Last week I was the special guest for a teleseminar call with the great people over at Good Vibe University (www.goodvibeu.com) My host, the fabulous Jeannette Maw, had described me as a “Law of Attraction Weight-Loss Expert.” I paused when I read that – “I don’t focus on Law of Attraction,” I thought. “Oh well. That’s her audience – I guess she needs to promote me in a way that would be interesting to them. It’s all good.”
I spent quite a bit of time studying the Law of Attraction in my healing process. I was first introduced to the idea that “our thoughts create our reality” by Louise Hay. I learned about attracting abundance from Catherine Ponder and how to manifest my destiny from Wayne Dyer. I was even chosen to sit in the “hot seat” at one of Abraham-Hicks’ seminars!
But ultimately, that Law of Attraction thing “didn’t work” for me. It created too much pain so I finally “broke up” with it. I had to find my own way – something practical – something that worked for me.
Thankfully, I did find something practical – something that worked for me. And after teaching it to the wonderful people over at GVU do you know what I discovered?? It’s Law of Attraction.
During our conversation I had a “chicken and the egg” revelation. One of the basic tenets of Law of Attraction is that your thoughts create energy – an energetic “vibration” – and that you can manifest your desires by deliberately focusing your thoughts on that which you want to manifest. When the energetic vibration of your thoughts matches the energetic vibration of that which you want to create, your desire will manifest into your experience.
Despite the fact that it’s way too easy for me to make the leap from understanding that I create my reality – to believing that I have the power to control my reality – which is an entire problem in and of itself – I had a really hard time “thinking” my way to a happy place. I just had too much emotion going on that I couldn’t deny – no matter how hard I tried.
And so I came up with my own way. Yes, it’s still called Alignment – but it was inspired by my experience as a Pilates instructor. During a Pilates session, I work to get my clients in to physical alignment. I want their shoulders and hips “square.” I want them to use the correct muscles for the correct purpose (Don’t be lifting your arm with your neck! Use your shoulder, back and “scoop.”) I want them to use their entire body an integrated and connected system.
I still want my Happy Calories clients to use their entire bodies as integrated and connected systems – only now I add the non-physical aspects of Self: thoughts, feelings and beliefs. I describe each of the system “components” as “rings” or “nuts” – something round with a hollow center through which energy can flow. And when these components are aligned, this transformational energy can flow freely and powerfully. This is very important for weight-loss because calories are simply a way to measure energy.
The better the “rings” are aligned, the more effectively energy can flow. And sometimes that system can get clogged with a bunch of stuck emotional energy. So I teach people to deal with that stuck energy. I want them to feel their emotions with every fiber of their being and then find a constructive way to express or release them. Once the “clog” is cleared, energy can flow powerfully once again.
And first there was the chicken. Or was it the egg? No it had to be the chicken – it’s the chicken that lays the egg. But you can’t have a chicken without an egg!
It’s the same “dilemma” with thoughts and feelings! Law of Attraction wasn’t working for me because all of my teachers had been focusing on changing the thoughts to change the energy. Well, out of whatever miracle you want to call it – some might call it a moment of grace and others would simply call it the Law of Attraction – I learned to focus on changing the energy itself.
When I’ve got drama going on the first thing I deal with are my emotions. Once I’ve felt and released my emotional energy, my system naturally comes back into balance (or vibrational alignment with Source). Once I’m feeling calm again, I can then examine my thought processes to notice if there is something that I’d like to change.
For others, the thoughts come first. It’s “think a different thought and you’ll feel better.” For me, the emotions come first. I “clear the channel” and then I can think clearly. It’s lovely to know that it works both ways and that we don’t have to argue over which came first. Don’t you think?