The Law of Attraction - Helpful or Harmful?
This past week on a client call, the law of attraction came up. Mercy, I haven’t thought about that for quite a few years, and it brought up all sorts of triggering. You might wonder how someone who offers spiritual counsel for a living might be triggered by a concept such as “thoughts create your reality.” Working with people in a spiritual capacity since 2005 has brought me to the conclusion that this concept wound up doing much more damage than good, and why it serves you to keep your distance from claims that YOU are 100% responsible for everything that happens in your life.
FOUR REASONS THE LAW OF ATTRACTION CAN BE DANGEROUS:
1. WHENEVER SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS TO YOU, YOU BLAME YOURSELF.
Have an Illness? It’s your fault. Trouble at work? You aren’t doing enough daily affirmations. Mugged in broad daylight? Your lack of abundance mentality caused that. Flooding in your basement? You must have manifested it because you weren’t dealing with your emotions. Believe me, I’ve heard it all, and I’ve spent a decade helping hundreds of people step back from the ledge. If we hold our THOUGHT VIBRATIONS responsible for everything that happens to us, we’re basically screwed. Because we’ll blame ourselves for things that are truly beyond our control. And there is plenty that is beyond your control in life.
This is a toxic cycle of thinking because it kicks you when you are down. It gaslights the real issue, and buries you in self blame and shame. What we know is life is both light and dark, and we get to learn how to work through real life human problems and overcome them. This builds strength and resiliency in the face of obstacles, a skill as human beings we need to thrive.
2. YOU NEVER GET WHAT YOU WANT IF YOU THINK NEGATIVE THOUGHTS.
Here’s the problem with we humans. As soon as we try to stop thinking negative thoughts, they just get more persistent. Psychological research shows that trying to suppress thoughts about something only makes those thoughts more likely to recur. In fact, the more you try to get rid of unwanted thoughts, the more these thoughts dominate your mental space.
It’s like if I tell you, “Never think about Failing-At-Love.” The first thing that likely pops into your mind is the myriad ways you can Fail-At-Love. Thinking about the things you do not want can lead to more negative thinking and put you in a vicious cycle of negativity. Then add to it - telling yourself you are doing something wrong by thinking negative things – and it self-fulfilling prophesy that flies out of control. This sets up a habitual and addictive pattern that is psychologically damaging. Even worse is living with a partner who tells you to “think positive thoughts” when you are legitimately struggling.
Your thoughts are not the only thing responsible for getting you what you want. Period. You are simply not that powerful.
3. ADHERING TO A BELIEF IN THE LAW OF ATTRACTION CAUSES YOU TO ATTEMPT TO SUPPRESS NEGATIVE EMOTIONS.
Feelings like Anxiety, Sadness, Anger and Fear become alarm signals that we aren’t doing something right within the framework of the law of attraction.
Psychotherapist Tori Rodriguez writes:
“New research shows that experiencing and accepting (negative) emotions are vital to our mental health, unpleasant feelings are just as crucial as the enjoyable ones in helping you make sense of life’s ups and downs. Remember, one of the primary reasons we have emotions in the first place is to help us evaluate our experiences.”
It’s completely appropriate to feel angry, sad, anxious and fearful at times in our lives.
Negative emotions are integral to the experience of being human and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for having them. More importantly, negative emotions can motivate us to make positive changes in our lives; keep us from making bad decisions; and/or show us who we should or shouldn’t have in our lives. Embracing and accepting our negative emotions helps us learn from them and let them go. Accepting negative emotion also helps us KEEP IT REAL in a society drunk on social media bragging and delusional positivity.
4. THE LAW OF ATTRACTION CAN WRAP YOUR MIND IN A DELUSIONAL FORM OF REALITY
Films like “The Secret” taught us to never doubt ourselves, never consider negative repercussions, and never indulge in negative thoughts. This is extremely dangerous. Ignoring red flag behaviors from a romantic partner, denying personal problems in favor of “positive thinking” so they get better, avoiding necessary confrontations, failing to weigh the possibility of the failure in decision making…this is a glossed over form of delusional life living that requires you maintain some sort of arbitrary control by holding your thought processes in a certain “vibration.” While this sort of delightfully delusional positive thinking may make one feel better in some (or even many) situations, as a long-term life strategy, it is utterly disastrous.
For me personally – not dealing with clear and apparent financial limits in my own life – and instead exchanging my “positive thinking, meditation and affirmations” instead of doing the hardcore number crunching and reality testing of my bank accounts – led to financial disaster several years ago. I have fortunately recovered, and I will tell you it wasn’t until my little delusional little toxic positive bubble burst that I was able to see fully the massive amounts of neglect I had brought to my own financial life. I recovered because of actually dealing with the situation, facing it head on, getting help, and tracking it for real and making a plan to follow through. I didn’t stop hoping for better, but I no longer lied to myself that my positive thinking was going to solve it alone. You’ve probably had a situation in your life where you thought all you needed to do was bring your positive thoughts to the situation and it simply hasn’t worked out the way you wanted it to. Nothing wrong with thinking good thoughts, but do it because it makes you feel better to be you, not as your default strategy for dealing with trouble spots in life.
I am all about the balance of reality and spirituality – they go beautifully hand in hand. Dream as big as the sky, and also bring planning to the game. Staying grounded and honoring reality checking doesn’t mean you aren’t spiritual, it means you are willing to acknowledge and honor that as human beings we also have limits. So, when you find yourself tempted to rest on the laurels of your “positive” thinking; you might want to unearth the unpleasant emotions beneath that, to determine what course of ACTION you should take. Spiritual practices are in our lives to support a balanced way of being a human and a spiritual being. We must honor both. We reside earth side - leave the spirit side of things to spirit by grounding fully in life. Learning to cultivate a relationship with spirit does not mean we are then exempt from the trappings of human experience, it means we open in faith to trust the support from energies and entities that have our backs.
Falling into the trap of neglecting our human experiences for the thrill of living in a delusional form of reality strips you from honoring your whole life. It can also be the cause for alienating close loved ones and friends. There is nothing worse than feeling like you do not get a spot in someone’s life just because you don’t have positive thoughts oozing from your mouth every second of every day. There is much to be learned from the human AND the spiritual experiences.
Peace. Chanda