Abundance, Money, and "The Secret"
Exploring Your Ideas About Money While Using the Law of Attraction
The backlash against The Secret has tended to center around the film’s preoccupation with money and becoming rich. It is money, and all of the negative associations about it – that it corrupts, that it is impure, that it is materialistic – that causes many people to regard The Secret and its makers with suspicion and skepticism.
Nonetheless, everyone needs money, and not just for the basics, either. Anyone living from paycheque to paycheque knows the difference between “subsisting” and “living” life - i.e. enjoying the complete palette of sensory, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual enjoyment that life has to offer. In the global economy, it is impossible to experience life’s palette of experience without money, and lots of it. Thus, money is an essential ingredient to living fully.
If your beliefs about money prevent you from fully embracing the Law of Attraction, then consider shifting your focus away from cold-hard cash toward experiencing abundance. Many books, films, and CDs discuss this, but what does that really mean in practical terms?
From Material Items to Life Experiences
Consider what Conversations with God author Neale Donald Walsch calls the “Be-Do-Have Paradigm”. Walsch writes that many people have this concept backwards, that they must “have” certain things (jobs, houses, spouses), in order to do other things (have money, garden, decorate) that makes them be certain things (joyful, happy, proud). However, as outlined by the Law of Attraction, the quickest way to manifest positive change is to first change one’s thoughts and feelings – in other words, to “be” joyful, happy, and proud first – and everything else follows.
Shift your emphasis away from the material things that you feel will bring you the feelings of fulfillment and go straight for the fulfillment. Keep going to work, paying your bills, and living your daily life in the meantime, but shift your desires toward life experiences instead of material items. Studies show that things like exotic vacations, spiritual retreats, learning to fly airplanes, engaging in major charitable projects etc., are more memorable and key to shaping one’s personal growth than obtaining solitary items like flat-screen TVs, new houses, or cars. Experiences are the things that mark a life lived well.
How would you feel to have done any of those things or more? What would the experience feel like? Focus on the feeling instead of the material objects. Not only will you attract opportunities to really manifest that experience, but you’ll also attract the money you need to do it, no less and no more than what you need.
Are Your Negative Beliefs About Money Really Your Beliefs?
Though embracing the Be-Do-Have Paradigm will help, taking a long, hard look at your own beliefs about money is also important to this process. Our parents, religious leaders, teachers, friends, and spouses shape our belief systems, and many of our unconscious assumptions come from these relationships.
Take the time to reflect on your own attitudes about money, and ask yourself, based on what you want to experience in life, do your beliefs work to help or hinder you? You may be surprised at what you find.
In our economy, it is impossible to separate money from the experience of abundance. If you’re using Law of Attraction principles to help with your own personal growth, reviewing and re-creating your attitudes towards money, wealth, and prosperity will go a long way toward helping you manifest your dreams and live in abundance.
