WHAT SEEDS DO YOU WATER?

Many people struggle with the Law of Attraction or how like can attract like. Start explaining how thoughts become things and you might lose a good portion of people. You may also get quite a few skeptical looks. I think a lot of this stems from a lack of understanding of this concept. The movie The Secret brought this concept to millions of people who may not have pondered it before. I think the biggest misconception is that all you have to do is sit in your house and think positive thoughts and your life will turn around. That is not quite the way this works.

In order to explain the Law of Attraction or LOA as we will call it, I like to use the analogy of a garden. If you think of your average garden, there is lots of planning involved. First you have to select a good plot of land, or how best to use the plot of land you have. This can be likened to your life. We must decide where and what kind of life we want to live. That includes what we want to have in our lives, what we would like to do for a living, the kind of people we would like to share life with. Some of you may be asking, “Do I really have to plan my life?” The short answer is no, but if you want to create a life of your choosing yes. It is like choosing what kind of things you would like to grow in your garden.

Next is preparing the soil. The plants we are going to grow, do they like sandy soil? Will these plants need to be planted in a space that receives lots of sun, or a little? Just like the elements of our life need to be prepared for. If we are looking to become a best-selling author, hypothetically, then we need to learn about publishing, what is required and begin to practice our writing. We must prepare the soil and plant the seeds of what we want to grow. If you want a healthy and active spouse to share your life with, but you spend every free moment you have grabbing cocktails at the club, you are not planting the seeds for that healthy and active spouse. Your time would be better spent in the gym, or attending healthy cooking classes or even joining online groups and forums that specialize in healthy active lifestyles.

Ok, you have prepped the garden of life and planted the seeds of what you would like to grow in  your life. Now all you do is wait right? Let me ask you what would happen if you planted a garden and just sat back and waited? Two things come to mind – weeds and weather. If you never watered your garden and just relied on mother nature to have the perfect set of circumstances you might get lucky, then again you might have a monsoon or a draught. Ironically, that is how a lot of us approach life. Let us use our aspiring author example. Maybe he writes every day and expands his vocabulary and knowledge. Then he waits for a publisher to discover him in passing. May happen, but chances are it will not. There will be times of good fortune, and tough times. If he sends out applications, or maybe even learns about self-publishing, that is fertilizing and watering the seeds he has planted. The chances his life will blossom and he will have a nice harvest increases greatly the more he tends to his seeds.

Then there is the matter of weeds. Weeds can be viewed as the problems of life. They will always be there and seem to need little or no help to grow. As soon as you pull one weed, another, or maybe two, take its place. If we just close our eyes and say to ourselves, “There are no weeds. There are no weeds.” which is what we do when we expect our thoughts to manifest themselves with no action on our part, our garden will soon be overrun. Conversely, if all we do is look at the weeds and focus on how terrible they are and how they always seem to come back, we can become disgusted with our garden. It is the same when all we do is focus on the problems in our life. It can seem overwhelming and make us want to abandon life all together.

The solution for life is the same as it is for the garden. Continue to water and take care of the seeds we have planted while we pull out the weeds one by one. In life we have to work on our goals a little every day and approach our problems one by one, not allowing ourselves to get overwhelmed.