Limitations on the Law of Attraction
March 26, 2008
I consciously use the law of attraction, I use affirmations, I expect divine surprises and blessings to appear in my life. In my mind, however, there is a limit to the effects of positive thinking. I’ve written about this before (see my post entitled Negative Thoughts at http://kristinrobertson.com/negative-thoughts.htm) but it deserves another discussion.
What I don’t recommend is using positive thinking to repress emotions, or to blame oneself for adversity.
Let’s look at these statements separately.
First, positive thinking and affirmations cannot turn around a situation about which you have unexpressed emotions. Appropriately expressing emotions is the first and most important step to "getting over" a hurt, a slight or any emotionally-charged memory. Countless research studies indicate that repressing emotions is bad for our health, bad for our relationships and bad for our spiritual growth. Expressing emotions in an appropriate way is essential. We must "feel it to heal it", and that means writing/journaling about the situation or talking it out with a loving listener. Only after we have expressed our emotions about a situation are we ready to use affirmations and attract our desire to us.
I was struck this week by reading about how Louise Hays, as described in her book entitled "You Can Heal Your Life", healed herself of cancer. She first sought out psychotherapy to clear some resentment she had been holding about her difficult childhood. Here’s what she says (page 221), "With the help of a good therapist, I expressed all the old, bottled-up anger by beating pillows and howling with rage. This made me feel cleaner." Only then was she able to unleash the power of her self-accepting affirmations. Converting emotions and feelings to words is therapeutic in itself. When we express feelings in words, we transfer memories out of our emotional brain (a relatively primitive but powerful brain system) and into our analytical brain, which processes language and higher cognitive thinking skills. Once we express our feelings in words, we can sense patterns, construct story lines and start to make sense of our emotions.
Secondly, a tunnel vision approach to the law of attraction can cause us to blame ourselves for illnesses and other "negative" life events. As I’ve explained before, I believe that there are aspects of our lives that are beyond the control of positive thoughts. We incarnate with sacred contracts, we are influenced by the intentions of others or bump up against other people’s sacred contracts. These life pillars are learning opportunities for us - we can choose how we react to them, which sets up the law of attraction.
Children who are born with birth defects or serious health issues are prime examples of my point. I cannot believe that negative thoughts of the parents can create serious health issues for a new born child. Rather, that child came into the world with challenges, perhaps previously agreed to or perhaps a result of karma. Blaming either the child or the parents for the situation is counter-productive.Blaming cancer patients for the negative thoughts that might have caused the cancer is likewise counterproductive.
A friend of mine experienced a devastating business loss. She told me that no amount of positive thinking or affirmations helped in her situation. I can understand why - if a business endeavor is flawed from the start, it will probably fail. However, my friend chose a positive reaction to the loss - she learned from it, started over and found a line of work that has been more rewarding to her. Sometimes we need to fail to learn the lesson we need to learn.
The law of attraction is powerful, but it has limits.
What are your thoughts?
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- Negative Thoughts
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You have so wisely captured this aspect of positive affirmations. Your blog gives me so much to think about and incorporate into my life each day!
Positive thinking does not make every difficulty, every illness, every failure, and every fault in ourselves or in our lives magically disappear. Babies fall many times before they walk; none of us live forever; we all suffer. This is the human condition - the challenge to overcome in order to grow. It is how we deal with that suffering that heals or kills. Positive affirmations may not change the cards we are dealt, but they can dramatically change how the hand impacts our lives.
Many years ago, I was struggling with a deep personal relationship in which my feelings were increasingly distanced and our relationship was becoming programmed in painful and harmful words and actions. A number of books, including Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking” became important to me. One of the books said that our feelings are illusory and don’t always represent reality - or at least the reality we want within our deepest selves. Emotions can develop like bad habits - they feel real, but they rarely represent all that is possble. The book suggest that one can change her life when they learn to “Act as If” ……. to act as if what our deepest selves want is real, even when our emotions do not feel that way. In this case, it meant to actively change my actions and responses to “act as if” I felt truly loving and believed that the other person could also respond positively even when I felt distant, to act with compassion and concern even when those feelings were overwhelmed by the pain which comes from patterns based on old hurts. To act “as if” we were re-building our relationship from the beginning again, and quit interpreting today by what happened yesterday. At first, I struggled with this - was I simply suppressing my feelings? Was it a way to hide from the real problems in my life? I decided to try it in the most authentic way I could. “Acting as if” didn’t require me to be hypocritical, but simply to act in a loving and compassionate way - which is something that is consistent with my deepest self. As my actions became less closed and I let go of old reactions, the relationship healed to a point where we could start talking, really listen, and rebuild the love between us. I learned that I could still try to deal positively with real problems while also learning to change my actions as if what I deeply desired could exist. We moved beyond the caricatures that we had each built of the other to a deeper understanding that we were imperfect but valuable individuals. Years later, we find refuge in a relationship where we can truly be who we are - imperfect but treasured, and seen for who we desire to become in the future.