Law Of Attraction

[loobie]

LAW OF ATTRACTION <- this is a linky

 

found out about this this morning when searching on the internet (I am desperately trying to change my life and what is going on in it)

 

I cant make my mind up if it seems 'real' or just a load of bull.

 

 

Does anyone have any experience of it / ever heard of it ?

 

I am really interested to hear your ideas/views

 

thanx for reading

 

L xx

Edited June 16, 2008 by loobie

[Elaine]

As another 'I'll change my life if it kills me' person, I have heard a little bit about it. I don't know enough to comment properly, but I do know that now I've adopted a more positive approach, or at the very least more laid back, people do respond to me differently - more positively, in fact It's easy to put subconscious barriers up, it's less easy to take them down.

 

That probably doesn't help one jot

 

I guess I kind of agree with the theory. I smile at people, they smile back. I'm approachable, they approach. Okay, maybe I don't really want them to, but the thought's there

[Ruthi (borrowadog)]

Sorry Linda, its twaddle. Wishing for something will not make it happen - but it will mean you notice it if it comes along.

 

That having been said, attitude makes a big difference to what happens to us in our lives. IF and its a big IF, you can interpret everything that happens to you as being positive, it does change how you feel about life. And it enables you to take the chances that come along, rather than being afraid of them/negative/pessimistic. One of the most powerful tools for me in the dark times was the 'Empowering Belief' thing. And my pet empowering belief was 'There is always a positive outcome' - if you focus on those, then the negative outcomes that usually go alongside the positive seem less important.

 

Mostly the people who are peddling stuff around the 'Law of Attraction' are trying to sell you something (Like 'The Secret')

 

Some good books

 

'Feel the fear and do it anyway' Susan Jeffers

'How to get what you want, and want what you have' John Gray

 

If you have some money to spare, or your local college offers it, then an NLP course is probably the best thing to go for to learn new skills that will help you change your life. NLP has a very powerful model of personal change, which I found really useful - and still do when I make the effort to go back to it.

 

It took me about 10 years of reading self improvement books, going on workshops, agonising etc etc to make things happen in my life. And to accept that things I couldn't change and learn to live with/love them. The biggest step was really knowing what I wanted to change, and probably gaining a fair bit of self-knowledge was necessary to get to that point. So, not easy, but I'm glad I did the 'work' to get where I am now.

 

Ruth

[ReikiAnge]

I don't agree that it's a load of twaddle. I have learned to be more careful about what I wish for because of past experiences.

 

I am very much a believer in the power of positive thought and affirmations. Although the times when you most need to feel that way, it's often the hardest to!

 

I have looked at The Secret and I think that's just another way of marketing the same idea that has been going around for ages.

 

I think Louise Hay is fantastic and would highly recommend her books/CDs/DVD etc., but others may well be equally as good, I just haven't read everything that's out there. Yet

[estweyn]

I dont think it is twaddle, many things I have wished and hoped for in my life have happened (but not winning the lottery) I agree with what has been said about Louise Hay, she really did change my life, I still have her book that I bought 12 years ago, its battered and beaten but still meaningful.

I attracted a good husband, a house, a car, a settled way of life, lovely dogs and cats into my life from a place where I had nothing. I attracted a happy me most of the time because of positive thinking.

There is something in it.

I have read the secret but wasnt that impressed, I think the secret is that they made money out of what everyone else has been saying in different and more meaningful ways. Plus life isnt all about money is it, its happiness and health that make your life worth living

Plus the dogs

and the cats

etc

[cycas]

I agree very much that if you approach things with a positive attitude, it's much easier to get where you want to go, people respond better, you'll be happier, and at the very least you end up a lot less miserable.

 

However, I don't believe that focussed thinking about stuff you desperately want makes it happen. If anything, I reckon that stuff I really want / good luck is more likely to happen if I don't stress about it and focus on other things that are closer to hand!

[Rachel Rumpelstiltskin]

Howdy!!!!

 

I just skim-read that very quickly and i get the impression its on the same tracks as things like karma. Cycle and effect

 

correct me if im wrong

 

I take things like that with a pinch of salt, but as a guidance. I was having a conversation about something similar to a friend of mine who pointed out that 'it doesnt matter which actions you choose to follow to change your life for the better. Willing to change it usually is enough'

[scotslass]

I worry about any theory which implies that if you're positive enough, you get good things happening to you. Does that mean that people with life-threatening illnesses just don't try hard enough? What about people living in poor parts of the world? How do they attract good things? It's kinda hard to feel positive, I imagine, if you're starving.

 

I do think a positive approach to life is useful if you can manage it, but I'd hate anyone to feel responsible for their misfortunes. That's why I hate the concept of Karma (in its simplest, most commonly used sense). If you believe that 'what goes around comes around', as many people do, then are you saying that everyone who's having a miserable time now may well have earned it??

 

Most of all, I dislike the idea that those of us with time, education and inclination can make our own lives better (all that stuff about attracting material success, in the sense of money and big cars, makes me sick) - what about those who don't have our advantages?

[ReikiAnge]

I worry about any theory which implies that if you're positive enough, you get good things happening to you. Does that mean that people with life-threatening illnesses just don't try hard enough? What about people living in poor parts of the world? How do they attract good things? It's kinda hard to feel positive, I imagine, if you're starving.

 

I do think a positive approach to life is useful if you can manage it, but I'd hate anyone to feel responsible for their misfortunes. That's why I hate the concept of Karma (in its simplest, most commonly used sense). If you believe that 'what goes around comes around', as many people do, then are you saying that everyone who's having a miserable time now may well have earned it??

 

Most of all, I dislike the idea that those of us with time, education and inclination can make our own lives better (all that stuff about attracting material success, in the sense of money and big cars, makes me sick) - what about those who don't have our advantages?

 

I get where you are coming from. It's not something I haven't considered in my life. I don't think anyone does this work to try to make people feel worse about themselves/their situation than they already do, more to try to help and support them in bringing positive changes into their lives.

 

Like a lot of people, I've been through some crap in my life that I wouldn't wish on anyone. It's made me who I am and I think (finally) that that is a good thing. These are just my thoughts and it's hard to explain but I believe the intention of Louise Hay and others is to help these people improve their lives, in the same way that they have, not to tell them they don't try hard enough.

 

Taking Louise Hay for example, she's had a fair amount of crap thrown at her in her lifetime, she talks about it in her DVD, including breast cancer. She's worked very hard to become who she is, but I believe she works to help people, not to sit in judgment. She also works with people who are HIV positive and from what I saw in her DVD with them, she is only bringing support and positivity into their lives.

 

Some people might be about wanting the best house, car etc., but to me her work is about helping people to feel happy with themselves - because you can't feel truly happy without that IMO, so the closer you can get, the better IMO And when you're in the depths of despair it's very hard to feel positive and look forward, I know, but anything you can do to bring some light into your life, is a good thing, right?

[merledogs]

I agree very much that if you approach things with a positive attitude, it's much easier to get where you want to go, people respond better, you'll be happier, and at the very least you end up a lot less miserable.

 

However, I don't believe that focussed thinking about stuff you desperately want makes it happen. If anything, I reckon that stuff I really want / good luck is more likely to happen if I don't stress about it and focus on other things that are closer to hand!

That's pretty much how I feel about it.

[scotslass]

I get where you are coming from. It's not something I haven't considered in my life. I don't think anyone does this work to try to make people feel worse about themselves/their situation than they already do, more to try to help and support them in bringing positive changes into their lives.

 

Like a lot of people, I've been through some crap in my life that I wouldn't wish on anyone. It's made me who I am and I think (finally) that that is a good thing. These are just my thoughts and it's hard to explain but I believe the intention of Louise Hay and others is to help these people improve their lives, in the same way that they have, not to tell them they don't try hard enough.

 

Taking Louise Hay for example, she's had a fair amount of crap thrown at her in her lifetime, she talks about it in her DVD, including breast cancer. She's worked very hard to become who she is, but I believe she works to help people, not to sit in judgment. She also works with people who are HIV positive and from what I saw in her DVD with them, she is only bringing support and positivity into their lives.

 

Some people might be about wanting the best house, car etc., but to me her work is about helping people to feel happy with themselves - because you can't feel truly happy without that IMO, so the closer you can get, the better IMO And when you're in the depths of despair it's very hard to feel positive and look forward, I know, but anything you can do to bring some light into your life, is a good thing, right?

 

But writers such as Louise Hay aren't going to make an iota of difference to the vast majority of people who are suffering in the world. I still think my problem is that Hay (whose ideas I've read and used myself) and other writers is that their work is aimed at those of us who already have major advantages in our lives, if you like. Ok, we get ill, and lose people close to us, and so on, but we don't also have to cope with basic lacks - food, clothing, shelter for example.

 

I just think it would be bloody unjust if some of us attracted even more good luck because we could afford the therapy or the self-help books. I wouldn't want to live in that kind of world. It's unequal enough as it is.

 

To me, there's a difference between trying to be the most positive and useful person I can be (which is possibly what Hay makes us consider) and actually attempting to attract good stuff for myself. The latter seems shallow and selfish.

[ReikiAnge]

I don't think wanting good things in your life is shallow or selfish. I want to enjoy my life and be a good person, I don't see why I can't have/aim to have both.

 

I also don't think that one person attracting good luck means someone else has to have bad luck. I don't see the problem with Hay and others trying to help people be happier - maybe they can't reach those who are starving in Africa or homeless (although who knows what they do with their own money/time in that respect) but I don't see the problem in people using their ideas to try to better their own lives.

 

The world is unequal but I really don't think that's down to people using self-help books to try to improve their lives. Louise Hay (sorry to keep repeating her name but she is the one I am the most familiar with) has worked/helped a lot of people with cancer I gather - and if she has helped bring something better into their lives, no matter what they had to start with, that can only be a good thing, can't it?

 

It has taken me a long time to feel remotely good about myself, but now I do and I shall make no apology for that, nor feel I am depriving someone else by having good things happen to me. I aim to be as good a person as I can be, I do help others whenever I can and make a positive difference in other people's/animals lives, but I also want to be happy myself

[cycas]

I do think a positive approach to life is useful if you can manage it, but I'd hate anyone to feel responsible for their misfortunes. That's why I hate the concept of Karma (in its simplest, most commonly used sense). If you believe that 'what goes around comes around', as many people do, then are you saying that everyone who's having a miserable time now may well have earned it??

 

 

No, I honestly don't think that it does - or if there are people who use the word in that way, I think that would be a fallacy.

 

The idea of Karma says that people who do good will have good come to them, and people who do bad things will have bad things come to them (and not necessarily in one lifetime). It does not say that bad things only happen to bad people, or that if something bad happens, it must be a punishment, or that people who are suffering should not be helped because they deserved it (that last one would surely be something of a bad-karma concept..?) You can have do-as-you-would-be-done-by perfectly well, without implying fatalism or condemnation of the poor.

 

I'm not convinced about the idea that people who are poor are unable to access this kind of idea. Surely that's what Buddhism is all about, for example, and that's hardly a belief system that is only accessible to rich Westerners.

 

I am kind of unconvinced about the power of wishful thinking because to me it seems unconvincing, not because I think the world should be fair. The world clearly isn't fair, so if one day it turns out that wishful thinking actually works, that seems to me just one more example of the fact that sometimes life mucks you about.

 

I don't actually think that it is at all shallow or selfish to want good things (generalised) for yourself. I would say it's shallow and selfish to want them for yourself in a way that harms others, or to the exclusion of other people. But 'I want' does not have to be a negative thing, and actually, I think 'wanting to be useful' can be, sometimes.

[krusewalker]

I worry about any theory which implies that if you're positive enough, you get good things happening to you. Does that mean that people with life-threatening illnesses just don't try hard enough? What about people living in poor parts of the world? How do they attract good things? It's kinda hard to feel positive, I imagine, if you're starving.

 

I do think a positive approach to life is useful if you can manage it, but I'd hate anyone to feel responsible for their misfortunes. That's why I hate the concept of Karma (in its simplest, most commonly used sense). If you believe that 'what goes around comes around', as many people do, then are you saying that everyone who's having a miserable time now may well have earned it??

 

Most of all, I dislike the idea that those of us with time, education and inclination can make our own lives better (all that stuff about attracting material success, in the sense of money and big cars, makes me sick) - what about those who don't have our advantages?

well said.

 

In fact, if you look at it this way, a positive attitude to life is not about the creation of good things (or is it?), it is about a strategy for coping with not having 'good things' (or is it?).

For example, how many times have you seen a documentary about poor villagers in third world countries whom are judged by the interviewer as an example to us all because even though they have little, they share their food with him, or a documentary about children with awful diseases where the interviewer judges the child to be an example to us all as they are always happy no matter how they suffer?

That is because these people do not know any different, and practical circumstances dictate they cannot know any different, so they think it is good to live their life, as they have life.

Therefore, in those terms, having a postive outlook on life has created 'good things'.

It is just that we judge the following of such new age pseudo religious beliefs such as karma, positive affirmations, and a mental positive as producing results in a Western materialistic aspirational cultural outlook, when really, all these 'beliefs' are only useful practices and rituals which help one elicit a good coping strategy, making one feel happy about ones lot during each living moment.

But this feel good factor does not happen overnight. By practicising these rituals daily, you learn this skill, as is the case in practising to learn any new skill.

Then when you feel happy at the achievements this ritual has given you in simply feeling good about you present personal cicumstances, you will now become a more satisfied individual, which means you a more relaxed and focussed individual from a physiological and mental point of view.

Now in practical terms, you will inevitably be equipped with a fortitude of character to create and achieve 'more', equaling 'success'. Entrepeneurs like Richard Branson always had such an sunny outlook by nature since birth. By taking the above route of affirmations and belief in karma etc, you are simply making such an a 'success characteristic' a learned quality. Thus, Richard Branson and the sick child and poor villager are no different to each other, even though their practical circumstances are different. They are equally 'successful'.

You can even become a 'Richard Branson character' thru NLP modelling.

It has nothing to do with Louise Hay's pseudo-religious teachings per se, they are just an anchor.

You have not become more succesful or created new 'unforseen'opportunities because the spiritual powers of the univserse have blessed you.

Really, it is just Emperors New Clothes. But the Emperors New Clothes were good, as although he was naked, he still felt a success.

The problem is he paid money for this. Therefore Louise Hay could be the swindling tailor.

It is all simply a case of psychology, perception, and physiology.

[Happylittlegreensquirrel]

For example, how many times have you seen a documentary about poor villagers in third world countries whom are judged by the interviewer as an example to us all because even though they have little, they share their food with him, or a documentary about children with awful diseases where the interviewer judges the child to be an example to us all as they are always happy no matter how they suffer?

That is because these people do not know any different, and practical circumstances dictate they cannot know any different, so they think it is good to live their life, as they have life.

 

 

I disagree with you in relation to poor villagers in third world , the ones I have met are often very very very aware of what they don't have and how hard their lives are , but yes they do often share what they little they have and yes they are an inspiration ( well they are to me )

 

It is just that we judge the following of such new age pseudo religious beliefs such as karma,

 

Karma is not a new age belief , its been around for thousands of years and features in many religions and non religious teachings

 

In Buddhism Karma is just one of element of the over teachings as are the four Noble truths , the eightfold path , Dharma , Samsara and rebirth. All can be looked at and understood separately but as a set of teachings they probably make more sense together

 

The concept of Karma predates Prince Siddhartha ( Buddha ) so its at least 2500 years old