If Thoughts Become Things Then Why Didn’t I Marry Sandra Bullock?

Diana says on August 7th, 2009 at 9:41 am

Ok, so here’s what I’ll do to trigger the “right” thoughts: Hang up last year’s trousers right where I can always see them at home. I really really want them to fit again – without looking like a sauage in its skin… :) So hopefully the pants will help my thought workout. And the real one, too.

John Soares says on August 7th, 2009 at 10:40 am

I don’t believe in the “Law of Attraction.” I call it the “Tendency of Attraction,” meaning you’re more likely to achieve something you actively think about because you’re more likely to pursue action to make it happen.

Steve says on August 7th, 2009 at 10:41 am

I think the real point of the Secret is that creating positive energy can change the PROBABILITY of your reality or your future. It is extremely unlikely to be able to turn lead into gold but perhaps the probability of it occurring spontaneously might be a bit higher (but still a zillion to one) if we all focus our energy on it. I believe that in certain aspects of our life, our thought energy can have a very big impact on probabilities. Ask someone who is in sales! They know the power of thought!

For every individual thinking about Sandra Bullock, those thoughts are maybe canceling each other out. IN addition, she has thoughts of her own about what she wants! Don’t forget that!

Steven Aitchison says on August 7th, 2009 at 12:10 pm

@diana – If you hang your pants up you will definitely be more motivated to take action to get slimmer to fit back into them. However this could also cause you pain as you remember how slim you used to be and how you fitted into them before. The trick is to make it a pleasurable experience to look at your pants, thinking how good you felt in them, how slim you were back then, so this in trun spurs you on to take action toward getting slimmer.

Steven Aitchison says on August 7th, 2009 at 12:13 pm

@Steve – You’re right about creating positive energy. It’s that positive energy that helps you to take more action toward your goal.

The Sandra Bullock thing was an illustration to show that just becasue I think about Sandra Bullock doesn’t mean to say I’ll be with her. An of course you’re right Snadra Bullock has her own ideas about what she want’s to do :)

Jonathan - Advanced Life Skills says on August 7th, 2009 at 1:16 pm

Well Steve, you said the key word that turns wanting into having – action. That’s also what separates a wish from an intention.

Sometimes people over analyze things until they talk themselves out of doing what they need to do. In the long run though, I have found this one principal to be true: Whenever possible, people mostly do whatever the want to do.

Reasoning can’t override emotion for very long. The key is to use our minds to alter our feelings so that what what we want to do is the same as what we need to do.

Steven Aitchison says on August 7th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

@john completely agree with you.

@Jonathan analyzing something too much often stops us from taking action whereas, like you said, if you try and change your emotion toward your goal then it will ultimately lead you there quicker.

Tom P says on August 7th, 2009 at 10:43 pm

Steve:

Back off — Sandra is mine! I thought of her first!

Oh, btw, nice column.

Cheers.
Tom

Lana says on August 7th, 2009 at 11:20 pm

Totally agree, there is a reason Law of Attr’action’ contains word action in it. Action is crucial.

Colin Wright says on August 8th, 2009 at 1:27 am

I couldn’t agree more. I actually just wrote a blog article about this very topic (entitled ‘The Law of Attraction is Bullshit’) which, despite the foul language, actually garnered some really intense debate in the comments!

Great post! I’m looking forward to more!

The Obidee says on August 8th, 2009 at 7:45 am

I agree with what you say in your article Steven. I think where a lot of people get hung up is that their focus is on the negative, ie. “I carrying too much weight” rather than “I feel so great when I’m xx lbs.”
All I can say to John is,”that’s okay. Believe it or not, the LOA does not need your permission to still function. It operates totally independently, unaware of your opinion on the subject. Just like the Law of Gravity.

The Obidee says on August 8th, 2009 at 7:46 am

BTW Sandra Bullock is all yours. My dibs are on Nicole Kidman!

Suzen Pixel says on August 8th, 2009 at 1:43 pm

For me, there is definitely a mind/body connection. When my focus is to consumed with negative thoughts or dread of (eg. exercise)… my body actually begins to feel lethargic. Resulting in curling up on the couch watching “Lost”.
Thinking positive about any action in my life helps increase my stamina, thus greatly increasing my chance of success.

Michael Claridge says on August 8th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

Dang you, I finally found out who’s been canceling out all my attracting thoughts on Sandra Bullock.

I appreciate your article. There are so many winds blowing about the LOA that it’s hard to know which to follow. Colin thinks it’s BS, Lana says that you need “action,” and John just thinks it’s a tendency – and all that was found just on this page alone.

Jeez, what’s a guy to do? Sandra seems so far out of reach – and I feel your pain – she doesn’t even know I exist.

I just have two observations:

1. If the LOA is what it says it is, i.e. a “LAW” then it must work absolutely, continuously, consistently 100% of the time, because that’s what LAWs do. So all I have to do is obey it. But since I’m still not with Sandra there must be some piece to the LOA that I’m not obeying correctly, or not understanding correctly. The point being – I better understand it, know it pretty darn well in order to obey it to the point that it renders positive results.

2. I don’t think that the LOA is the ONLY “LAW.” There must be many, many more laws at play. Heck, who said that the LOA is the most powerful, most effective, most important – “The Secret?” Wallace Wattles book spoke of “acting in a certain way,” and the LOA is only a piece/portion/part of that “certain way,” but definitely not the entire piece/portion/part was it? Naw, I think there must be many, many more laws at play.

Anyways, those are my thougths about the subject. Now that I got that off my brain I can go back to thinking about Sandra.

Thanks again for the post!

Dragos Roua says on August 9th, 2009 at 11:38 am

It’s the difference between “I Can” and “I Do”. You can marry Sandra Bullock, but doing it it’s a completely different thing than being able to. Most of the people are able to do almost anything, but only a few of them are actually doing that stuff… The difference between I can and I do is almost always courage to take action.

Steven Aitchison says on August 9th, 2009 at 1:11 pm

@Tom, :)

@Lana, never thought about that one Lana.

@Colin, It’s amazing how the LOA has become almost like a religion and at seems heresy to say anything against it.

@The Obidee thanks for the comments, lets double date Me, Sandra, you and Nicole :)

@Suzan I truly believ in what you’re saying here and in 100 years time it will be taken for granted that our thoughts affect our physical health. Dr Bruce Lipton is doing some great work in this field.

@Michael, LOL it’s you who’s been stopping me then! I think the word LAW in the law of attraction is wrong personally, however for marketing purposes it fits well. It would be difficult to market something called ‘One of the many things we must obey of attraction’ but I get what you are saying. I’ll let you get abck to Sandra :)

Steven Aitchison says on August 9th, 2009 at 1:12 pm

@Dragos I would urge everyone to check out the ‘I can versus I do’ post of Dragos Roua’s blog. Thanks for commenting, Dragos.

van dealer says on August 12th, 2009 at 8:07 am

I definitely agree with this…unfortunately i’m much more likely to sit on the couch watching lost :/

Carolyn Wilman says on August 12th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

I believe in the Law of Attraction. I also believe you have to take action for the LOA to work. I would LOVE you hear your thoughts on luck.

Every day I say the following affirmation: “I now choose to request and receive to win 100+ prizes, including the 4Cs, a backyard makeover and a 46″+ LCD HDTV, valued at $50K+ in 2009, this or something greater. THANK YOU!” I then submit a 100-200 entries into sweepstakes. To date in 2009 I have won over 80 prizes valued at almost $27K.

Now, I have a very good “sweeping” buddy who does not do affirmation and submits several thousand entries. He has yet to win more then $5K this year.

I teach others that if you focus on the end result (new job, better health, your soul mate, prizes, etc.) and take action towards your goal, the Universe will step in and help you in ways you never could have imagined.

P.S. I am allowed to run off with Pierce Brosnan if the opportunity presents itself, no hard feelings, LOL!

James says on August 13th, 2009 at 4:07 pm

Sorry, but Sandra Bullock is with Jesse James, who’s a Dead Man. Haha!

Jason says on August 14th, 2009 at 9:50 am

So true… but I believe in both my unconscious and conscious thoughts though, there are some times when my conscious thoughts can overpower my unconscious one eg, I think I’m failing the exam, when I’m not…it motivates me to work harder, and there are times when unconscious is always there, but then again I’m a Libran, I know how to balance things…

Steve says on August 14th, 2009 at 4:14 pm

Thanks for the post, nicely put. Obviously you need to have goals and work towards them…sorry, no magic by just wishing for it. I wish the “Law of Attraction” wasn’t so oversold – it’s become nothing more than magical thinking…to paraphrase one writers thoughts on the LOA – there would be a lot more teen age geeks getting beautiful women if there were anything behind it.

Ridwan says on August 15th, 2009 at 9:39 am

Thoughts become Things… Yeah… I heard this many times from people who had watched “The Secret”…

Steve, I agree with you completely… Thoughts w/o Actions is useless and will never work with the Law of Attraction… :o]

Ann says on August 16th, 2009 at 8:30 am

@ Michael Claridge
I believe that the Law of Attraction is not the only “Law”. I found a lot of answers in Diana Cooper’s “A Little Light on the Spiritual Laws”, despite not being a religious person. There’s the Law of Resistance and the Law of Reflection to mention just two.

Dot says on August 17th, 2009 at 2:04 pm

Strictly speaking, it’s your subconscious that communicates with your conscious mind. The unconscious is what you’re completely unaware of.

I’m curious to know how simply thinking about what you want and taking action to get what you want must change in order for it to be called the Law of Attraction, as opposed to just regular life.

Niro Thambipillay says on August 19th, 2009 at 5:16 am

Steven, you’ve got it in one here. I could not agree with you more. Too many times the critics of “thoughts become things” seem to think that if you simply think something, it will happen. That’s not what we are saying – as you say, by thinking about how fit we’ll be when we go to the gym, we are more likely to than if we think about how painful it is and how much more pleasurable it would be to sit on the couch – if we do that, then of course we sit on the couch and then get fat. So our thoughts do become things purely because thought is the precursor to action and so the thoughts that we think, when supported by action do become things!

JP Toon says on August 21st, 2009 at 3:14 pm

I think the “inner” is an illusion of the ego and that reality happens outside the mind. If I’m looking for a parking space my state of mind has little to do with whether I’ll find one or not. Often enough, someone will pull away from one just as I’m thinking, “I’ll NEVER find a spot!” ;-)

Steven Aitchison says on August 25th, 2009 at 4:52 pm

@Carolyn – Wow! that’s amazing Carolyn.

@Jason – Of course I agree it’s a constant struggle between the two but we can use the conscious mind to implant ‘thought seeds’, that grow, into the unconscious in order to change the way we think and act.

@Steve – That was the point of this post really to set the record staright, so I agree with what you’re saying that a lot of people just don’t understand it.

@Ridwan – Thanks for your thoughts on this Ridwan, i appreciate it.

@Ann – Haven’t read of any Diana Coopers books although I have seen them over the years.

@Dot – LOL – That was the secret behind ‘The Secret’, we do this stuff everyday, they just repackaged it.

@Niro – You said it better than I did in one comment than I did in a full post, :)

@Jp Toon – I don’t know I’d agree with you. I’d say reality is created in the mind and projected outwards instead of the other way about.

Sara says on September 9th, 2009 at 1:51 am

Dear Steven
I don’t believe the chance and I’m not one of the lazy person in the world.Because of that I’ve tried hard in any stage of my life.But now at the age of 34, still I’m nothing.I didn’t like to get this new view in my life but I saw anytime around myself that,for reaching everything you want(at least here),just need to be IMMODEST and INCONSIDERATE…
I lost many things specially my dear times, just because I’ve been a shame person in whole of my life

Sandra Bullock says on October 19th, 2009 at 3:46 am

I’ve heard someone talking about me… Steve, will you marry me??