative. As brilliant and influential psychoanalyst Carl Jung says, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
What is in the unconscious mind usually includes unresolved pain and trauma and this is tricky as we will often do anything to avoid looking into our dark places. If you haven’t already it might be a good time to brush up on our article on pain (https://positivefutureself.blog/2019/09/29/bound-to-pain-and-why-thats-a-good-thing/) which offers the helpful outlook that our wounds are where the light gets in.
This is especially true when we consider how our pain affects our unconscious beliefs about ourselves and our world, thereby attracting more negative and painful experiences into our lives. By resolving our pain and trauma we can remove the minting and unhelpful beliefs that the trauma had given us.
Let’s use an example to explore how this works:
Julia (a totally made up person) experienced a neglectful single mother. The neglect was so extreme that Julia came to believe that she was not a person of any worth. She also believed that she was inherently unlovable and that women were untrustworthy. Julia, like most people in the world, had no idea that she believed these things. As a child she coped by becoming highly independent and capable and had a good relationship with her older brother.
All through Julias teen and early adulthood she struggled with relationships. In high school she was ostracised by the girls around her and thus made friends with a quiet boy from her class. Later, as Julia entered the workforce she struggled with her first big position under a female boss. As each incident occurred Julia took the lack of friendship and connection with the women around her as further confirmation of her existing belief that she was unlovable and that women were untrustworthy.
What was really happening is that Julia’s beliefs were causing her to be aloof, disinterested, fearful and anxious around women. She unconsciously assumed that they would not care about her. She overcompensated using independence and high-achieving methods thus further pushing away and kind of support of caring that could have helped develop relationships.
In Julia’s late twenties, after a number of years of unexplained anxiety and depression (coupled with loneliness) she sought therapy. Through some intensive work Julia was able to see the beliefs that stood in the way of closeness with women. Through learning to trust that her beliefs were outdated, unhelpful and untrue, she began to develop the kind of love and friendships that she had long desired.
Julia’s unconscious beliefs were attracting into her life the very thing she most wanted to go away: neglect from women. This is how it is with all of us. We are constantly attracting into our lives what we think and believe.
Victimhood vs responsibility.
When we are victims we ask “why does this keep happening to me?”. We can’t see or don’t want to see that we are attracting these experienced into our lives. When we are in victimhood there is no possibility of healing the past traumas that keep us limited.
When we take responsibility we can ask, what do I want to be different and how can I get what I want? We open ourselves up to doing anything to heal and resolve what is holding us back. We open ourselves up to attracting more good in our lives. Julia took responsibility when she went to therapy. She knew she wanted life to be different and she took action to make it happen.
Talking full responsibility for our lives means we acknowledge that we attract all of it- the good and the bad. If negative experiences occur we ask, how did I bring this in? And, what beliefs and thoughts need examining in order to attract a more desirable experience in the future?
Attracting the bad for resolution
Sometimes we may attract negative or painful experiences so that they can become a lesson, and opportunity to heal and a way to access our peace. This can be difficult to believe in when we experience great tragedy, like the death of a loved on or an abusive experience. However if we look at everything in our lives as an opportunity to heal we can find great peace.
Because we live in ego we forget this truth. As one of my great teachers Ken Wapnick says, “It is compelling and inviting to luxuriate in the ego.”  The reality is that when it comes to the unconscious mind, we don’t get to pick and choose our experience. All we can do is heal our wounds as each circumstance arises so that we can go on to attract more peace, contentment and calm into our lives instead of more hurt, anger and suffering.
In this way, the only work there ever is to do is on the self, no one else is out there anyway.

​Have you heard of the term Law of Attraction? It was made popular in the early 2000’s by the film (and book) The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. In addition, manifestation gained widespread hype through the 70’s and 80’s through the likes of Louise Hay (You Can Heal Your Life) and Esther and Jerry Hicks (Law of Attraction, the Vortex). Even before this recent craze, ideas that include manifestation and law of attraction concepts have been around for centuries.

The Law of attraction is known as a pseudoscience, meaning that there is no current scientific proof its effectiveness. Whether it does or does not “work” we will leave for others to fight over. With this article I would simply like to offer you a basic understanding of what the Law of Attraction is so that you can see for yourself.  It is my belief that we can reap great benefits from understanding the fundamental nature of manifestation and, most importantly, how we are always manifesting whether we are conscious of it or not.

Since the Secret’s publication, manifestation has become well-known but also widely misunderstood. The most common misconception is that we can use it as some kind of magical power to get the good things we want: like bringing large sums of money into your life, or finding a brand new shiny house or car.

While bringing in a million dollars overnight may or may not work for you, I’d like to offer a far more important understanding of the Law of Attraction that can bring you peace and contentment no matter how much money you have. Let’s being by understanding what the Law of Attraction is and how manifestation works.

What is the Law of Attraction?

The simplest definition is that the Law of Attraction is the ability to attract into our lives whatever we are focusing on. The Law of Attraction is considered a fundamental law of the universe that cannot be altered and is not dependent on your age, sex, religion or social status. Like all laws, it simply is.

The Law of Attraction takes whatever is in our thoughts and materialises them into reality. This is based upon the law that all thoughts become reality eventually. Both humans and thoughts are made up of energy and when it comes to energy like always attracts like. The results of positive thoughts are always positive consequences. The same holds true for negative thoughts, always leading to bad outcomes.

Manifestation

The Law of Attraction dictates that whatever can be imagined and held in the mind’s eye is achievable. The real power is in believing that what you desire for your life is already true. This is manifestation: we can consciously create something by believing that what we want for our life is already how it is. If you want to be 60kg, then you must believe that you already are, by feeling the joy and positive emotions that are associated with this outcome.

As spectacular as this sounds it only takes one look around the state of our planet to notice that something is amiss here. If we could all create the exact life we want, then why is there so much misery, poverty, violence and disease?

The answer is simple. The world is full of suffering because whether we know it or not, during every second of our existence, we are manifesting. Every moment of our lives we are acting as human magnets sending out our thoughts and emotions and attracting back more of what we have put out. The real problem is that during most of this process we do not know we are doing it and this means we are often attracting negative outcomes.

Unconsciously Manifesting

How often have you driven to the grocery store and as you are pulling into a parking spot you realise you had no idea how you got there? You were not paying attention to the drive. Rather you were up in your head thinking about the past or fantasising about the future.

How often could you actually recall what you were thinking about? If you could recall it, was it negative or positive? Were you believing that great things were possible for yourself and that all is well in your life? Or (far more likely) were you reliving an awful thing that happened to you last week or expecting the worst from an incident you perceive will arrive in the future? Were you thinking wonderful things about your body and health, or were you engaging in self-criticism and hatred?

You see, every second of every moment of every day you are bringing towards your life whatever you are thinking about. Often our thinking is fear/survival based and therefore focusses on the negative. We spend far more time concerned about how little money we do have, and far less thinking about how blessed we are and what is possible for our financial future.

Perhaps we obsess about the state of our romantic life and where our relationships are headed. We may fear the worst out of our innate desire to protect ourselves from hurt so we guard ourselves from being too open or loving. This negatively affects our relationships and pushes those we love, and those we meet, away. This is how like attracts like.

Solutions

• Awareness: Becoming aware of what we are thinking about is a key component of changing what we attract. Once we see the kind of negativity that exists in our mind we can begin to replace it with more positive thoughts. Meditation or quiet activities in nature help us to become aware of our thoughts. Creating some space in your life is key to this process.
• Gratitude: Being appreciative is a great way to swing the mind out of its negativity bias. We can do a formal practice by writing what we are thankful for each night before bed, or making it a part of the family dinner as a kind of grace we say to each other. We can even create a friend group that we text what we are grateful for at the end of every day.
• Therapy: Sometimes we discover that we have deeply ingrained beliefs from childhood or from trauma that we have experienced.  This is where coaching or therapy can be extremely influential. Having someone to guide us is very important in learning how to let go of old beliefs and create new ones to take their place.

There are many books and teachers out there that will tell you that you can have anything you want (even a million dollars) as long as you believe it is already yours. I’m not here to tell you if you can or you can’t. I’m just suggesting that what you think is truly what you become.
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Perhaps you can give some new thoughts and new beliefs a try and see for yourself what happens. Who would you be if you believed you were blessed, wealthy, healthy and happy? Whatever you believe you will find the proof to support. So take a look around at your life and look for new evidence.