If you’re someone who’s heard and/or read about the law of attraction, the secret, manifestation, etc. then you probably are familiar with the idea that we are the ones who create our reality. That our thoughts and thought patterns have drawn or magnetized into our life what we currently see. Now I believe there is partial truth to this. I do believe that we reap what we sow and that what we choose to focus on does expand. However I don’t agree with this mentality 100% and here’s why. When we start to believe and think too much that we are really in control of the outcomes of our lives, we can take credit for the good things yes, but what about the bad things? What about when a loved one dies or gets sick?
I fell into this trap when my dog Sofia died. She had died all of a sudden and out of nowhere. And do you want to know what I started thinking? OMG what did I do to draw/attract this into my life? This is my fault somehow. I started taking responsibility for the sudden and unexpected death of my dog. I was already heartbroken and devastated and now I was taking on the burden of guilt- guilt that perhaps somehow I attracted this horrible event in my life. Or when we got pulled over in Mexico for a speeding ticket. In my head, I was like why did we manifest this? I even went so far as to ask my husband if he was afraid we would get a speeding ticket? I went so far as to blame my husband, you guys. Or how about this, after the death of my dog, I started to feel a little bit of panic. I started to think omg what if my mom, dad, or husband just drops dead out of nowhere, omg I don’t think I can handle that. Oh no, stop! Stop thinking that! What if your fear, anxiety, and worry brings this into reality! Do you see how insane this sounds?
I know that Law of attraction and self-development experts mean well when they say these things, but it can get really dangerous when we start to think that we are that much in control of the way things turn out. Sometimes bad things just happen and there is NO good reason or justification for it. Sometimes we like to give meaning and explanation for it because that’s the way our minds are. We want to know why something happened so that we can prevent it from happening to us. Our mind is trying to protect us from feeling pain. Michael Singer really goes into depth about this subject. He was interviewed recently on Sounds True about the world events with the Coronavirus. People want to know what they should make of it. Lots of people were even going so far as to say that it’s “happening for a reason” or that “the Universe, God, higher power” or whatever has a plan for this.
NO NO NO. Do you want to know what he humbly admitted? He didn’t know the “reason” behind all of this. Nor was he going to buy into a story that his mind created to try to make everything ok, because again the mind is trying to reason and justify why things are the way they are so it can be comfortable with the pain and the suffering that it sees. I love what he said. He wisely advises to surrender to what is. To be ok that we do not have all the answers for exactly why things are happening the way they are happening. To stop trying to explain the events and rationalize everything. Trying to explain things, and say that there’s a “divine plan” and reason for why a family of 3 children loses their 30-year old mother to a virus is impossible and frankly it’s wrong and insensitive to say that it happened for a “good reason.”
Let suffering be what it is. Stop trying to analyze and rationalize why things are happening the way they are just so that your mind can be ok with the pain. Michael Singer is one of the most enlightened and wise people I know of and even he humbly admits that he doesn’t have an answer and he’s not going to try to spit out a construct that his mind created as to why things are happening the way they are happening simply to placate others or sound like he has all the answers. He knows he doesn’t have all the answers. No human does.
This is a very difficult concept to accept and grasp and one that took me a while to be ok with. I would fight and fight and fight and blame and blame and blame because things shouldn’t be this way. There shouldn’t be all of this suffering and no one should have to suffer. It’s not fair. Well guess what? That doesn’t solve anything. That doesn’t create anything except more suffering. It’s my mind trying to rationalize and do something because it’s painful to acknowledge that I don’t have control and I don’t have the power to solve all the pain and suffering. What’s the only option? To surrender. To accept what’s happening in the moment and accept that yes it’s painful. It’s heartbreaking. It’s scary. Be ok with feeling all of this. Of course, we don’t have to live in pain 24/7. No. But part of the process of life is dealing with painful feelings. But so often we want to run away from it and not feel it.
When we do that, we actually create trapped emotions in our body. We don’t give them the grace and expression that they need in order to process. We think we’re helping ourselves out by not feeling but it’s quite the opposite. Not allowing the painful feelings actually keeps them stuck in our bodies and can lead to all kinds of problems both mental, emotional, and physical. So how can we do this? Allow. Accept what’s happening. Accept that yes the world is in turmoil and there’s nothing you can do or say to justify it. Accept that seeing the suffering of others makes you human. It’s ok to feel the negative feelings and in doing so, we give it permission to process and pass through. We let go, when we allow what is. This is different from resignation and apathy because in both of those states you’re still not ok with what’s happening. You’ve just given up. It’s passive. Acceptance and surrender entails letting go of that which doesn’t serve us and is very active not passive.
You will never be responsible for the sudden and unexpected death of your loved one. You will never be responsible for manifesting a car accident, unless of course you were negligent, that’s a different story. But if you were driving carefully and responsibly and you still got into an accident please don’t say that you manifested this because of your negative thoughts. We have enough on our plates as it is. We don’t need the extra burden of thinking that we have that much control and power in our lives. That’s just what the ego wishes. It wishes it had that much control and power. The mind wants to think that it can control the future simply by holding a certain type of thought. Rest assured, that’s just not true. Stop blaming yourself for the things over which you have no control. Drop that burden right now. Allow yourself to feel the pain of your loss. This is the first step to truly feeling better and being well.
Have you ever tried to blame yourself for something that was clearly not your fault? Let me know!
