This week’s blog and podcast episode is about my new favorite topic, which is the Law of Attraction! This Universal Law basically means we are going to attract whatever our mind focuses on the most. In other words, we are responsible for everything we bring into our lives because our brains are like magnets and attracting what we put out to the Universe. Our thoughts and how we manage our minds are how we create the reality that we experience. Most people unknowingly bring many negative events and people into their lives through their unexplored subconscious and dwelling in negative emotions. Learning how to live a deliberate life aligned with our divine purpose enables us to manifest whatever we want in our lives by choosing our thoughts on purpose to create the results we want. I am sure you recall our thoughts generate feelings, and those lead to actions that give us our result. In this week’s blog, I am going to share a few personal stories of how the Law of Attraction has played out in my own life in both positive and negative ways and explain how it is not possible to “trick” the Universe or outrun the Law of Attraction.

The first story I am going to share is in relation to chronic back pain that I have experienced for decades and how it recently became very debilitating but is now almost entirely gone. The first time I recall experiencing significant low back pain was at The Marriott Hotel in Denver, CO back in the early 80s. I used to pick up extremely heavy trays as a bus girl at Marjolanes restaurant and would “throw my back out” periodically. The way I usually took care of it was a trip to the ER, some prescribed drugs, and a little bedrest. This happened a little more frequently than I would like over the course of the fourteen or so years I spent in the restaurant business. When I finally got out of that business, I went into healthcare and began lifting very heavy and debilitated patients all day long. I had more injuries with that transition and would always report to HR when I had another “incident” while working. Back pain just kind of became a part of my life and I no longer expected it to go away. Oops, that was one of my first thought errors.

Another thought error I had after working with older patients who decline with aging, was that I kept thinking how much worse my back was going to get and what a mess I would be by the age of 60. I anticipated worsening pain, possibly the need for back surgery at some point, and not being able to enjoy the long walk and hikes that I have always loved. Holy cow! If I knew now what I did not know then, I could have saved myself years of suffering. I heard people talk about pain being emotions stuck in your body and watched the documentary called HEAL that illustrated the power of our minds. I remember feeling a little better temporarily but was not able to sustain it because I knew nothing about the law of attraction or the thought work about living a deliberate life that I know now. It wasn’t until I started to learn more about living consciously and made it a priority that I began to get some clarity.

The beginning of the end of my back pain happened after trying everything I could (other than anything internal) try. I hired an angel coach to help me with pain, I did MAT and PT, I went to the chiropractor for years, iced, heat, you name it, I did it. The pain had gotten so much worse that I got an MRI and an order for a cortisone shot. Long story short, I ended up being allergic and had the worst reaction ever. I was a hot mess at this point and still did not realize that I was attracting all this pain and suffering to myself.

One day, I had a thought that maybe instead of giving into the pain and trying to prevent it, I would be better off leaning into it and working through it. Low and behold, that was the beginning of an internal shift. I started to be able to participate in more activity and the pain eventually faded into the background of my life where it was for years, instead of in the limelight. During this same time period where I began to change the way I was thinking, I also learned about Eckhart Tolle and was mentored by Brooke Castillo to become a certified life coach. Suffice it to say, that was the beginning of a huge internal transformation for me that came after a very dark time that brought up all of my shadows and exposed all of my fears and insecurities. My mom used to always say it is always darkest before the dawn and boy is that true!

Once I made internal shifts, became more aware of how I was thinking, and continued to evolve in my personal growth, the pain became less and less an issue. It will still pop up sometimes but nothing like it was when I was super negative and hopeless about my situation. I did not realize then that my thoughts were optional and anticipating a horrible future was causing me harm. I know that now and make my emotional and mental health my number one priority over everything else. The result, of making that my focus is that I am doing better physically than I have in a long time.

Okay, the second story is related to the aging process too and how my thoughts took me from feeling insignificant and invisible to feeling vibrant and beautiful again. I was feeling pretty good in my early fifties because I was pushing through my fears and really trying to make some improvements. That did not last though, and when I started to gain weight a few years ago after being able to maintain it for over a decade, I was pretty discouraged. I also did not eat a lot and what I did ingest was pretty healthy, so I figured I was just developing a new set point for my weight and that it would be impossible to lose it at this point. I not only felt powerless to my age and my body, I also lost all appreciation for myself. I started to get mildly depressed, did not feel attractive, and looked at my life through the filter of scarcity and nothing being good enough.

That scarcity extended to every area of my life, and I had no idea! I never thought anything I did was good enough. I worried what other people thought all the time. I was always afraid I was doing something wrong and never celebrated anything about myself. Randomly (actually divine intervention), I decided to go to a continuing education class at UIC and the seed of getting my doctorate in occupational therapy was planted in my mind. Flash forward, I have my doctorate now, but it was still not enough for me to feel good or content. Nothing was good enough. There was always something else I should be doing or that needed to be different for me to think it was okay.

It was about this time that I was getting pretty discouraged with my elder care consulting business and then Covid hit. That was when I found Brooke Castillo and my life changed in amazing ways. I learned how to do thought work, did her Lose 8lbs in June program, and got certified as a life coach. That program literally changed the way I think and taught me how to make my thoughts work for me. It also showed me many of the hidden thoughts I had in my mind that were not serving me. The payoff was I lost 15 pounds and I learned how to manage my brain to create the results I wanted. I also learned that my brain has a habit of trying to make me think I am not good enough (like most people’s brains) and it is not true! Holy crap that was an amazing revelation for somebody who spent her life trying to gain self-worth and validation externally. I don’t have to believe my thoughts and they are not even coming from me. They are coming from my ego or what I like to call brain BS.

Naturally, when I changed the way I was thinking, the Law of Attraction began to work in my favor instead of against me. When I started to really pay attention to what was going on in my head and deciding how I wanted to feel on purpose, my life improved dramatically. I no longer felt older than dirt and invisible. In fact, I felt more vibrant and beautiful than I had in years from the inside out. It is so mind blowing to me that I created all of that suffering and brought it into my life with my brain BS. It is okay though; I did not know better then but I do now. You can be sure that I am hyper- vigilante about what I am thinking all the time now and no longer surprised when the law works for me or against me. I know I am responsible for everything I manifest both good and bad.

The third story is short one and a work in progress. It is about the Law of Attraction in relation to the challenges of becoming an entrepreneur and businesswomen. If I stay in the right mindset and do not try to get clarity before it is time for me to have it, everything I need to keep moving forward is provided to me. If I am open to receiving the gifts in the present moment and stay aligned with my divine purpose, everything just flows and is usually fun. When fear and doubt creep in, the flow stops and there is lots of resistance to the uncomfortable emotions. When that happens it will usually result in me losing faith in myself and not making offers anymore, which means less clients and less money. It also results in me drawing people toward me who are just like me; not consistent with their beliefs about themselves. Even if I am saying all the right things and going through all the “correct” motions to look and appear confident, the only thing that matters is my intentions and my energy. My actual belief in myself matters more than all of it and will be what dictates what I attract to myself.

No matter what the scenario is, Law of Attraction is at work. Knowing that, why not make it work for you instead of against you? On most days, I love this stuff and get so excited when I realize that I create my own life. On my fear and doubt filled days, it scares the crap out of me because I am worried about what I am attracting, LOL! Living a deliberate life aligned with divine purpose is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves, our loved ones and the Universe. Make no mistake though, you cannot trick the Universe because energy does not work that way. You can try to act like you have the best of intentions, but the Universe will always know whether you do or not! Join me in the Brain BS Podcast this week to discuss this further.