The law of attraction is like any other power tool. If you’re going to use it, you need to exercise good judgment, and know what you’re doing.

Today, guest author Russ Hamel casually dropped a comment in response to the recent article “The REAL Secret to Getting Things Done,” and the comment itself is rich and meaty enough to qualify as a stand-alone article… so I pulled it out of the comments and am placing it here so you won’t miss it.

In this piece, he offers us a word of caution about wishing for (programming, affirming, praying or any other means of attracting) what you want. In fact, Russ suggests that you should always…

Be Careful What You Wish For
By Russ Hamel

Who hasn’t heard that saying? Who doesn’t believe there is at least a grain of truth to it? Like me, you probably have a story or two from your life experiences for which, upon reflection, you have no other logical explanation.

How DID I get my dream car? Back in mid-70′s I drooled whenever I watched TV commercials for Chrysler Cordoba, with Ricardo Montalban dreamily describing the “soft Corinthian Leather” with his sexy, Latin American accent. I vowed that ‘one day’ I would own that car. In 1978, against all odds, I was able to buy a fully-featured model. Today I still remember it as the best car I ever owned.

How DID I move to Toronto in 1981? At the time, my first business had failed and I took a job with a janitorial service, cleaning bank offices in the wee hours of the morning for minimum wage ($4.00/hour) while the rest of the world slept. I was several months behind on rent. My utilities were mere days from being cut off. The bank sent me a notice to pay by a certain date or my cherished Cordoba would be repossessed.

Trust me, I had a lot on my mind at the time, but moving to Toronto to start a brand new life was NOT one of them. In my wildest imagination, I could never have connected the events that were to develop in that summer of 1981!

How DID I meet Maggie, the woman of my dreams? Five years before my divorce from Sandy, I started making lists of what I would like in a perfect relationship, writing every physical trait and personality characteristic I could think of. Sandy had already made her choice to self-medicate; her Schizophrenia progressively was getting worse and I instinctively knew the end of our marriage was near.

It was a life-threatening event that finally forced me to walk away from that relationship. Maggie enrolled her daughter at my music school a week after I separated from Sandy. That’s how we met. To all outside appearances, the timing was a miracle.

Fast forward to 2010… as in TODAY!

How DID a cure become a very real possibility in my life? To be sure, ever since I was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia back in 1999, I occasionally fantasized about walking out of my doctor’s office, high-fiving everyone in the reception area because I just found out that I was cured! It didn’t bother me that CLL had NO known cure… it was MY fantasy – I could think whatever the hell I wanted, right?

As you know, I had a near-death experience this past Christmas partly due to a missed diagnosis. My former oncologist simply ignored some very serious underlying symptoms. Had it not been for the decision of one of the nurses in the chemo clinic to have me admitted to the hospital that day, I would not be writing this now.

That one single event led Maggie and I to seek better treatment. According to my new oncologist, my body is in a solid, strong and stable remission, the PERFECT TIME to administer a bone marrow transplant which just so happens to be my ONLY option for… you guessed it, A CURE!

My former oncologist never, ever mentioned this. Just a few short months ago, I had no business even hoping for a cure, let alone being well on my way to getting one as I am now.

There are at least two very important common elements in each of these examples. Can you tell what they are?

Relax and Enjoy the Ride

Did you notice how in each of my scenarios, things got worse -much worse – before they got better? If you really think about it, you’ll notice the same thing happens in your life, too. You have to go through hell to get to heaven.

In the Bible’s Old Testament, the Book of Job tells of a man who is visited with all the worst possible outcomes a person can endure. Throughout the account he is heard to say, “The thing I feared has come upon me.”

Unfortunately, that’s where many people stay stuck. Oh sure, they start out by thinking on the things they want. But as soon as the ground starts shaking and the dishes start rattling in the cupboards (translation: change is taking place), they quickly move into damage control, putting their focus (faith) on all the things that are going ‘wrong’. They don’t realize that the ‘road of life’ has lots of potholes, detours and delays.

• My beautiful Cordoba came with a hefty bank loan.
• My move to Toronto meant that I had to leave my family and friends behind to start a whole new life all by myself.
• Meeting and developing a wonderful relationship with Maggie meant I had to endure an emotionally devastating divorce.
• In order to have a possible cure, I had to come THIS CLOSE to death!

It finally dawned on me that in EVERY instance, at one time I said, thought or felt, “I’d do ANYTHING to __________” (fill in the blank)

The Universe answered back, “Really? ANYTHING? Okey-Dokey, your wish is my command.” I have since learned that the more the ground shakes and the dishes rattle in the cupboards, the faster my ‘wishes’ manifest. Remember the old saying, “It’s always darkest before dawn.” So true!

Stop grumbling about the rumbling. Instead, REJOICE. OK, so it isn’t coming the WAY you wanted, but be sure about this… IT’S COMING! Think on these things and see if they aren’t true for you, too. Oh, you just gotta Love That Feeling!

All the best from Toronto,
Russ and Maggie

The world can seem like a crazy place sometimes…
OK, a LOT of the time! However, no matter what is going on in your life, magic happens when you learn how to choose better feelings now!
You’re Gonna Love That Feeling

Back to Charles:
It’s easy to start wishing things were different. Anytime we get a little uncomfortable, it’s one of the first things we do. Truthfully, without that trait, we’d never solve any problems, so it can be a useful thing.

But the rub comes when we start doing what Russ describes as “I’d do ANYTHING to ________.” A friend of mine once called this “signing blank checks to the Universe.”

And it’s not just the Universe we try to make deals with. How often have you heard someone (maybe even yourself) promise, “I’ll never ______ again, God, if you’ll just give me ______.”

As far as I’ve seen neither God nor the Universe cuts deals. The main reason we do that is because we think we’re so impoverished and feel that we’re in such a position of weakness, that when we ask, we don’t feel qualified to lay down conditions.

In other words, we’re coming from a stance of desperation. So instead of asking for what we want the way we want it, we beg generically: “Anything’ll do… just help me out here, and I’ll ______.”

If you ran a corporate or government procuring department that way, you’d be fired in about a week. Sloppiness is not acceptable there, so why should it be acceptable in running your life?

That brings us to the logical question of how you eliminate sloppiness in your requests. You already know that… it’s focus. Details. Specificity. Be exact about what you want.

And while we’re on the subject, let me repeat once again:

The Universe does not give you what you want. Nor does it give you what you need. It gives you specifically – and only – what you ask for. Nothing more, nothing less.

So would you be interested in a tele-workshop on focus and attraction?

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

Related Posts:

1. There Is None So Blind