What Lies Beneath

They say do what you love and the money will come – well, this week it wasn’t money but it was fun! BBC Radio London’s Late Show was doing a feature on The Secret and had picked up on the piece I’d written a couple of weeks ago, so they invited me into the studio to have a chat about it on their regular Thursday night spiritual slot. Of course I was in seventh heaven nattering about spiritual stuff with the presenter, Jumoké Fashola, who put together a fabulous mix of music and chat, as well as interviews with some of the teachers from the movie. The hour flew by and it really reminded me of how joyful it is to be on song, doing what you love – it never feels like work when it’s something that makes your heart sing. Let’s face it, that’s the kind of conversation I’d be having anyway, it just happened to be on air for a change!

As I listened to the calls coming in and the other interviews, it struck me that it’s very hard to get across a deeper spiritual dimension of the Law Of Attraction, when our minds tend to first grasp it on a very functional level, wanting to know how we can use it to get stuff. That’s not a judgement on our need to take care of ourselves in the material world, but just to say that when you start tapping into universal forces, hopefully you’ll want to be able to use them for more than just upgrading the car, the house or the boyfriend. It’s a bit like having the capacity to do an amazing fireworks display that could light up the whole sky, but deciding to let off a few bangers in the backyard instead just to see if you could scare the cat – entertaining, perhaps, but not exactly life-enhancing.

To recap, for those of you who haven’t seen the film, in essence the Law Of Attraction, as explained in the documentary/dramatisation called The Secret, is the simple energetic rule that like attracts like, so if you’re putting out positive energy and expectation, then you’ll attract back positive experiences. Seems straightforward, but it’s more than just holding the odd positive thought – you must engage your emotions, visualise a positive outcome as vividly as you can and maintain a consistent, positive attitude of expectation that what you desire will come to you. There’s the rub – very few of us are consistent enough in our behaviour to produce anything like the miraculous results claimed in The Secret. Plus, of course, there’s the issue of self-worth that’s likely to throw a spanner in the works along the way. If you don’t believe you deserve it, you’re going to have a very hard time drawing it into your life.

While you can – as many people have done – use this formula just to accumulate more on a material level, I do think there’s a higher application available to you that could be far more powerful. If you use the Law Of Attraction to recognise your own inner spark of divinity and align yourself to your higher purpose, it could turn out to be pretty high-octane stuff, catalysing a new way of being for you and opening the door to opportunities you’d never imagined for yourself.

Perhaps the most soulful of the teachers to appear on The Secret is the Rev Michael Beckwith, who touched on this greater depth of spiritual purpose in an interview with Larry King, where he said “I entered into this way of teaching because I had a spiritual awakening and began to see that we were surrounded by a presence, an energy, a life force – call it God, call it the divine energy. And that through that immersion into that awareness I began to see that, yes, there is power in your thinking but it's not positive thinking. You know you could be positive that you're broke. You can be positive that you're rich. So it's really, I call it affirmative thinking, having an affirmative realisation that the nature of the universe is good and when you surrender to it, when you align yourself with it, when you embody … as you internalize it, then your life begins to change.”

Paradoxically, this perspective is in many ways contrary to what drives us to use techniques like those espoused in The Secret – from a spiritual point of view you are already a divine spark aligned to that universal force and all you need do is get out of your own way by releasing the lack of self-worth that holds you back from the realisation and power of your true self. You don’t need to go chasing around focused on the outer world, accumulating stuff to make you feel better about yourself – who you are is already wonderful. However – and here’s the paradox – if you align with the energy of the divine, then all that you need will be given to you.
As Rev Beckwith went on to say, “There's a dimension of us that has never been hurt, harmed, or endangered in any way and with intention, with practice, with love, prayer, meditation, you can uncover that dimension of your life that has no beginning and has no end and let it shine in this incarnation. What is so? God has always loved you. What is so? Wholeness is inside of your being. What is so? Infinite supply surrounds you.”

When asked for simple steps that could be taken to tap into that awareness and to change your life, he replied “First of all, when we think about what reality is we think about this unified field of awareness that’s everywhere, that’s operating for us. So what an individual has to do, they have to begin to have an inner talk of upliftment, of inspiration, of affirmation and begin to agree with themselves that it can be better - every single day. It has to be a practice, until that practice becomes a way of life.”

Outlining what that practice needs to be, he added “Describe your life and how it's going to be. Begin to tell yourself that life is for you and not against you. Begin to be aware that there's something trying to emerge through you right now. Since you are an infinite being and you're here to progress, there is always something trying to emerge for you right now.”

So your challenge for this week is to try using the Law Of Attraction in a way that honours your divine purpose in life, by surrendering to all the possibilities that a loving universe might hold in store for you. Try a little less emphasis on stuff and a little more focus on being all that you can be. An affirmation suggested by Rev Beckwith is one that I consider to be both powerful and deeply soulful – used daily as a mantra, it has the potential to make a real shift in awareness for you and to activate the Law Of Attraction in its widest, most spiritual sense. It goes like this: “I am available to more good than I have ever experienced, realised or imagined before in my life.”
Try it on for size and repeat it as often as you can each day for the next thirty days. I say thirty days because that’s how long it takes, according to some NASA research, to create new neural pathways or grooves in the mind that turn a new thought into a habitual way of thinking. Say the mantra to yourself when you’re in ‘lost’ time – you know the kind I mean: stuck in traffic, hanging around at a bus stop, in the queue at the bank or while you’re waiting for someone to pick up the phone. Imagine the universe is not only friendly but is simply waiting for you to recognise your own worthiness to receive its gifts.

Now, do you want to hear something spooky? Just as the radio interview was wrapping up, the presenter asked me for the name of my website. It turns out that she does the very same mantra – I Am Fabulous – at midnight every night on her show. So if you want to listen in to Jumoké’s show and join a collective roar of “I Am Fabulous”, tune in to BBC Radio London’s Late Show, 10pm to 2am, Monday to Thursday, on FM 94.9. You can listen online if you’re not in the neighbourhood, so there’s just no excuse! Have a wonderful week being your divine, fabulous self and allow the universe to bring you some glorious surprises. I’ll leave you with some thoughts from St Teresa of Avila – a rather fabulous woman who did her spiritual work in the 16th century, but whose ideas are bang up to date …

“The Divine has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which the Divine compassion is to look out to the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now."

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right or by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. To contact me, email coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material © 2007 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 26 Feb 07)

Do You Want To Know A Secret?


Whether we like it or not, January does compel us into a flurry of self-improvement. All the newspapers are full of ways to give up smoking, drinking, eating and basically anything else we might quite like and the magazines aren’t much better. Sandwiched between special spreads on celebrity cellulite and dress disasters, there are countless new diets and exercise programmes designed to get you down to the fighting weight of an anorexic greyhound. It’s all so bloody dreary and ultimately meaningless, so it always sends me ricocheting into a bookshop for some spiritual tome or other, just to redress the balance.

The latest cult movie and book in the metaphysical world is The Secret, based on the law of attraction. I’ll save you a few quid by simply noting that the philosophy is that what you put out you get back, ie be positive, expect good things and they’ll come to you. Sounds simple, but there are a few twists in the tale that aren’t immediately obvious, and that’s where the fun begins.

All sorts of snake-oil salesmen have been packaging up ‘get rich quick’ schemes and ‘spiritual secrets’ for millennia and that’s still going on today with equal fervour. What’s fascinating is that so many people claim to have the panacea for whatever ails us – finances, relationships, lack of opportunity – but when you take a closer look, there always seems to be something missing. In essence, we’re always trying to find a ‘one size fits all’ formula for life and I just don’t think it’s that easy. It strikes me that perhaps the most important – and most enjoyable – part of the process is finding it out for yourself.

There’s enormous wisdom in the material in The Secret, but is it the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything? I suspect not. In fact, some of the most leading-edge material I’ve come across on the law of attraction isn’t even featured in it. If you’re curious about this kind of thing, take a look at the work of Esther and Jerry Hicks, particularly Ask & It Is Given: Learning To Manifest Your Desires. They introduce a much deeper level of understanding about the nature of reality and how much our emotional self affects our ability to create what we desire in life. They also address how we need to make credible leaps in our thinking, making the transition to beliefs we can genuinely engage in, rather than sticking a band-aid of positive thought over a haemorrhage of negativity.

One of the great mysteries for me in the law of attraction has always been the question of people not receiving what they’re giving. If the law is always operates, just like any other law such as gravity, then it seemed strange to me that those who I know are consistently kind and generous to others do not necessarily receive the same treatment in return. Sandra Anne Taylor, author of Secrets Of Attraction, has demystified that particular anomaly by noting “Our magnetic attraction is based largely upon how we value and treat ourselves, not just on how we value or treat others … if we don’t base our kind treatment of others upon a healthy reverence for ourselves, then that care, as loving as it may seem, doesn’t resonate with love at all. Without self-love at its source, our charity toward others is really a manipulation, based in fear, guilt or the need to be accepted. In accordance with the law, this energy inevitably magnetises unhappiness and unloving responses, because it’s based in unhappiness at its source. So no matter how kind or loving the act may appear, if the motivating source is negative, then the consequence will be likewise.”

Just think about that one for a minute - it’s quite a revolutionary thought. We’ve all been knocking ourselves out to ‘be good’ and it probably hasn’t done us any favours at all. Scary, huh? Actually, I think it’s quite liberating. Let me say first that I value kindness above all other things. My all-time favourite quote is from the Dalai Lama, who says “my religion is kindness”. To me spirituality is thoughtfulness and generosity in action, but there is also a very deep need to honour the self. If we are always acting for others against our own well-being, then that must be a very unhealthy kind of love. Most of the people I know are on the self-sacrificing end of the spectrum and could do with a little more attention to what feels right for them, rather than what seems right for others. Let’s all drop the ‘being good’ attitude, start doing what feels right for us and see if that begins to make a difference in the attitude we’re attracting in response. People-pleasing is so last year!

This week, really take a look at why you’re doing things. Are you doing them because it’s what you really want or because you think you should? If someone asks you to do something, take some time out before responding to really feel into whether or not you’re happy to do it. Look at the plans you have for the year – are they what you’d have chosen for yourself or are you simply accommodating others? It’s not a question of never compromising, but of being very, very clear why you’re choosing to do what you do, so that you can be sure you’re honouring yourself in those choices. Dust off the word ‘no’ and use it a lot this week.

Use this as an opportunity to find out more about yourself – if you’ve been accommodating everyone else for years, you may not even remember what you like at all. Feel free to disappoint those who always expect you to go along with what they want. If you feel guilty about that, get over it. You’ll never learn to take good care of yourself and develop a solid sense of self-worth if you can’t live with a little guilt. Notice who supports you in your new choices and who doesn’t. You want people around you who love you for who you are, not what you’ll do for them.

Here’s a final thought from The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, on taking good care of yourself. She says “Unless you fill yourself first, you have nothing to give anybody. Therefore it is imperative that you tend to you first. Attend to your joy first. People are responsible for their own joy. When you tend to your joy and do what makes you feel good, you are a joy to be around and you are a shining example to every child and every person in your life. When you are feeling joy you don’t even have to think about giving. It is a natural overflow.”


Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right or by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material © 2007 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 15 Jan 07)