One of the questions I get asked time and time is one of the simplest: why doesn’t the Law of Attraction work for me?
After all, The Secret made it sound so easy.
There are a few reasons why things might not be working out for you.
First of all, just to recap a little bit from one of my previous post, are you coming from your head or your heart?
If you’re coming from your head, thinking of the things that you might like to have in your life, then I’m wondering if perhaps you’re being influenced by the world around you…. By what we are conditioned to want through adverts on TV and other ephemeral rubbish.
To what extent, in other words, are your desires guided by the cultural norm?
However, in my opinion, there’s no reason you shouldn’t try and manifest material goods and wealth. If you’re serious about what you want, you might even be successful. In fact you probably will.
The problem is when you’re coming from your head in this way – which means coming from your ego, or coming from a place where you’re basically concerned with status or appearance or something materialistic in nature – you often don’t have the energy to sustain the process of manifesting your desires.
For one thing, the desires of the mind, the desires of the ego, can be distracted by the trivialities of everyday life that call upon us.
Imagine, then, how this compares with your soul purpose: if you’re trying to manifest something which is essentially about the nature of “who you are” and “what your purpose on the planet is”, I guess you can put a lot more energy into creating your reality.
That’s because heart-driven objectives will provide you with more vital energy to sustain the process between coming up with the idea and manifesting in your life.
To put it simply: you just don’t want it enough. Oh dear.
In addition, of course, heartfelt desires are not superficial, unlike the desires that we come up with from our minds in response to fads and fashions or what’s seen as desirable in society at the moment.
On the other hand there is a danger in listening to experts on the law of attraction who become too puritanical and claim that there’s no point trying to manifest anything unless your objective is in line with your soul purpose.
That’s just a viewpoint which goes to the opposite extreme and is no more helpful. Fact is: we are given the ability to manifest material goods, and many people use it successfully.
So If You Keep Your Energy Focused, Will Something Manifest More Quickly?
You’d certainly think so, wouldn’t you, from reading so much of the Law of Attraction material which has been published recently?
I mean, almost every author speaks of the need to constantly focus on what you want, to provide your vision with emotional energy all the time.
Indeed some people will say that you need to become almost “obsessed” with your objectives.
However, there is another point of view. It’s this: what about the idea that constantly obsessing about what you want will actually stop things manifesting for you?
Sidebar: at this point you may feel some frustration, because what I’ve written above is probably a minor representation of so much material on the Law of Attraction. One author says one thing, another says the opposite. Both say that their views are correct. Both swear their views are correct. Indeed, both say that you can’t possibly manifest anything if you follow any advice but theirs. And clearly that’s ridiculous. So where does the truth lie? The simplest explanation of this is that what you believe determines how successful you are with manifestation. So if you believe something is essential to the process of creating it, then it becomes so for you. Perhaps that’s why authors who’ve had success with their own system of manifestation will so clearly and fervently affirm that theirs is the only way.
I agree that it’s certainly possible that obsessing may get in the way of your desires manifesting.
But there are other explanations too; the simplest of them is this – there really might be different ways in which you can achieve success at manifestation.
It’s All So Confusing – Make Your Own Mind Up
Michael Mackintosh says that for him success comes when he does the opposite of trying to think about what he wants and believes he has. As he says:
“Ironically, every time amazing things happen in my life it is after I’ve done the following:
1 Got clear my heart’s true desires.
2 Surrendered to the divine and felt so full inside myself that I must don’t need anything. He calls this receiving divine power and freedom.
3 Let go of any desire to have the things I want completely.”
In other words he is saying that the magic happens when he truly no longer wants the thing he was thinking about, because the universe then somehow brings it about for him. He calls it bizarre.
And indeed at first reading it does sound pretty strange. He says however, that on countless occasions, within one second up to 24-hours after letting go, amazing things have shown up for him.
To quote him again: “This is a strange surprise because I have just given up wanting it completely and have no interest in it.”
You’ll see that the key to this, the key to this method of achieving your goals, I mean, is letting go, surrendering, and feeling full before the desire has been attained.
Michael illustrates this more clearly by saying it’s one thing to imagine you have a nice car and feel good because you are daydreaming about it; and quite another to feel quite contented with your life now regardless of any cars or other circumstances.
In other words, his suggestion is that you need to just be content with the way things are now. It’s a form of surrender, of letting go, perhaps even of being open to the Highest Good for all concerned.
Michael calls this a secret, and if it’s true, then it probably is a greater secret than any so-called secret in The Secret!
Oh, by the way, he says that this won’t work if your motivation is simply to get stuff. In other words, there has to be some spiritual aspect to your motivation.
To summarize again: you need to be willing to genuinely surrender and let go of your desire. Replace it with the knowledge that the universe can supply all your needs, all the time, and is ready to do so. (Indeed, it aready has. All you have to do is ask for them.) And then open to whatever manifestation represents the highest good for all concerned.
But how do you let go?
Well, of course we are materialistic animals, and completely surrendering and releasing your desire for something is not so easy.
The question is, as Michael so rightly says, how can you want something with all your heart and yet not care whether or not you get it?
This is probably what people mean when they talk about releasing your desires.
One technique which I have seen repeated in several places is to imagine the scene of your desired manifestation inside a bubble and then to release it back into the universe, offering it up to God, and allowing yourself to relinquish the dream if it isn’t for the highest good of all concerned. (It’s probably good idea to ask for something which IS for the highest good of all concerned.)
I won’t discuss everything Michael says about this process here, I think it’s worth getting the book if you’re interested in learning more about this.
But it’s a highly evolved spiritual position, I think, where you can accept that the universe is ready to give you everything that you need, if you can completely surrender your desires.
It’s summed up in an expression that you may well have heard in many different situations: all you need is within you now. It’s a profound statement which is true on many levels.