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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
 Posted - 10/31/2006 : 23:56:23
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Some time before I discovered Sarno (5 years in fact) I had begun to get better after 30 years of illness using the Abraham-Hicks work on Law of Attraction.
Let me give you an example of how this relates to health: I was at a seminar and met a woman. She said, "I had such terrible allergies that I was down to only being able to eat 5 foods. My docs thought I might not make it (!). Then I got from Law of Attraction that I should focus on my favorite food (of the 5). Get excited about being able to eat that, rather than focusing on there being something wrong because couldn't eat the others."
She went on to say that her symptoms at first got worse - 4 foods, then 3, then 2, but she was still focusing on what she wanted (the healthy ability to eat this one thing she COULD eat) rather than what she didn't want (illness). After bottoming out and staying enthusiastic, she started getting better and built up to being able to eat anything.
I was very inspired and started absolutely refusing to believe that I was really ill, focusing on the moments of health as the proof that I'm getting healthier.
Obviously, in retrospect, this approach contains some good stuff (not focusing on being ill) and a lot of denial (not focusing on what you really feel either). But it did make some difference. I felt as though I was inevitably being drawn towards greater healing, and maybe that dynamic was what brought me eventually to this kind of stuff, which is what really works!
However, I wanted to chat about it, perhaps with you Swawnsmith, because you mentioned that the Law of Attraction is a reason you don't come to the forum too much. I interpreted this to mean that you didn't want to hang out in an atmosphere where the focus is ill health. The LOA says that you get what you focus on, either way, so talk and think about what you want (health, etc.) rather than what you don't want.
When I read that comment from Shawn I wondered if I am doing that, but so far I feel as though coming here actually turns me back from symptomitis, on the whole, and towards acknowledging the feelings and unraveling the whole thing.
What does anyone think?
xx
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
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PeterW
Canada
102 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2006 : 10:04:31
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Interesting question Wavy Soul . . .
I became familiar with the 'Law of Attraction' awhile back but had difficulty really embracing it. While some of it is common sense and it really seems to work to some extent, I believe there are too many holes in the theory to really take it as the all or nothing that some appear to.
Like you, I cant help feeling that forbidding yourself to think any negative thoughts, or more importantly feel any negative feelings (as the theory says that this negativity so will only attract more negativity), could be a serious recipe for repression and the stuffing away of our true feelings. Not good.
However, I do see the benefit of not allowing yourself to wallow in negativity, to get caught in those never ending head spirals.
Also I have a real problem when it is made to apply to literally anything and everything. Standing up against violence and oppression only brings more violence and oppression (so they say). Rape victims and those killed by drunk drivers had to be putting out appropriate vibes to 'attract' those horrible things to themselves. Victims of 9/11, natural disasters, genocides . . . same story. It actually gets construed to make it their fault, and IMO gets to be obscene when taken to this extreme, and some converts to this way of thinking actually do this.
But there is obvious benefit to not letting yourself get stuck in the victim mentality about the nastiness that life sometimes throws at us.
Also most LOA devotees, when asked to back up the 'Law of Attraction' tend to say something like 'Well, quantum physics says it's true" as a kind of blanket affirmation statement with little idea what they're really talking about. Most people in this world are not physicists and cant hope to understand the complexities of matter and energy (and physicists are far from sorting it all out too).
All that said, there definately are some truths to be drawn from it, especially with basic human interactions. You attract more bees with honey than vinegar. And an optimistic mindset is far healthier all around than a negative one.
As applied to TMS theory, the LOA appears to be partially in sync as it's essential to consciously put your attention away from your symptoms. Thinking and obsessing about them no doubt feeds the fire and magnifies them. We've all experienced that. And truely believing and feeling that belief that there's nothing terrible wrong with you, and believing that you will get well are common to both approaches. Constantly obsessing about your progress, or spending all of your time and energy reading how-to-get-well books, or letting this board become another obsession will probably impede progress more than help.
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floorten
United Kingdom
120 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2006 : 12:57:52
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There's definitely a deep truth to the Law of Attraction, or "The Secret" or whatever we choose to call it.
Case in point... myself.
For 11 years I had suffered from headaches and back pain. Then this September I decided, that enough was enough. I decided I *would* get better by Christmas, even though I didn't really have a plan of how to do so. In fact, my notion at the time was to do more stretching and exercise, which from a TMS point of view would not have helped.
However the important thing was my *intention* to get better by Christmas. Within two weeks, one day after I'd done this mental exercise to expel all negativity and limiting influences, I happened to chance upon Sarno's work in Wikipedia, and from there learnt all about TMS - the obvious cause for my symptoms.
So there you go - 11 years of getting nowhere, and the answer came to me within two weeks of my deciding to set a firm schedule for healing. Coincidence? .Well if you're one of those boring "fundametalist materialists" as Robert Anton Wilson calls them, then you'd probably say so, but I can't accept that.
greg
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"What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves."
Robert Anton Wilson |
Edited by - floorten on 11/01/2006 13:00:17 |
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MikeJ
United Kingdom
75 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2006 : 13:35:55
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Wavy is right. It's much better to focus on the positive than the negative.
I've watched "The Secret" too but I don't think the Law of Attraction should be taken literally. It's a good theory, but it's definetely not scientific, nor is it a law. In my opinion, this works a bit like when you learn a new word, you suddenly start seeing it everywhere. Or when you buy a new car, you notice people driving the same car.
When you have intention, it focuses you to "attract" or rather, notice things you never paid attention in the past. Even though the words, cars, and solution was always in front of you.
That T.S Elliott quote about "..knowing the place for the first time" would be very appropriate in this case. |
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floorten
United Kingdom
120 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2006 : 17:35:20
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quote:
Originally posted by PeterW
Also I have a real problem when it is made to apply to literally anything and everything. Standing up against violence and oppression only brings more violence and oppression (so they say). Rape victims and those killed by drunk drivers had to be putting out appropriate vibes to 'attract' those horrible things to themselves. Victims of 9/11, natural disasters, genocides . . . same story. It actually gets construed to make it their fault, and IMO gets to be obscene when taken to this extreme, and some converts to this way of thinking actually do this.
Just wanted to add my own thoughts on the above...
I tend towards the more "literal" interpretation of the law of attraction, and am aware that from certain viewpoints it is possible to create seemingly very cruel and offensive intepretations.
However, I believe these objections vanish once you learn to fit these negative interpretations into the greater whole. It's quite tricky to explain how I conceive of it, but I'll give it a shot. My thoughts are largely based on A Course in Miracles and the Conversations with God books, and share many similarities with Taoism. If you're not of a spiritual inclination, I dare say this won't interest you much, and probably seem like so much mumbo-jumbo! Here goes...
There are multiple levels of reality at work here all at the same time. We have our mundane day-to-day level of life, then we have a spiritual level of greater abstraction, where everything is one and people really cease to be individual.
At this level we might picture all there is is one giant ever-transforming lump of spiritual energy, from which "globs" of people incarnate before being re-absorbed and transformed in other ways. These incarnations are acts of will of the whole and can happen as many times as wanted - in fact at this level time as we understand it has little meaning. Also all moral and ethical codes no longer exist because everything is essentially one, and so any "harm" is immediately at the same time "consented" to, seeing as it comes from the same place.
There are many analogies to be found in life where the behaviour of an individual seems to be quite erratic, but seen from a larger perspective, say the survival of the species, make consistent sense. I'll leave you to make up your own.
The law of attraction in my mind functions at a much higher abstraction level than the kind of mental judgements we would make, such as "this person attracted a rape incident into their life", so there's a mismatch, and such conclusions are limited in the sense that they miss out a possible larger picture.
Also, the law of attraction is always at work, and takes its cues from all your words, thoughts and actions. This means you have to act in complete unity of all the above to attract the thing you want, otherwise you're sending mixed messages.
Say you want to get rich, you can't attract that into your life by just thinking of money the whole time, but still buy the budget brand of baked beans at the supermarket, cause you can't afford anything else. Yup - that act of purchase just reaffirmed you are poor and cancelled out all the good from your positive visualisations!
Furthermore "wanting" things, as in longing for them, or chasing them from a distance, actually pushes them away from you, because the act of longing is in itself a powerful affirmation that you *dont* have what you're after, and it keeps it there for you - always at an arm's distance.
So you see, it's a lot trickier to manifest things with the LOA than it appears at first! It takes real mental dicipline 24 hours a day, and a willingness to take apparently big risks.
As for the hypothetical crime-victim, here's some hypothetical interpretations of their events from this other perspective:
That person maybe manifested being "at-effect" of other's wills, by constantly feeling out of control of their life, prior to the incident. Basically they volunteered themselves unwittingly by constantly reaffirming that others are in control of their life.
That person intentionally decided prior to incarnation that they would suffer this incident, either for their own personal growth (triumph of overcoming it) or to voluntarily help another do this.
That person had similar issues from the past which dominate their thoughts, and thus keep attracting similar circumstances, until the individual can let go of the trauma involved.
etc etc... there's probably quite a few more possible explanations for such an outcome, all consistent with the law of attraction.
They will seem cruel and unfair if not viewed from a point of view where re-incarnation is possible, because without the option to go back and try again, we are entering a more judgemental mindset, where you get one chance, you're judged and then that's it for eternity.
Hmm... well, I'm not convinced I've expressed my thoughts too elegantly here. It's such a complex subject. Basically my point is that any negative judgements are a side effect of having to be stuck at purely one level of abstraction of the universe in order to make that judgement. Of course it is necessarily so, but we mustn't overlook that there are many different ways to cut the same cake. Depending on how we do it, we get different shapes. If you think of the universe as the cake and your thoughts and attitudes as knife strokes, this should illustrate my point fairly well.
greg
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"What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves."
Robert Anton Wilson |
Edited by - floorten on 11/01/2006 17:39:29 |
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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2006 : 01:10:33
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Thanks for all these responses.
I agree with the last person about the way it works from a level of abstraction.
Crossing levels is crazy-making - like telling a kid they created their child abuse experience. Yet from that impersonal or soul level, it may be true. I have found that holding multiple truths within my awareness has been an inevitable skill I've had to learn as I've worked on figuring it all out over the last 30 years.
And the other skill is surrendering to a higher will than my own ego that wants to "create its own reality" very often out of basic fear that if it doesn't, all will fall apart. I practiced the Abraham LOA stuff for 3 years. My life fell apart. I realized I had been out of balance and surrendered more fully than ever in my life and...
... (you have to understand that I was brought up by atheist physicists to get the power of this:) I was miraculously carried through and protected and felt a connection that was better than all the stuff I lost.
Anyway, that's another story...
xxx
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2006 : 03:21:49
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Yes, that's right. As I understand it, I kept - in Abrahamish terms - "vibrating" the reality of abundance and health. I feel that I "maxed out" the reality I was living in. It was a particular karmic pattern that couldn't jump to another level of expansion without total dissolution.
But total dissolution is no joke. Many get tangled up for a whole life or 2 or 3. I credit getting through with having made a strong decision to surrender completely to God (non-religiously). I have made it through a truly gruesome series of near total losses of everything after having had a well-constructed life, (seemingly idyllic marriage, friendships, work, house, land on Hawaii, future, etc.). I'm still in many ways "between realities" and feel I may never fully land in the world the way I was before. But I am experiencing something I never even thought to ask for - FREEDOM! Didn't even think it was something I particularly wanted, with my abandonment issues.
Now I can feel the Divine bringing me everything I thought I wanted in very different forms. Including health!!! It's like I died and had a new life. They say in 12-Step programs: "God did for me what I could not do for myself" and I completely believe this of my life.
I now feel that striving to create one's reality can be an egoic trap. AND not realizing the extent to which my thoughts and vibes that I put out there get reflected is also a trap. I am working on a dynamic flow between control and surrender. Actually, what I do for a living is teach about this exact subject. I've found that it really is both/and rather than either/or.
xxx
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
Edited by - Wavy Soul on 11/02/2006 03:23:42 |
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MikeJ
United Kingdom
75 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2006 : 06:26:21
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| Is the "both/and rather than either/or" philosophy from Abraham Hicks? I've heard of this idea a lot lately from different sources. What's the original one? |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2006 : 08:45:27
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HELLO !, I've been out in the desert for a week, reading Dr. Sarno's latest, and I love attraction, (but hate it's laws), but I think what we have here is: "THE LAW OF TMS DISTRACTION".
If anything, the Good Doctor, and the mission of this board espousing his TMS theory on psychosmatic medicine, is about POSITIVE HEALTH and NOT negative health.
People posting here may at times discuss negative health--but not Dr. Sarno.
As I read last night, from TDM: when you feel pain, shift your thinking to your TMS list of pressures and think psychological.
Dr. Sarno readily admits, that in all his years of success using his TMS method, that, he still doesn't know how it psycho-anatomicly works--only that it does! |
Edited by - tennis tom on 11/02/2006 10:25:45 |
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floorten
United Kingdom
120 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2006 : 15:44:32
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Shortcake: I don't know what is triggering your guilt, but you should consider that not everything you attract is a result of negative thinking.
Negative things can happen to you if you firmly held the belief that you weren't in control of your life. This basically opens you up to being anyone's potential victim, because you're attracting "being not in control" into your life. That might have been your only "thought crime".
Why not also try reframing your situation as "I attracted this illness into my life so that I could overcome it, and then use what I learned from the experience to teach and heal many others." Make a decision to make something positive out of whatever you have been through, and once you are through it, you will no longer regret it happening, because you have created (attracted!) your own higher purpose. When there's no regret, there's no guilt either.
take it easy,
greg.
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"What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves."
Robert Anton Wilson |
Edited by - floorten on 11/03/2006 15:45:17 |
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MikeJ
United Kingdom
75 Posts |
Posted - 11/07/2006 : 07:58:55
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| I'm probably wrong, but to me I think it means recognising it's there, but not magnifying it. You know you have an ear, but you don't constantly focus on it. I remember being told not to give attention to a child when s/he screams and misbehaves, because you'll just get more of it. It feeds on attention. If you focus and reward good behaviors, you'll get more of that. I think the same principle could be applied there. |
Edited by - MikeJ on 11/07/2006 08:00:18 |
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FlyByNight
Canada
209 Posts |
Posted - 11/07/2006 : 08:57:43
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As I said on the other post
"the challenge with the law of attraction when you are a TMSer is to go 'beyond positive thinking' but absolutely without repressing the negative feelings you might have .... and it is not a little one ...
Thinking about 'life pressures' implies that you think about things that are characaterized with some level of negativity
I am really wondering how we can accomplish that
Shortcake, you just came with a part of the explanation I guess
P.
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Edited by - FlyByNight on 11/07/2006 09:00:00 |
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azbobbo
1 Posts |
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floorten
United Kingdom
120 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2006 : 03:09:02
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shortcake:
Negative emotions don't cause TMS, so attracting more of them won't worsen it.
Repressing negative emotions causes TMS. That's something different!
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"What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves."
Robert Anton Wilson |
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Law of Attraction + TMS
