Thursday, May 23, 2013

The Law of Attraction Revisited


It has been a while since this blogger has written anything. I have been busy, working through some life challenges and soul lessons. You might say I have been out on assignment, since I consider my own life to be a laboratory for discerning and working out the spiritual teachings that I'm sharing. Could be part of a course that my higher self is enrolled in on the Other Side, and an earthly incarnation is like a field trip in the curriculum.

Anyway, my recent lessons have caused my understanding of the Law of Attraction to evolve. The brief synopsis: About 10 years ago, after being introduced to the Law of Attraction teaching, I became enamored of the idea that I could attract an alternate flow of income and quit my day job, leaving me free to pursue spiritual studies and various other noble endeavors. It took several years, but eventually something changed, in that an opportunity developed to become a self-employed contractor. No longer working for "the man", my schedule was more flexible. However, the only source of income still came from old-fashioned work, and it still amounted to trading time for money. I was still working for the man, or so it seemed.

Not sure how Bob Proctor and Joe Vitale came upon their millions, but "The Secret" sure wasn't working for me...at least that's how I was seeing it. When I was busy working, the money flowed, but my time was shortchanged. When I worked less, my alternative pursuits were more feasible, but the income sucked.

I sensed that "Clearing Baggage" was an essential part of the equation, and wrote about that extensively last year. But how to accomplish that? Some programming seems to go so deep. Hypnosis, energy work, psychic readings...all that these managed to accomplish was to point out that I have a problem. Duh, I know, right? Energy flow was blocked. I was stuck. Wave a wand and make it change, ok? Or maybe that's just "magical thinking".

Eventually I hit a low point that proved to be the necessary catalyst for change. My acupuncturist told me that I needed to change "the story I tell myself about money".  The story line that goes "Life is hard and you always have to struggle to get by". Ok, sure, back to the concept of baggage and old tapes. But as I pondered it, I tried to imagine how the story could really change. What would the new story line be? Why do we think life has to be hard and why can't it be easy?

I knew that a core truth about life is that the soul incarnates to experience things and work through lessons. I also readily accepted the premise that reality is an ongoing creation by the soul - that reality is energy and can flux and change.

A central point within Law of Attraction teaching is that your reality tends to reflect what you believe and what you focus your thoughts on. Change your beliefs about reality, and reality changes. Easy to change, eh? But then a new insight dawned on me: Some core beliefs that we embrace are embedded so deeply into our perception of reality that we don't think of them as beliefs - we think they are facts about reality. Thus the story line I had told myself about life being a struggle wasn't accessible as a belief that could be reconsidered and changed - it was my view of how the universe simply is.

Ultimately, it was yet another insight that had the most impact on changing my life. At just the right moment, a little green book crossed my path, "The Abundance Book" by John Randolph Price. It contains ten principles of abundance, which are meant to be meditated upon one per day for 10 days. The reader is instructed to repeat the cycle 4 times over for a total of 40 days.

I thought I had read enough books on abundance and prosperity, so why was this one different? The central premise in "The Abundance Book" is that we all possess the divine creative spark within. Since Source is unlimited, and we are Source, we literally have everything we could possible need or desire at our fingertips. It's not about visualizing or attracting; it's about simply letting go of the struggle and realizing that you have a divine mechanism within that can go to work shifting reality in whatever way it needs to be shifted. It's about realizing that you are a powerful being and that your soul loves to create.It's about letting go of the struggle and just focusing on allowing the flow to move through you and into your physical reality.

The angle that helped me change my story line was the realization that my ego-mind is not on the hook to produce what I need, and life is not meant to be a struggle in that sense. This frees me up to ponder what my soul purpose really is in this life. Seen from that perspective, the landscape tends to look different. If you understand what your soul is trying to accomplish, and get with the program, things tend to go much more smoothly.

It turns out that a major soul lesson for me was to overcome fear and insecurity. Applying that understanding to my life history, I realized that my soul had repeatedly created situations that triggered my fears and insecurity. I had always managed to muddle through these crises, but resented them and failed to realize that the soul wanted the opportunity to show what it could do. It has unlimited resources to work with, and excels at solving problems by targeting a flow of energy to where it's needed. The soul loves to be confronted with a problem, simply for the opportunity to creatively solve it. That's why we are here! In the higher dimensions, thought is translated into reality instantly. There is great value in having a stage to enact our dramas upon, which is essentially what incarnation is about.

I had previously thought of the Law of Attraction as a form of magical thinking, wherein if you could just hold the right thought long enough, you would attract or create it into your reality. Visualization is powerful, and this principle does work in some manner. However, the core principle to grasp is that life is about the soul and its lessons rather than being about big houses and large bank accounts. It's about tapping into the energy of Source and establishing a flow. It takes more than thinking in a static mode. It takes action. Establishing a flow is the key.

My attitude toward working has now changed. The Abundance Principles teach that no  particular job or situation is the source of your abundance, but rather the Divine Source within. A job is simply an outlet for creative flow. Of course not all jobs feel that way, but the soul will tend to guide toward the situations that best achieve its goals. Even stressful, problematic job situations could be precisely what was ordered for a particular lesson or experience. Things could look much better simply by getting with the program. Most suffering in life results from resisting the soul's program.

At this point I'm just starting down the path of abundance. It didn't take long for seeming miracles to occur, which is amazing and gratifying,  but this is a lifelong process. I have robust goals and expectations that are not yet materialized, but the vital, radical change has already taken place: I now focus on the flow. Problems are simply opportunities. The soul is not intimidated by anything. Possibilities are endless.

This understanding is a basic tenet of "The Fully Actualized Life".

-Lynn




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