Edna, 57, has struggled with her weight for years. Secretly, she
\nlongs for the perfect body of a movie star. Surely that would
\nmake her life dramatically better. <\/p>\n
In the past, she would diet, exercise, lose a few pounds, then
\ngain them all back and more. Since menopause, no diet or exercise
\nprogram seems to work at all. She just seems to steadily gain
\nweight no matter what she tries. Depressing.<\/p>\n
Because she’s familiar with the law of attraction, she tries to
\nvisualize herself as slender and fit. Usually, she finds herself
\nthinking, who am I kidding?<\/p>\n
At the end of the work day, she finds herself feeling drained,
\nand without the energy to exercise or create the raw food meals
\nshe believes are her last chance to help her to lose weight. <\/p>\n
Occasionally, she feels inspired and motivated to do what seems
\nrequired, but most of the time, the subject of her weight leaves
\nher feeling resentful and discouraged. Whether it’s
\nvisualization, dieting, exercising, it’s too much work with too
\nlittle reward.<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
George, a 62 year old realtor, has debilitating headaches and
\ninsomnia. When the real estate market sank several years ago, he
\ndecided to create an internet business.<\/p>\n
He purchased lots of online programs to learn what to do, and has
\nworked hard to try to attain the success that he sees others
\naround him having.<\/p>\n
Occasionally, he feels excited and motivated to work extra hard,
\ntrying the newest strategy. But most of the time he resents how
\nhard he has to work, with so little return on his efforts. <\/p>\n
The worst part is that when he works hard, which seems required
\nto make any money, his headaches get worse. When he gets
\ndiscouraged and backs off of his work, he gets worried about
\nmoney, and his insomnia gets worse.<\/p>\n
He feels stuck between a rock and a hard place, with no good
\noptions. But he believes he just has to try harder.<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Phyllis, 58, longs for a husband. She has had a series of lovers,
\nand has been divorced twice. The pain of her broken heart seems
\nto have settled in her body, and she’s been diagnosed with
\nfibromyalgia.<\/p>\n
Phyllis looks around herself and sees other women her age, happy
\nwith their husbands and nice houses, enjoying travel and being
\ngrandmothers. Here she is, struggling financially, estranged from
\nher one daughter, and lonely.<\/p>\n
She does daily affirmations and visualizations, reads and listens
\nto every law of attraction book and program she can find. She
\ntries to think hopefully about finding someone who will love and
\nsupport her, but mostly feels bitter, regretful about her past
\ndecisions, and sad.<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
What do these three people have in common?<\/p>\n
They are all students of the Law of Attraction.
\n They are all working hard to get what they want.
\n They are all trying to do what they think is
\n required.
\n They all grew up in a generation in which they
\n saw their parents succeed by working hard to
\n overcome great odds.
\n Their bodies are all suffering.
\n They all feel frustrated and resentful that
\n their efforts are not bearing fruit.
\n They all think they just need to try harder.<\/p>\n
What is the problem with this?<\/p>\n
Aren’t we supposed to focus on what we want, in
\n order to be successful in applying the Law of
\n Attraction?<\/p>\n
Aren’t we supposed to keep bringing our
\n attention back to this focus, trying to feel
\n happy about what we want?<\/p>\n
Aren’t we supposed to try harder when it’s not
\n working?<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
So many of us have struggled with some personally familiar issue
\nfor years–weight, pain, disability, illness, financial problems,
\nloneliness, relationship woes–and every time the topic comes up,
\nwe feel flooded with unhappiness.<\/p>\n
Along come these teachers of the Law of Attraction, telling us we
\ncan’t get what we want unless we can feel positive about it.<\/p>\n
If you’re fat, you’re supposed to happily
\n visualize being thin, right?<\/p>\n
If you’re sick, in pain, disabled, you’re
\n supposed to see yourself as vibrantly
\n healthy, right?<\/p>\n
If you’re broke, you’re supposed to see
\n yourself as rich, right?<\/p>\n
If you’re lonely, you’re supposed to see
\n yourself in the relationship of your
\n dreams, right?<\/p>\n
But when you think “thin,” or “healthy,” or “rich,” or “in love,”
\nor “successful,” and you know you’re not even close, you just
\nfeel depressed, discouraged, and hopeless. <\/p>\n
Have you had this experience?<\/p>\n
It’s easy to wind up feeling hopeless, when you just can’t
\nsustain positive feelings about getting what you want, because
\nthe problem of the current situation is so glaringly impossible
\nto ignore.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, there’s a different solution than just trying
\nharder. It’s easy when you understand that the problem may not be
\nwhat you thought it was at all!<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
The Problem.<\/p>\n
If you were to ask any of these three people what they really
\nbelieve about why they aren’t getting what they want, their
\nanswers will boil down to some version of this: Scarcity and
\nseparation.<\/p>\n
“There’s not enough of what I want or need,
\n and\/or there’s something wrong with me,
\n and\/or someone is preventing me from
\n getting it.”<\/p>\n
When your view of “reality” is limited to the world of form, the
\nworld can be a scary place. It looks like we’re limited to
\ncompeting for scarce resources. It looks like we can only get the
\ntreasured resources if we are smarter, richer, more beautiful,
\nluckier, more perfect, better connected, or harder working than
\nthe others against whom we are competing. And, no matter what we
\nget, we’re always at risk of losing it to someone smarter,
\nricher, more beautiful, luckier, more perfect, better connected,
\nor harder working.<\/p>\n
In other words, the required currency to get what you want looks
\nlike smarts, money, beauty, luck, perfection, connections, and
\nhard work.<\/p>\n
It *looks* to Edna like having the perfect body
\n is the currency of a fulfilling life.<\/p>\n
It *looks* to George like financial success is
\n the currency of a fulfilling life.<\/p>\n
It *looks* to Phyllis like having just the
\n right partner is the currency of a fulfilling
\n life.<\/p>\n
But these are just how it looks on the surface. These are the
\nrepresentations in form of the tip of the iceberg, supported by
\nan entire mountain of invisible “formless stuff” beneath the
\nsurface.<\/p>\n
What’s *really* going on beneath the surface that is creating
\nthese forms is the true currency of the universe.<\/p>\n
The true currency being passed around in the world of the
\nformless–what “buys” everything in the world of form–is energy.
\nYour access to this energy is your attention. <\/p>\n
What buys what you don’t want is your attention on thoughts of
\nscarcity and separation. The energy this creates feels like
\nfrustration, resentment, regret, bitterness, anger,
\ndiscouragement, hopelessness. <\/p>\n
What buys what you want is your attention on thoughts of
\nabundance, love, freedom, faith, connection with All. The energy
\nthis creates feels like joy, delight, appreciation, happiness. <\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
The Solution.<\/p>\n
Knowing all this, what should our friends DO?<\/p>\n
If *you’re* in the “try harder club,” what should *you* do?<\/p>\n
Should you try harder to get your attention on abundance, love,
\nfaith, connection? <\/p>\n
My advice is to take a break from trying.<\/p>\n
Don’t buy another self improvement program.
\n Don’t try to eat better.
\n Don’t try to get yourself to exercise.
\n Don’t try to think better thoughts.
\n Don’t try to visualize a better life.<\/p>\n
Instead, <\/p>\n
Go out and play.
\n Find something to laugh about.
\n Find something that delights your soul.<\/p>\n
See what happens when this, and not all that effort, is where you
\nput your attention for a month or two.<\/p>\n
You might just be in for a surprise! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Edna, 57, has struggled with her weight for years. Secretly, she longs for the perfect body of a movie star. Surely that would make her life dramatically better. In the past, she would diet, exercise, lose a few pounds, then gain them all back and more. Since menopause, no diet or exercise program seems to… Continue reading The Wrong Currency<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-healing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions\/740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}