If you’ve been into the Law of Attraction (LOA) long enough, you’d have come across articles on the net written by people bemoaning the usefulness and authenticity of the Law of Attraction and how it doesn’t work for them, thus it’s all hogwash.

Well, I was one of them. Once upon a time.

I first discovered LOA back in 2012 when I chanced upon The Secret (both the movie and the book). That led me to Abraham Hicks’ work (whom I adore and follow the most now) and a deeper exploration of the LOA and spiritual field.

I would write up affirmations, create vision boards and use all sorts of LOA ‘tools’ to get what I wanted.

Sent out my messages to the universe and then waited and waited to see if I got anything back.

And did I get everything that I wanted?

No I didn’t.

At that time I was so frustrated and angry. Declaring the LOA a bunch of nonsense, I discarded it from my life. Fast forward to 2017, and through various other spiritual paths (meditation, crystals, chakras etc), I found myself with a renewed interest in LOA teachings.

This time around, I delved into the teachings with an open mind and greater sincerity to apply the methods to my life.

And I’ve finally come to an understanding of its teachings, what it really is about and how to apply it to your life.

So in this, I am going to reveal the reasons why LOA did not work for me back then and why it might not be working for you right now.

Let’s dive in!

You treat it as a means to an end.

Many of us have this tendency of equating the LOA to a magic wand of some sort. Wave it and all your desires will come true. People think they can throw their desires out there – girlfriend, car, money whatever – and it will magically appear on their front porches or something.

It does not work that way, unfortunately!

LOA is an entire state of being and living. It’s main aim is not about manifesting desires.

It’s about raising your vibration so high and living from moment to moment in pure positive energy (Abraham’s words). It’s about showing gratitude, being appreciative, seeing good in the bad, being constantly aware of how you feel and choosing the better feeling thought.

All of the time or almost always. 

Your manifestations are just an end-product of that way of living and being.

But first, there is a lot of “cleansing” work you need to do first. Your thoughts, beliefs and emotional states. Do they serve you well?

This goes for the “LOA tools” that many of us use as well. The visualisations, gratitude journals, positive affirmations, vision boards and so on.

These things have to feel good to you when you are engaging in them. If you are doing it and not enjoying it, then you aren’t coming from a place of pure positivity.

You lack patience. You don’t trust the process.

You’ve probably done the work, let your desires out into the Universe, said your affirmations, wrote in your gratitude journal, meditate etc etc. Everything is going fine!

And would actually have continued to be all fine and dandy until you start sabotaging the process by your constant check-ins with the Universe.

“Hey..umm Universe? where IS my girlfriend/$10 000 bucks/job/car/positive mindset? When exactly is it coming?”

And you repeat the same thing 54.5 minutes later. Over and over you check in with the Universe whilst constantly scanning your physical reality for a manifestation. After roughly 56 and two-thirds of a day, you don’t see it. You give up and declare this whole LOA thing is bogus.

But if you had waited awhile more, you might have gotten what you wanted.

Abraham illustrates this process perfectly by using the analogy of the farmer planting seeds and do those seedlings shoot up immediately? No. There’s a lag time. Between seeds and full-grown apple tree, between desire and manifestation.

How quickly you see it largely depends on your beliefs, your energy and your emotional state.

But by constantly questioning where your manifestation is, you are sending out messages to the Universe that you don’t trust it to deliver at the right time and that you can’t live without this manifestation.

You are already coming from a place of lack, need or desperation and that further delays your manifestation.

You obsess over your manifestation

LOA can sometimes be tricky. When you desire something, humans have a habit for obsessing or constantly thinking about the thing they desire.

The problem is that when we REALLY want something it’s very hard to not think about it constantly.

When you think about something too much, you hold onto it too tightly. Part of you will start to get impatient, you start to fear that it will never be yours. You unknowingly introduce negative beliefs and energy into the picture. And this is where you trip up.

The key to this is to hold it lightly. Gently. To be in the mindset of – if this happens great! If not, my life will be just as good!

When you hold onto things too tightly and obsess over it, you are coming from a space of lack and inadvertently sending messages that without this manifestation, you can’t possibly go on with life.

This will delay your manifestation or it might manifest – just not in the way you wanted.

You have a lot of underlying negative or unhelpful beliefs about the topic

We all hold negative beliefs about different things in life. These could be a result of what we were told by people in our lives when we were younger or direct experiences which were negative.

These external thoughts, opinions, and your own perspectives were repeated often enough in your head that they became your beliefs over time. They sank into your subconscious. 

Our underlying beliefs could actually be the ones introducing resistance, lack, fear and all that negative junk into our energies.

This is why we could be consciously doing all the positive stuff to feel more connected to our desires and the universe, but we still aren’t seeing the things we want.

Take a close look at the negative beliefs or patterns you hold about different areas of your life. It could be work, relationships, money or just about anything else.

What stories have you been telling yourself all these while? How can you reframe them more positively?

You are too specific

Go general. There is a tendency to introduce a lot of resistance and operate from a vibration of lack or fear when you are too specific.

Compare these statements: “I want $x by the end of June 2018″  vs “I want to be wealthier than I am now”. Which statement feels more achievable open and freeing to you? Which one feels like it is more achievable?

I don’t know about you but just reading the first statement stresses me out. You will constantly be counting down and taking score, checking your bank account three times each hour to see if the money is already in.

That doesn’t put you in a relaxed or in a happy state of mind, does it?

Whereas the second statement feels like there are possibilities! I don’t have any specifics to adhere to.

This is also why the LOA advice is so general and unconditional: Just aim to feel good. All the time.

Did you like this post? A little favour…

Part 2 is now up! Click here to read it.