One of the most important contributors to energy is Clarity. Clarity about what you want in life. What do you want most? More money? To lose weight? A better relationship with your significant other? A closer connection with spirit?
If you’ve seen the movie The Secret, you know it can be a powerful message. Bottom line of the movie is that you can manifest whatever you want by focusing your thoughts on it. If you make it real in your mind’s eye, it will become real in your life. I love the Law of Attraction, as explained by The Secret. It has brought many beautiful experiences and relationships into my life.
To be thorough in this discussion, the movie spins this concept in a direction with which I vehemently disagree. It focuses almost entirely on acquiring material possessions, such as sports cars and big houses. That’s where I believe the movie “sold out.” We can apply The Secret toward a beautiful world of possibilities in relationships and self-development that are much more fulfilling. But the movie neglected these possibilities, in favor of the societal mantra “I want more!”
It also left a few holes by not discussing how to handle when reality just won’t agree with what you want. If you have a loved one dying, you might not be able to visualize them back to health. If you live in war-torn Iraq, you might not be able to visualize the country back to peace by sitting in your chair and envisioning peace (although this certainly won’t hurt). Instead, we can and should visualize how we would want to best respond to these issues, and ask for support during the most difficult times.
Anyway, apart from the challenges of the movie, the message is a universal truth. It says that you are in the driver’s seat of your own life, co-creating your future. Change your thoughts, change your life. Visualize what you want, and it shall be so.
On the other side, I have found that trying to visualize my own future tends to take me away from the present. I can sit down and imagine exactly how I want my life to look five years from now. But this energy goes against the concept that everything we want and need is already here. We can be happy, fulfilled, and content right now. Zen master, poet, and author Thich Naht Hanh regularly writes beautiful work that suggests we shouldn’t search outside ourselves for that which is already in us. In fact, almost all highly-progressed spiritual seekers, including Osho and Dr. Gabriel Cousens, say this same message: ultimately, after all the seeking, we will simply find it within us.
Have you ever said something similar to this? “Oh, as soon as I lose 10 pounds, I’ll be happy. And a big house would be good, too. So please be quiet while I visualize and manifest a thin body and big house, because I don’t want to be miserable anymore.”
This manifestation can be helpful. But the true goal is not to acquire a thin body. The goal is what you believe that thin body will do for you: bring you happiness. And yet as Thich Naht Hanh says, we already have within us, right here and now, everything that we need to be happy.
Happiness is a choice. I’ve found this to be true in my own life. There are times when I want so badly to blame outside circumstances for how I feel, or to play victim to circumstances beyond my control. That would admittedly be so easy and temporarily rewarding, especially to my pain-body that loves to feed on more pain.
Instead, in those times, I’ve learned to slow down and review my Precepts (a personal list of my values and the principles that define the best in me). This helps me to accept my life as it is, surrender my ego’s need for control, and identify what I can learn from the opportunity (identify the AFGO – Another Friggin Growth Opportunity).
Yet, I also don’t believe that life is about being a buoy in the ocean, bobbing up and down completely at the mercy of whatever wave comes by. We should invest energy into what we really want in life – first, by deciding what we really want in life!
So the challenge lies in finding a comfortable balance between visualizing for a better future, and accepting and loving what’s already here. It’s about doing versus being. Masculine versus feminine. I’ve found that I enjoy manifesting and am quite good at it, but when I manifest too far into the future, I lose appreciation for what’s already in my life. I become temporarily blind to the good things that are right before my eyes.
I believe a healthy balance between these two approaches will bring maximum love, happiness, and energy into our lives. Finding that balance must become a daily practice, to which we must be committed. We must visualize the outcome we want, and then fall in love with the causes that will make that outcome possible.
Dr. Joel E Brame
