The Law of Attraction Handbook: How it Works and How to Use It – by Todd Schaefer

The Law of Attraction Handbook: How it Works and How to Use It – by Todd Schaefer

Part I

(This article is based on the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.)

We’ve all heard of the Law of Attraction (LOA), but how does it work? How can we make it work for ourselves? Is it hype, or is it truth? How come the LOA seems to work so well for some people, but not for others?

In this article, I’ll deeply investigate the truths I am learning about the LOA primarily from teachers Esther and Jerry Hicks and Abraham through reading various books, CDs and learning through my own teaching. In Part 1, I’ll list the four things that I believe block us the most from having what we want. In Part 2, I’ll list some quoted notes from Abraham and I will provide explanation. Let’s learn together how to consciously create the lives we want to enjoy. Join me on the adventure!

How We Block What We Want

Abraham-Hicks states, “We don’t apply the LOA to our lives. It applies ITSELF to us, like the law of gravity.” Our lives are the summation of what we will ALLOW in each area of our lives. If we think the LOA is not working for us in some way, it is likely because: 1) we don’t want it, 2) we block ourselves subconsciously, 3) we are mind-identified, or 4) we feel lack.

1) We Don’t Want It: Do you see anything in your closet that at one time you wanted but you don’t want it anymore? Sometimes we think we want things but we really don’t. When we want things and get bored with them quickly when we get them, we merely wanted them at a mental level. We want things with our minds often, but not necessarily with our hearts. The mind is compulsive and gets bored. It soon wants something new. The mind is like an impatient child that makes continual demands, forgets about it when it gets what it wants, and soon becomes distracted with the next want. But if we get our hearts into what we want and FEEL what we want, then we’ll know that we truly want it. If the good feeling lasts well into attracting it, having it, and continually appreciating it, then we really wanted it. Don’t confuse this with merely purchasing something. I’m talking about attracting something into our lives because it is a desire in our hearts to receive it. This is different from something that arrives into our lives because a mental impulse gave us the compulsion to go out and buy it. Here’s a small insight: the things that we want with our hearts and feelings are the things that we truly want.

2) Subconscious Block: It’s harder to spot these, but if we ask for something, and eventually we find that our path gets a little sticky, it may be because we are trying to show ourselves that we need to release something in order to have what we want. If we are willing to examine what arrives into our experience, we may find a link to why we won’t ALLOW ourselves to attract and have what we want. For example, we may want something at the mental level, but in our subconscious feelings we are afraid of having what we want. Or maybe we say we want what we dream about but we are afraid making that dream a reality. Whether conscious or subconscious, the blockage will be a fear of some kind. Be mindful of this. Ask yourself if there are any fears that you need to release in order to move forward, and allow them arrive into your awareness to be experienced and released. (See “About Releasing Resistance” located in this article.) Consider enlisting a conscious friend to assist you in releasing the blocks quickly. During the process of experiencing and releasing the fear, remember why you are releasing the fear – because you want to ALLOW more good things to come into your life.

3) Mind Identified: When we are mind identified, we rely on mind impulses which we mistake for true heartfelt feelings. That’s what I mean when I say that we feel with our minds and not our hearts. Do you think that we really feel in our hearts that we want fast food three times per week? Our heart feelings don’t want that. Our bodies don’t want that. But the mind does want that fast food. Curious, isn’t that? When we are mind identified, we are stuck in mental wanting. These are ego impulses that promise lasting freedom but only deliver a short moment of relief until the next compulsive want arrives. This is a smokescreen to keep us from having what we truly want.

4) Lack: This is the big one. We don’t know the difference between creating from lack vs. creating from desire. Let me explain. When we’re mentally identified, meaning relying on mental impulses to get us through life without really feeling in the heart, we experience what we want usually with a root feeling of “lack” behind our want. Let me explain. If we feel that we don’t have something that we want, that wanting feeling comes from feeling like we don’t have it – which is lack. The lack feeling is usually the underlying feeling doing the creating. Our minds say that we want it, but we feel that we don’t have it. You see, we are confused about what desire is because we are creating from lack. We think lack is desire, but lack merely produces more lack. Desire is appreciating what we have and feeling good like we already have what we want. If we feel like we already have what we want, then we are feeling good inside. This feeling good inside about feeling like we have what we want is what desire is. On the other hand, feeling like we don’t have want we want is called lack. So you see that trying to create from a feeling of “not having,” even when we say we want it, produces more “not having it.” Creating from a feeling of feeling good that we “have it,” or that we feel good because we know we will have it soon produces “having it.” Whether we use lack or desire to create, we are still creating and the LOA is still working perfectly.

Part II

“Anytime you want change and things are slow to change, you’re simply giving more attention to what is instead of what you want.” -Abraham

Energy follows attention. If we’re putting our attention on what we want, and what we want FEELS GOOD (not compulsive), then we’ll attract more of that good feeling and the good manifestations that follow good feelings. We must feel good about what we want in order to have GOOD things manifest. If we focus on what is, when we’ll get more of what is – whether we think that is good or not good. It’s easy to see that nothing is more important than our feeling good if we want positive change. Isn’t that refreshing?

“Allow, Allow, Allow. Don’t look for the substance that will bring it. Look for the feeling of it now.” -Abraham

Waiting for something to happen before we can feel happy will not work very well with the LOA. We have to feel good NOW in order for it to work. Find a happy thought, and build on it. Let’s not look for what we have to do now to make us happy later. That puts the happiness out in front of us and robs us of our attractive power. Instead, let’s find a way to feel GOOD NOW. If we feel good now, we are attracting now. If we’re working to feel good later, then we’ll feel good later. If we keep working to feel good later, we will never feel it because later can never be now! It’s always later. Choose to feel good now.

“You only need to ask for something once and then keep focusing on feeling good.” -Abraham

The asking need only happen once. It is how we decide to feel that brings it to us after that. We don’t even have to focus on what we asked for! All we have to do is ask once, and then focus on feeling good, even if feeling good means thinking and feeling good about things that are totally different from what we asked for. “Feeling good is the work. Use any excuse in the world to feel good (Abraham-Hicks).”

“You can have 100 things that you want, not think about any of them, think and find one thing that makes you feel happy to think about, give you’re undivided attention to it, and all those 100 things will come to pass quickly.” –Abraham

Pretty awesome how that works, isn’t it? As mentioned before, energy follows attention. So let’s put our attention on what we want. And if what we want feels good, then it’s on its way to us. It’s on the way much more slowly when we start “going after it” instead of “allowing it to attract.” All things come when we’re feeling good.

“Negative energy means that the Source within you is not willing to go there.” –Abraham

All negative energy is merely misalignment with Source which always resides within us. Those negative feelings do not mean that we should dig into them more (unless we feel good about releasing them). The negative feelings merely mean that we are not in alignment with what we want, not in alignment with our inner Source, and not in alignment with feeling good.

“Reach for and develop an appetite for the better feeling thoughts. Warmer = downstream. Colder = upstream.” –Abraham

Abraham talks a lot about a river as an example of allowing. Which of our thoughts and actions are upstream thoughts/actions (pushing/forcing), and which are downstream ones (allowing/receiving)? The ones that feel more “flowing” and not resistant are the ones that we are in alignment with and are best for us to do to have what we want. Since there is more intelligence in our feelings than in our thoughts, living from the downstream flow of our feelings will produce greater positive results.

“Life is an emotional journey not an action journey, so you’re listening to how you feel, not taking score of the results. A successful day means everything that I did today, I felt good while I did it.” -Abraham

Listening to our feelings determines our quality of life. If we have the courage and trust to follow them, we will not falter. It can be a challenge when we do not understand why we are led in a particular direction, but as long as it feels good, we can trust that what is happening IS (in fact) for our highest and best good. Those who have the courage to live from their heart AND trust/follow their inner guidance while creating are those who tend to end up with both inner and outer riches.

“If you’re feeling good, you’ll be inspired to the action that will lead you to where you want to be.” -Abraham

Let’s choose a feel good thought, focus on it, and then allow that feeling to carry us through our day. This is a form of aligning with our Source within. When our thoughts and feelings are in alignment, we naturally feel good. Feeling good is the RESULT of alignment within our being. When that happens, we receive more thoughts and feelings in the direction of that alignment. That means that when we are feeling good, we begin receiving “inspired actions.” Inspired actions are internally motivated actions that come as a result of feeling good. They are natural. When we perform the inspired action, we are quickly moving in the direction of receiving what we want. This is the meaning of the “Be, Do, Have” principle. If we “be” it, we "are" it and we feel it. If we feel it, we’re guided via inspiration on what to do. If we’re guided on what to do, we’ll have it. Let’s not attach to the results of our actions, and let’s not judge what we are guided to do. We want to stay in those "feel goods." Remember the warmer/colder principle? We can use that as a guide to stay on target. Remember, feeling good equals alignment with your inner Source.

“The thing that has prevented me from moving forward is my condemnation about where I am.” -Todd Schaefer

This quote of mine means that without accepting my present moment, I can’t move forward in my life very easily. Accepting my present moment means feeling good right now. If I can’t make peace with what is occurring in my life NOW, I can’t easily feel very good about moving towards what I want to have in my life. While in non-acceptance of my NOW, my future projections tend to be based in LACK because I am condemning the NOW with my feelings of lack right now. So, if I am condemning where I am or what I am currently doing because it’s not where I want to be, then I will keep attracting more of the same thing, which is "not liking where I want to be." If that’s what I keep choosing to feel, I will remain in that cycle because I am never allowing myself to feel good. I am merely projecting my current lack into the future to create more lack. If we want positive change, it MUST start with choosing feel good thoughts and feelings.

“All you have to do is want to feel good and be willing to find something that does feel good.” -Abraham

Willingness to feel good is a key to finding something that will feel good. The following is an Abraham exercise. If we have chosen to feel better, we can follow any thought that comes into our minds and mentally note, “Does this thought feel better or worse?” If it feels worse, we can try a new thought that does feel good, perhaps a simpler one if necessary. When we find a different thought, we can ask ourselves again, “Does this thought feel better or worse?” If it feels better, we can ask ourselves another thought that we think might feel good. If we practice with this we will teach ourselves how to develop positive momentum and change our state from negative to positive or from positive to even more positive.

“When we try to make too big of a jump, we don’t make it. When this happens, we need to just feel good about the steps we take now. The good feelings create the momentum for attracting more good things.” –Todd Schaefer

I’ve fallen into the pitfall of biting off more than I could chew and ultimately fell short. Why? Because I sacrificed feeling good about my now in order to feel good later. Sacrificing the NOW to feel good later is based in LACK. It tends to attract lack via the LOA because we are feeling lack while working towards our future goals. This is why doing what we love to do is a recipe for such great success. Because if each step feels good, we will continue attracting steps that feel good and attract even greater results. Future feel good goals are great if we feel good during each step along the way to them, but future feel good goals which don't feel good during each step along the way we rarely reach because there is little attractive power in not feeling good. Some call these "pipe dreams," which, to me, merely indicates that a potential future of abundance cannot yet be reached, but only because the current state of feeling lack prevents it, nothing more. Feeling good right now is what creates a future of feeling good, not the other way around. Too much future and not enough present equals little attractive power. Alot of present and little future creates alot of attractive power. Let's put our focus into feeling good in the present and we will attract great things. This is because "future" is simply a NOW which we have yet to experience.

“When you make peace with where you are, you turn down stream easily. Having peace with where you are always leads you in the direction that you want. Don’t resist what is, accept what is, make peace with the now.” -Abraham

Acceptance means that you are not resisting where you are. It means that you feel good about the present state of you as you are. You are feeling good with where you are sitting; you are feeling good with what you are drinking; you are feeling good with playing some music. Anything that creates “feeling good” is something that creates more of what you want.

“You don’t deactivate a resistant thought by activating it. You deactivate a resistant thought by activating a positive one.” -Abraham

If we fight resistance, we resist. We don’t need to give resistance any power by activating it. We can simply choose a positive thought instead.

Understanding How Resistance Operates

Resistance can be a tricky thing, but it’s also simple. Resistance is merely what covers up a fear that is not yet ready for release. When we feel resistance, it’s good to choose a positive thought instead whenever we can. Yet sometimes there is a need to express and release our resistance before we can access positive thoughts. It’s great if we can shift into a positive thought and good feelings with relative ease. If we cannot, it may be beneficial to express our resistance in order to release it and - you guessed it - feel better. It’s never a good idea to repress or “put gold glitter on” our resistance by burying it and turning it into passive aggression. When we do, we make the resistance more unconscious, and that’s NOT what we want. Making things unconscious through avoidance and repression gives unconsciousness more power.

Healthy Release

Resistance CAN be expressed non-violently by talking with a consciously present friend, by punching a bag (not a person), by crying it out, by screaming into a pillow, etc. These forms of expression of resistance are beneficial when they make us FEEL BETTER. By feeling better, I mean that we feel more balanced, relaxed, cleansed, relieved, peaceful, and/or calm afterwards. Feeling better does not mean making someone else feel bad.

Unhealthy Release

Expression of resistance will not be beneficial when it strengthens the resistance itself. Resistance is any form of negativity such as: resentment, anger, irritation, annoyance, complaining, gossip, frustration, passive aggression, condescension, judgment, etc. Indulging in any of these forms of negativity which leads to feeling "tighter" or more negative is NOT releasing resistance, it’s strengthening it.

Resistance is repressed fear. Some forms of repressing resistance which are often mistaken for releasing it are misuse of: alcohol, verbal or physical violence at another person, sex, drugs, also escapism and avoidance. Some people may feel they can only relax or “be themselves” with the use of alcohol, for example, and this can be somewhat true to an extent. Alcohol may relieve the social and mental anxieties of life, but in the context of “being more YOU,” creating and attracting from your heart led good feelings and guidance will be infinitely more productive than using alcohol as a substitute to relieve resistance. After all, the resistance repressed by alcohol usually has a way of resurfacing, and many times, within the same evening. You might not choose to eliminate alcohol (and the like) altogether if you enjoy it, but simply be aware of how you are using it if you wish to create positive change in your life.

“Use action to improve vibration.” -Abraham

Using our actions to feel better is what taking action is truly for. When we do things that make us feel better now, we attract more things that make us feel better. We allow things to arrive that we’ve asked for. Feeling good is saying “yes” to the Universe. Feeling bad is saying “no” to the Universe. If we feel good on the inside, change happens easily on the outside. If we feel bad on the inside (even if we work hard on the outside), change happens more slowly on the outside. When we feel good, we are in alignment with our Source within. Then we are vibrant with light and energy. When we live from the inside-out, we feel good about ourselves. Even if stimulated by an external source, all true change will only occur from the inside-out.

“You don’t have to give up one thing to have the other, you can have it all.” -Abraham

Our feeling good supports us more than any way our minds alone could try to manage because are feelings come from our inner Source. When we live from our Source and from our heart, our life takes on new dimension and color. We live in the present. We smell, feel and touch with incredible vitality. Our relationships light up because our light attracts others. Our work enhances because we are practicing greater service by choosing to feel good. We ask, we allow, and the Universe decides “how.”

“Don’t seek healing, just seek relief. Don’t seek improvement, just seek relief. Don’t seek solution, just seek relief.” -Abraham

We don’t need to be more improved; we don’t need things to be fixed before we can feel good. We can choose to feel good now (without chemical assistance), and the things we believed we had to do in order to feel good will transform or melt away. Then we will naturally lead ourselves to greater service and happiness because we are using the LOA to live a heart centered life.

“Practice feeling better about all things. Get happy, and then all things will come.” -Abraham

Our choice and allowing of feeling good is our recognition that Universal Law can work through us, and our belief that we CAN have what we want in life. This is thinking and growing rich.

“It’s natural to be happy. Find something that makes you happy and fixate on it. That is the answer to all things. It’s the answer to getting everything that you want.” -Abraham

We are the masters. Let’s practice fixating on what makes us happy. We’ll learn about us. We’ll learn what we truly want. We’ll learn what we don’t want but thought we did want. We’ll become more conscious creators. We’ll learn that the power to change doesn’t come from the mind, but from the ability to feel good. We’ll live a fuller life. Let's always check in with our feelings for guidance and choose to feel good. Spirituality is just that simple. It’s easy, have fun with it!!

c2009 Todd Schaefer http://www.soulsolutionshealing.com/

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