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)
