KNOWING WHAT WE NEED #3
ATTRACTING
Why is it that we are proficient at negativity and we rarely doubt it exists in abundance, particularly when we encounter it with monotonous regularity?
Part of the reason could be that bad stuff engages our emotions rapidly, and we definitely notice that which impacts our emotions. We remember infractions forever and really have to work at forgiveness and letting go.
Conversely, good things often slip right under our radar or are quickly forgotten unless they have a huge impact on us. It is at least in part as Julia Roberts said in PRETTY WOMAN: the bad stuff is easier to believe.
But if we become trained observers, what we see is that the positive is equally abundant to the negative. The problem in many cases is that we don’t do our part to notice them much less attract them. And that responsibility for that lies within us.
The reasons vary. A few are:
1. We spend too much time focusing on what’s wrong and too little time focusing on what is right or what we want to attract.
2. We drift without noticing or defining what we want.
3. We believe that we always get the short end of the stick, are a day late, a dollar short, that good things happen to other people and not to us because either there aren’t enough good things to go around or because we, for whatever reason, don’t deserve good things.
4. We are not clear about our desires. If we’ve thought about them, those thoughts have been nebulous and not specific.
5. Others tell us that we can’t have what we want and we believe them, become discouraged and don’t try to achieve because, well, why bother. We can’t do it.
6. We fear succeeding. What if we get exactly what we want? What will we do with it? What if having it isn’t what we expect? Then we’re disappointed and we don’t even have a dream left to hang our hearts/souls/minds on. Life can be tough now, but if that happened, good grief, we’d be miserable. It’s not worth the risks.
So what then? Are we doomed to always want and never realize our desires?
Only if we choose not to be pro-active. One is never given the desire for something without also being given the gifts to manifest it. Yes, you have to do your part--to work to develop those gifts, but you have them.
So to attract what we want in our lives we must become proactive. If we want to write, then we will. If we want to write well, then we’ll study craft. If we want to write to sell, then we’ll study craft and the industry. We will invest in making our gift manifest our desire.
Let’s take a look at the items listed and turn them on their ears so that they work in the “positive” attracting versus the negative, which is creating distance between us and what we want.
Focus. This is critical and underestimated to the point of being destructive. People so often fail to realize the power of focus--and thought. Thought is significant because it is the first step in creation. And we are creating the life we want--the work we want. If you put in bare bones format, it’d look about like this:
Interest + Thought = Desire + Action = Creation (Manifestation)
Something sparks your interest. You think about it. You’re intrigued, enthralled, enthused. Desire is born. If you do nothing, desire fades and the want dissipates unrealized.
But if you act on that desire, then you’ve created something to manifest that want. You’ve taken the steps necessary to bring it into existence and into your life. It might require more work, honing, refining or even redesigning, but it exists.
The stronger the interest, the stronger the desire, and the more willing one becomes to take action--even in the face of daunting odds to create and manifest. Writing a book and getting it published is a prime example. Interest and desire spark determination and drive and discipline and it takes all of those things, we know, to sustain the action required to finish a book and see it manifested.
In a nutshell, the above formula is what it takes to attract what we want. As it relates to focus...
We do dwell on what is wrong. What we don’t have. On “if onlys” and “when things settle down or line up or conditions are right.”
First we need to understand that things are never going to settle down, get perfectly aligned and conditions are going to magically be optimum--life doesn’t work that way. So we need to:
Start wherever we are under whatever conditions exist and let things settle down, line up and get right as we go--while we’re making progress. And we need to deliberately take our focus off of what is wrong and firmly place it on what is right. If nothing is right, then place that focus on the potential for right.
A wise man said: “Image it and it will be.” That same thought, or concept, has been repeated hundreds of times in hundreds of ways, all of which boil down to the same principle. So many have found it to be true that there’s no need to rediscover the wheel. Believe it. Embrace it. Attract what you want in your life by imaging that you already have it.
In my kitchen hangs a sign that reads: “The secret to having it all is believing you do.” There’s a powerful message in that quote. First, you define “all.” To you and me it well might mean something vastly different. The important thing is that your definition is the one that matters--to you.
The key point to understand in focus is that regardless of what it is you’re focused upon, that is what you attract. If you think you’ll never have what you want, then you’re creating that condition. If you dwell on lack--whether it’s talent or money or ability--then that is what you create. Whatever you create, understand that you’re attracting more of the same with it. Why?
Because that focus and attention and thought is empowered by emotional energy (desire or dread) and that creates, then attracts more like it. This is why it is vital to deal with and dismiss fear. The more focus you give it, the more powerful it becomes and you create exactly that which you do not want.
Focus on the positive. The desired. The things you do want in your life instead. Empower those things. As you dwell on them, they become more clear and well defined, the paths to them become more evident. Opportunities you might not have noticed while your focus was elsewhere now seem to appear everywhere and easily grasped. This is one of the truths that inspire the philosophy of the more you fail the more you succeed. As you fail, you’re focusing and attracting more opportunities to succeed. It’s a numbers game, in a sense. More opportunities increases your odds of success ratio.
As you can see, all of the items listed above as challenges to attracting what we want relate and are interdependent.
If we’re around negativity, that has our focus and our creations reflect it. So surround yourself with the positive. Not empty affirmations that are no more than surface clutter.
Know what you want. Be specific. Think about it. Hard. Make sure what you think you want is really what you want. That it lines up with what you think is important, worth the investment of your time--your life. Be guarded about preconceived notions, about outside influences. This is your life, and this is about what you want in it that works in harmony with your purpose as you define it.
Believe that you can have what you want (because you can; you create, remember) and you deserve to have what you want.
Choose those in your inner circle with care. Let them be people who inspire, who are positive and focused on attracting that which is fulfilling and conducive to content and peace.
Choose your thoughts. Direct them to dwell on attracting your defined wants. If you catch yourself casting doubt, slough it away and redirect your thoughts back to attracting what you want. You know you must or you’ll create what you don’t want rather than what you do.
Choose to ignore nay-sayers. Often their intentions are protective but they are nonetheless misguided. You know that if you have the desire you have (or can obtain through your efforts) the ability to attain what you want. Why then should the nay-sayers words hold more value than what you know to be true and that they are mistaken? Believe what you know to be true.
Expect success in attracting what you want. Expect it. No “maybe someday” or “one of these days” or “if x and y and z happen, then I know I can have what I want.” None of that. Expect it as if you have it already. That’s the secret to attraction.
Look at it like this: If birds of a feather flock together, and we believe we already have what we want, then what are we attracting? More of the same, right? Right.
Now on this fear of success. Don’t be fooled in thinking it’s any less powerful than the fear of failure--or that its impact has less potential to be devastating. It isn’t and it doesn’t. I wrote extensively about the fear of success in THE COMMON SENSE GUIDE FOR WRITERS, and I don’t want to beat the matter to death, but it is so important to understand that we hold a tool that, if we use it, can minimize even the most dreadful effects.
Let’s say that we do get what we want, only we then discover it isn’t what we hoped and we no longer want it. We can change.
Let’s say that we do get what we want, only now we want something else. We can change. Just as we attracted fulfillment of this by creation we can attract fulfillment of our new want.
Let’s say that we get what we want and are disenchanted and now no longer have what we want or even the dream of what we want. We can do what we have already done--proving it can be done--and that is: seek a new interest. Engage our thoughts and spark desire and then act and create or manifest a new want, a new creation.
You see, we human beings are dynamic. We’re not stagnant. As we grow and change what we want often grows and changes, too. That’s a good thing, one we should celebrate and embrace. Isn’t it a good thing to know that we can try on this or that coat (want) and wear it a while and if we love it, continue to wear it, but if we do not that we can wear a new coat? A different coat? One that fits us at the size and weight and in the style that suits us at that time.
Just because we become adults doesn’t mean that we don’t continue to grow. We hopefully grow intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually every day we are alive. So isn’t it an unrealistic expectation then to assume that what we want at twenty we will want at thirty or forty or seventy?
Isn’t that us imposing limits on us? On fulfilling our purpose? On experiencing all of life that we could and/or should experience?
If we remember that with each experience we grow--and we do because unless we’re as hollow as a dead stump, we learn something from everything--then we know that there truly is no such thing as failure. And if we harness our emotions and thoughts and direct them, then we must recognize the polar opposite--fearing success--also holds that same simple truth. We’re going to gain by virtue of the process. And in making the effort we’re conquering the fear, in conquering the fear, we’re eliminating the threat--regardless of its source.
Attracting what we want is no more difficult than attracting what we don’t want. The process is the same. Which we attract depends on which we create that then multiplies through attraction. And which we create depends upon which we focus. Remember the formula:
Interest + Thought = Desire + Action = Creation (Manifestation)
At times it is decidedly easier to attract what we want because what we want doesn’t generate conflict. But what if it does? That’ll be the next “Knowing what we Need” topic in Part 11 of Mistakes We Make.
Blessings,
Vicki
©2007, Vicki Hinze
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