You Don’t attract what you want.  You attract what you believe.

The Law of Attraction has always been presented to me, or at least in my understanding of it, was that wanting something enough would cause a thing to become true; that what I visualize, focus on, becomes manifested.  For instance, if I wanted prosperity enough, if I envisioned myself living in a nice house with lots of money to buy things I wanted, then I would get it.

The trouble was, when my vision didn’t materialize, I would lose faith in this whole Law of Attraction thing, and go back to my original belief saying, “see, I told you I was poor.  I knew it all along.  The proof is right there in my check book.”

This simple statement, above, turns my original understanding of the Law of Attraction on its head. The Law of Attraction has little to do with wanting and everything to do with believing.  If I believe I am a prosperous person then my behavior changes.  My desire has nothing to do with it.  Desiring prosperity, for instance, actually increases my anxiety and heightens my disappointment when I do not get it, which increases my belief that I am not prosperous.

But when I believe I am in the process of unlocking prosperity, when I make the choice to believe I am prosperous, then I begin behaving as someone commanding large resources.  I am more open to opportunities that might be outside my past experience.   I am now thinking in larger terms, releasing my belief that scarcity is my natural way of being (based on my past experience, which has “proven” this to be true).  I am now much more likely to produce prosperity.  Believing something that is not currently in my reality causes a shift in paradigm.  It requires faith, a belief in something I cannot actually see.  Wanting, dangling some elusive goal out there in front of me, only increases my anxiety and keeps me locked into where I am.  Faith inspires me to action.  I realize now that success in any endeavor requires faith.

A great example for me where having faith in the unknown played out is when I finally came to believe I was lovable.  I had no proof this was true.  In fact I had lots of proof that the opposite was true.  Wanting love was not enough and always ended in failure.  I had to really examine my belief that I was not lovable.  How true was that statement really?  Until I did that work, examined the veracity of that statement, love always seemed to elude me.  Through a very difficult process of self-inquiry I began adjusting my beliefs.   I journaled and wrestled with demons that had gripped me all my life, which really made me believe I was unlovable.   When I examined these beliefs deeply, when I considered the fact I was born a lovable being, as we all are, that I had built up a whole lot of defenses, which when dropped, would return me to my original lovable self, I began to believe love was possible.

I began to realize I was actually pretty lovable.  At the same time I was challenging old beliefs I also was journaling all the wonderful qualities I had that were lovable.  In the process of challenging my old beliefs and detailing how I was fundamentally a lovable person, quite capable of loving and being loved, I began to manifest my belief by doing more loving things. I started by loving myself and giving myself to and trusting others, realizing my deathly fear of rejection was not real.  It was the invention of a little boy who was trying to survive without love and security.  I had let go of the many irrational fears that kept me prisoner.  I began naturally to accept myself and others; I found myself developing more empathy.   I actually attracted love to me.  I had more friends, the kind of friends I’d only dreamed of having.  I started to became more aware that women seemed to be interested in me.  Then, after a couple years of doing this work, one day it hit me like a light-bulb.  I realized my faith in something completely counter to my previous beliefs had resulted in a fundamental change in me.  Almost to the moment I actually believed I was lovable, Cate walked into my life

The Law of Attraction is about having faith in the unknowable. It’s realizing our belief in any number of crazy ideas, such as “I am unlovable,” or “I am barely surviving,” which seem so true to us because we have made them true with our amendment belief, based on past experience, we have actually dedicated our lives to proving these “truths.”  When we take time to examine our beliefs, fundamentally changing them, then we can begin to see change our lives.

If I believe I am just surviving (“I am a survivor!”) then that is what will be true. When I realize that prosperity is not only possible but wholly attainable, that I am in fact as deserving, hard-working and capable as anyone else in cracking the code to my prosperity, if I believe that by arranging my life in a way that will make prosperity more likely, and act on that belief in myself, then my life will begin to resemble that belief.

If I limit my belief in what is true to things that are “provable,” based on past experience, then I will only be looking for opportunities that fit into this limited paradigm.  I will prove and manifest those beliefs.  If I change my beliefs, I will change my circumstances.