Attractive Attraction

I heard somewhere that just as nature hates vacuum and immediately rushes in to fill the gap, so it’s not possible to hold two emotions simultaneously. That is, you can be happy or you can be miserable, but you can’t be both at the same time.

All rather obvious and some might say simplistic. But actually, a lot of people, without realizing it, choose unhappiness as a way of life, all the while claiming that happiness is what they really want.

I watched a movie the other day about the murder of a young girl. The mother was beside herself. For years she dogged the police screaming for them to find her daughter’s murderer and bring him to justice. In the meantime she was living in a sort of suspended animation. Once the murderer was caught, then she could start living again.

Eventually the murderer was caught and charged. The mother sat in the court, never missing a day, feeding her misery on the details the trial uncovered. And when the man was eventually sentenced, she continued to wail and scream at the inadequacy of the sentence. The murderer had taken the life of her daughter, surely he deserved a much more severe sentence than that handed down by the judge.

According to Lynn Grabhorn, many people not only choose this type of emotional pain as a way to feel alive, but since this is the only feeling they hold, they will continue to attract more of it. This woman will probably attract similarly motivated people, and together they will form a group for the relatives and friends of victims so that they can maintain their rage against the system, and lacerate their feelings of loss and distress.

The point here is not as to who is right or who is wrong, the point here is that this person has chosen to feel unhappy while believing that she wants nothing more than to be happy, but that circumstances or fate or whatever you will, have chosen otherwise.

Today, she can wake up and say enough to pain, and focus on the good things that she can still enjoy in life. And circumstances and people will appear in her life reflecting her focus, as currently she is surrounded with only the pain in her life.

It’s all up to her. While she generates only hatred and pain, that’s all she’ll get back from life. And though she can justify her feelings by the circumstances of her life, it is still her choice of being happy only by being unhappy.

Vlady Peters is an Australian Civil Marriage Celebrant authorised to perform marriages in Australia. She also perform general ceremonies such as Baby Naming, Renewal of Vows and Commitment Ceremonies. To learn more about her as a celebrant and an author visit vlady at http://www.weddings-celebrant.com

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The strangest thing came over me for the last couple of days. I’ve been researching mind bending stuff that goes down to the very core of behavior and beyond. It’s been incredibly helpful in restructuring my “mental map” but at the same time there’s been such huge foundational changes in my thinking I’m left questioning existence deeper than I ever have before.

Let me back up for a moment so you’re not totally lost. In one of my earlier writings I said that NOTHING has meaning until we attach meaning to it. This concept totally floored me. Think about all of the things that happen in our life that we attach meaning to?

If someone smiles, if someone winks, if someone talks slurred, if someone looks up at you and holds out their hand………

Your old blanket, your old photos, your favorite song, your first car, your first love, that old scent…….

Meanings are EVERYWHERE! We’ve formed them as a way to deal with the world. I believe meanings are an emotional expression that we impose on the physical world. In other words, we feel emotions - they are very real. So in order to deal with the world on a deeper (emotional) level we form an emotional connection with things. The things themselves may have no feeling or no meaning without us but the meaning we give them makes them come alive!

If you’re still with me I’m about to take you on an intellectual ride. (You thought you were already on it didn’t you?) I traced meaning all the way down to life itself. If nothing has meaning until we attach our emotions to it, does that mean that life and death itself have no meaning? Wow right? Are you with me? LIFE and DEATH with no meaning? Can you see why I was in a funk? That can’t possibly be right? Do you feel that it can’t possibly be?

That would mean by some bizarre mathematical miracle the ingredients for life randomly mixed together in circumstances ideal only in a scenario that would come around 1 in infinite. That life was as random and meaningless as the piece of gum you stepped on today while heading to work.

Of course I couldn’t possibly settle for that answer. If nothing more than to give my life meaning I had to find a better answer! Part of knowing life is knowing death. I’ve spent so much time thinking and studying life that I’ve neglected the meaning of death. Death has always just been one of those scary deadlines that’s going to end all my fun. Death has always been a rather inconvenient item at the bottom of my to-do list.

Today as I studied death on the internet I saw more blood and gore in a day than you’d see in a year as a battlefield surgeon. I’m exaggerating of course but I assure you there’s no shortage of death “research” on the internet. If you can stomach it. Of course not everyone who downloads this stuff is going at it with such an open mind. Talk about “meaning” when you think of “death” what do you feel about it? Most people associate death with loss or the ultimate confrontation with pain. And think about how death has been used - it’s a PENALTY for serious crimes. Can you imagine if there was a cave in the mountains that everyone had to go into if they committed a serious crime? How would you begin to feel about that cave? What kind of meaning would you give it? That would be a pretty scary place you’d never want to visit wouldn’t it!?

And there’s more! Pain is bad right? I mean we avoid pain. What happens when we experience LOTS of pain? We feel like we’re… dying. We don’t actually die - we just feel like we’re close. We’re on “death’s door step” We’ve associated pain with death, when in all actuality pain only happens in life! When you die there is no more pain! When the pain becomes too much in life - you die!

Okay so now I’m ready to make my point. I’ve made several already - but I mean my biggest point of the night. Are you ready? Is death a good thing or a bad thing? Did you answer that question yet? I’m sorry it wasn’t a fair question, I tricked you. Death is neither! Death is neutral. We judge death within the frame of life. If we were in the frame of death we might not want to live! Life would be the scary thing. Now you might say, “Hold on James I was with you up until now, now you’ve gone off the deep end and you’ve already done that several times in this article, but now you’re really deep!” I’ll agree with you. This is it - this is the topic of life and death - this is everything. This is the ROOT of our existence! This is where everything we do comes to a head. It’s that fine line between a beating heart and electrical current in our brain (life) and nothingness (death).

Now when I say “nothingness” I don’t actually mean nothing. I believe our energy goes on after death, how do I know? I don’t - I just feel it. But the irony is that knowing and feeling are actually qualities of life! Don’t just read that without grasping what I’m saying here, understand it.

Imagine two very distinct frames - LIFE and DEATH.

In LIFE we have pain, pleasure, logic, feeling, desire, etc.

In DEATH we have nothing. It ends the cycle of life. Except something within us moves on. Our energy. The “essence” of our experience goes on to unite with what is known as “god”.

But since we are alive now and you’ll be able to apply this mostly while you’re alive I’ll conclude with something you can use. Understanding death while you’re alive can put you in an incredibly liberating frame of mind. I recall the words of a spiritual yogi, “You must die before you can truly live.”

This means you must be able to sense the nothingness of death to truly experience the joy of life. Death is not a penalty - we the living make it so, but look beyond our petty understanding of death. See it for what it truly is. The sweet union back to the seeming nothingness from which we came. No ego, no desires, no pain. Both life and death are beautiful when you see them for what they really are.

And finally - the biggest question I had to answer: What are supposed to do while we’re alive? How silly some occupations in life seem. I didn’t want to get caught up in something that didn’t really give my life “meaning.” But ah there’s that word again. Meaning. It’s everywhere. I guess it has to be while we’re alive. That’s why we evolved to understand life with meanings. If we weren’t supposed to understand life through “meaning” we wouldn’t have them. But at the same time we should consciously evaluate ALL meaning and choose what something should mean to us - do not simply let meanings fire off unconsciously shaping the world around you.

This is how reality becomes a reflection of what you are on the inside. When you attach your emotions to every little part of the world around you this becomes the basis for how you react to the world. You’re actually reacting to what you’ve created. Not reality - but the meanings you’ve created behind it.

You can make every little thing in this world mean whatever you want it to, if you control your focus enough to make it happen. So today I want you to do a little mind bending of your own. See how many areas of your life you’ve created meaning. Test whether the meaning is valid by seeing if it holds up universally. “Would this mean the same thing to EVERYONE and FOREVER?” If it wouldn’t - try to see if you can come up with a more universal meaning. In this way you’ll begin to accurately map the world around you and live life with the most power. You won’t be held back by silly little unconscious limitations you’ve imposed on the world around you. Good luck.

This article is part of the James Rick Daily Vitamin by James Rick, a daily blog that merges our understanding of spirit with the physical world. James Rick is author of Full Potential, a revolutionary guide to mastering your life in stages. He is also a motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and CEO of two international ventures.

More can be learned at JamesRick.com

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There is an inherent problem with the approach most people take to self-improvement of any kind. There is a presupposition that there is something wrong that needs fixing. Perhaps it is true that there are areas in their lives that they wish to change. However, the mindset with which they approach transformation will very often NEGATE any positive results they might have. Why? Because all of their focus is on the PROBLEM they are trying to solve, rather than their vision for what their life will be like on without the alleged problem.

There is a very basic physical natural law which ultimately determines ANY success on ANY level. This law dictates exactly what our experience will be from moment to moment. Best of all, this law is fully under our control at all times, even if we are not aware of it.

This “law” is the Law of Attraction. Most of the time, you hear about this law in terms of how it will help you to attract wealth or abundance in general. However, the Law of Attraction transcends just those basic desires. The Law of Attraction dictates that you will receive back exactly what you “vibrate”…that is, what you are FEELING. Where is your attention? Is it on the feelings associated with the problem, or with the feelings of no longer having the problem?

If you approach self-improvement material with the desire to “get rid of the problem”, and if all your feelings are on how terrible or frustrating this “problem” is, Universal Law dictates that you will simply attract MORE of those feelings…more of the circumstances that brought the problem to you in the first place. The Universe isn’t “out to get you”. It is simply responding to the “request” that you are putting out by way of your feelings.

If, however, you approach your self-improvement solutions with high positive feelings associated with what your life WILL be…if you visualize your success with your program of choice on all sensory levels, particularly on the level of EMOTION, you will literally magnetically ATTRACT the success you are looking for! Miracles will occur!

While this may sound very “mystic” or even preposterous, I submit to you that EVERY aspect of your life right now has been brought to you in perfect response to your prevailing thoughts and beliefs which directly affect your emotional state, which in turn causes you to emit very specific and magnetic frequencies which attract like frequencies.

We must never forget that beyond simply being flesh and bone, we are, at a molecular level, ENERGY. And our personal energy obeys the same physical laws as all other Energy which we study more traditionally.

The wealthiest, most successful people in the world use the Law of Attraction (albeit often unconsciously) to effortlessly bring into their lives whatever they envision. This could be wealth, successful businesses, or satisfying relationships. Or, it could simply be wisdom, peace of mind, and a sense of purpose.

The big secret is that you truly CAN have whatever you want, regardless of how “pie-in-the-sky” this may sound. You need only learn a few key concepts about HOW to ask for what you want to begin receiving it in abundance! Despite what you may currently believe or have been taught, it is not the purpose of our lives to struggle, to work hard for years, or try to “figure things out”. Our job is to do what we love to do. When we do that with full trust and knowing that doing so will naturally attract our deepest desires, we become powerful magnets, which absolutely assures our success.

Bob Doyle is the CEO and founder of

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