Which YOU is Creating Your Reality?

      Periodically Pam and I host short programs to introduce people to our work. During these info nights we talk about what we do, guide participants through an exercise to help them experience energy and answer questions. A few years ago a man who attended one of our info nights asked if we could help him manifest a sports car.

   This was a tilt moment for me. I wasn’t sure if he was serious. He was. Then I scrambled to find a way to answer his question. One of us told him “no” and that we’d talk to him after the program. It turned out his question came from having recently watched The Secret. A few other clients referenced the film in their sessions, so Pam and I decided to watch it.

    While the film doesn’t completely say you can have anything you want if you’re clear enough with your intention, it comes pretty close. I can see how someone would come away from the film believing the Universe is a cosmic vending machine. The web site for The Secret still reinforces this idea by declaring, “Everything is possible; nothing is impossible.”

   Yes, anything is possible. Yes, it is possible for me to use the law of attraction to manifest something I want. But possible doesn’t make it probable.

   It’s possible to build a working vehicle from spare parts lying around in a garage. I can’t do that. It’s possible for a tropical storm to become a hurricane. I can’t make that happen either.

   Just because something is possible, doesn’t mean I can make it happen. I do believe in the law of attraction. I’ve experienced it; seen it work. I’ve also seen it fail.

    How does that happen? Aren’t I creating my own reality?

    Sure, but which part of me is doing the creating? The missing link is not the principles behind the law of attraction and The Secret, but the way we interpret them. When we leap from possible to “I can”, we’ve taken a vast universal principle and filtered it through the tiny lens of personality.

   Your life is an ongoing co-creation process between your personality, your higher self/soul and the Universe. Although your personality is the most likely of the three to fill your brain with wants; it’s not in charge of what happens.

    Almost every day you experience something that doesn’t go according to the plan your personality laid out. We’ve all had days that got completely rearranged by events that we would not and did not consciously chose to create.

   When you consciously use the law of attraction, you are engaging on a level that’s mostly personality. Even when you focus on an intention to fulfill a deep soul longing, the specifics of that intention are filtered through your personality. Your higher self and the Universe have a vast view of your life. Personality is pretty myopic.

    In my most expanded state, I can see maybe a quarter of what’s possible. If my life was limited to what I could consciously create, I’d miss out enormously. I’d miss out on unexpected gifts, random bits of wonderful and detours that take me to places I love, but didn’t know I wanted to visit. If I had enough control to wake up in the morning and create my day, what room would the Universe and my higher self have to work in my life?

     I have used the law of attraction to co-create, to bring things into my life that I really wanted. That only works for me when a) the want comes from my gut and heart, not my head, b) I leave the how and results open ended and c) what I consciously want aligns with the Universe and my higher self.

   The Secret’s web site talks about the need to be specific when manifesting. I’ve read the same thing in numerous other places. I’ve found I have to be exact about what I want and vague about the results.

     Getting specific about what I want means sitting with the want for long enough to weed out what my personality has attached to it. I have to know what the want is really about. However, if I get too precise about how that should happen or how the results should look, I am getting in the way of the Universe and my higher self.

    A few years ago I had a longing for a writing community. Writing is pretty solitary pursuit. I’d reached a point where I wanted to be a better poet. I wanted some feedback and interaction. I spent some time focusing on why I wanted a writing community. I sat with how it would feel to have that. I put it out the Universe. Two years later I got what I wanted via a chain of events that I couldn’t have put together.

    While taking the trash out one morning I ran into a woman who taught an amazing poetry class that I’d taken years ago at UNM. I hadn’t seen her since the class. She was out walking her dog. As we talked I found out that she lived up the street from me and was teaching poetry workshops out of her house. A few months later I went to one of her workshops and loved it. I had an “ah-hah” moment about me as an introvert and being in community. I wrote lots. I met some other wonderful poets and a couple of us started a weekly poetry group. I got more than I knew I wanted.

     I’ve met people who are adept at manifesting small things. I’m not one of them. I know a woman with an uncanny ability to manifest parking spaces. However, she’s struggled for years with why she can’t seem to manifest her deeper wants.

    So what about the times when the law of attraction fails? The Universe is not a cosmic vending machine. There is no perfect combination of intention and focus that will produce a guaranteed result.

   When you decide you want to attract something into your life, you don’t do that in an open playing field. You’re working in a space with a few billion other people who have things they want to manifest. Collisions happen.

   Conflicts of intention also arise when your personality gets fixated on a want and your higher self has other ideas. Say you decide you want to be a millionaire. However, before you incarnated you decided to experience poverty or a life of modest means. Your higher self still remembers that choice, even if you personality has forgotten. Chances are you’re not going to become a millionaire. If you do, it’ll happen at a high cost to yourself.

    Bottom line – you are creating your reality, but the “you” that’s doing most of the creating isn’t the little personality you.

   But wait, where does the Universe come in? Isn’t the Universe a mirror? Sure, but what kind of mirror?  When you hear “mirror” you see the flat piece of glass on the wall over your bathroom sink. If you’ve ever been in a funhouse, you know that mirrors come in many shapes. Some can make you look impossibly tall and thin. Others reflect a short, fat version of you….and some can make you look like your head is on sideways.