How often have you heard these things:
- All the money you want is yours for the taking
- You can create anything that you want
- Your life is meant to be amazing RIGHT NOW
- You can feel good all the time
If you read lots of self-help books or books on positive psychology, you have probably heard a lot of this stuff.
Think positively, and it will affect your world in a positive way.
This is true AND not true. Depending on who you are (& where you’re at).
Here’s why:
There are two forces in your world.
One is the force of your perception and consciousness. Once you start viewing things and people through a positive lens, your life and mood can truly change for the better, if you have been in a negative way of thinking and you didn’t need to be.
The other force is one I come into contact with regularly through readings. Some people call it karma. Some people call it fate or destiny. Some people call it the life plan that you created for yourself before you incarnated, or as you go along. The one that’s for your greatest good and expansion in the long run.
There is a plan to your life. This I believe from my own life path so far and from the information I pass on to clients in readings. If you watch out along the way, you can see little winks from your spirit as you travel it.
Without wanting to sound deterministic or like things are out of our control, I am saying that these two forces create your world. One is the force that throws you the lemons and the other is the force that makes lemonade out of the lemons if you choose to.
The force that throws lemons is not necessarily going to cause everything that happens in your life. And conversely, if the force that throws you lemons gives you a misfortune, it isn’t necessarily because you attracted that through negative thinking. But it is usually that you chose that on some level, for some reason.
So, for some people, at certain times in their life, it would be wrong to say that:
- All the money you want can be yours for the taking
- You can create anything that you want
- Your life is meant to be amazing RIGHT NOW
- You can feel good all the time
For some people – this is just not true. And those people will feel like others are bullshitting them when they hear this stuff. And they’d be right.
Some people choose a life path where they overcome massive obstacles and experience periods of deep pain and depression.
Some people have a life path where abundance does not begin to flow for them until they reach their early forties (as an example).
Some people have a life path where they get a shitty beginning but then it gets better as they mature. For some people, it’s the reverse.
And I’m not saying this because I have ‘limiting beliefs’ or because my clients’ Higher selves and Spirit Guides like to make us feel bad. No-one can deny that an average lifetime for an average human being has ups and downs.
All of this is for a reason.
For your Higher self or spirit, the thing that usually matters most, is growth.
Some people intentionally choose nasty experiences that teach them something important for their expansion. Sometimes those experiences can be super challenging. I have heard from several sources (some out of body and some incarnated!!) that being incarnated on Earth is one of the greatest of spiritual challenges that we can undertake – a kind of spiritual Everest.
Because of this, at times, abundance, happiness and joy isn’t always going to flow RIGHT NOW. In fact, according to my experiences reading for people, these things aren’t our divine right to have 24/7, 365 days of the year, as we are taught by some teachers in the self-help industry.
We may be longing for abundance while really we are getting a lesson for our highest good in the importance of becoming a more grounded or balanced person in various areas of life. And things won’t flow until we become that person and learn that lesson. And then that expansion helps us to create more abundance (and other good things) later on.
I used to offer abundance readings for people to find out what their blocks were to creating more abundance in their life. I loved doing that reading for people, it was always interesting. However, I soon got the message that for some people, abundance was not flowing because they were in the middle of a learning experience where they had to do some things long-term over a period of years, in order for it to flow.
I stopped doing that reading in the end because the client was wanting abundance NOW and the universe wasn’t going to deliver it anytime soon because their Higher self wanted them to learn something (like courage or self-love) and wanted them to expand into something bigger and stronger. It was not pleasant sometimes explaining that to people.
And it was a bit disillusioning for people because we so often think that we have a right to all these great things at all times in our life, because other people do.
But not everyone is walking the same path.
And that is why self-help/Law of Attraction messages like:
All the money you want can be yours for the taking
You can create anything that you want
Your life is meant to be amazing RIGHT NOW
You can feel good all the time
Are true or not true, depending on who you are and what kind of period you’re going through in your life, and depending on whether that force we called fate/karma/your life plan is throwing a spanner in the works for you.
We all grow at different paces and we all choose different experiences, before we even get here.
Some of what the self-help industry advocates does not honour that, which is why it sometimes will not work for you.
To temper this, I want to say that:
On the other hand, knowing WHEN to use positive thinking and making things happen through the pure force of your will is a great thing. It has its place of course.
What do you think about this? Leave me a comment if you have something to say in response.
Great article Anna,the more I study the path of the soul the more I believe this. I notice the more that Im focused on my highest path and purpose and not the money, the more it flows. I totally believe about karma too, but thats not to say that we cant clear that most of the time. What I tend to find in this 3rd dimensional reality is that I want instant gratification like the speed of an email. Remember when you had to wait for people to write you letters by snail mail? now we can have so much so instantly, text messages etc, that we dont want to have to wait. And LOA feeds into that.
Very interesting article indeed. You are so right one size to fit all does not work for everyone. Everyone is different and unique and to say one size fits all would imply that we are not different and unique but a robot. I have learned that life can dish out a lot and gives you choices to make and in regards to which choice to make can be the most difficult decision any person can make and reasoning behind it is either we are not sure of ourselves and hope that me do chose the right path or there maybe there are trade offs that I may or may not be aware of. I know right now in my own life I am having some choices to make and finding the positive attitude about them is not there. Choices we want to make I believe need to have the emotion of happiness involved due to we want to be happy about the choice we make. If that emotion is not there I believe this is where the decision can be difficult to make. Your article is giving me food for thought. Thanks
I’ve had this opinion (and expressed it once or twice) all along…the most negative path is often the one that leads to fastest growth, and that’s why we choose it on some level. If the goal is to learn the Life Lessons, well…had I been born rich I certainly wouldn’t have learned the things I have.
Not to mention that the Higher Self sometimes doesn’t realize how tough it’s going to be on the poor half-witted person they become for a time. 🙂
I think the Life Lesson readings are much more useful. At least then when things aren’t going so smoothly, we can have an inkling of why. And that can be quite helpful in many ways.
As far as the manifesting bit, most of them are missing a key ingredient. Happy-facing it and staring at a vison board ain’t gonna produce a thing if there’s no 3D vehicle to bring it.
Great topic, Anna. I think you are absolutely right. Your explanation of why some people cannot immediately become a vibrational match for every desire feels like the truth. By comparison, those motivational positive-thinking memes, though useful in general, seem overly simplified and far-fetched. I can see why they would make some people feel as though they are being bullshitted. I liked your metaphor about lemons and lemonade. That fits in well with my interpretation of the LoA.
Well said Anna. I enjoy reading positive thinking type things but something feels off at times with the abundance message, as you said when we are told that just thinking positive will bring abundance. I always wonder why some people have certain challenges and life events your post brings an awareness of the bigger picture and that what we want may not be what we need.
Hmm.
Like Adrianne, something has been niggling at me since I originally read this entry so I’m going to share.
I agree with her that I don’t think there’s one truth. (And I must say, it’s empowering to think that if that’s true, we get to decide, but whether THAT is true or not… *Shrug*)
But the one thing that keeps bothering me about the ideas presented in this article is the implication that we can’t escape it.
I don’t believe for one second that if the goal is the growth of our *spirit*, that our experiences aren’t always for the best of the incarnation. You only have to look around to see how many tragedies have occurred. (But on another thought, it’s always up to you whether to decide to look at the bright side of those tragedies.)
As an incarnation I’d REALLY like my life plan to be something along the lines of “bad stuff happens which inadvertently leads to a somewhat happy ending”, but that doesn’t always happen in life. But for all I know my life plan is to go through utter and complete hell, and I know that I might not have the strength to make the lemonade, so to speak.
Would I not have the free will to escape? If I wanted only experiences which – however bad they might be in the presence – I wanted to ultimately teach me to be a better person *in this incarnation* rather than just endure the negative emotions that my higher self wanted to experience, do I not have that ability?
Or is the fact that I know I want to learn and grow in the best way possible in this lifetime enough to indicate that this *could* be my life plan? Would I really have had the experiences that led me to this desire if it wasn’t going to come to anything?
… Apologies if this did not make sense, or if I misunderstood. Thanks for this article, it’s really made me think.
Hi Zora,
Here’s my opinion…
I really think you make the rules for how your life goes, on a deep level on a superficial level. I actually had a discussion with my mum about this the other day. She thinks when bad things happen to people, it’s out of their control and they shouldn’t take responsibility. I know a lot of people think that. I believe that we choose the significant experiences we have in our lifes (especially the ones that bring a lot of growth), even the bad ones. I know some people who have had really bad stuff happen to them are going to hate me for saying that, but I believe it.
I think we also choose the conditions we’re born into.
The bit you can control is how you respond to what happens. Perspective is a powerful thing to change, it can literally change your reality (LOA).
I also believe you can change your life path when you’re incarnated if it turns out it no longer suits you, although I think that would be rare.
Also, I know this is not what you are thinking, but some people opt out of their incarnation and die (wow this comment is getting really jolly isn’t it :D)
I think the world we live in and God/Source/the creator is kind. Free will reigns, there is not even any pressure to learn if you don’t want to, and at no point are you trapped in something that doesn’t serve you, unless of course you exercise your free will and choose entrapment.
My brain is fried now!
Great post. I agree with your perspective. I think alot of time manifesting doesn’t work for people, is because they haven’t learned the larger life lesson, and they haven’t released unconscious patterns related to that lesson that they are carrying around.
On the flip side, it is also amazing to see how quickly things can manifest when you have learned a lesson you needed to….
I think this post is helpful for understanding manifestation and why it is and isn’t bullshit as you say….
Hi Anna 🙂
It is totally understandable why you’d denounce those statements you made at the beginning of your post. But this other perspective on things keeps “banging on my head” so I have to share it…
My dear fellow psychic and friend, you know that all intuitive information that we get for others has to come through our own filter. Our filters are made up of our own beliefs, experiences and expectations. Anna, what if you really believed thoughts like “all the money you want can be yours” or “you can feel good all the time”?
Then, according to the law of attraction, wouldn’t you attract reading clients for whom that could be true? Wouldn’t you start to attract evidence of that instead of the opposite? Jus sayin’ 😉
This has been buggin’ me for years… but is there really only ever one true truth?? And if so, who’s got claim to it? (lol, it’s not me!) There are too many conflicting messages about “the way things are” so that leads me to believe that we each get to decide what’s gonna be true for us.
Why not decide that physical life on earth is some difficult trial or test, not a “Spiritual Mt. Everest”… but the greatest potential experience of creation, joy and expansion that a soul could possibly ever dream of?!
Much Love,
Adrianne
Hi Adrianne,
I think you must be right in what you say about there not being one truth.
I sometimes think that people operate within different parameters in their lives so there is no one truth that fits every single person (that’s why I say a one size fits all solution isn’t going to fit everyone). Because we are all learning different things, we all come in with varying levels of limitations around what we are doing and what is possible. We can’t pretend that some people are not born into situations of severe limitation. And some people experience a lot of pain in their early lifetime and spend their early adulthood healing and not doing much besides that. We all come in with the goalposts in different places in that regard. This article is, I guess, for people who came in with the goalposts in the similar sort of place to my goalposts!! In the end, that is always who I am going to be working with because it’s who I know to relate to.
So yes what I write above is based very much on my own experiences. At certain times in my life, I have wanted certain things to occur and when I have asked ‘WHY ISN’T IT HAPPENING!!!???’ I have been told that we manifest and attract on two levels (actually, it’s probably on more than two levels(!) but for the sake of what I’m writing here, two levels) – on the level of the spirit and on the level of the human. Sometimes those two will conflict a little. Sometimes they are in perfect harmony. What you are manifesting on the level of the spirit was decided before you even came here. If it conflicts with what you consciously decide you’d really like now, it can be a struggle to create the conscious thing that you want.
This is the explanation I have been given for when, no matter how much I exert my will to CREATE something, it doesn’t happen and it isn’t happening. I have been told, respect what the spirit is manifesting too and go with it and stop struggling. What the spirit is manifesting at those times is usually the resources (in the long run) to help you create whatever thing you wanted in your life (and more things besides!) So it’s not always that you can’t create what you want, it’s just that you have to expand in a way you probably didn’t imagine in order to get there. And for some people, more expansion is required than for others…
Wow I’m really enjoying this post and the comments it evoked. Anna I especially love that you tackled these 4 manifestation beliefs head on.
•All the money you want can be yours for the taking
•You can create anything that you want
•Your life is meant to be amazing RIGHT NOW
•You can feel good all the time
In my personal experience the first 2 have in the past put me in financial hot water. This is because I didn’t understand (still working on it) how to create or co-create without the use of sheer force of will. The second 2 are life skill builders for me. If I can stand in amazement of even the seeming messes in my life and undestand them for the gifts they bring, and feel as good as I possibly can (sometimes I can only get to crappy, but that’s ok) in the process, then that is true growth.
Can we have it all? Robert Ohotto talks about this a lot through his book Transforming Fate into Destiny. Perhaps we can when the “all” that we want is in alignment with our Souls’ desires for this incarnation. It’s a tricky thing, living in the 3D world and trying to remember what our Souls’ originally intended for this life before it incarnated, and still get what we want from this life right now. It’s a bit like flying blind. Can we change our life plan mid-incarnation? I would love to hear more about this.
Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses – and for Anna for starting this conversation to begin with! Without sounding like I’m copping out, I want to say that I think everyone has (their) part of this Truth.
I think our Soul’s goals play a big part in what experiences (the big things) come our way – both the good and the bad. So I’d have to agree with Anna that we do ask for these experiences – probably not consciously, but at a soul level because they create the opportunity to learn something or experience something that we’ve chosen to experience.
However, I too have at times bumped into the “Why isn’t it happening now?” question. My determination has been about things coming in “divine timing” which I think is the same thing that Anna was talking about. Sometimes there is a “bigger picture” playing out simultaneously, and my human desire (I WANT IT NOW) isn’t in alignment with this bigger soul picture – and so sometimes things take a while to manifest. Will they come? Eventually, I do believe so – once all of the other pieces are in place too.
This doesn’t feel fatalistic to me, nor does it feel like things are out of my control. Is it frustrating? Hell, yes! But don’t we always see more of the bigger picture in hindsight? Things are often way clearer to me a few paces further down the road than when I’m standing in the thick of things.
In any case, I just wanted to add my two cents as this is the very thing I’ve been sorting out for myself. Divine timing?! Absolutely.
Isn’t it fun to ponder, no matter what we decide? Thanks for the opportunity!
What if you *can* have all those things (money, joy, happiness etc.) all the time?
What if it’s just our own limiting beliefs that create the illusion that either:
(1) We’re experiencing joy, abundance, all the money we want etc., or;
(2) Learning the “grand important lessons” from the spirit world.
Who says that the only time we grow, learn and evolve consciously and spiritually is when we’re struggling and going through crap?
What if all that is just a bunch of BS rooted in some kind of crap we were sold by Kings who had everything, trying to keep the slaves in check by telling them yes their lives suck but when they die they will go to heaven and be rewarded for all the crap they went through?
What IF… just for one moment… we accepted the possibility that we can have everything in total abundance…. Love, Money, Joy, Passion, Health, etc. AND by coming in closer and closer abundance with all of those things we actually learn THE ultimate spiritual lesson?
Don’t get me wrong Anna, I totally hear where you’re coming from. What you describe is a struggle that I’ve had in my head many many times and still struggle with today, but lately I’ve been coming to the realization that perhaps this whole “I’m going through crap because my spirit or my spirit guides want me to learn a lesson” is just a bunch of bullshit.
A self defeating limiting belief that we created to just make us feel better while we struggle, when in reality the fact that we’re feeling crappy should be an indicator that we ARE doing something wrong.
Another way to think about it as well is… what if I just decide that for THIS lifetime I’ve already learned enough of these “spiritual lessons learned from suffering”, so just for this lifetime I want to spend the next 100 years living a life of total happiness, riches, wealth, money, health, pretty shiny things etc.
🙂
Just saying… what if…
I could be wrong but what would really suck is to suffer needlessly for the rest of our lives thinking that sometimes that’s just what is supposed to happen when in fact we could be happy all the time and have all the joys we could ever want, if we could just accept that we deserve them (guilt free) and expect them to happen?
Like if we want to manifest $100k in 90 days and it doesn’t show up, instead of saying “Oh Spirit, thank you for teaching me whatever lesson I’m supposed to learn here” we say “Dude, where’s my $100k? I asked for it….cough it up!”
I know a few really wealthy people, and honestly that’s how they view life. They EXPECT to make a pile of money. They don’t seem to have that “I have to suffer so I can learn lessons” mentality at all.
Most of the other people I know, however, are more aligned with the thinking you mention in this article. Presently I’m still thinking that way too but more and more leaning towards the “Screw it, I just want to live a joyous life, and if spirit wants me to learn a lesson than lets meet up for ice cream in Disneyland!” 🙂
-Paul
Hi Paul
Interesting questions you are posing. I think you are definitely right that we’re not only learning through going through crap, but also when we’re enjoying success and happiness too.
And this article isn’t an invitation for anyone to lower their standards or ask for less. I think it’s good to aim high. Having said that…….
Consider this scenario.
A client who really believes that they can have all the money they desire, comes for a reading with a few failed businesses behind them, pretty much broke, or with very little money. They ask ‘Why am I not succeeding. I truly believed I could have anything I want just by believing it and focusing on it. I’ve read books that told me that etc etc.
The spirit world says in response, actually, you sucked at what you were doing because you didn’t enjoy it. And you didn’t have the inner resources yet to make a success of it – you did this and that led to this happening, which caused you to fail at it. You need to change X, Y and Z.’
You’d be surprised how many people don’t want to hear such a thing – a lot of people think they can get things because they are doing manifesting – basically, asking for it, and not much else.
It’s pretty clear that we don’t usually get things by wishing it. More often, I think we have to become what LOA people call a vibrational match – some people have to develop the inner resources to make a lot of money ( of course some people don’t, they might have them in place already for some reason), some people have to develop practical skills.
Those rich people you talk about have that attitude about money because they have developed certain attributes or state of mind in order to expect it, and get it. And they have laid the groundwork for it to happen. I’ve come into contact with some of those people here in Australia and it’s interesting to see how they think and operate. Obviously they don’t get rich from sitting on their bottoms and asking. There’s a fine line between ‘we can all have abundance’ mentality that some self-help people espouse and actually being delusional about the conditions that are necessary for some people to manifest something.
So what I am saying is that I believe there are often conditions to what we want to manifest. I mean, I often read for lots of people who get told this – “you’re ignoring this condition of what you want to create, but here’s what you can do about it.” And the doing part brings about growth and leads to what they want. It doesn’t have to be struggle or suffering though –just growth.
However I don’t think this should amount to fatalism or suffering to learn lessons. I’m all for suffering not being necessary. I think you can still attract what you want using the law of attraction, but obviously you need to take into account what you need to DO and what needs changing in order to get there, if after you asked the universe to cough up, it didn’t deliver.
I hear ya.
The parts in your article that I am referring to are:
“Some people have a life path where abundance does not begin to flow for them until they reach their early forties.”
I don’t believe that the spirit world chooses when we will experience abundance. If you’re 23 and you make the right shifts mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and get your butt in gear you can have abundance within a short period of time.
I think the belief that “I’m not *supposed* to experience abundance until my early forties” is disempowering.
“And I’m not saying this because I have limiting beliefs or because the spirit guides who give me information like to make people feel bad. No-one can deny that an average lifetime for an average human being has ups and downs.
All of this is for a reason.”
So are you saying that if a person got rid of his/her limiting beliefs and got clear on what they wanted in life, like for example having a multi-million dollar net worth AND they used tools such as Law of Attraction, Affirmations, Visualizations AND backed it up with inspired action, that even with all that they might not become millionaires because their “spiritual life path” is supposed to be that they are broke for another 20 or 30 years?
Said more specifically, do you think that there is a “spiritual life path” already pre-determined for you and that if you set a goal like being a multimillionaire and you backed up that goal with all the things that a book like “The Science of Getting Rich” teaches, including inspired action, that somehow the “spirit world” would prevent you from achieving your goal IF it wasn’t in the plan for you to be a millionaire??
Sorry if I sound direct, I’m usually more diplomatic, but I feel very ‘guided’ to push you to really ask yourself these questions. I recently went through something very similar.
Assuming people actually DO clear their limiting beliefs and take inspired action when needed, which of these statements do you think are not true for some people?
# All the money you want can be yours for the taking
# You can create anything that you want
# Your life is meant to be amazing RIGHT NOW
# You can feel good all the time
Have you ever truly wanted something, cleared all limiting beliefs towards it’s attainment and taken inspired action to attain it and then found yourself “let down” by the Universe for not delivering on its promise even though you fulfilled your end of the deal?
-Paul
Hi Paul,
If it’s part of your path to become a millionaire, then you will be motivated to get there. And that drive and motivation can plough through a lot of things – including limiting beliefs and fears.
When you refer to the spirit world, I am referring to a life plan and karma and desire/motivation.
I also believe that abundance for some people comes with conditions – motivation is one of them.
Some people are simply not motivated enough to clear their limiting beliefs and take inspired action until a certain time, like their forties. Doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not meant to until then, that’s just the way it happens. But on the other hand, after the fact, I think the way things happen is the way things are supposed to happen.
There have been times when I’ve worked with a client who hasn’t managed to clear their limiting beliefs about abundance until later in life.
However, that doesn’t mean that everyone else should just suck it up when abundance isn’t flowing for them. I totally believe in exerting your will to get what you want.
Perfect!
You’re absolutely right. Most people I know don’t have the motivation to be multi-millionaires. In fact, most people I know don’t even have the motivation to make a six-figure income. They don’t value wealth building enough to put in the necessary effort to clear limiting beliefs or the necessary inspired action to become rich.
However, I just wanted to be clear that for those who DO have the motivation and the desire to be wealthy, that there isn’t some “spiritual force” holding them back because it isn’t time yet, as long as they put in the effort to clear limiting beliefs and take inspired action.
The same can be said about anything else in life… if you don’t desire to have a relationship, or to have six-pack abs, or an exotic car, or to run a marathon or anything else in life, then those things aren’t just going to POP into your life by making a three second “wish”. If you really want those things, you really have to desire them.
The way I see it is that our higher selves don’t give us a burning desire for something if it isn’t possible to achieve/have that thing. If you really want to be rich, there is nothing stopping you (spiritually) from having it. On the contrary, the whole spirit world is lined up behind you to help you achieve it with ease and joy and glory.
-Paul
I had more questions after your response, but seeing your discussion with Paul cleared things up. 🙂 Thanks all! And thanks for this article, Anna, it really formed questions in my head and in the end reinforced my beliefs along with the current discussion. I feel less adrift now.
my current view is that the key in this whole game is to be okay with whatever ball life is throwing you — even be okay with not being okay, however strange that might sound.
so whatever situation you are currently in, you need to accept it and be totally okay with it. you might not like it, and you might want it to change, but that’s something you need to be okay with, too. if not, you’re just gonna keep on that perpetual hunt for what always lies behind the next corner.
now it seems as paradox of sorts — to be okay with not being okay — but that’s something you have to be okay with 😉
… and this thing about going after what you want. there are a million reasons for wanting something, right? I say better keep going back to yourself, looking on that want and make sure it’s really what you want, and not somebody else’s version of whatever it is that they want you to want.
no shame in wanting things, that’s not what I’m saying — just make sure it is YOUR want.
@Michael: yes, you are right, of course! want is a tricky thing 🙂
…and also not something _you_ think you should want, LOL. Good.
I am a little creeped out because today I asked the universe to give me clarity on my question of relationships being luck, law of attraction, or destiny/fate/karma. If they’re not related to law of attraction then that makes me more inclined sit back and enjoy the ride a little more and stop worrying about it. (And trust divine order). I was in the middle of writing you in the “contact me” section asking if you would be able to make a blog about that topic to help other people wondering the same thing….
And then the title of this blog caught my eye on the side of the page and it ended up being exactly what I’ve wondered for soo long. (years).
Thank you. 🙂
Oh and after reading your and Paul’s conversation, I’d like to add that I think there are people who manage to be 100% happy now (or close to it), but it has nothing to do with abundance, relationships, etc. It’s because they learned to drop false beliefs on how things “should” be, attachments, and also fears. People like Guy Finley, Byron Katie, Don Miguel Ruiz, and Deepak Chopra demonstrate that pretty well. For example, Byron Katie has a degenerative eye issue that makes her nearly blind every morning and will eventually take the rest of her vision. She claims she enjoys and appreciates nearly every minute of it.
That being said, people who have life plans that don’t immediately involve attracting abundance in all arenas do have an option, like you said. Make lemonade out of lemons. Ask the universe for clarity, guidance, understanding, appreciation etc. Sometimes just knowing the universe/God/your guides are there to answer any question you have brings about the deepest sense of peace even when your external circumstances are going crazy. (Easier said than done sometimes).
And it makes sense that we choose challenging life situations. How rich would a college education be if you took the easiest credits the whole time for straight A’s? Not very. But challenging, frustrating classes where the highest expectations are imposed on you are often the most rewarding and insightful in the end. I could be wrong, but I assume the same goes for life on earth.
Hi Katrina, glad you got something out of the article! That is a good point you have made about being happy and conditions of happiness. We often think our happiness depends on circumstances but yes it doesn’t have to. Although of course it’s easier said than done sometimes! 🙂
We have so much energy and special things around we dont offend see, but reading through some of you things you remind me of a a brightly shining light, everyone can see and feel you shining. but you doubt yourself sometimes just like us all we have bad days or bad moments. bless you
Hi Anna,
I love this post. I think it is such a necessary corrective.
In the past ungrounded New Age positive thinking has gotten me into a lot of trouble. Like running through a 40,000 inheritance in one summer because I thought that budgeting was too prosaic. I believed in abundance, giving to receive, and the universe providing etc. I guess maybe I thought it was not spiritual to pay attention to money at all, I thought I should just let it flow. It flowed all right, right out of my bank account.
When I was a broke college student I bought crystals and candles and readings and didn’t pay bills or buy groceries.
Rose Rosetree has a term for this–it’s called spiritual addiction. It means you put all of your energy into developing your spiritual life and forget to pay attention to your human life.
For years I was so sad about having run through that inheritance in that way. I can see with hindsight that
1. I did not at that time in my life have the energetic resources to hold onto that money. I was lacking self-love and I did not deep down feel deserving of abundance. I had a lot of beliefs (“life is suffering” etc.) that made abundance very difficult. I was also not present enough in my daily life to pay attention to the choices I was making with money.
What needed to happen? Well, I needed a lot of healing sessions (cord cutting sessions) to transform my energy. I paid for one a month, slowly, while taking care of all my other financial requirements.
I needed to let go of a lot of beliefs.
I needed to get a lot more present in my life. Discovering meditation and mindfulness has been a huge help.
I had to start taking concrete actions in my life to start making some of my wishes come true.
—-One other thing about what you said. I do agree that not everyone is here to experience a life of abundance. I think about it like this: if we are all living many many lifetimes why on earth would we choose for all of our lifetimes to be lives of wealth and ease? How boring is that? I truly think there is a value in all types of experiences.
One size does not fit all…
Those who are putting undue emphasis on the idea that _anyone_ can have unlimited abundance (and handily creating their own abundance in the process) are actually creating negativity. They can tell you how _they_ do it, but giving you the impression that they can tell you how _you_ can do it is disingenuous. The sort of false hope generated causes people to subsequently crash and burn. Ultimately a lesson is learned, but not helpful in the short run.
@Michael: I disagree. I think it all just depends on how you define abundance.
You don’t need a billion dollars to feel abundance. The “gurus” who found abundance are teaching that they discovered that abundance is ours for the taking any time we wish, and I believe that to be true for everyone.
I don’t think anyone is spreading any false hope.
-Paul
Hi Suzanne,
I went through a period of spiritual addiction as well, and it’s only in the last 12-18 months that I’ve managed to heal that and pay more attention to my daily life. Cord-cutting really helped with that, too!
I know people hate to hear it, but you are right, I don’t believe that abundance is all our birthright. I think some people are born into such difficult circumstances and the odds are against them, materially speaking. And then people can get bogged down and feel like they can’t change that. I think people can come up again, perhaps even the ones in third world countries, but it takes time and strength and courage. Those qualities that the soul loves us to develop. Creating abundance doesn’t necessarily happen overnight for such people who are on a soul path like that.
The more personal sessions I do, the more I see that no two souls are on the same path. We are all expanding in different ways.
Thanks for your insightful comment!
There is no question of definition.
The ones I’m talking about are indeed talking about a “billion dollars”, Pauly. They define it at the outset, give assurance that it’s possible for anyone (which it is, but not a specifically teachable thing), and give the impression that it’s a done deal…when it’s not.
Apples and oranges. I generally try to work in real things, not abstracts. I’m not talking about abundance in general; but your misinterpretation is forgiven 😉
@Michael: I think anyone who truly desires to be a billionaire and follows that up with the vision, faith, action and the belief that it is achievable can become a billionaire.
If that makes me a “guru” who “spreads false hope” in your mind, so be it.
Anna, Commenters, and Readers : I think we are all correct in our opinions, but perhaps we jump too soon for the interpretation of what’s behind the LOA books and why we’re reading them. (LOA is real and available to everyone as far as I’m concerned, by the way.) For years I have been racing through life, absorbing all the self-help advice from outside of me as if somehow the sheer quantity of information I took in would magically gel and make me spit up the answer I had been looking for (such as, why am I unhappy? why do I feel so lost, etc.). But was that truly what was bothering me, what attracted me to that book? Only after I finished reading yet another book which promised to help, and sitting there with my sense of inadequacy and having been tricked (by myself), would the real questions be revealed. It wasn’t that I wanted “abundance” — I wanted what it took to get there. I know how to become abundant. I just don’t want to be a phony while I’m doing it. Neither do I want to use or exploit others in order to achieve my goals. After reading a certain number of these books, a few suggestions will be repeated and become a theme. You have to know what you want, for example. So the real problem isn’t how do I generate prosperity, but how do I uncover what’s inside of me that will take me there – and why is it covered up? How do I discover what it is that I REALLY want – and why don’t I know that at this moment? A person can get tangled up in this, so much for attracting the clarity you seek! I guess what I’m saying is that most of what happens to us is connected to what we have learned, are learning, or plan to learn. Sometimes, all we really need in order to be more deliberate in creating the life we want (or to being more actively psychic) is to KNOW OURSELVES — meaning, to learn more about ourselves. That’s the tricky part, and many of those books seduce us by hinting that it’s easy to work through that obstacle. Sometimes…but then not always. That being said, I want to say that once you clear our the inner obstacles, and examine and confront the ideas you believe about life that are holding you back, you can move ahead and achieve more. I see this as more of an society brainwashing thing than a spirit thing. Oh, and ideas (and guilt is an idea) about being psychic or expressing psychic abilities applies here, too. Do you think the spiritual powers that be really want us to languish for years and years before reawakening to our psychic selves in order to learn some kind of lesson? Aren’t those on “the other side” banging on our mental doors trying to get out attention, to get us to wake up and open the lines of communication so we can speed up the process of creating a greater truth — before it’s too late? Learning that your preconceived ideas about life are causing some of the poverty and lack can be an important and very helpful realization, because the skills you learn apply to everything in your life. I should listen to myself.
Brenda,
Good thoughts. It’s begun working for me, but only when I get myself tuned just right. It’s tricky. And one great truism is that what works for one will NOT work for all; hence, the fallacy behind the “teaching” of LOA. Those courses and books in general only increase the abundance of their creators and cause frustration for everyone else.
A friend asked me to give her my opinion on this thread and I feel much love from all who have chosen to be involded and interact with each other.
What is “love?” What is “God?” Why are you here? What is your purpose?” Four basic questions to live by and I will share my experience.
It was recently told to me that LOA is not something that you can choose to experience. It’s like choosing to live with the Law of Gravity. Stephan Hawking once said “I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.” So, how can people say that “(bad) things are thrown at them?”
LOA is going to happen. The part that stops people is the Art of Allowing. Going back to “What is God?” I asked a fundamental Baptist preacher this question, to give me the simplest answer he could. He looked down for 3 seconds, looked back up and said “Everything.” And that answer was perfect. God, the omnipotent being that has created all their is, was and will be, will never “want.” What works is knowing that after being created, the soul was told “You’re on your own, to make choices of inclusion or to be seperated from ME.”
Now, what is Love?” eHarmony states that it is a chemical reaction. Oh how limitting is that? Take a moment to define love as energy, universal energy. All matter is energy in motion. Some more dense than others. When you are sitting at a restaurant and all of a sudden, everyone from all the tables turn to look at the front door to view the couple that just walked in, the couple that are radiating with a glow, what is being observed? Love. Are they “in love?” Sorta. “When 2 or more are gathered in my name..” is what is being observed. We each have the ability to bring into our bodies universal love and allow it to flow from us as a beacon or even direct it towards someone or something. As each part of our chakra system is attuned to frequency, so is the ability we have to connect with other matter.
Why are we here? If we take “time” out of the physical experience, then we reduce the stigma of comparison reasoning. We are here to experience emotion and if we do not have the fullest expeience of that emotion, we will come back until we have had enough of it. It’s like eating ice cream. We can eat so much of it day after day after day until we say “Enough, I don;t want any more. I don’t like what it’s doing to my body.” The same with each emotion. In becoming a physicality, the soul is experiencing re-membering who it really is and its infinate abilities to create. It’s about the journey and not “Whoever has the most toys in the end wins.”
Do you KNOW fear? Can you feel it coming forward in your body and recognise it before it causes massive reactions of chemicals in your body or can you identify it and say to it before it takes you to a dark place “Uh uh! Not today. I’m see you. I’m going to lut you in a jar, on the shelf and take you out when I want to experience you again.
Which now leads to “the ride.” Why do people rise and fall from their succeses and failures? It’s about the journey. I am a chef and opera singer. I create and experience emotions in a grand way. Yet, I go bowling in leagues with “blue collar” people that use fowl language and are not in a loving place. I also watch football, which is a competitive sport, where there is always a loser. Why do I separate myself from being “in love?” It’s about the ride, the journey. For as I push myself into loving my work and going further into ability to create, to manifest, I also must withdraw and experience the lack of abumdance of being a loving person. This gets me back on the bicycle after falling and allows me to see from my mistkes how to peddle faster, how to rise out of the seat when approching a bump, to experience a greater “ride.”
LOA is here an there is nothing that can be done about it. How much will you experience today from your Emotional Escrow (that which you have banked to use in your future physical days)? Are you separating yourself from abundance? Are you worthy of prosperity? Are you emotionally ready?
Finally, language, spoken words are pithy to use in communication. Some of you may want to challenge my posting. That’s fine. I use the word namaste and respect and honor your perception of where you are in your journey. I choose to continue to share my love with all today, for there is nothing greater than to experience that while in this physical form.
Loved this article. I am an Indian and a Hindu, so have a horoscope. It says that nothing is going to come to me on a platter and I have to work for it. The past ten years of my life had tremendous challenges and hurdles because of Saturn. That is when I started viewing life in a philosophical fashion. I was told that whatever moderate success I achieved was mainly due to my willpower. I cannot but agree with that and your article reaffirms it!
Sometimes you have to learn the life lessons to fully value what you have and that is the truth!
vikas6,
Anna my life is a distance between the two places heaven to hell or hell 2 heaven.
But the earth is round so,from earth where is the path for heaven it have no conner,as we have race from center of circle which have same length to every point of round,God plays of it own,who have to ratate the earth.
I conclude that on 2 life we will pass through hell and heaven both.good,bad,on earth we r judge to take. It is bles or curse
please tel what should we do when 90% dream,saying,curse al come true when sleeping walking,talking,
Any time when i have a telecast by my brain,it is a bles.. For me i am helpless 2 my family,but 4 needy due to this outsider have positive.this is difficujt for the family
OMG!!! I’ve felt this way for a while about going through a learning experience and not being able to summon that ‘good’ that ‘ The Secret’ was trying to explain. I don’t feel so crazy now and yes I’m still going through my learning lesson because I’m stubborn.
Hi There,
This is a great subject. I read it last night and have been thinking about it all day. So I have to reply….
There is a time and a place for everything. Right now, I am very much into the positive thinking mentality. I find it is “fitting” with my life now and is working for me. There have been times, however, when things were falilng apart and the only answer (literally) was to pummel through things without rhyme, reason or affirmations. In fact, at that time, I was feeling extremely disillusioned by affirmations, simply because…
1 – I was not able to simply & abruptly cut “negative people and events out of my life that were not life-giving”
2 – I was not able to “take mini-vacations for myself to pamper and surround myself in positivity”
3 – The decisions I had to make involved breaking hearts (mine included) and I could not “lovingly accept the situation and move on joyfully”
Yes, Anna POSITIVE THINKING IS NOT SOMETHING YOU CAN DO ALL THE TIME:)
In fact, during that time, the positivity mentality was in fact keeping me in a bubble that quite honestly needed to burst, so that i could come out, and move through some healing that needed to happen. And make no doubt about it–it was HARD and there was very little support. I believe it was like that for a reason, a sort of “training” for my soul. Sometimes we are thrown into things and have no time to do much except drag ourselves through them. And there is no shame in that.
However, I do find, now that my life is in a better place (after having done the practical changes nessicary) I can use affirmations and positive attractivism as therapy and another kind of healing. I have been listening to Louise Hay and trully adore her work and ability to empower people to heal themselves. There are moments where, during the process of listening to affirmations that I am feeling open and vulnerable…when I am not able to accept an affirmation right away, I feel the anguish of rejecting “life” and all that comes with it. Then, there is work to do. I sit with that feeling, i move through it and I reclaim peices of myself that I have essentially abandoned.
For me, Positive Thinking/Law of attraction should be viewed as therapy. It is not enough to repeat things, you have to find out if you agree with the things you are agreeing with. If so, what are you willing to do for that which you want? If not, what feelings/memories does it bring up and why?
It is the same when you are dealing with wealth/abundance. I dont have a poverty mentality but I do have issues with money. The reasons come back to my own self worth and what I percieve that I am deserving to recieve. The problem comes when people seek the Law of Attraction to get away from themselves, to look externally to remedies that will fill up their inner void. In that case, it can be in the same realm of addiction.
When we are Whole and full of self love and appreciation, all that we need flows towards us. I have experienced this in the past so I know it is real. What I have a problem with is people forgetting its all about their inner state of wholeness and keep thinking about their next fix of manifesting(the image of the broken aura comes to mind for some reason)…
Thats all I have to say right now. I really enjoy your perspective and look forward to reading more 🙂
Elena
great post anna! most people are conditioned to be materialistic,so they can achieve just what the “real world” tell them they can achieve depending in their career or skills, one have to be creative and never say never, takes time to make a wish come true,but if one want hard and work hard it materializes, it’s not too hard,all my wishes come true, some not yet but I know that eventually they will this is what I do, I want it, I visulaize it and I release it into the universe and then I never go back to ask why has not happened?..instead I focus in my normal life being confident that sooner or later my wanting or wish will come true!…this may not work for everybody but it works for me. sometimes Im amazed how the universe put things together to make my wish come true, it;s a blessing to have this hability and so bad just a few use it!
I’m a total non-believer in karma, reincarnation, people choosing their lives before they live them and so on. The simple reason as far as I’m concerned that the LOA and positive thinking stuff is rubbish is that there is a great big world out there, full of people who do NOT bend to your will, whose behaviour is NOT dependent on yours, and who can have an impact on you that you cannot change or prevent.
The other thing I find totally objectionable about LOA is that it is a handy piece of victim blaming. It takes responsibility from the perpertrators of crime and puts it onto the victims – the ultimate “you were asking for it” attitude.
Yes, having a happier attitude is good for one, better than a negative outlook and can be literally healthier. But it isn’t going to stop banks throwing you out of your house, or bombs dropping if you’re in a war zone, or rising sea levels wiping out your country if you’re on a tiny Pacific island.
I believe that with enough faith anything is possible. Some things are easier to believe in attracting than others. How many people actually know what it feels like to have millions in the bank as a reference point to manifest it? I do agree that some people think they want something, but deep down they actually prioritise something else and are maybe unaware that the two things conflict each other… if one thing happened the other wouldn’t be possible any more… not in reality, but in their beliefs, so they hold themselves back. Lots of people fear change. Becoming a millionaire is a huge change for most people… unconsciously their fear is probably preventing them from attracting it.
I believe that a psychic sees what a person is currently attracting at the time when they have their consultation. I think these things can change.
Anna,
Good article! It is all relative. This is why we can’t possibly compare ourselves to others, even though society and others do all the time, for some sick reason. We are indeed all on different paths, full of ups and downs for which we need to be open to possibilities as they lie before us. We need to be aware of these and only through some circumstances that happen to us can we really do so.
So, this means that, contrary to popular belief, we are not penalized for experimenting with multiple careers or have to make up for lost time when we do so? I have been pondering this lately because what I thought I should go into and would bring me happiness did not and now I need to start over again, having wasted time in between. But, was this time realy wasted or was it well-spent, essentially? I was very sheltered in childhood and I needed to experience some things, according to life and where it led me. But, how do I account to the powers that be here in physical about the lost time, as I will be probed about it, or maybe not? What is your take on this?