A Missing Piece that Most "Law of Attraction" Advice Leaves Out
Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash
If you’re interested in things like energy and spirituality and have spent any time consuming popular media on these topics, you’ve probably come across the concept of the “law of attraction.” LOA. The idea that we attract things into our lives through our thoughts and feelings. This is a pretty popular notion out in woo-woo internet-land. For the most part, due to some pretty remarkable personal experiences, I’m a believer.
Even if you’re a believer, though, it’s not that difficult to start poking holes in a lot of the assertions and advice out there about this "law." The movie The Secret, for instance, rather glaringly leaves out the part about how – sorry, guys – we do, at some point, have to take action to achieve our goals.
Another weakness is that much LOA-focused content pretty readily promotes hedonism and materialism. No disrespect if you like nice cars or vacations – enjoying wealth in and of itself doesn’t have to be a terrible thing. But we can probably all agree that a hyper-focus on “getting stuff” isn’t the most beneficial way to approach life.
Then there’s the fact that LOA articles and sound bites usually more or less ignore questions about some very real limitations of human existence. I, for instance, would enjoy the ability to sprout wings prior to my daily commutes so I can bypass streets and highways during the summer months here in my home city of Minneapolis, where it is said that we have two seasons: winter and construction. But Secret be darned, I’m not going to spend too much time thinking and imagining on that.
All of the above and more criticisms have quite reasonably been put forth by observers of the LOA media trend. Perhaps in future writings I’ll explore these, but for the time being, there’s a different issue I’m interested in. As a reiki practitioner, I first want to address this: the role of healing in allowing us to align with, and therefore create or attract, the things we need for our highest good.
The oft-present need for healing is a crucial concept that a lot of LOA advice leaves out. Because yes, being in a mind state of optimism and acceptance is a powerful way to attract circumstances conducive to positive external change. It’s just that for most people, it’s not that easy to flip a switch and become happy and positive all the time, no matter how much you believe it will work.
This is particularly true if you’ve been through some experiences in the past that left you with memories, scars, and old protective habits that are keeping you in an overly-cautious, don’t-hope-for-too-much state of mind, which of course describes . . . everyone. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t fit that description in some area of their life.
We carry these negative patterns not just in our minds, though. We carry them in our bodies and in our energy systems.
As within, so without. Whatever the state of our energetic body is internally, we’ll seek and attract and recreate circumstances to perpetuate the energetic patterns we’ve built up inside ourselves. Getting yourself into the right “attraction” mindset can’t be achieved and sustained until you’re able to disrupt your energetic patterns. You must get the flow of positive life force energy (prana or chi) in and around your body going again.
Most of the things you do for your physical and mental health affect your life force energy, too. We think of talk therapy, or just a good venting conversation with a compassionate friend, as a way to release our emotions and change the ways we think about difficult situations. What we don’t always realize is that when we feel relief after these conversations, it isn’t just on the mental plane. A corresponding change to our energy flow has also occurred.
We all know that physical health and balance can be a strong contributor to mental and emotional well-being. Therefore, doing things like eating properly for your body, exercising, and taking steps to identify and address physical ailments that contribute to symptoms of mental or emotional distress can also be huge contributors to getting yourself into an “attractive” energetic state. Think of what happens to your mental health if you live in a climate where it's difficult to get enough vitamin D during some months of the year. It's not great, right? It won't matter how hard you try to "think positively" as long as you have certain types of physical imbalance in need of healing. There are many physical issues that can cause a depressed mental state - and unless those are healed, your energetic state, and therefore your ability to make positive life changes, will be similarly depressed.
Getting into a beneficially "attractive" mindset requires healing on all of the levels of our being - spiritual, mental, emotional, energetic, and physical. One of the reasons I became interested in energy healing is that it's the most effective way I know of directly healing the spiritual and energetic levels. Most of the clients who come to me have tried a lot of different methods of healing and self-care, whether conventional medical care, diet changes, acupuncture, exercise, etc. And most found that those changes brought improvements, but something still seems to be missing. Trying to change and build new, better life circumstances feels a little harder than it used to. They may feel blocked in some way, but can't seem to think their way out of the problem. Even if they've had some success with energy-focused practices like yoga or acupuncture, they know they need something more.
Reiki energy healing works on a similar principle as acupuncture – we seek to move, unblock, and increase the flow of chi - but it's often even more profound because chi is channeled directly to the receiver. For those who are working to heal themselves and allow greater happiness and change into their lives, reiki energy healing can be the modality that breaks through stuck energy and old unhealed patterns that have been resistant to other therapies. If practices and modalities like yoga and acupuncture are effective for you, you'll likely find that reiki makes them even more powerful. If the efforts you’ve made to heal and change your inner state have brought only partial progress, I recommend trying reiki, as it may help you to break through blocks that have resisted other efforts.
If you're ready to find out what's possible with the help of reiki, I recommend learning more about the Reiki Transformation Package - a series of reiki sessions designed to help you deliberately heal and create what you need for your highest good at this exact time. And now is the perfect moment to do it! 3- and 6-session packages are 30% off if you book during the month of May 2018.
If you’re consistently having difficulty getting yourself into a mindset conducive to creating what you really want or need in life, it may be because you need to examine what must first be healed.