The Law of Attraction: How to use it to your benefit

The law of attraction is a concept featured in the best-selling books The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and The Law of Attraction by Michael Losier. In both books, the authors focus on how a person’s thoughts and emotions can play a major role in their enjoyment of life in general and in whether they achieve their goals in areas such as work and relationships.

Because this law is based on psychological principles and has key elements of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) as part of it, I find it fascinating. In particular, I enjoy the easily understandable ways people are told in both books how to apply the law to their benefit. In the following sections, I will discuss the law of attraction and how you can use it to achieve good results in your life.

The law’s essence: Like attracts like and matching vibrations

The law is very straightforward: Like attracts like. Specifically, positivity attracts positivity and negativity attracts negativity.

The basis of this law is the principle of matching vibrations. Vibrations–or ‘vibes’ for short–are emitted by people based on the kinds of emotions they are experiencing and the kinds of thoughts they are thinking. There are two kinds of vibrations–positive and negative.

You emit positive vibrations when you experience positive emotions such as happiness, joy and passion. Your experience of these positive emotions is the result of your thinking positive thoughts. You emit negative vibrations when you experience negative emotions such as anger, frustration and anxiety. Your experience of these negative emotions is the result of your thinking negative thoughts.

The principle of matching vibrations is that whatever vibrations you emit because of the emotions you are experiencing and the thoughts you are thinking will tend to be matched by people with whom you interact. That is, if you emit positive vibrations because you are experiencing positive emotions and thinking positive thoughts, you will tend to have your positive vibrations ‘matched’ by attracting people who emit positive vibrations toward you while they are experiencing positive emotions and thinking positive thoughts. Conversely, if you emit negative vibrations because you are experiencing negative emotions and thinking negative thoughts, you will tend to have your negative vibrations ‘matched’ by attracting people who emit negative vibrations toward you while they are experiencing negative emotions and thinking negative thoughts.

The key to increasing positivity: Control your ‘vibrational bubble’

Your ‘vibrational bubble’ consists of the vibrations you are emitting to others at any given moment.  Being aware of the kinds of vibrations which comprise your bubble and changing these if necessary is the key to increasing positivity in your life.

This entails striving to emit positive vibrations as often as possible. Because of the principle of matching vibrations, this will attract positivity from others in the form of encountering people who experience positive emotions when they are around you. In turn, this will make it easier for you to continue to emit positive vibrations by experiencing positive emotions and thinking positive thoughts.

Increasing positivity in your life also entails being aware of when you are emitting negative vibrations. This will occur when you are experiencing negative emotions as a result of thinking negative thoughts. If you notice that you are emitting negative vibrations because you are experiencing negative emotions and thinking negative thoughts, this will alert you to the need to change the vibrations you emit from negative to positive. In so doing, you can limit the time when you attract negativity through matching vibrations and revert to your preferred pattern of attracting positivity through matching vibrations.

Changing vibrations: Shift from negative to positive

The need to change vibrations from negative to positive will occur when you happen to be experiencing negative emotions and thinking negative thoughts at a given time. This can occur for many possible reasons. For example, you might have had something bad happen to you at work or school or had an unpleasant interaction with someone.

At these times, it is important to recognize that it is normal and unavoidable to experience negative emotions temporarily while thinking negative thoughts at certain times. The key is to avoid dwelling on this negativity by experiencing negative emotions and thinking negative thoughts longer than is necessary. Being able to change the vibrations you emit from negative to positive so that you revert to attracting positivity as frequently as possible will enhance your enjoyment of life.

It is helpful to have techniques you can use to make it easier to emit positive vibrations as often as possible. This includes having strategies you can use to switch vibrations from negative to positive. I will discuss these strategies in my next article.

May you enhance your life by using the Law of Attraction,

-Dr. Pat