law of attraction

Why is this funny?

“I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.”

Every time I relate that line to someone, they smile and laugh.

Why?

It’s a great example of a paraprosdokian. A paraprosdokian is a sentence where the ending comes as an unexpected surprise. Another example is this –

“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.”

I love how you can structure writing to make an impact. That’s why I wrote the book, Hypnotic Writing. But that isn’t the point of this blog post. Instead, I want to explore why the first paraprosdokian is funny, as it helps explain the Law of Attraction.

Most people believe God (or Divine, Tao, Nature, Allah, etc.) won’t grant wishes. That’s the underlying reason the above line triggers a smile. You can ask God for a healing, but you can’t ask God for stuff.  God isn’t Santa Claus. Not according to popular belief, anyway.

Deeper than that belief is the one that says while God won’t grant wishes, He/She will take away sins. God’s loving and understanding, so of course He can release you of your oops.

As a result of this thinking, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for what you want. At least, that’s how some people think.

That’s pretty messed up, isn’t it?

This is why I keep writing books, such as The Awakening Course and The Attractor Factor, to explore the programming behind what we think, feel, and do. Most of us are running on autopilot. We have no idea we are led by the nose by our mental programming or mindset. Our beliefs – mostly unconscious – filter reality.

I was reading the new book, Redirect by Timothy Wilson, and loving the idea of story editing the meaning we give events, until I realized the author was victim to programming he didn’t even see.

Read for a change

In his book, he blows the whistle on different causes or processes that he says don’t actually work. Early on, he takes aim at the movie The Secret.

He quotes me as saying the reason you have what you have is due to your thoughts. He apparently missed the part where I said you have what you have due to your actions. Thoughts are only part of the equation.

Glossing over facts because they don’t support your underlying message is a common way to communicate.

But it’s not real. Or accurate.

Again, it’s not the author’s fault. He’s as unconscious as the rest of us.

In the same book, the author suggests that self-help books don’t actually work, else there would be a stand out title in the field. That’s strange logic, but let’s run with it. In the same chapter, he mentions one of the all-time greatest self-help books, Norman Vincent Peale’s 1952 The Power of Positive Thinking.

How’d he miss that?

He also fails to mention such historic self-help treasures as Think and Grow Rich (been around since the 1930s), and The Magic of Believing (came out in the 1950s, still a classic today).

How’d he miss those?

On top of all that, he overlooks the fact that new cookbooks are published every week, and there are thousands of those in print, yet no one suggests “they don’t work.”

How’d he overlook that?

I’m not kicking the author’s shins, as I enjoyed his book and urge you to read it. But I am reminding us that we all have unconscious blind spots – even authors who try to help us see them. We don’t see them because they are unconscious.

The point of life is to awaken.

But how?

Paying attention to the results we get and then reverse engineering them to discover the thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and actions that created them, will help.

New book coming October!

My forthcoming new book, Instant Manifestation, explores all this. It reveals that what you attracted right now is based on what you thought and did a few days ago.

When you understand that process, you can redirect your thoughts and actions right now, to attract a different reality in the near future.

What are you thinking right now?

What are you going to do next?

Your answers will attract what’s just around the corner.

Choose wisely.

Finally, to swing back to our opening example:

“I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.”

Forgiveness is a powerful tool for transformation. But you don’t need God/Divinity to forgive you. You need to forgive yourself.

Manifesting what you want is a God given birthright, though you may not have known it until recently. You don’t need to ask God/Divinity to deliver anything to you. You need to ask yourself and your connection to All That Is for what is in your highest good to receive.

Now go forth and make your life miraculous.

Ao Akua,

joe

PS — Remember that an effective personal service to help you become more aware and attract more of what you want is Miracles Coaching. There are audio interviews and brief videos on the site to explain how it can help you, and you can register for a free consultation there, too. Go see http://www.miraclescoaching.com

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More and more proof for the Law of Attraction is being published. Recently I read The Science Behind the Law of Attraction. It’s a thin workbook but packs a wallop in terms of effectiveness.

It’s written by Srini Pillay, M.D., a brain-imaging researcher and Harvard psychiatrist. He’s written two other books, Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear, which I am currently devouring, and Your Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great Leaders, which I haven’t started yet but am excited to read.

I interviewed Dr. Pillay for my Hypnotic Gold members. (It will go out to members in September). What I admired is how evidence based Dr. Pillay is in his answers. He doesn’t speculate. He tells you exactly what science reveals with current research. This isn’t opinion. It’s fact.

Reveals Evidence LOA Works

When he declares in The Science Behind the Law of Attraction that the Law of Attraction is real, he says so from a point of authority, based on current research. The rest of his book tells you how to use your brain to best align with the Law of Attraction to get more of what you want.

Dr. Pillay draws on his experience as a Harvard psychiatrist and brain-imaging researcher to describe seven scientific laws that explain how the Law of Attraction really works. I found it fascinating.

For example. the mirror neuron system in your brain causes you (and others) to reflect the emotions you feel. As Dr. Pillay writes, “If you feel not loved enough and you put that out, you create a similar emotion in another person. You get back the emotions you put out.” In other words, you attract what you feel through brain activity.

This also helps explain in part why critics of the Law of Attraction tend to band together, while fans of it tend to unite, as well. Each group is attracting like-minded members through the mirror neuron system in their brains.

Again, the Law of Attraction works. We’re just usually oblivious to it.

Dr. Pillay says the future is unknown, so you can fear things won’t work out, or you can have faith that they will. It’s your choice.

It’s a choice that causes your brain to feed you supportive information. Fear the future and you’ll attract info to support the fear. Have faith in a positive future and you’ll attract info to support that choice.

The brain is a type of GPS system that delivers information from reality based on your preferences. It’s just that most of the time your preferences have been unconsciously running from a default setting.

If you haven’t been aware of what your default setting has been, you’re probably coming from the one programmed in you as a child from the sources around you (culture, media, religion, family, etc), and you’re probably coming from fear.

But that can be changed.

Visualization is an important tool to communicate with your brain. But the images need to be specific and emotional. Just “thinking” or just “imagining” isn’t enough. You need to get involved emotionally with the new mental movie of what you want to attract to engage the brain. This also primes you to take action.

As Dr. Pillay writes, “A recent study has shown that first-person imagery or embodied imagery (where you are totally in the situation you imagine) is much more powerful in stimulating the brain’s action center than third-person imagery.”

In other words, get into the mental movie of attracting what you want.

Don’t just see yourself attracting your goal; mentally and emotionally step into the experience of attracting your goal.

It’s the difference between watching yourself (detached) going out on a date or being in the mental reality of going out on the date. The latter is far more powerful in engaging the brain and turning it on to help you attract the actual experience in real life.

Obviously, taking action is still important. That’s probably why the word ‘action’ is in the word ‘attraction.’ But the seven principles in his book help “turn on” the action switches of your brain. As a result, naturally taking action becomes easier.

Again, Dr. Pillay’s book is based on the science of how the brain operates. This is important. The book’s subtitle states, “A Step-by-Step Guide to Putting the Brain Science Behind The Law of Attraction to Work For You.” Knowing his seven principles, and doing his exercises, can help you consciously attract more of what you want.

I endorse the book as well as Dr. Pillay. His books are in book stores, and of course at Amazon. (I don’t make a dime if you buy any of his books.)

What would you like to attract, anyway?

Ao Akua,

joe

PS – If you want to better understand the Law of Attraction, and learn advanced ways to use it in your life, be sure to check out Miracles Coaching.

Note: I wrote about more evidence for The Secret‘s Law of Attraction on this blog last year at http://blog.mrfire.com/scientific-evidence-for-the-secrets-law-of-attraction/

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Recently I met a fellow who once worked for a modern day enlightened sage. I won’t trigger any comments by mentioning names. There’s a greater lesson here.

The enlightened one lived in bliss.

Nothing perturbed him.

Nothing disturbed him.

Nothing upset him.

His bliss disturbed the people around him, though.

They wanted him to react to their drama. They wanted him to respond to their pleas, their emotions, and their stories.

But the enlightened one stayed happy.

And here’s the rub:

The awakened one was unable to run his business. He didn’t make decisions quickly. He seemed to wait for things to happen. Often they did.  Sometimes they did not. Eventually, the enlightened one went bankrupt. Of course, that meant nothing to him. He was still in bliss. But the people around him were, shall we say, miffed.

This raises an interesting question.

Just because someone achieves a state of awakening doesn’t mean they are bestowed new skills. If they couldn’t run a business before enlightenment, they probably can’t run it after enlightenment.

I remember meeting a young guitar wizard who was making all the news. As a guitar slinger, he was jaw-dropping and inspiring. But when I met him, he could barely say hello. His great guitar playing skills didn’t automatically mean he also had great social skills.

So what about bliss?

I joked with the person telling me about the sage that maybe all enlightened ones need unenlightened ones to run their business. And once they get enlightened, they should step down and let an unenlightened one continue.

But I was corrected.

My friend told me of another awakened sage who successfully ran a business. He was in bliss, unperturbed by others or circumstances; yet he continued to expand, grow, and build his business to colossal proportions. He was a Buddha in the Marketplace, so to speak.

I know another friend who had a teacher that said if you want to learn meditation, learn computer programming. Apparently programming takes focus, intention and discipline. Most of his students went on to become millionaires, as they were also taught to be marketplace meditators.

It appears you need both: meditation for the soul and marketing for the earth.

In my new online course, I  cover both. Go see http://onlinewealthsecretcode.com

Of course, it’s fine with me if you don’t check it out right now. My point is this: wanting spirituality is fine, but you also have to live in this world, which means you need to be a practical metaphysician, or a spiritual materialist. Giving up one for the other is the problem.

Just food for thought.

Ao Akua,

joe

PS — If you’re wanting to attract money online, using the Law of Attraction and Clickbank, while still welcoming spiritual development, then you might want to look at http://onlinewealthsecretcode.com

The other night a friend from years ago visited. He’s going through hard times and felt down on his luck. I wanted to help so I asked him to tell me his story.

He began by blaming his life’s downturn on the economy. He said outside forces were to blame. He knew all the right things to do, did them, and yet life just threw rocks at him until he broke down.

I listened and decided that to be of the best service to him, I had to put on my ‘tough love’ gloves and be a good coach.

“There are no outside forces,” I declared.

He looked stunned. I guess he was expecting sympathy. I gave it, but didn’t want to leave him there.

He quickly replied with, “Surely there are things that happen outside of your control that cause you to have bad luck.”

“You attract all of it,” I said, speaking as lovingly but directly as I could.

I added, “There are outside elements out there that can serve you or stop you. What you believe inside you is what causes one or the other to come your way. You set up attractor fields in your life. You attract the outside forces to match what you inwardly expect.”

“But how can I attract all of it when I’m thinking all the right things and doing all the right things?”

I then went into my explanation of how we attract based on our unconscious programming, not our conscious thoughts. I pointed out this is my current life work, explained in my recent books and audios, to teach people how they are attracting what they get based on their inner wiring.

Erasing limiting beliefs

My friend just looked at me for a second, trying to comprehend what I was saying.  He asked, “But why would I take a life that was truly blossoming and cause it to fall apart? I had everything going for me. I had just moved into a big house. Life was great.”

“I don’t know — as there are numerous beliefs that could cause such a thing — but you know.”

“I do?”

I then asked one of my favorite questions:

“What does this life experience mean to you?”

He didn’t understand.

“The meaning you give an event is the belief that attracted it,” I explained. “How do you describe what happened to you?”

“As bad.”

“I know that’s how you see it, but what does it mean that this happened?”

He didn’t know.

I decided to try a different approach. I sat with him, doing my loving coaching, being patient, and explained that at some point early on there was probably a shift in his perception, beliefs or life experience. I asked him to tell me about it.

He was quiet for a while. He reflected and slowly said, “I remember sitting in my new home and thinking my life is so wonderful, that I don’t want to lose all I had created. I was then driven to not lose it all.”

“There it is,” I said. “You were driven by the fear of loss. A part of you didn’t want to lose your good fortune. The thing is, we attract what we love and what we fear. That’s where all the emotion is, which fuels the attractor fields. You attracted the very thing you feared.”

We attract what we love and what we fear.

He allowed that insight to sink in.

“So I set all this up?” he asked. “I did all of this to myself?”

“We all do it,” I explained. “We are unconscious beings here to awaken. These harder life experiences are often there to jolt us awake. No one is to blame. It’s about taking responsibility.”

“But what if I do it again?”

“When you get the lesson, you no longer need the experience,” I said, using one of the popular lines from my book, The Attractor Factor. “You won’t do it again.”

“When you get the lesson, you no longer need the experience.”

We talked for a while longer. He was visibly more relaxed. He thanked me for spending such personal time with him and said he didn’t have people like me to talk to where he lived. I explained that I created Miracles Coaching for that precise reason.

“My own life didn’t transform until I worked with a coach,” I told him. “And that’s why I created Miracles Coaching; to help others.”

The point is, we are unconscious to the drivers in our mind that attract the outside forces we blame for our circumstances.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”  — C.G. Jung

The field of neuroscience helps prove that fact. You don’t see all of reality. Your brain filters what you see based on your unconscious expectations. You see what you are programmed to see by your beliefs. The outer world is a mirror of your inner world.

If you expect outside forces to help you, you’ll see opportunities.

If you expect outside forces to harm you, you’ll see problems.

Until we awaken, those unconscious drivers will continue to steer us down the road of life. If you’re happy with the results you are getting, enjoy the ride. If you’re not, it may be time to do something about it.

What are you going to do?

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS — One thing you can do is relax. You can now hear samples of healing music on my first music CD, Blue Healer, by clicking right here.

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For almost a year I held phone masterminds (at no pay to me) with a client. It was a win-win because we supported each other in our quest to be the best – or so I thought.

We “Nevillized” our goals.

We “What If Upped” our intentions.

We “remembered” our successes.

It was thrilling, energizing, exhilarating and wonderful.

But one day I told my client that I received another standing ovation at a recent talk. I was sharing my success with someone who I thought would be inspired by it.

He was silent.

I later learned he felt sick.

When I explored why, he said my success made him ill.

“How much is enough?” he asked.

Think about this…

As long as we talked about an imaginary success, it was fine. But when I reported an actual success, it wasn’t fine.

What’s the difference?

In my experience, it’s often safe to imagine what you want but not safe to actually manifest it. Obviously, there’s a deservingness issue there.

When success is out of arm’s reach, it’s fair to fantasy having it; but grasp it and now it’s real.

Do you accept it or push it away?

It depends on your comfort level with success.

And how much is enough, anyway?

At what point is success “too much”?

Who says a certain level of success is acceptable but more isn’t?

I’ve been saying for decades that you can have virtually whatever you want as long as you don’t need it. If you need something, there’s never enough. If you’re satisfied with this moment and just welcome more, than “enough” isn’t even an issue. You just enjoy life. You accept more because it’s joyful to do so.

And looking at this issue even deeper, doesn’t concern over “too much” reveal a belief in scarcity?

Leave Scarcity Thinking Behind

As I explained in my bestselling audio program The Abundance Paradigm, your perception creates your reality. You can look at life and see scarcity or abundance. It depends on your mindset.

Someone who thinks it’s possible to have “too much” success is coming from the scarcity mindset. That’s fine if that’s what you choose. Most of us don’t consciously choose it, though. And once you realize you have a choice, why would you choose scarcity over abundance?

How good can you stand it, anyway?

My client who confronted me about “How much is enough?” when I mentioned my standing ovation, was pulling back from his own potential success. Self-sabotage stopped him. He hit his comfort zone of deservingness.

Decades ago I was taught to be inspired by someone’s success, not jealous of it.

When I was broke and struggling, I learned to see someone driving the nice car or living in the nice house and feel proud of them and inspired by them. It made a huge difference in how I felt about myself, and released energy that I could use to build my own dreams. Today my success is real.

The lesson here is to go for your inspired dreams without reservation or explanation, surround yourself with supportive people who truly want your success as much as you do, and enjoy your adventure forward as every moment is the miracle you seek.

Steve Jobs said —

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” – Steve Jobs

There’s no such thing as a ceiling on good, happiness, deservingness or “enough.”

Unless you think there is.

What do you think?

How much do you deserve?

How much is enough for you?

Ao Akua,

Joe

PS – I am loving the bubbly music of singer Jem (Jemma Griffiths). Here’s her video for her song It’s Amazing (on her latest CD, Down To Earth), which is a great reminder of all that you can do in your life. Life is amazing. You are amazing. Enjoy.

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