What the Law of Attraction Is Missing
I am, in general, a fan of the LOA, but sometimes people use it as a “spiritual bypass” - an attempt to avoid necessary psychological work by escaping into a false spiritualism.
If you have a history of childhood trauma, your brain learned to adapt and cope by finding some mechanism by which to avoid feeling all the feelings that occurred during the trauma - so your little self could survive. It could be one or several of many things - denial, addiction, fantasy, obsession, workaholism, perfectionism, co-dependence, etc.
So it occurs to me that for folks like us, The Secret and the Law of Attraction stuff can be another means of escape. By promising this superwonderland if you just focus hard enough on what you want, and avoid thinking about “negative stuff”, it encourages a tendency that is already ingrained, and unhealthy. It’s exactly the opposite of what is needed for healing. Healing requires the confronting, accepting, re-experiencing, and integrating of the painful “negative” emotions that were repressed - and it will never happen if you are trying to avoid “negative” feelings. They will still be there - and they will run you until you process and heal them.
I think “positive thinking” is helpful - depending on the spirit in which it is done. Affirming ourselves as whole and capable and that we can create healthy and vibrant lives for ourselves is good. It creates positive pathways/habits in our brain to replace the dysfunctional ones. But if I use “positive thinking” to run from or avoid the negative, I won’t heal. Instead, I think what is needed is to create a safe, healthy container within which to embrace and heal the past hurt - and that work will finally heal the wounds and create the lasting wholeness, happiness, and freedom that everyone seeks.
The message of never feel bad again or get everything you want encourages running away - or it can easily be interpreted that way by a brain that wants to or has trained itself to.
Which is not to say that the Law of Attraction isn’t true, or isn’t helpful. Just that the way it is sometimes portrayed won’t really bring happiness if healing is required. First you heal, then you transcend. You can’t transcend what you haven’t healed - it just doesn’t work that way. (And believe me, I’ve tried). Having gone through that merry-go-round a few times, I have developed an appreciation and humility about the power of healing and the lessons that can are learned by walking through the darkness - not trying to run from it, even if you are running towards the light. The darkness will still be there until you face it and integrate the shadow side - i.e. “come to terms with it”.
Good/bad, positive/negative - these are dualistic poles. True peace emerges - naturally - after you have experienced and accepted both as part of life. And you don’t have to work night and day at it - it is the peaceful confidence that only comes from having confronted the “negative” that is inside you. You’ve walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and you’ve survived - and thrived. It didn’t kill you - in fact, you found a piece of yourself in that valley. You brought it back home with you. You now know that you exist everywhere - in the dark and in the light. This is the true spiritual homecoming that the Law of Attraction work is talking about (I think).
I don’t think it’s possible to experience this without having experienced and accepted your shadow in a “dark night of the soul” type of experience of some kind - walking through the underworld and emerging into the daylight. And I haven’t seen a book or article (yet) about the Law of Attraction that acknowledges this journey, or the need for healing and acceptance before a “negative” experience or emotion will truly be released - rather than just repressed.
Besides the one-sided nature of the LOA, there is also the issue of effectiveness. Repressed psychological “stuff” has a lot of energy that counteracts “think positive” efforts. To be effective with the LOA, you need to dig a little deeper. I think our core beliefs have a lot more to do with what we attract than our surface emotions.
This is how I look at it: the Universe is abundant. To be able to receive and transmit Divine love/creative energy/the good stuff, I just need to clear out whatever is in the way of receiving it - whatever is in the way of connecting and living in the present moment. And that’s what spiritual traditions have been teaching throughout time. It’s not a secret!
We can all be vibrantly alive and happy. Here I discuss the ideas and tools that will get us there.
A very interesting point. The argument that always trying to think positive prevents you from experiencing the full spectrum of life and learning is not one I’ve heard before. I think it’s got some merit.
The point I was expecting from your first sentence is the more standard critique (which I myself have made) that the “Law of Attraction” seems to say that victims of genocide, abuse, rape, theft, etc. deserve and are responsible for their fate. If you actually believe the fact that you get what you should — as the law of attraction suggests — an abused child is somehow responsible for her own abuse. I just find the whole idea so abhorrent that I can’t take anyone who talks about “the Law of Attraction” seriously.
Hi David,
Well that critique, at least, I can shed some light on. The concept of this kind of responsibility is at the soul level, where the concepts of “deserving” and “fault” don’t apply. It’s not saying that as a child I “deserved” to be hurt - it’s saying that as a soul we choose many, many lifetimes and some of them involve a great deal of pain. We learn, over time, to clear the Karma, etc, that draws that pain to us. It’s not a very “fair” system, I agree! But understanding that reality is what eventually helps us undo that cycle. That is the only sense of “responsibility” that is true - it is not about fault or blame or “deserving”.
It’s the larger Self, the soul - not the child, the small self - that, for some reason, draws to it experiences of being a victim. I believe this is because ultimately, after going through that kind of pain and healing from it - eventually, and this is a lot of work! - you understand and experience that it didn’t in fact injure some essential part of you. Sometimes the way we finally experience our larger Self is to be stripped of everything else.
This doesn’t mean it’s fair, or fun, or that a child “deserves” it. And I have often wondered, do the lessons have to be this hard? That is a mystery - why this system of learning involves so much pain. But I do understand, but only *after* going through the healing process, which involves a lot of “it wasn’t my fault” work - that I am bigger than what happened to me. That there is part of me that is vast and in that part of me, the experience I went through was just one of many experiences. But that perspective is something that comes after truly integrating the experience. It’s NEVER something I would use to blame someone in pain or deny or minimize their experience. I think when this happens, it’s out of wanting to deny negativity, as I mentioned in my post, not to offer an embrace of all-that-is, positive and negative. People who use the Law of Attraction this way indeed sound like they are blaming the victim. But I think that’s more a reflection on the healing they haven’t completed, that they are avoiding. They don’t want to feel the pain of their own victimization, so they minimize other peoples’. That’s different than saying “I know it hurts. It was awful. And I also know that you are bigger than this.” That is empowering, not diminishing.
The pain itself is experienced at the child’s level - whether it is drawn by the soul or not, it is experienced as a child, and that child needs healing first, before the person can experience the larger Self and understand that there might be a Soul-level context for what happened. And I say “might” because this is something that everyone gets to come to on their own. I know what I know, from my experience - but that doesn’t mean I have the corner on some Truth. We all get to figure out what is true for us - and it often changes as we grow.
I would *never* use the awareness I have come to as a way of judging or blaming someone in pain. That pain is real, and the child self needs to hear and understand “It’s not your fault”. And that is true as well. The child self has no idea about Karma and cosmic lessons - it is just in pain. And yet, when the person helps the inner child to heal, a larger awareness of the Soul-level context often becomes accessible, and in that context that the Law of Attraction makes sense.
So it’s something of a paradox. When is a victim not a victim? When they are actually so much more than that experience. But that understanding is so misused if it comes across as blame.
I hope someone reads this. I can’t find a forum where I can discuss LoA honestly. This is the beginning of the disgusting aspects of this philosophy. In terms of this discussion, I can’t really even follow it all right now. About all I can say is that I don’t see what I’ve learned from pain. My soul knows? Right — another version of religion where all the pain will be explained AFTER you die. Very convenient. I’m looking for something more concrete in THIS life, not a bogus answer which tries to hide that it’s really saying we don’t have a clue what’s going on. Well just admit it then.
I would like to approach this a bit differently. I’ve been through a lot of things which don’t help and the LoA does seem to help to some degree. At any rate, I do need to have hope in something, and LoA gives you hope in hope. Strangely (for other reasons, some of which are outlined by you guys), it actually works some of the time! My question is about the times it doesn’t work, or you can’t work it. What do you do about that? Facing pain also doesn’t work. How can they be integrated? Does anyone have any ideas?
Though that is my basic question, there are things I’m leaving out regarding this topic though that brought me to this site that are not coming to me easily right now but which do dovetail with the issues and questions you guys have posed. I will just take a wild stab at posing my major dilemma as I see it. I have a certain degree of unhappiness that has always been with me. It’s been called childhood trauma. Whether it is or isn’t, both this trauma and my lifelong unhappiness seems to be caused by my SENSITIVITY to both good and bad things. Does that mean I’m doomed to experience this level of unhappiness forever??? It would seem that my capacity for happiness should be equal, and it is in a way — however unhappiness always spoils happiness, whereas the happiness that overcomes it comes hard. The LoA tells you to focus on something good — but the fact that you are at least in your bed at night does not make up for the fact that your Dad hits you in the morning. The fact that you’re able to meet new people, and that amongst them may, conceivably, be someone who loves you does not make up for the fact that your parents didn’t.
I don’t think I presented very much of a lucid argument, but I am just wondering how to use the LoA under these circumstances which are mine.
Hi Hannah,
Thanks for reading and reaching out.
I agree that the fact that you have a bed doesn’t make up for your Dad hitting you. That, in essence, was what I was saying in my post. That “good” doesn’t erase “bad”.
I also want to say that my childhood trauma wasn’t healed through Buddhism or the LoA but through emotional work and therapy. I think that spiritual paths are awesome, but sometimes we need psychological help first or else we might not get the healing we need and use spiritual teachings to try to escape the pain. Which isn’t wrong, it’s just not effective. Compassion and griefwork heal trauma so it’s not like knives jabbing in your heart every day. It becomes something in the fabric of your life. Then you start being able to understand it on a spiritual level. That’s impossible to do when it’s still jabbing you. That pain is saying “HEY pay attention to me! I got hurt!”. It won’t let go until it gets to say what it needs and you can listen with compassion (as an internal wise parent). You can make up for your Dad - by being a better Dad to yourself.
I hope this comes across just as what I’ve gone through that helped. It might be different than you. I’m not saying it will necessarily be this way for you, and please, use what works for you. That is, I don’t want to just hand out advice, I am just explaining what worked for me because my childhood also sucked.
So, I wasn’t saying that I think I’ll learn from my pain after I die, I was saying that I’ve learned how to be with my pain in the present moment, and learned that while it hurts, it is not the end of me. So what I’ve learned from my pain is
a) that all humans suffer and that’s what connects us and teaches compassion
b) that who I am is a being who experiences pain, but is more than that pain.
Neither of these is about an afterlife. They are about right this moment, this life I live today.
There is something inside me, beyond and underneath the pain, a stillness and a calm peace, and that knowledge only came through sitting with the pain and talking with it, being with it, crying with it.
Through Buddhism and other teachings, I have began to understand that suffering is part of life, but there is also a way out - but it’s not through hope of escape from the pain, but rather through a deep willingness to be present to yourself with compassion.
Unhappiness does not spoil my happiness anymore. They are like waves in the ocean. Sometimes you go up, sometimes down. The ocean is still there, under you, supporting you. And I am so happy about that! It’s unbelievably happiness-producing to be able to feel that support.
In the truest sense I think that the LoA is about that ocean. That the Universe supports us all the time whether we recognize that fact or not. Using the LoA is about being able to deeply believe consciously that that is so, and trust it. I think it’s more about letting go of the blocks or beliefs in scarcity then really having to “focus on good things”. That’s because I think the Universe is essentially abundant.
I hope you find the answers you are looking for, here or elsewhere.
Emma
Thanks for writing about this openly Emma. You have touched on many interesting points I have not seen raised elsewhere. I really like the ideas in The Secret/LoA but like others who have commented here I have questions about it that I need to work through. Have you read “Conversations with God”? That seem to dovetial neatly with the LoA and provides an interesting and cogent framework around the whole good/evil/meaning of life questions.
@Zern
I have read a little of the Conversations with God series, specifically “Tomorrow’s God”. I don’t recall off the top of my head his take on LoA but I remember resonating with a lot of what he says. He was in The Secret though, so I guess he agrees with it LOL.
Yeah, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the LoA too.
I look for the interconnections between frameworks - seeking a grand unification theory of the sacred. =)
Something about the LoA rings true - but I don’t know quite how to connect the LoA and things like Jungian archetypal/mythic stuff and the writing of people like Bill Plotkin, which ring true in a deeper, more soul-stirring way. I’m still trying to feel out what the connections are. I’m guessing the LoA is something that has some fundamental spiritual principles in it, but has been distorted by a kind of wishful-thinking/greed which is not based in spiritual truth at all. Maybe it’s a stage of development, like Ken Wilber lays out.
“a grand unification theory of the sacred” … I like.
I will check out Bill Plotkin etc. Thanks for the pointer.
I spotted an interesting diagram on the Oprah show recently - but was not in a position to properly listen to what was being said. It was a show about the LoA.
The diagram consist of 3 concentric circles. the outer ring was labeled Shallowness, the second ring The Ring of Fire and the inner most ring Core (or something like that). What I got was this: if we were to ask for something out of fear (or lack, or greed) then we are operating at the outermost ring. The point is to get to asking from the Core. Where we ask without but then surrender to faith. Something like that. I did not get what the ring of fire was. And i cant seem to find a link to it…
@Zern
Found it:
http://marthabeck.com/blog/?p=48
The Ring of Fire is the emotional “stuff” you have to go through to get to the Core of Peace.
I like that - it’s a lot more concise way of explaining what I was saying. =)
Very interesting site I found:
http://www.feelgoodgirl.com/taxonomy/term/21
Emma, thank you so much for this post. As far as I know, you’re the only writer who addresses the connection between LoA and deep healing, specifically the need to heal at a soul level before applying LoA in other areas of our lives.
I’m a former addict. I’ve also been studying intention and manifestation for over a decade. The addictive behaviours I harbored felt like “shadow” for a very long time, until I realized that in fact I used alcohol to avoid that dark night of the soul. Applying LoA to heal old wounds is an ongoing, sometimes painful - but ultimately rewarding - process. At this point I’ll take feeling whole and safe *any* day over, say, manifesting $1million.
Yes, i’m sure that at some point I’ll feel interested and ready to apply LoA to other, more “external”, areas of my life. But, bottom line, I have bigger fish to fry at the moment.
Anyway, thank you so much for posting this. I’d be interested to read any insights you might have regarding fantasy, which you mentioned briefly.
Kind regards,
Matt
@Matthew
There are a few people, but not many. The Martha Beck article (a few comments up from your comment) frames it that way.
I like the distinction you are making between the shadow and the addiction as the mask or avoidance of the shadow. I think it’s easy to think of addiction as a “shadow” thing, because it’s intense and uncontrollable, etc. But real shadow work is about confronting our true power, our true Self - and the wounding around that, the suppression, the pain of reclaiming it.
It makes me wonder about the movies that are made quite often about drug use. As a culture we are fascinated by addiction. But it’s like - we’re missing the point somehow. Fascinated by the mask, but not the power and truth behind it? The reasons for the addiction in the first place, they never seem to be explored. Hmm.
Fantasy, yes, my first big means of escape. I spent my childhood dreaming of a better future. It’s been something I’ve had to force myself to stop cold-turkey on several occasions because it got so painful to be so disappointed by reality because I had built up a fantasy and lived in it. It leads me to a lot of “shoulds”, expectations, anger.
I now try to ask myself “What did I expect this moment to feel like?” when I notice myself in disappointment or upset about what the present holds. I’m still working with it.
If you wanted to talk further about fantasy or more specific thoughts on it, feel free to contact me - there is a contact form on the upper right menu under “Pages”.
Thanks for reading and commenting. =)
Emma