The Difference Between Law of Attraction and Wishful Thinking (Part Two)

  A Case Study in Career Success and Suicide Starring Justin Bieber.  

Part Two:

As promised, today we will examine the difference between powerful Law of Attraction and weak Wishful Thinking in the arena of Success and Career, using a well-known youngster from up north as our example.

If you're willing, it may help to go back and read the post that precedes this one, "The Difference Between Law of Attraction and Wishful Thinking," Part One.

Consider your friend and mine, adolescent Canadian pop star Justin Bieber.

 It seems like so very long ago that we lived in a Bieberless world, but really, it was just a mere five years past that “Baby” and Bieber’s bangs burst on the scene (yes, I know that was a lot of alliteration, but I just couldn’t resist). 

And now, flash forward to 2014, and not only is Justin Bieber the notorious inspiration for the most popular petition ever since the White House launched this public service (273,000 Americans signed to get him deported), but during the Winter Olympics he was the subject of much-admired Chicago billboard that was touting a match between America and Canada in ice hockey:  “Loser Keeps Bieber.”

Our erstwhile friend (whose more recent hairstyles make him look like an adorable lesbian in diaper pants) is also in the middle of several civil and criminal investigations, involving alleged drunk-driving, house-egging, LA paparrazo stomach-kicking, and other dubious activities, all of which added up, indicate that he has, in fact, grown up to be kind of a douche.

It’s not surprising, of course, that many adult Americans would hate a multi-million dollar tween dream—consider our history with Britney, Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block, Sean Cassidy, Davy Jones, etc.  Nor is it surprising that a 20-year-old kid with 40 million twitter followers would show a lack of taste, sensitivity, and maturity in his choice of leisure activities. 

No, what IS interesting, from a Law of Attraction/Wishful Thinking perspective, is just how quickly Justin Bieber manifested both his fame and his infamy.

 By contrast, it took the other Justin, Justin Timberlake, quite a bit longer to do both. But then, he was saddled for the first several years of his career with the rest of  "N Sync.  Oh, Lance Bass.  The less said about you, the better. (By the way, Justin Timberlake is the only boy-band escapee in history to launch a serious career as an adult artist, so major props to him for that.  If you don’t believe me, look it up).

So, Back to the Justin currently under investigation.  How did Justin Bieber manifest his millions like a Law of Attraction superstar, and why is it Wishful Thinking on his team’s part to assume that one more Top 40 hit is all we need to fall in love with him all over again? 

Baby, baby, baby, Noooooo!

Apparently, so the story goes, we have Usher and Youtube to thank for the original advent of Bieber’s fame.  Bieber’s mom put up a bunch of home videos of Justin singing in talent contests, which were stumbled upon by an American talent manager named Scooter Braun, who then passed him on to another gifted singer-dancer named Usher Raymond, who then got him a contract with music mogul L.A. Reid.

But.  Before that.

Again, according to the official story, Justin managed most of his early musical development by himself.  He is self-taught on piano, drums, guitar, and trumpet, and if you’ve ever seen any of his concert footage, you know the kid is a ridiculously good dancer.   Like, Michael Jackson during the non-shameful years good.

So, whatever else we might say of Justin, we can see that he was definitely doing more than most kids—and most adults—in terms of developing his innate talent and creating his future desired reality in terms of career.  He was not, in fact, just sitting around watching reality shows on MTV and dreaming his own private dream.

By the time he was fourteen, he was entering local talent contests and winning.  And the video footage was enough to impress a very shrewd talent manager who came across the Youtube clips “by accident.”  (Here, we see the hand of what the Vikings called “fate,” and most of us call “luck,” and metaphysicians call “The Law of Attraction.”)

Even after Justin was picked up by Scooter, Usher, and L.A. Reid, the story goes that radio stations didn’t want to play his songs. Apparently they felt there was no market for a fourteen-year-old boy on the radio.  So, just like an 80’s teen star named Tiffany did two decades before him, Justin took to the road, visiting radio stations and malls to expand his brand in the marketplace.

Which meant that he was already “acting as if.”

And you know what?  People, especially twelve-year-old girl people, were all over that shit.  They said, “why yes, I WOULD like the chance to go crazy over my generation’s beguiling moppet-haired, big-eyed, sweet-voiced media darling.”

(This is the part that amuses me: that anyone savvy in media history would find Justin’s rise at all unexpected.  We can go all the way back to 1964 and blame the Beatles, but there’s so many more recent examples to prove that tween and teenage girls are not to be denied when it comes to their perpetual desire to cover themselves in glitter and scream themselves hoarse.)

Again, by all accounts, the young Justin was fairly open-hearted and minded.  He loved singing and dancing, he worked hard to get really good at both, and he wanted to show that off in front of a whole lot of people. 

And because he apparently didn’t have a lot of internal crap, or crap from his family, about why this would be a bad thing to do, he got on with it, and was duly rewarded for his mostly positive energy with a great career.  Good Law of Attraction in action.

Then, Justin proceeded to trash this career by being an idiot, long before he had earned the respect of anyone but twelve-year old girls, some of who, like the fickle beasts they are, have since grown up or defected to One Direction. 

The bad-boy thing is cool if you’re Tommy Lee and you’ve got Pam Anderson to play it out with, but $10,000 of egging-damage to a house when you’re almost 20 years old? Just not in the same league.

And now, his name is Mud, and he probably doesn’t feel that great about it, no matter how much money or power he has. 

It can’t feel that good to know that over a quarter MILLION Americans put their name on a petition to get rid of you.  Or that the United States and Canada are fake-fighting about who has to keep you.

As supporting evidence for my last statement, I offer up the name of Justin’s latest song (released on Twitter), appropriately titled, “Hard 2 Face Reality.”

The problem with Law of Attraction is that it works both ways, for good and for ill. No matter what you are, you just keep attracting more of that.

Now that Justin’s got a sad international bad-joke vibe set in place, I predict that it’s going to be pure wishful thinking on his part to imagine himself magically re-invented as a respected artist and seeing this come to pass. 

No, I think the only hope for Justin is to spend some serious Brenee-Brown-Ted-Talk time and get in touch with his vulnerability, and then share some of that with us, and then maybe we’ll let him move onwards and upwards. 

It would also help if he stopped wearing diaper pants in public.

And now, for the rest of us.  What can we learn about our own consciousness and career from the Cautionary Tale of the Biebs?

I will address some of the highlights in my next post, and in upcoming posts about how to create, communicate, and grow a visionary brand as an Awakened Entrepreneur or Intrapreneur. 

The Difference Between Law of Attraction and Wishful Thinking (Part One)

A Case Study in Career Success and Suicide Starring Justin Bieber.

During a recent diner with my friend Fran Gallaher, an incredibly talented intuitive and executive coach (she specializes in helping highly-sensitive Empaths navigate the minefields of the marketplace), I found myself climbing on my philosophical pedestal and ranting to Fran about the difference between the recently popularized Law of Attraction and good old-fashioned Wishful Thinking. 

Now, those who know me will tell you it’s not big news that I found myself philosophically ranting (I spend a lot of time by myself, so tend to get carried away when I have a receptive audience), but rather that the receptive audience in this case was interested (or polite) enough to request that I write a blog post about this distinction. 

So this one’s for Fran, and also for all you other metaphysical fans who are re-inventing a brand while contemplating the spiritual laws of success and how they influence a career. 

What IS the difference between good “Law of Attraction” energy and weak wishful or “magical” thinking?

If you’re a person whose open-minded enough—or perhaps just temporarily desperate enough—to experiment with your own consciousness technology, you’ve probably noticed that there are times when you set an intention and see it come true almost immediately, and others when you find yourself waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for that desired result to manifest. 

Still waiting.  Any day now you’ll meet your dream man during your wildly successful book tour, while wearing your size 4 Prada dress.  Any. Day. Now.

There’s also some even worse times when you get a good positive vibe going about something (or so you believe) and what actually happens in the real world is pretty much its exact opposite—your dog dies, your house burns down, and the IRS sends investigators to see if it was you or your dog who’s guilty of arson.

This last thing is pretty much a summary of the last year of a good friend of mine.  She knows who she is, and if I exaggerate, I don’t do so by much.  The house did burn down.

My point is not that my friend did something wrong or wishful with her thinking, and so her house burned down as a result.  Her house burnt down because there were wildfires and her house was in the path. 

No, my point is that A) This consciousness stuff can be confusing and also that B) Sometimes shit just goes down and it's tragic and we wonder what in God's name we did to deserve our current results.  Really, Universe? Really?

(By the way, if you're a consciousness newbie--or a consciousness veteran who's gotten bitter through a bad run--please don't greet your friends' tragedies with empowering explanations about how their crappy energy attracted this dire thing.  No.  Give them your empathy and compassion and admit that what happened to them was terrible.  You and they can search for meaning at a later date).

So, with all this potential confusion, how do you tell whether you’re practicing good Law of Attraction vibes or just good old wishful thinking?

The short answer:  You don’t necessarily attract what you want.  You just attract more and more and more of What You Are.  Of course, “What You Are” can always change, and you have a lot of say in the matter.

The tricky thing about Law of Attraction is that the switch is always on.  So if you manage a couple nice interludes of Happy Thoughts for 30 seconds, interspersed with hours and hours of worry, fear, arrogance, anger, boredom, rigidity, struggle, etc., you will continue to attract people, situations, and responses that agree with your predominant and habitual way of being. 

Which doesn’t mean, by the way, that those 30 seconds of happy thoughts are a complete waste of time.  It just means that you will need to grow and expand those interludes until you have MORE authentic joy, excitement, aliveness, empathy, inspiration, confidence, etc. 

Until THOSE happier ways of responding become your predominant/habitual way of being, and you can save up your extremely worthwhile and valid anger, fear, shame, and sadness for appropriate occasions when you need them and they are the perfect emotions to have and express.  If you’ve read this blog before you know how I feel about Positive Thinking totalitarianism.

Wishful thinking is when you expect something drastic to change in the outside world without being willing to change very much internally.  It’s when you may talk a good game, try to sound positive, but your real feelings, your real actions, tell a different story—and still, you expect that somehow “everything will work out.” 

Well yes, in one sense, “everything” will, but don’t expect the “working out” to look too much different from what you’ve seen in the recent past.

Using Law of Attraction to your benefit is when you are wiling to change, when you are willing to become “good with money,” or “a good student,” or “lucky in love,” or “rich beyond reason,” and you understand that this change may take some serious attention, study, practice—whatever it takes for you to learn something new with an open mind and heart. 

And then, whatever time it takes for you to share that new version of your being with others.

As I was considering how to illustrate the difference between these two easily confused ontological approaches, I saw a story on the news (and by “news,” I mean those diabolical geniuses at E! News) that President Obama had received a petition signed by 273,000 Americans asking for the deportation of teenage pop star Justin Bieber.

Eureka! So perfect. 

Thank you to the Biebs for coming across the screen of my consciousness at the most marvelous time to demonstrate this difference.

Now.  The serious and high-minded among you may not like my mixing of serious philosophy with low pop culture such as is represented by Justin Bieber, but fortunately, Rhonda Byrne of The Secret has already paved my way in bringing metaphysics to the masses in a prepackaged form. 

Also, the great thing about metaphysics, and Law of Attraction, and Ways of the Universe in general, is that they are no respecter of taste or persons. 

The whole point is that this law, like gravity, works for or against everybody, and no one gets to opt out.  Both you, and me, and Justin Bieber must deal with the fact that we have “an energy” that attracts certain other compatible energies, and if we don’t like what’s manifesting in reality, it’s up to us to make a significant internal switch.

If you’re intrigued, or bored, or just frustrated enough by your own career’s failure to take off in post-Millennial magnificence, please tune in tomorrow for Part Two of this topic.

How Much Positive Thinking is Too Much? Or Not Enough?

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Get Back in the Positive Water.

Eureka! Here is some crazy crazy news from the world of Positive Thinking that is guaranteed to confuse both you eternal optimists AND those of you cynical folks who have long grown tired of shiny, happy people holding hands.

It concerns the controversy over the Magic Number, the Positivity Ratio. 

Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina has carved out a niche for herself as the world’s leading expert on positivity—including all the varying flavors of emotion one might class as positive: joy, love, pride, hope, awe, amusement, compassion, appreciation, interest, gratitude, and inspiration.  In order to study the positive, she also had to class the emotions that we experience as negative:  fear, anger, doubt, boredom, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, shame etc.

In 2005, Fredrickson and fellow researcher Marcial Losada published a very famous study citing a very specific ratio of positivity to negativity—a “golden ratio,”—that tips the scales towards living a happy, exciting, fulfilling life.

This ratio was 3:1.

It was not 1:1.  It wasn’t even 2:1, which some people claim is the ratio for the average American. (How on earth would we verify this?)

No, According to the study, people who experience twice as many positive emotions as negative emotions are overall “no happier” than those whose negative emotions equal or exceed their positive ones  (I don’t quite understand how this could be, but let’s leave this technicality aside for a moment).

No, according to Fredrickson and Losada, it’s 3:1.  People who have one instance of a negative emotion for every three instances of positive emotion tend to flourish and excel, across the board.  Those with more negative instances do not. 

Unfortunately for those who had hung their hats on this golden ratio (including the unfortumate Fredrickson and Losada), last August, 2013, the math behind it was proven to be complete crap. 

Which is a disappointment, because there were so many things I really liked about this “mathematical certainty” for how much positive is positive and how much negative is also positive.

For example: for those of you who (like me) really hate it when people say, “well, everything happens for a reason.”  (Yes, okay, but this doesn’t mean it’s a GOOD reason), the positivity ration also argued that there’s a LIMIT to how much positivity is good for us to have. 

According to Fredrickson and Losada, once the ratio goes beyond 10:1, it seems that our self-efficacy turns into self-delusion.  You know all that stuff that your parents used to warn you about your “pie-in-the-sky/Pollyanna/woo-woo” thinking?  Well, if you go past the 10:1 mark, they were right—you ARE likely to crash and burn.

In other words, we WANT some of our negative emotions alive and kicking because they give us important feedback on what’s happening both internally and externally.

Despite the debunking of Losada and Fredrickson’s math, I think that this is still true.  I also think there’s still good sense in this statement from Fredrickson:

“Levity is that unseen source that lifts you skyward, whereas gravity is the opposing force that pulls you earthward.  Unchecked levity leaves you flighty, ungrounded, and unreal.  Unchecked gravity leaves you collapsed in a heap of misery.  Yet, when properly combined, these two opposing forces leave you buoyant.”  (Frederickson, Positivity, Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life)

Agreed.  Even if the research wasn't so "top-notch" after all.

All this wonderful news about negativity (or all this negative debunking of positivity) really makes me feel quite positive, because ever since I started down the Yellow Brick Road of Spiritual Healing and Self-Improvement, I’ve felt quite negative about giving up all my negative emotions. 

I especially don’t like it because I’ve spent so much of my life hiding these emotions from myself and from others, that now when I actually CAN experience a genuine negative emotion authentically, that the last thing I want is some well-meaning transformed-n-enlightened idiot in my face explaining how I will feel different once I get aligned, get in-tune, let go of my story, etc. 

Well, yes, OF COURSE I’ll feel better, but just give me a second to do this other thing, okay?  Why do we have to be in such a goddamned hurry to feel good all the goddamned time?  I mean, I agree that it feels better to feel good than to feel bad, but you know what else feels good?  Telling the truth about my own personal experience, that’s what.

The best part is that I've been that very same well-meaning idiot myself, so many times.  It IS hard to be with people who are suffering--especially me.  It's bad enough when YOU feel bad. It's even worse when it's me.

Now, in my forties, I am back to doing what I did very naturally as a little kid.  When I find someone I love who's fallen down a dark hole, first I climb down in there with them.  Yuck.  I remember what what it's like down here.  

Next, once we have both agreed that A) Yes, we are in this hole, and this hole exists, and it sucks, and B) many people who haven't fallen down this hole will tell you that everything happens for a reason, which we'll be sure to remind them of if they ever fall down it, then we can get to C) Is there any way to start building a ladder so we can take a couple steps back up towards the surface?

All in all, even if the positivity math was debunked, I think there's a lot to be said to the 3:1 ratio.  At least, at this point in my life it seems pretty sound.  

The Bad News About Positive Thinking.

Yikes.

So my friend Kerry is going through a really nasty divorce.  The kind where there’s been some subtle but persistent domestic abuse.  The kind of domestic abuse that doesn’t show, except that there’s five physically beautiful people in this family—parents and children—and yet, when you look at some of their family photos, you might see something in their faces that all the dynamic bone structure and giant eyes in the world can’t quite conceal.

And things have built to a point where pretty much everybody wants out.  Except there’s no easy way out, for many excellent reasons.  And one is that all the money belongs to the dad’s family and they aren’t too keen on family disintegration, being of the fundamental religious “family values” persuasion.

And that’s just one reason.  If you’ve ever been part of a family, you can probably imagine some of the others.

Kerry gives me her bravest, brightest smile, and tells me that “Things are hard, but I’m trying to stay positive.”

I hold her hand and think, “Oh, crap.”

Don’t get me wrong—I am a big fan of the power of positive thinking.  I’ve been in some fairly dark places myself, and it was in those very places that I discovered just how quickly and strangely things can change once you make a choice to change your consciousness, to expand beyond your own personal “business as usual.”

You probably know what Einstein had to say:  “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it.”

You’ve probably heard what Gandhi had to say:  “Be the change that you want to see in the world.”

And the reason you’ve probably heard these things is that people all over the world are sharing them like never before, thanks to our friend The Internet, and our other friend, The Shift. 

If you’re not as familiar with this second friend, the short story on The Shift is that many wisdom leaders around the world agree that we are living through a time of unprecedented speed, complexity, and transition—a time when there are more people on the planet than ever before who are waking up to the realization that we are each the creators of our own reality, and we each have the potential to tell a new story.

Some of these visionaries claim that the speedball combo of all this intensity and interconnectedness is also contributing the inevitable breakdown of familiar but fundamentally flawed social systems, and that this breakdown is necessary in the same way it’s necessary for a caterpillar to become a big pile of indeterminate goo inside a pod before it somehow reassembles its cells to form a butterfly.

So.  Perhaps this is why we get to experience fun things like worldwide financial systems merrily restructuring themselves—who doesn’t enjoy a good foreclosure and the destruction of our personal dreams after some delightful sub-prime mortgage experiments in which we didn’t quite know we were participating?

And then there’s the survivors of family fallout, the dads who thought the whole point was to be glitteringly successful but also soccer-dad sensitive, the moms who believed that so long as you could raise an adorable family while maintaining the face, figure, and professional ambition of a twenty-five-year old, it was all going to turn out fine.

Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, but as Americans, Goddammit, no matter what happens, you gotta stay positive.  You gotta stay open.  You gotta keep moving. 

We are the most relentlessly positive nation in the world, which for the most part, serves us well, I think. 

And yet, social psychologists say that only 25% of us report ourselves as being “overall, very happy,” a percentage that has stayed fairly consistent over the sixty or so years that social psychologists have roamed this earth to ask these questions and report these findings.

Which brings me back to Kerry and my initial reaction to her declaration. 

It’s not that I don’t believe she and her family members can find a way out of this hell into true happiness. 

Is it probable? Hell, I don’t know.  But it is possible, since there is a natural force in each human being that calls us to happiness.

It’s not that I don’t believe in this force, and that one name for it is Love, and that Love can find a way to illuminate the darkest places, and build bright new things out of even the most tangled messes.  If we open ourselves to It.  And sometimes, even when we don’t.  

Or that’s what I’ve found out, so far.

No, it’s not that I don’t believe in the power of positive. It’s just that I always get a little nervous when I’m talking to anyone (including myself) who’s trying to put icing on a shit cake.

What I will say to Kerry, if I can find the courage, is that while positive is good, it’s also okay to be really mad. It’s also an excellent thing, if you can stand it, to grieve like a banshee. 

You don’t have to do either of these things for a long time. In fact, it’s better if you don’t.  Just give yourself a short time to feel the feelings fully, and, gross and horrible and Un-American as they may be, they will pass on through. 

After all, the very word, emotion—it’s just “e” + “motion,” so it’s best to let it move. 

If you’re worried that once you start crying you might never stop, or that once you feel anger you might just go ahead and kill pretty much everyone you know, there’s all kinds of people who can help you and hold you to prevent death by never-ending tears or that old machete you just happen to keep in your garage.

These people go by many names: therapists, spiritual leaders, healers, life coaches, friends, mentors, sponsors, teachers, and even (in some select cases, if you’re very fortunate) family members.

What’s most important about the person you select is that he or she won’t try to fix you.  Instead, he/she will listen carefully, quietly, and hold you in a space of love and approval where you are totally safe to vent, to let the emotion get in motion. Once you’ve had a chance to do that, this person may offer a different perspective, but only once you’ve had your say.

If you select someone who’s not a professional listener—and sometimes, even when you do—it usually works best to let this person know that you just need to talk, to be heard, and don’t require anything but a good and spacious listening.

If you don’t have access to any of these people (or think you don’t), my friend Ginger Bowler, an incredible healer and teacher, says that EFT—Emotional Freedom Technique, also known as “tapping”—is one of the very best self-help techniques available for clearing trauma of either the fresh or festered variety. 

You can get a free tutorial on how to do this at creator Gary Craig’s website:  http://www.emofree.com/

And finally here’s a method that sometimes works for me: 

Find a quiet place where you can be alone, but can also make noise, if you find it necessary.

Get yourself in touch with an image or energy of Love, Power, and Clarity. Something very, very strong, incomparably strong, who also happens to love the absolute shit out of you. 

To get the right flavor of this, you can picture or think of this energy as God, Goddess, Angels, Buddha, your ancestors, your awesome dead grandma, The Universe, a beloved animal, the ocean at sunset.  Personally, I often go for a combo.

I promise you that the exact image, name, or idea doesn’t matter so much.  Just tap into the idea of something really powerful that also approves of you. And can handle whatever fireballs you need to throw.  And is happy to listen

So. With these horribly vague instructions, how do you know you’ve got the right “idea” to support you?

You’ll feel like you are safe (or at least, somewhat safer) and in a safe place to say exactly what you need to say.  You can rant, cry, scream guttural screams, burn small non-living items, whatever supports you in your quest for self-expression.

If you feel stupid talking, crying, or screaming to yourself, writing it down (perhaps as a letter) is an excellent way to let the folks in the complaint department know you are not, in fact, having the best day ever.   

Don’t try to be enlightened. Don’t try to be transformed.  Don’t be “adult” or “appropriate.”  Just tell the truth.

You’ll know when you’re done, because you’ll feel some relief.  You’ll feel cleaner and clearer.  You might feel relatively “empty,” like there’s finally some room in your noodle for something new to arise.

Now, you’re ready for some positive thinking. 

Which I’ll talk about in my next post, but if you want to move ahead to the positive, I’m pretty sure you can find a thing or two about it on the internet while you’re waiting for me to catch up.