I’ve been critical about the Law of Attraction in the past. The biggest reason for this is because experience has taught me that denial of difficult truths can have devastating consequences. This is especially true if major problems are ignored for years or decades.
This view has made me overly critical about things like vision boards and manifestation. However, I realise that I’ve not written about this effectively in the past. I tend to be a little too ranty and charged when it comes to ideas concerning the Law of Attraction. This post is an attempt to leave my judgements at the door, but still give a perspective that people might find useful.
Don’t paint over pain
A major blind spot in the Law of Attraction is this: Trauma and negative emotions are never addressed. I can say for certain that things only really shifted for me once I started addressing repressed trauma and emotions buried beneath the surface. There is no way to get to peace by painting over your ‘bad’ emotions with happy thoughts. The buried shame, anger, grief and fear remains until you release it. Releasing it requires processing it, feeling it.
Vision boards and manifestation techniques are often an impulse to manifest a bunch of material things. There isn’t something necessarily wrong with that. But for most of us—especially if we haven’t spent time doing inner work—the things that we want, would most likely be terrible for our soul growth and maturity. Often, we want certain things, not because it is required for our inner journey, but because the wounded ego needs soothing. We need the thing—the promotion, the car, the person—to paint over the pain.
Our Optimal Path Is Rarely The Easiest Path
I remember when I finished my first manuscript and sent it out to publishers and agents. This was nearly ten years ago. There was nothing that I wanted more than to be published at that point. In retrospect, I know that this would have been terrible for me. It might have been the worst thing for me. There were certain tendencies that I’d not worked out at that point. A publishing deal would have worsened it. It would have taken me away from my own inner truth and creative journey. I know this because I was too outward focused at that point in my life.
A Better Strategy
Years of dreamwork, creative work, and emotional processing gave me clarity about what really matters. If you really want to manifest the life of your dreams, skip the vision boards. Instead, work with your dreams. Write them down. Reflect on the symbols and messages. Do creative work. Do deep work. Cultivate deep connections—with nature, animals, or humans.
Reflect on what’s going on inside. Feel all your emotions—even if it is seemingly ‘bad’. This is a better strategy.