What am I attracting?!!

How many times has a client sat down at my table and confided “I don’t know what I am attracting but terrible things keep happening to me. I am a positive person. I think happy thoughts. I try to visualize good things coming. What could possibly be going on in here that I am creating this terrible awful painful shitty thing”? And then they gesture to somewhere around the heart and stomach region as if it’s a BLACK SWAMP containing MELTED EYE OF NEWT STEEPED IN DEVIL JUICE.

Because what every person in pain and suffering really truly needs, is to believe that the shit is their fault, owing to their failure to fucking vibrate at the right frequency. That is defs gonna get us to world peace in a jiff.

I am talking about the LAW OF ATTRACTION friends. I am talking about MANIFESTATION. I am talking about the “Secret”; the whole notion that we can see and believe our way into the best damned parking spot in the Chinook Center theater parking. And if you are not from Calgary, let me just catch you up: a handful of spots, thousands of lovely but crowd crazed shoppers in the most congested mall in the city starved for popcorn and a laugh, twenty below zero. May the odds be ever in your favour.

The Law of Attraction is a “new age”, spiritual or at least metaphysical concept, but it is one that has traveled well beyond the kombucha drinking, yoga practicing crowd. It posits that “like attracts like”. That we are part of a Universe, the organizing force of which is the attraction of like things to each other, which means that we can have good stuff if we manipulate ourselves into matching it metaphysically and if we don’t have good stuff or worse we have bad stuff, well guess what? It’s on us. We caused it. What we think is the cause of the world around us, the problems in our lives and the good in our lives. The Law of Attraction has a filter down effect. Those who don’t practice are still bound to have moments of “did I make that happen”, much like those moments when non-Christians declare that they are going to hell. There has been enough focus on it that for many of us the L of A is taking up some mental real estate. We believe it enough to be worried on some level that it’s causing our problems.

WELL girls and boys and gender fluids, I have a secret of my own!!!!!!!! And it’s this:

Anything can serve LOVE and anything can serve FEAR. And the Law of Attraction, the way it is generically commonly used, is a law that serves FEAR. Which means that whether it is true or not, whether you can actually happy think your way into the movies twenty minutes closer and warmer, it’s not a law that we want, because it hurts us and makes us feel shitty and does not actually solve the bigger thing we want it to solve.

The Law of Attraction says that the metaphysically ordered Universe is “neutral” when it comes to what is going on with you or me. It doesn’t care or not care, it simply MIRRORS us. Which means that it, the NEUTRALVERSE, does not judge us for wanting that Ferrari, or a private island all to our very own selves where we can finally get some blessed peace and quiet and maybe grow some endangered species while sipping tropical bevvies and reading a lot of books because we are not monsters after all. And well anyone or thing not judging us in world where judgment flies like asteroids in that arcade game in the bowling alley when I was 14…NVMD, well my point is that we need a break from judgment, and we’re tired of feeling like it’s bad to want pretty, shiny things that would just be a nice relief, and so why not sign up for the NEUTRALVERSE and all it has to say and start paying off that VISA already?!!

As the story goes, the NEUTRALVERSE has unlimited resources available for you and for me and that we can have them if we play our cards right.

But here\’s the rub.

After a book of explicit instructions on this “easy” process, and a spiritual, self help revolution worth of follow up on the how-to, where is the world peace, or wealth, or peace with wealth on the side? It isn’t. We have a few people winning the game, few of which are actually playing by the NEUTRALVERSE rules in the first place or have even ever picked up a self help book, and we have a lot of people running in circles feeling shit about themselves or lost in round 100 of trying to excavate a deep, unconscious belief that must be getting in the way of the one hundred daily affirmations they beam with the joy and radiance of a pristine, yellow sunflower in the general direction of heaven, but can’t seem to pay the bills with. In other words, changing their thoughts is either much, much too hard, or doesn’t work. Either way, world hunger has not been eradicated!

And the law of the oh so neutral NEUTRALVERSE tells us, yeah, we haven’t dug deep enough.

So let’s summarize this law, this holy practice we are asked by L of A practitioners, devotees and sellers to pledge allegiance to. Let’s give it a voice.

• There is more than enough for everyone -like infinite supply, actually.
• I don’t judge, but I also don’t care.
• I don’t just dole it out, you have to figure it out.
• You should be able to figure it out.
• Most people can’t.

And last but not least.

• Many people will only find out about it by random luck or chance.

Well friends, I have a measure of all things and their value and worth to us and it is simple. It goes like this:

IS IT LOVING? IS IT HELPFUL? IS IT HEALTHY?

These are easy question to answer.

A loving Higher Power, which is how many of us treat the concept of the Universe, is not indifferent to our suffering. A loving Higher Power does not withhold resources until you figure out how to broadcast your thought waves from the slum in your impoverished country, or before your house is foreclosed on in the latest Alberta oil and gas crash.

A loving HP (Universe, God, Buddha, Great Spirit, Higher Mind, Goddess, etc.) helps us out of suffering.

And if you want to argue with me that just because it’s not loving doesn’t mean it isn’t true, well how about just this: Do you want to choose it? Is it gonna help you in a fundamental way to live your life by it, measure yourself against it and invest in it?

And if it’s just a law and not a precept of holiness, then do we want to adopt it?

Is it gonna help us, get us healthier and happier?

Other than the basic CRAP concept that all that we need is somehow out there being held by the maddening NEUTRALVERSE, the L of A tells us that pain and suffering is a result of our lack of practice thinking and believing good stuff. But it doesn’t ask let alone solve for WHY?!!!!!

Why should there be all of these “thoughts” that get in our way. Surely an entire 7 billion folk haven’t just failed to learn how to “think positive”. Why would an entire population suffer from shitty belief syndrome? MIGHT THERE BE MORE TO IT? Gasp!!!!!!!!

After spending my whole adult life understanding the machinery of pain and suffering I am here to present to you the BOLD and controversial notion that shitty thinking is not caused by randomness, and it is not fixed by “chinning up” or practicing gratitude or vibrating flower vibes.

Nope.

We aren’t bad at positivity.

We aren’t bad at believing.

There is a whole really big reason for pain and suffering and for why it doesn’t get resolved.

Coles Notes: Pain tells us things. Emotional pain is a cry for love and nurturing —it expresses a need that isn’t being met. And if we suppress it because we feel ashamed of it (the world teaches us this), and now we suppress it a just a little bit or a lot more because this secret business tells us we should be able to think our way to better feeling shit going down and then feel better accordingly, well, somethin’s gonna blow.

And it ain’t the envelope on our bank deposit.

We can answer our emotional pain, emotionally…this works well for most of us, atheists included. Or we can answer it spiritually. Not so effective for the atheist. But we need to answer it.

Answering our emotional pain will probably SEEM to attract more good things to us, because whatever good was there would not be obscured by the pain and suffering, and we may even get more parking spots.

It’s not that you can’t “manifest”. I’ve done it and taught it. I once had a lot of money “appear” in a bank account overnight. I’ve done a lot of things that the secret fans might yell, “magic!” at. It’s surprising I haven’t been burned at the stake. But that piece of it alone didn’t solve my probs. It’s never gonna solve your pain. And when you solve for pain, you aren’t looking out there for the NEUTRALVERSE to rain-make because you aren’t dry. You aren’t running around chasing your metaphysical tail, feeling high on a mysterious win one day, and crashing the next because, well fuck, hard things are still hard.

So go ahead and win the parking lotto, if it’s fun and it helps you have fun.

You can create. You may even be a creative genius (I mean you can do whatever you damn well please, I ain’t the boss of you).

The Secret is not evil. It just misses the point.

To understand pain (and problems are pain) you have to speak their language, not run in the other direction with your ears plugged screaming “money is my friend”.

Being intentional with how you think and see can serve your emotional health, but it can’t force it, or replace it. It can’t override. You can’t tell a depressed person to “chin up” or vibrate better and expect results.

And that is my two million cents worth.

The rest is up to you.

Happy Monday.

— Love Erin

P.S. One day I’ll tell you the story of all of the crazy ass stuff I did in the name of holy manifesting and the really cool gasp worthy things that went down as a result and then how it was not actually my path to Miss Uni or Miss Congeniality.

P.P.S. I could dish, say, this time next week, if you want some dirt and don’t need a change of topic. Drop me your vote and I will oblige.

P.P.P.S. If you know someone who is secretly struggling, pass this on.