By Jasmine Viney
Inhale. Close your eyes. Picture your dream house, what does it look like? A big stately home, a small quaint cottage? Exhale. Walk up to the front door, turn around, where are you? Inhale. England? Europe? Australia? Go inside. Exhale. What can you see? What colour are the walls, the carpet? How many rooms are there? Inhale. How do you feel? Safe? Content? Exhale. Open your eyes. You are standing in the middle of your dream house. That is how the law of attraction works. Near enough.
Since the release of the book ‘The Secret’, in 2006, the law of attraction has captured the minds of the many. Although it debuted long before then, this was when it was launched into the mainstream media. The author, Rhonda Byrne, discusses how this one power can change your life. Put simply, what you think about is what you get. Through techniques such as meditation, many are able to visualise their dreams and focus on how they make them feel, while putting positive energy into the universe. Also known as manifesting. Eventually, the universe will return the positive vibrations you were releasing, and give you what you wanted.
This is what Fiona Robertson believes. She manifested her dream house by visualising every single thing that she wanted in the house. It would be perfectly small, cute, and in need of a bit of work. As the author and life coach was about to sign the papers to a mediocre flat, she checked the housing website one last time, and there was the house. The exact price, the exact number of bedrooms, the perfect garden and the potential to do some building work. “We can create our life to be exactly as we want,” says Fiona, “but we need to be able to get out of the mainstream, get out of the fear mentality because we are absolutely phenomenal.”
Sarah Morgan, manifesting and law of attraction coach, has also created her dream life. “I know every single thing I want will happen.” She makes up to four coaching calls a week, helps people create their dream businesses and runs retreats abroad. Sarah earns a multiple six figure salary, and describes her work as very part time: “It allows me to have freedom with my time, to follow my bliss.”
Visualising what you want is key. How does it make you feel? If you’re releasing positive energy into the atmosphere, you will receive positivity. If you are negative, that will reflect on you. Almost like karma, if you were Buddhist. Fiona says: “Like attracts like. If you are in that space you will attract like-minded vibrational beings towards you. So, if somebody else is ill, under the weather or complaining that’s what you attract.” The mother of two knows from her own experience. The last four years she has been in a financial downwards spiral, purely because she didn’t believe in herself, she felt responsibility and the fear take over. Fiona compares this to religion: “It is based on fear like hell and high water, and heaven and hell. It keeps the population under control.”
Like any popular trend or craze, it has its controversies. Wallace Wattles, a law of attraction founder, wrote: “Do not talk about poverty; do not investigate it, or concern yourself with it. Do not spend your time in charitable work, or charity movements.” Rhonda Byrne wrote: “If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them. If you think or talk about diseases, you will become sick.” Is this not being ignorant to the immense global issues facing us today? Fiona agrees they have a point. “You can’t go in certain places unless you are resilient and you’re strong enough and you know that not to be the case for you.”
“It is a fantasy, but that is how you create your reality.”
Sally Hooper, a foster carer of three, has a similar approach. “I am with the kids that I’ve got here, but I think it’s about how you manage your brain around it. I don’t focus on their backgrounds, I focus on where they are going.”
Sally’s life was turned upside down when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. It was then that she started reading articles linking cancer and positive thinking. “I turned down a lot of medication and a lot of treatment because it was making me really ill, and I thought I’m becoming more unwell with the more treatment I’m having.” After a round of radiotherapy, she put a stop to all of that and decided to focus on mediating, healthy eating, antioxidants and food supplements. “I got better without the treatment.”
In least advanced stages of cervical cancer, treatment requires a small procedure. With this alone, “most live a cancer free life.” That’s Dr Alejandra Castanon, an epidemiologist who studies disease and its distribution. “I would never recommend not taking up treatment.” Dr Alejandra says eat healthily and have a positive mental attitude will contribute. “Otherwise would you not always be wondering what if?”
Sally’s mum died of cancer: “I can’t be too arrogant”, she says. “She was one of the most positive people that I know. I just have to say for me when it wasn’t feeling right, I had to make a decision and its never come back. I’m in complete remission now.”
It is extremely difficult to say whether the law of attraction works. It may be a coincidence, were you just in the right place at the right time? Even those who believe have no explanation. “I don’t know how it works but it does,” says Sally. The lady who has no mortgage, doesn’t work, flies first class and holidays with her grandchildren.
Fiona believes the universe gave her a house, two sons, a partner and her dream of living in France: “I’ve got everything I ever wanted.” She now runs detoxing retreats to clear out the digestive system, physically and emotionally. Finding fulfilment in helping others to change their life around. “It is a fantasy, but that is how you create your reality.”