I’d like to speak to The Law Of Attraction for a moment; a theorem that has boggled my brain for quite some time, and for quite a few reasons. If you’d like many of those reasons addressed, I suggest The Miracle Club by Mitch Horowitz. Great read from a great mind. Mitch quotes Heather Barry Kappes, a management professor at the London School of Economics: “Imagining a positive outcome conveys the sense that you’re approaching your goals, which takes the edge off the need to achieve.” And you know what? To a certain extent, I believe she is right (emphasis on certain extent) and here is why:
Imagination puts you in a relatively timeless position, where you can conjure the past, and the future. In visualizing a desired future (after extensive study and practice, I highly suggest utilizing methods of hypnosis), you are essentially experiencing it in the present. You are granting yourself the pleasurable feelings of whatever that desired goal will bring.
Say for instance, since I live near the boulevard of broken dreams, you have the goal of being a “star,” and I ask you…”how will being a star make you feel?” and you answer “well, I’d feel special, powerful, happy, loved…” and then during the visualization process you grant yourself those feelings in the present. You allow yourself to experience every bit of -special, powerful, happy, and loved- because why the fuck wouldn’t you give yourself permission to have all of that, now? This is where Heather’s point rings true... for some, giving themselves the permission to have those feelings that the “said goal” would bring them, is all they actually need. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Wires get crossed and we think we desire a goal, when in actuality what we desire is the feelings we think the goal could potentially give us. Sort of a recipe for disaster. With that said, this is where discernment comes in. From this space of hypnotic visualization, after giving yourself permission to feel these feelings, you have a much better understanding of what it was you really wanted all along. Was it purely the feelings you believed the goal could give you? Or was it both the feelings AND the experience of living the dream itself.
This was a massive wake up call for me. Once I realized that all I really wanted was to feel empowered, and loved...the idea of slaving myself to a broken system didn’t seem appealing in the slightest. It was only through that awareness and lucid clarity that I came to understand what I TRULY want to do with the gifts I’ve been given. And once clarity hit, nothing could stop me, and visualizing the feelings of attaining those goals, in the present, only lit the flame that much more. I shifted from infatuation of the attainable to an unconditional love that watered and nourished the seedling, daily.
So... this is where Heather, in my opinion, is wrong. When you resonate at the frequency of “empowered” and “loved,” (or anything for that matter) the universe has a tendency to acknowledge your truths in ways that affirm them. -Be the change you wish to see- seems all the more palpable. From this understanding we can begin to live the life we -actually- desire. And may we always grant ourselves the desired feelings, now, so that regardless of outcome, we are living, and reverberating the dream. It will only hinder the need to achieve if it the need was illusory to begin with.
Ciscandra Nostalghia C.H.t of The Temple Of Solace
Mind Body Coach, Hypnotherapist, Reiki Master, NLP Master, and creator of Neuralchemy™
