Strong in Mind and Body
Where Did It Really Start?
Is the Law of Attraction Easy for You?
Strong in Body and Mind
The "Law of Attraction" had all of us thinking differently when we first read about it, didn't it? Were you as surprised as I was when you saw how it fit in with your experience?
The Secret, left little doubt that the "law of attraction" tapped into beliefs, hopes and even insights many of us believe we share without really knowing everything about how it all happens.
I remember being fascinated by how the film's contributors hit the notes of something I knew intuitively but had never put together completely.
Next came the bestselling book, Esther and Jerry Hicks' The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham, and my ideas about life and how it all worked were in a whirl of new connections.
But, as excited as I was, some unresolved issues remained. I wondered where the strength I trusted, mental toughness, fit in.
All the LOA guru's told us there was no need for it. Just learn to focus on what you want.
All that conviction was more hindrance than help. It kept you from "letting it in," as Esther Hicks claimed. You had to let your guard down.
The only discipline you needed was in staying focused on all the things you wanted in your heart.
Increasingly, a lot of us had trouble with that claim. If it was all supposed to be so easy, why weren't more people realizing their dreams every day?
More important, if we weren't supposed to use them, why did God - or Source, in Esther Hicks' universe - give us such extraordinary powers to think things through and make judgements based on experience and learning?
Were you as confused about the mixed messages as I was?
Religious Magic or Hard Core Experience
Dealing with the Law of Attraction
After you look at the situation for a while, you begin to notice that the law's greatest attraction is its ease and simplicity. Not much but effort is required.
The hardest thing Esther Hicks, the law's best know proponent, requires is "reaching for the next best thought." Holding a desired outcome in mind for a mere 17 seconds, she tells followers, and it begins to manifest.
Therein resides the real problem with the law of attraction, as pitched by Esther Hicks, who inspired The Secret, making a good chunk of change and drawing in new followers from it, and the dozens of imitators who eagerly set up shop, some even claiming to channel the same group of entities, Abraham, that Esther says she does.
The real problem is the elusive terms by which it's described. Advocates say the magic happens when you change your "vibration."
(When she gets highfalutin, Hicks calls it "your vibrational countenance.")
Yet, no one ever tells you what your vibration is. Defensive, practitioners leap to a laughable oversimplification of quantum physics:
"Everything's a vibration."
Well, no it isn't, but even if that described the whole equation, so what? How do you, also, a vibration, change anything?
A little mental agility tears this nonsense to shreds, which is why Esther Hicks and her imitators routinely tell their followers not to think too much. You might figure something out.
Like Attracts Like
The law of attraction philosophy is based on the general idea that like attracts like.
"You get what you think about."
Thinking about wealth attracts wealth in proportion to your clarity of thought, for example. The more you let its opposite, poverty, leak into your thoughts, the less effective you are in bringing in the dough.
And the reverse is true. Thinking about being poor causes you to stay embedded in poverty.
To take this a step further, consider that Hicks also claims that your actions are virtually meaningless. It's your vibration or thoughts that bring results.
The idea that you don't have to do anything certainly appeals to the spiritually lazy, but the surprising thing is that the laziness runs so deep, followers seem undisturbed by a lack of results.
Over several years of writing in this niche, I've repeatedly asked LOA advocates to share success stories clearly related to their practices. I have never gotten a single one.
Blame the Victim
You can see where the danger is. Despite the obvious appeal of personal responsibility inherent in these teachings, the idea that there is unmitigated truth in them suggests something else, a blame the victim strategy that goes to extremes.
So extreme is Esther Hicks philosophy that she insists that infants are responsible for for their own abuse and women for their being abuse. This is a logical extension, but how is that possible?
The infants absorbed and held their parents' negative vibrations, even while still to young to have a thought of their own. They brought it on themselves, an inescapable conclusion from the law of attraction.
You should assume the same is true for victims of violence at any age.
In a workshop in Buffalo, just two weeks after the September 11 disaster, she explained that the victims in the World Trade Center and elsewhere were all essentially suicides.
Taking it in a slightly different direction, Esther Hicks nodded in agreement when a workshop attendee prefaced his question by saying that his friend "gave himself cancer."
Any person with the mental toughness to face reality straight on is sickened by these teachings and turned off by anyone who defends them.
As for the law of attraction followers, confronted, most just go into denial about these teachings, much like Catholics deny the truths of the Inquisition and Scientists deny the science of eugenics that led to the Holocaust.
Unfortunately for all of them, the facts are on the record.
Thinner, Leaner, Stronger, Tougher
How-To, A Powerful Mind
The Importance of Mental Toughness
Evolution of a Thinking Brain
We aren't necessarily better, but we are certainly different than any other species in terms of having brains that facilitate objective thought. We've conjured plenty of bad things with them. The pending disaster of global warming is a good example, but for the most part, our mental toughness has consistently made the world better, at least for human.
- We've extended our average lifespans to limits inconceivable a century ago.
- Not only do we live longer, we live better, healthier lives.
- The pain of infant and juvenile mortality from illness has been vastly reduced, making childhood less risky as our immune systems develop.
- Exploration has opened up new lands, including extraterrestrial, that allow a fast-growing population places to grow.
- Softer social sciences have shown us how much all humans have in common, giving us a start toward real equality and fairness among peoples.
There's more, but you get the picture. Our mental prowess has shown us that we can be masters of our universe, with effort, in time. We've already come a long way in the short history of modern humans. A belief that, whatever goes wrong, whatever challenges we face, we have the right stuff to survive and prosper fills our thinking with hope.
A crucial failure of the law of attraction crowd is that, if their beliefs are true, none of this happened from effort or ingenuity, but from passively changing whatever vibrations are and thinking the the next best thought. Pride of achievement is nothing when you can win by sitting on your couch and focusing attention on winning the lottery.
Contrast: Mental Toughness vs The Law of Attraction
Who wins?
At its core, following a belief is the law of attraction is a form of surrender, a refusal to be fully human.
Is there a grain of truth in the law of attraction? Of course there is and more than a grain, too.
That's what makes it so appealing and so dangerous.
You take a wisdom we all seem to have and twist it for a profit by leaving out the challenging parts, the things that take real effort and conviction. It separates people between elites in the know and victims, and it relieves them of empathy.
After all, those others put themselves in harms way, didn't they? They gave themselves sicknesses and put themselves in physical danger by offering the wrong vibrations.
Mentally strong people will have none of this. A thinking mind doesn't rely on selected facts to justify a belief in magic. Mental toughness gets results or changes approaches. A strong, thinking mind doesn't rely on a guru who claims to get messages directly from God for truth. It seeks it independently, freely and openly.
Most important, mental toughness teaches us the importance of sharing our human community. The so-called law of attraction divides us between haves and have nots.
In case you're not convinced... - Books that say the law of attraction has legs.
The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham
Law of Attraction: The Science of Attracting More of What You Want and Less of What You Don't
The Law of Attraction vs Mental Toughness - Where do you stand?
Which opinion fits you best?
- Dave, you've got it all wrong. LOA rocks.
- Mental toughness is where it's at, Jack.
- There's gotta be a middle ground, and you missed it.
- Give me some beer and good old rock and roll and forget who's right.
- I have my own opinion, and I'll explain it below.
Original article and pictures take www.squidoo.com site
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