The choices and actions that we make every day often contradict the intentions we hope to manifest. If you work with law of attraction, you’re probably accustomed to working with vizualization and affirmations. But you need to ensure that choices, behavior, and actions also support your intentions. If I participate in needless hostile or negative situations, I contradict my intentions for harmony, peace and freedom. By refusing to engage in situations where I might have experienced a reaction at one time, I support my affirmations through my choices and actions.

Let’s take a common example, and I’ll try to expand on it to show ways that we contradict our intentions. As you read, I hope you can relate other situations.

When you are in traffic, do you allow the car in front of you, containing some anonymous driver you will never see again, to come between you and your inner peace? Do you exert any thought or energy aimed toward their driving skills or about their lack of thoughtfulness, intelligence, or sanity?

When even minor irritating situations such as this arises, you may go into an instinctive and automatic emotional reaction. The more thought, attention and focus you put into it, the more energy you send senselessly in that direction. You place importance on what should be an insignificant incident by virtue of the amount of energy expended in thought and emotion. Either eliminate the underlying thought that caused your reaction, or simply remove the habit. Habit can be changed, and the thought can be eliminated. Then, events like this will cease to bother you.

The law of attraction states that it will bring to you objects or events upon which you focus. The more focus and energy you put into those thoughts, or intentions, the stronger the force. So, in this scenario, you would have sent a lot of energy into the Universe, requesting similar hostile situations to occur.

Here’s what you’re saying to the Creative Force in the previous example: "I like strife in my life. It is very important to me how people such as this think, behave, and drive. I focus on this, because it is important to me. I’ll think about it while it’s happening, and it’s so important, I’ll continue to think about it for a few more hours. I will talk to other people about it. I might even want to memorialize this event and put it in a journal! Give me more people like this to think about."

Is that where you want to place your focus? Free will exists in this great diversity on the planet, and there will always be inconsiderate drivers, and inconsiderate people in general. That driver has the right to act as they choose, and you can choose to what extent you include them in your life through your focus. Let them pass through for a few minutes, and then be gone. Do not give them power to disturb your inner peace or take any precious thought or energy.

When unimportant or undesirable people or situations appear in your life, you can simply choose to dismiss them. When you obsess, you have decided to include them as a significant part of your life. Simply observe and dismiss.

If you frequently react in such situations, you need to ask the following question: "Am I going to let you [whoever your block or irritant] come between me and my freedom, peace or growth?" In that moment, it should be clear that you have the ability to make a choice about what your reaction will be. You may find that making the choice to reject your reaction is difficult, but only because you have developed habit. Over time, this practice will give you control of your thoughts, emotional reactions, and even adverse physical reactions. The first step is recognition that you have choice. It may surprise you to know that these changes are not only possible, they are certain to happen if you stick with this work. And in the future, events such as this will not bother you. Make the choice, and own the choice. A cumulative effect occurs when you take control of your life events and choices. The more you exercise your strength and will, the greater control you will have over each event and reaction, every single time.

You may feel that you would not want a situation like this to disturb you if you had choice. But when it occurs, ask yourself this question: "Am I willing to let go of this reaction, right now? Can I allow this person to cut me off, beep at me, give me the finger, without a judgment on my part?"

You might just find that you feel justified in your reaction, and that you LIKE your reaction. You feel entitled to it. Perhaps you even feel they deserve it. People often make the mistake of engaging unnecessarily in hostile encounters, believing that they are defending their boundaries. These same people often fail to protect themselves when a situation truly calls for it.

If you follow the above process, and find that you feel justified or simply like your reaction, you have become aware that you are making a choice each and every single time you react.  Fear, anger, rage, rejection, hate, or any negative emotion you feel in response to an event or person can be turned off by your own request. Since you allow it, you can disallow it. Like knowledge of all choice, this is empowering!

At some point you learned that you needed to judge people who crossed your path. Rather than dismissing people or events that should be unimportant to you, you give them significance by your focus. When you judge people and focus on them, you include them more in your reality. "Give me more of these people. I like judgment, and I want people I can judge." So the Universe complies. It always does!

Once you’ve made the choice to dismiss or reject your emotional reactions and your judgments, inconsequential people and events will cease to be an issue for you. You will learn to focus only on circumstances and people that you desire to include in your reality. Then, the Universe will stop presenting these unwanted situations. The rare person who crosses your path will be observed, and dismissed.

Here’s the alternative. If you want to include them in your life, continue to judge their driving, their lifestyle, their relationships, the way they look, their religion, their hair color, and the food they eat. When you do that, you give them importance. If doing so enhances your life in any way, promotes your growth and intelligence, or brings love and prosperity, then it’s certainly worthwhile. Otherwise, notice that you would be contradicting any request or prayer you have made for more positive experiences.

And you should ask yourself why you continue to exert precious energy on these experiences. What do you get out of it? There has to be a payoff somewhere, or you would not do it. Does it provide justification that your belief systems are correct? If you find a persistent belief underlying your emotional reaction, you need to examine, and be willing to dismiss that thought, whether it pertains to bad drivers, ignorant women, callous men, inconsiderate bosses, or an uncaring government. And as much as you feel justified in that belief, you have to ask whether being right is more important than creating something different. Remember that the principles of law of attraction tell us that our thoughts will draw matching circumstances. So these underlying beliefs we hold onto will cause these very events, over and over, until we are willing to change, or let go of, these beliefs.

In some cases, people simply operate on autopilot. They feel their emotional reactions and judgments are normal and expected, and don’t question them. They may not like those encounters, but don’t know any other way of handling life situations, big or little.

Know that while your goals may be of a more positive, loving and peaceful nature, your own beliefs, actions and focus will continue to bring undesirable events to you, serving to oppose your positive intentions. Action conveys your serious intent to the Universe, not a few stated affirmations. So what are you really asking for? You may be keeping your desires from manifesting.

When you put energy and emotion into situations that you do not desire to include in your future vision, you also waste creative energy and power. As you put emotion behind the words and thoughts, you add power to them. Emotions take thought and roll it into force. Thought is a spark of electricity. Emotion behind it is a bolt of lightning. Use your power of emotion wisely. Put it where it matters. When you want to make clear intention to the universe, use thought, word and emotion to back it up. Learn to follow through with choice and action on each of your goals of intention.

For a large group of people, the law of attraction does not have as much power as they would like. They wonder why they cannot manifest conditions other people have and wonder why. First of all, understand that it’s very possible that the author of the law of attraction book that you read, or the creator of the cd-series you purchased, may not have even succeeded financially prior to teaching the concepts. Many coaches and teachers develop a more free and prosperous lifestyle creating and selling books, cd-sets, leading seminars, or coaching. They aren’t teaching concepts they learned through their own personal experience. Further, some of the original New Thought authors of prosperity teachings who had acquired wealth using the principles, later found themselves in hardship or even destitute. So, you are not alone.

It may appear that law of attraction is not working for us for a number of reasons. Negative beliefs held in either the conscious or subconscious mind affect our ability to manifest intentions, regardless how strong our desires. The subconscious mind always has the final say-so on which conscious thoughts have creative force. If, by prior learning and experience, the mind perceives a thought or intention untrue, it will not manifest. Deliberate creation requires clear intent, free of any opposing thought, in either the conscious or subconscious mind. This challenge pushes us toward growth. We should meet this challenge with willing commitment.

Next, universal and tribe consciousness restrict us in manifesting our intentions. No matter what we may personally believe with even absolute conviction, the beliefs of the groups of which we are a part will present limits. If you think about the diversity on this planet, you have to admit, this is a good thing!

And last, our "soul plan," as many refer to it, may restrict us. You can resist your path, and people sometimes spend a lifetime stubbornly resisting what they came here to do, especially if something else looks better or less painful. You will find that you are most guided and facilitated in following your path. When your life is in alignment with that higher plan, you find peace, happiness, and satisfaction. The only way out is through.

This also means that sometimes you’ll find yourself in difficult life circumstances which contradict your positive intentions. When you attempt to manifest conditions contrary to this grand design, you will find your path fraught with difficulty. When you desire conditions that align with your soul plan, you will find that powerful universal law supports you in every way, and those intentions easily manifest. If you encounter blocks, could it be that you are attempting to manifest a reality that is part of someone else’s vision? It may look good to you, but you have your own road to travel. You cannot skip needed lessons to get to that higher place in your vision. If you have a positive and clear vision, it is not only possible for you to achieve that, it is your destiny. But you must move through the difficult times, and learn the lessons to get there.

Many people attempt to manifest conditions using law of attraction, only to find that they manifest signs, words, or images, rather than the situation or condition. Especially if the situation involves money!  Why does it seem so difficult to manifest some green paper? In spite of the often quoted "there is no order of difficulty in the universe" statement, usually cited to illustrate why it’s as easily manageable for the universe to manifest one million dollars as one dollar, that logic simply is not true. It sounds good, so those of us with wishful thinking like to repeat it. Money is not just an object. It’s an entire concept, or ideal.

Consider this. Imagine that you acquired an acre of land, perhaps with the intention to grow trees. Then, you saw that your neighbor, who owned thousands of acres, was able to grow a million trees on his property. Would you consider it reasonable for you to manifest one million trees on your small plot, even if you had one million seeds? So, all of sudden, because you became aware that there are unlimited seeds in the universe, and people growing lots more trees than you, you decided you wanted more trees than you could possibly fit on the land you had purchased and prepared. But you do not have room for all those trees, given the allotment of land you own. You need to set about acquiring more land, which requires much work on your part, before you can manifest the fruits of your seeds.

The Prayer of Jabez expresses desire for abundance in this way: "Oh that Thou would bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast [territory]."

Open to expansion first, and then your holdings will increase. You cannot do this in reverse. 

If a large amount of money came into your life, many of your current problems would simply vanish. Money would remove much stress, irritation, anger, and lack. It would defuse many potential problems and challenges. It’s almost like a "get out of jail free" card. So if manifesting money would remove conditions that provide learning opportunities for you or changes some necessary condition, you will not get it. Period. The only way out of your conditions is through. This means, do the learning, overcome the challenges, and move to the next level of your growth. Perhaps a larger plot of land is there and you can manifest your millions.

I would not argue that some have manifested wealth using law of attraction, but I’d suggest thousands, or more, have not! We know that very non-spiritual people manifest great wealth also. I wouldn’t imagine they practiced the ingredients of love and appreciation, which current law of attraction teachings suggest is necessary; rather, one likely finds a less altruistic approach in their affairs. Maximum and quick profit and greed seem to be more commonly practiced methods of operation in business today. But we’d likely find unwavering persistence and commitment, resilience to failure, wise money management, patience, and enough self-belief to allow the required risk, key traits for success. One could say they were lucky, but perhaps they were guided by intuition while manifesting their vision. Certainly, if we believe in law of attraction, we must believe that at the core of their thinking, self-made millionaires believe they deserve, and can achieve prosperity. And if they were in alignment with their soul plan, we could go so far as to say, the universe fully supported their intentions of wealth by providing opportunity.

Know that difficult conditions exist for the sole purpose of bringing you towards the highest of possible realities–freedom, love, light and abundance. No soul plan denies anyone this. It is our soul’s urging that we grow to accept these conditions. Just remember to move willingly through your challenges. Only your resistance holds you back from reaching your highest attainment. You cannot skip necessary steps to get to the next level.

Nothing outside of yourself prevents you from attaining your goals. Cultivate commitment, patience, and a postive mind-set. While you may encounter blocks when attempting to influence elements outside of yourself, law of attraction works infallibly 100% of the time on internal shifts and goals. In other words, what you think you are today, you will be, tomorrow.

 

A necessary first step in learning how to use the law of attraction to your advantage is to recognize your responsibility in creating your life so far. As you become more fully aware to what degree you shaped your life through past actions and choices, you see that you have control over much of your life experience. When you consciously acknowledge control, you empower change. On the conscious level, you begin to monitor and choose thoughts as well as actions that best serve you. Through the force of law of attraction, these thoughts will manifest positive results and opportunities that will validate the real power of law of attraction.

If you believe that luck, karma, coincidence and chance have created your life, you reduce or remove your power to effect positive change as well as your motivation to do so in any committed way. Recognizing how you’ve shaped your life through your own choices and actions forces you to see how powerful choice really is. You begin to see how often you chose a course, whether or not you realized you had. You need to stop and review your life up to now with an honest and open attitude to recognize just how much influence you have had in shaping your life.

When you arm yourself with this awareness, you begin to see opportunity for choice where previously you did not. You begin to use discernment and guidance to make wiser choices and to take positive action that will move you toward your goals. In this way, you cooperate with universal law to effect productive change.

Your subconscious lays the foundation for a spectrum of choices and conditions. Then your conscious mind, operating within that framework, directed your actions, which brought you your job, your home, and the people with whom you surround yourself. You may have had negative thoughts regarding some of these possible choices, and yet, you still decided, through your own individualized thought process, to take the action that brought about the results you see. Different actions would have produced different results. So we see people from similar backgrounds, even from the same family, achieve widely different results, simply as a result of making different choices.

Mental activity, or thought, on both the conscious and unconscious levels, fuel action. For example, before you took your job, you thought of applying for it. Those thoughts then caused you to act to acquire the job. Your subconscious, or unconscious thoughts, also played a hand in your decision to act. These programs or belief systems instilled long ago fueled thoughts regarding the type of work or career you should choose, the level of income that you receive for your work or where your talents lie that would provide you with income. Consciously you may not agree with that belief system, wanting instead to earn a larger income or choose a different profession, but as long as your core beliefs remain untouched in the subconscious, they have huge influence in your life on many levels.

If you are married, you accepted a marriage proposal or gave it. You consented by spoken word, and took action when you walked down the aisle. Regardless of how much thought you put into it, and admittedly, few people put as much thought into it as they should, you expended mental energy and focused on the result, which caused you to take action. At the same time, your subconscious mind provided material for your conscious thinking, by supplying the thought systems regarding love, marriage, and what type of mate attracted you. You might even have had conscious objections to your current mate, or you might have received instinctive guidance that you did not honor. You were driven by the thoughts contained in your subconscious.

Belief systems, programs and patterns within the subconscious fuel thoughts. Thoughts fuel choices. Choices drive action.

But, the content in your mind becomes critical when you factor in law of attraction, which states that thoughts attract matching events in the outer world. So, all of your thoughts have creative potential, even the ones that don’t give rise to choice or action on your part. Negative beliefs within the subconscious serve to oppose conscious goals, and also, in and of themselves, have the power to create undesirable conditions simply by attracting them. So these subconscious thoughts have much more power than your positive conscious intentions. This is a key point to understanding why you see the results before you.

The subconscious has a very powerful role in creating your life. It serves as judge and jury on every desire that you want to deliberately manifest. Any intentions or thoughts that the subconscious finds to be untrue by virtue of prior learning will simply not manifest. Second, the subconscious forms a basis for your natural conscious thought patterns and choices. You feel comfortable staying within the boundaries the subconscious sets. Your conscious mind can learn to, and should, dismiss any limited or negative thinking that the subconscious, trained by a lifetime of experiences, will want to impose.

Underlying negativity affects your well-being, restricts your freedom of choice, attracts undesirable events, and limits the opportunities that are drawn to you. When you release these negative beliefs and programs, you become empowered to create a positive and healthy reality.

Set your goals and visions in place and act on them. The universe provides opportunity. It is your choices and actions that set events in motion. By working with law of attraction, you will effectively learn how to increase the positive opportunities that come to you and eliminate or reduce unwanted experiences. Evaluate the choices and actions you make on a daily basis. If they contradict your intentions and desires, you need to commit to your own goals. Remain mindful of your thoughts and the tone of your mental environment, and if there are thoughts out of alignment with your vision, dismiss them. Through repetition of positive affirmations and beliefs, you change negative mental habit. Focus and have faith in your vision and support your goals in every way.

While many people who have heard of law of attraction hope to use this powerful concept to attract better financial conditions, others feel that it is wrong or even evil to want money. Is there a right and wrong way to view wealth?

Remember the saying “money isn’t everything?” Well, let’s consider that. You can’t live without money. We’d like to think relationships and our health take priority over money, but it’s really pointless to debate. Without money, we can’t live in today’s society, much less maintain health or an optimal love relationship, so the argument is rather circular.

Money plays a huge role in modern life. Until we start bartering fruits and vegetables for land, shelter and other necessities, that will remain the case. Our well-being, health, and relationship possibilities and stability, not to mention basic survival needs, all depend on our financial condition. Yet many don’t know how to manage their money. While companies no longer take care of even long-term employees’ retirement, few know how to invest for the future. Today we know we cannot lean on Social Security for retirement, and unfortunately, even if you become unable to work prior to retirement through disability or illness, it will be difficult to collect SSD insurance to cover your economic needs while you are unable to work. Ask anyone who has applied for SSDI.

Let’s refer to Wallace Walles’ philosophy on wealth, in The Science of Getting Rich:

"There is nothing wrong in wanting to get rich. The desire for riches is really the desire for a richer, fuller, and more abundant life; and that desire is praise-worthy. The man who does not desire to live more abundantly is abnormal, and so the man who does not desire to have money enough to buy all he wants is abnormal.

“There are three motives for which we live; we live for the body, we live for the mind, we live for the soul. No one of these is better or holier than the other; all are alike desirable, and no one of the three—body, mind, or soul—can live fully if either of the others is cut short of full life and expression. It is not right or noble to live only for the soul and deny mind or body; and it is wrong to live for the intellect and deny body or soul.

“We are all acquainted with the loathsome consequences of living for the body and denying both mind and soul; and we see that real life means the complete expression of all that man can give forth through body, mind, and soul. Whatever he can say, no man can be really happy or satisfied unless his body is living fully in every function, and unless the same is true of his mind and his soul. Wherever there is unexpressed possibility, or function not performed, there is unsatisfied desire. Desire is possibility seeking expression, or function seeking performance."

Today I agree with Wattles, although that was not always the case. I once believed that money did not have the power to affect my level of happiness in a particular moment in time. Because of life experiences, I now have the view that the more money available to you at that moment in time, the easier it is to maintain inner peace and happiness. And the optimum life provides for more than mere existence. Abundance will enhance your life and open the possibility of many positive experiences. So while you seek freedom in the spiritual realm, you may reasonably seek freedom in the physical realm. Inner peace and serenity is the by-product of your spiritual growth and transformation, and abundant conditions in the outer world will complement and enhance your inner sense of freedom.

Prosperity is a common desire and intention for students of law of attraction. When they fail to manifest prosperity, they may believe that law of attraction does not work for them. Sometimes conditions may even worsen. While law of attraction undeniably works and we easily manifest in other areas, we’re often left struggling with the issues most important to us, such as money.

The law of attraction states that all thoughts, conscious and subconscious, draw matching circumstances, and not just our positive intentions. This tells us that we are responsible for attracting our conditions, whether they are conditions of poverty, or conditions of wealth. So, examination of our beliefs should reveal that although we desire abundance, we don’t believe we can have it for one reason or another.

We can usually trace our beliefs regarding money back to ideas learned in childhood. While we routinely see images of the fun, comfort and luxury a life of wealth brings, most of us received conflicting negative messages, instilled a long time ago, both about acquiring money as well as having it. The set of learned concepts, along with our life experiences, provide the foundation for a set of  beliefs that form  "wealth consciousness" or "poverty consciousness." This determines the extent to which we can manifest prosperity in our lives.

If we observe children in action, we see that they usually believe they can have, and do, anything. They know what they want and usually believe they will get it! Any parent can testify to this. Instead of nurturing this zest for life and passionate desire for attainment, many parents, and later the school system, tend to quash it, to prepare the child for the "real world." Taught to work hard and not expect too much in return, the individual is well-trained for a lifetime of unsatisfactory labor!

Think about the messages you received as a child. Did you receive positive messages about work or career? Did your family treat work simply as something you had to do as a distasteful necessity? What about the alternative? Your mentors could have encouraged you to explore your interests and find your native gifts so you could enjoy your life’s work while getting paid.

It isn’t really those who work the hardest who acquire wealth, but many believe that a secure life necessitates hard labor. Limiting fears of not having enough keep them from finding and exploring their true passion, or purpose, thinking that it could not afford adequate income.

Purpose is the activity you would want to do whether or not it earns income. Since you need money to live, you are able to invest time doing that which brings you happiness. But, for many, natural interests and talents fell behind in childhood. Notice that the hobbies and interests you might have felt drawn to at one time provide someone else an income. While people continually resist exploring natural talents out of fear they cannot bring in a sustainable income, you can always see someone else making a living doing it!

Now, think about other messages you received about money. Did your church or your parents discuss the sin of wealth? Did you receive any messages about the value, integrity, or goodness of a person who was well-off? In what type of environment did you grow up? Did you have to clean every crumb off your plate? Were you warned not to leave a light on when you left the room? Did you worry about the supply of heat, water, air conditioning or electricity? While economic conditions within the family may have demanded budgeting, many people receive so much unnecessary negatively-charged information about money, they are set up for life to struggle with financial issues.

Unless you have put conscious energy into changing those default thought patterns, you probably have manifested a reality that matches those ideas. To stop your thoughts from creating a financially difficult life, you must gain control over your belief system. We cannot turn off law of attraction! It’s at work, whether we like it or not.

Many people attempting to manifest money easily find signs of money, read about money, or perhaps find small money, such as change. Few actually succeed in using law of attraction to change the big picture. Money encompasses many conditions, making it difficult to intend. If you received a large amount of money, your life would undergo vast improvement. Much stress would be removed and your freedom would increase substantially. Current law of attraction teachings neglect this, saying "there is no order of difficulty in the universe."

You may have to work on numerous issues before you see an improvement in finances. If it is part of your soul plan to work on other issues in order for you to grow, desirable conditions will not manifest that would remove those challenges. That means you’ll need to deal with painful issues that need resolution before you succeed in manifesting your financial abundance. In this way, law of attraction will not rescue you.

You must dedicate time, effort, awareness and energy to change your current beliefs. You need to examine what beliefs, conscious or subconscious may interfere with your ability to draw abundance. For some people, using tools like subliminals and affirmations, might suffice. If money really challenges you, you might have to do deeper work to look at the underlying issues surrounding areas of life relating to money.

I do not agree with current teachings that advise you to spend freely to pretend that you have already manifested prosperity. This may work for some, but it will not work for most. It will be destructive if it does not work, because you will have spent money frivolously you may later need, putting you in a state where you feel more deprived and fearful. "Believe it and you will see it" is a motto that must follow “know thyself." Know what you can achieve with your belief systems, and with some honest and aware scrutiny, your abilties, before spending resources you may need. If it doesn’t cause financial hardship, and the items you invest on provide you with motivation, then do it. Do not do this blindly, on someone else’s advice, or because they tell you that it will work. While a few testimonials may tell you this method worked, thousands more can tell you it did not.

I believe that it’s far more important to attain the prosperity mind-set or wealth consciousness, regardless of what is in your bank account, what clothing you wear, what car you drive, or whether or not you can afford a vacation. True healing and resilient change comes from within. In other words, you must feel lovable before you will be truly loved, you must feel capable and healthy before you will heal, and you must feel deserving and rich inside before you will attain wealth. Deeper healing requires removing feel-good illusions. Illusions often prevent people from authentically having what they desire.

Be prepared to commit the time necessary to change a lifetime of beliefs. With patience and awareness, you will get there. In the process of doing so, free yourself of restricting concepts that keep you from true inner freedom. When you’ve accomplished the inner work, your outer manifestations will be that much sweeter and more enjoyable!