Law of Attraction: The Low Down on Visualizing

When it comes to the law of attraction, you hear a lot about visualizing. Often times, it is almost as if law of attraction and visualizing become synonymous. But it is important to remember that the law of attraction is not a tool; it is not something you can ‘use.’

Harnessing its power is all about what you are ‘being.’ Not what you are doing. It is a way of explaining how reality is created, and why what happens happens, both in an individual’s life, and our collective experience as a whole.

It is kind of like gravity—you aren’t ‘using’ it, it just ‘is.’ And yes, some of you may be thinking right now, gravity is proven ‘thing’ and LOA isn’t…but you know what I am getting at here.

Many people find themselves getting very frustrated with their efforts, and a large part of that stems from the myriad misconceptions that surround the law of attraction. A book like The Secret was awesome for bringing the law of attraction more into the ‘mainstream,’ but I think it left a lot to be desired in terms of explaining the nitty gritty of the creation process.

I was watching an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia yesterday (one of my fav shows) and the opening scene had a couple of the characters staring a vision boards, and when they were asked what they were doing, they responded they had heard about the The Secret, and it’s this awesome book telling you that you can get whatever you want without having to do anything to get it. They just had to make their vision boards and everything on it would just happen. 

As an LOA teacher, I found it quite entertaining. I am not knocking the book by any means…I think it contained lots of great information, but again, it really didn’t go too deeply. It did a great job of explaining the theory of law of attraction, but how we actually go about becoming a ‘match’ to what we want can involve a bit more than just setting intentions and thinking about what we want, because we have resistance.

Anyway, got a bit off topic there, and back to visualization. Here are a few things I would like to say about it to help you gain a better understanding of the role it plays in the manifesting process. And I would also like to add that when I say visualizing, I basically mean thinking about what you want, not just concentrated efforts at forming mental pictures.

Visualizing IS NOT Manifesting

What we attract into our experience is so much more than what we are thinking about, and the pictures in our head. It is about our overall energy, which is the sum of our thoughts, beliefs and feelings. Think about all the things you have attracted in your life that you never popped into that beautiful mind of yours. An even better example is all the unwanted shit that you never saw coming a mile away.

Whatever is predominant is what will influence what experiences come to us. So don’t freak out if you aren’t perfect…that is not a requirement to get the good stuff. I say that a lot on the blog because it is a really important thing to remember, a thing we can easily forget.

Visualizing is a tool, a very helpful tool, no doubt, that serves the purpose of any other tool or technique—it helps you cultivate the feelings that lie behind what you want.

For those of you that are newer to the manifesting game, no matter what you want, you are after a feeling…your brain will beg to differ and insist you want whatever specific thing you want, but this is absolutely true for everyone.

For the more seasoned, this can be a helpful reminder because there is a good chance you forget this helpful little nugget from time to time, and your brain is pulling the same exact shit.

So yeah, the actual act of visualizing can’t create anything for you. If you think about what you want a lot but it doesn’t feel very good, you can think about what you want until you give yourself a migraine, and it won’t matter.

If you aren’t the type of person who can formulate crystal clear pictures in your mind, don’t worry. As long as you are generating some warm, fuzzy feeling like excitement or how you would feel if you were actually experiencing whatever is happening, it’s all good. I’m one of those people, and my visualizing often feels more just like thinking about what I want—there is some image, but it is not super-crisp if you will.

And since visualizing is not manifesting, but just a tool, how often you think about what you want doesn’t impact how quickly it will come to you. The degree of resistance does, and we all know the various forms that comes in from getting super-attached to a specific manifestation to worrying feeling better now will somehow cancel the ‘order.’

But since we are probably going to think about what we want pretty much constantly, it would behoove us to be able to think about it in as positive a way as possible. Which brings me to my next point….

Visualizing is an Awesome Way to Build Some Momentum…

One of the reasons that visualizing is usually an integral part of the process is because we have very little, to no experience ,thinking about what we want in a truly positive way. We may never think much about what we truly want because we have never thought it possible, so why torture ourselves?

Or we may spend a buttload of time thinking about what we want, but it is in a ‘this is just fantasy and never gonna happen’ kind of way. Thinking about it may produce a bit of positive feeling in that we are getting some sort of temporary escape from our current reality. But as for actually thinking it is something that can actually happen? Not so much.

We have a lot of practice thinking negatively. We are very accustomed to thinking the worst, expecting the worst outcome, worrying, and what have you. So this means we have a lot of momentum behind this way of operating. It doesn’t take much to trigger a negative train of thought. It doesn’t take much to bring us out of a good mood or positive line of thinking.

The law of attraction states that what we focus on expands, and when we are in a more negative line of thinking, we just get delivered more thoughts of that nature. We have all had that experience when we were feeling really low, and all the negative shit came hard and fast. We never have to make an effort to get in a bad mood…it comes quite easily.

So visualizing is a great way to build that positive momentum. As we flow more energy towards what we want, we bank some positivity. And the more we bank, the easier it gets to think and feel positively. The more we bank, the easier it is to get back to focusing on what we want, when we find ourselves going off track.

This way of feeling and thinking starts to feel less foreign, and even when we are having our moments of doubt, fear, focusing on what is, lamenting we don’t have what we want yet, we become more aware that we are having a ‘moment’ and we don’t get sucked in as much.

We may not be focusing positively in that second, but that positivity is there in the background, helping quell the current emotions.

Technically we don’t ever need to think about what we want, but again, we will…a lot. The actions of visualizing and using other tools, make us think we will get what we want, and that positive expectation is very helpful.

We are not going to fully buy in that we don’t need to focus, and offer up the details of what we want, lest the Universe won’t bring us exactly what we want. So again, visualizing and getting into a feel-good state will be very, very helpful.

Visualization Helps Uncover Resistance

Ask and it is given is certainly how it goes, but if you have resistance, you are going to have to do a bit of work in between, to manifest the things you want. This is where many people hit a bump in the road.

They were led to believe that you just ask for something and you get it, not realizing that just wanting it was not enough, and that their belief system had to support getting this thing.

If we don’t uncover the resistance that is standing in the way, we are going to have a hell of a time getting what we want. We will continue to create in default mode, where we let in a whole mix of experiences. Maybe the stuff we want will come or maybe not.

So, to create deliberately, we must familiarize ourselves with our personal blend of resistance that encases the things we want to manifest.

This part is not fun because resistance doesn’t feel good. But, again, we have to see what we are working with.

So, when you start visualizing, and it doesn’t feel good, what is coming up? What feelings? What beliefs? Any memories from the past? No matter what the situation, it is relevant to what is happening now—there is a similar feeling and belief to what you are thinking about now.

If you sit down to visualize and you just let it play out without stopping it, or molding it, in any way, the scenario will usually play out according to your resistance. For example, if you are thinking about meeting someone, you may visualize yourself talking to a beautiful girl, but then she tells you she’s not interested and walks away, or the interaction becomes awkward.

Visualizing can be a great tool to formulate scenarios and cut down on your resistance. Again, visualizing is not manifesting, so you don’t have to worry about getting every last detail down, lest you won’t get exactly what you want.

Going General is Usually Best…

The more specific the visualization, the more resistance is likely to be triggered. The more details there are, the more there is for your mind to poke at, and question, and we want to minimize that as much as possible.

It will latch onto each aspect and ask ‘how’ that is going to happen. It will conclude specific things need to happen to support a particular aspect of the manifestation, and will worry ‘how’ those things are going to happen. And so you can start a very vicious cycle.

Again, you are visualizing to build momentum behind the feelings that lie behind what you want—the details really aren’t important. The details can create attachment, the details smack of us trying to control the manifestation, and exactly what has to happen in order to feel like we have gotten what we want.

So if you want a relationship for example,don’t worry about figuring out every last detail of what you want this person to be like from their eye color to what their apartment looks like.

Just imagine yourself flirting and having a great conversation…the person on the other end doesn’t have to be totally fleshed out in your mind. He doesn’t even have to factor in at all…again, it is about the feeling, not the pictures.

Now, if you have a super-specific visualization and thinking about it makes you feel good…go for it. If it doesn’t trigger resistance, visualize away.

Whatever Gets You Into the Feelings is Good…Just Let the Visualization Go Where It Goes

Just in case I forgot to mention…the feeling is what creates not the pictures, so you don’t have to worry about getting super specific with your visualization, and filling in every last detail. So, anything that pops in that gives you the feelings you want, that makes you feel like you would if you had this thing, it’s all good.

Don’t worry if it is something you think you would actually do. For example, if you want to open a clothing store, you might fantasize about sexy men walking around, serving champagne and flirting with the customers.

Would you actually do that? Unlikely. But, this visualization represents the fun vibe you want the store to have, so it’s cool to think about it.

In Closing…

Again, visualizing is a tool. No doubt it is a very helpful one, and offers many benefits. The idea of just setting an intention and not doing anything to try and achieve it, makes our brain super uncomfortable.

Making use of the tools appeases our mind, which is very oriented towards action, to make things happen. But again, remember they are just means to an end. If nothing is changing on an emotional level, you are not going to see much change in your experience. The feeling is where it’s at…trust me.

Your Turn…

What did you think of the post? Anything resonate in particular? Did it help clear up any questions you might have had about visualizing? Looking forward to your comments as always!

I have a new LOA post up at Huffington Post that may be of interest…3 Reasons the Law of Attraction Isn’t ‘Working for You

 If you want to learn more about law of attraction, you can also find my Making Sense of the Law of Attraction series on Amazon. If you are a Kindle Unlimited member, they are free…sweet. And if you aren’t, no worries..they are super-cheap!