The Law of Allowing
by
Julia Melges-Brenner. Copyright Sabrina Scott, Inc. All rights
reserved. Written for and originally published in Kajama.
Dear
Julia:
I have been studying the
law of attraction for about five years, and have manifested a number of
great things so far. Part of this process has included working with a
life coach who has taught me to focus on what I want in my life, pour
lots of positive emotion into my visualization efforts, wish for what I
desire with all my heart, but then surrender whatever happens to a
higher plan and power. This is the part I'm struggling with: if we can
create what we want in our lives, why do we have to surrender to a
higher plan? My teacher tells me that the more I strain for control,
the less control I actually have. Can you explain this? Also, do you
think we can decide what we will create in our lives even if it goes
against some pre-established higher plan?
Bob
Dear Bob:
I chose your question because this is something I've struggled with
myself. We hear a lot about the law of attraction, but not so much
about another law that is just as essential to the process of
manifesting: the law of allowing. In my experience, most people are
much better at working with one of these laws than the other.
People who are better at working with the law of attraction tend to be
successful and good at manifesting what they want, but they also tend
to experience lots of stress and frustration. These sorts of people are
better at getting what they think they want than being happy with what
they have. People who are better at working with the law of allowing
tend to be easygoing, relaxed types who struggle to make ends meet and
often feel sorry for themselves because life just seems unfair. They
are better at being happy with what they have than they are at creating
what they want and need in life.
Of course, these are gross generalizations: each individual is a unique
mixture of all sorts of traits and qualities, and there are many
well-balanced people in the world who draw the best from both camps.
This is the goal, by the way: to get good at working with both laws so
that we can create what we want in our lives and be happy and at peace
at the same time. Instead of a warrior or a dreamer, we want to be like
a Tai Chi master: both a powerful force to be reckoned with AND able to
flow with the other forces around us instead of fighting against them.
As I mentioned, your question is something I've struggled with myself.
In fact, this issue of control recently reared up again. Before falling
asleep one night, I was pondering just how much control we actually
have over our course of experience, and I thought to pray to Spirit to
send me an illuminating dream. I had a number of dreams that night, but
there was part of one dream that felt powerful and stayed with me when
I awoke:
In the dream, I am plowing a field
with a donkey, and am strapped to the donkey with an old-fashioned
leather yoke. I am aware that this is the first time I have done this
sort of plowing, and there is an invisible force guiding me, telling me
what to do and how to go about the whole process. When I get to the end
of the first row and try to bring the donkey around to go back the
other way, the donkey angrily whips around on me and knocks me
backwards. This scares the heck out of me, but it doesn't kill or
seriously injure me. (I remember thinking with great surprise that I
was neither killed nor injured.) I then feel that invisible force
guiding me to regain control of the donkey and set it moving back on
course again.
When I woke up, I knew that this dream was in answer to my prayer. I
see it as a message about how much control we have over our course of
experience and how we go about working with the creative forces of the
Universe. As I meditated on this, a long message from Spirit came
through about how creating what we want in our lives is very much like
working with nature to cultivate various crops.
Here is some of what was relayed to me:
*We aren't the only force influencing what happens in our lives. We can
harness the creative forces of the Universe to create what we desire,
but since we are dealing with wild forces, sometimes this is easier
said than done. If we don't completely know what we're doing (and who
ever does?), we may sometimes experience some backlash. The bigger the
goal or dream - the bigger the "donkey" and the field - the trickier
things tend to get.
*We can choose what we are going to cultivate as well as how we will go
about it. We choose how much time and effort we put in and how much we
study nature and how to go about growing lush crops, but there will
always be factors that remain beyond our control.
*The weather/climate we are working in will always play a big factor in
our results. Even if we cultivate very carefully, sometimes forces
beyond our control can destroy what we've been working on. Of course,
those same forces can also prove ideal and make our crops grow
especially lush. Though we are forever looking for ways to control our
results or at least understand why some things happen at some times and
other thing happen at other times, there is much that remains beyond
our scope and understanding. This is the realm of so-called bad luck
and good fortune.
Many people have a hard time working with both/and thinking as opposed
to either/or thinking. The less rigid and limited we are in our
outlook, the more we can understand and work with laws of the Universe.
For example, most people think they must choose between believing that
we either have control over what happens in our lives OR we don't have
control and must surrender to "God's will" or chance. I'm suggesting
that we both have control over what happens in our lives AND must
surrender to a higher plan.
This is the way of the farmer who does his best to grow what he wants
and needs in his life. He gets up early, harnesses his donkey, heads
out to the fields and does his very best to cultivate what he wants. He
reads the Farmer's Almanac, studies the ways of nature, and allows both
his learned knowledge and his instincts to tell him when the time is
right for planting, watering, weeding and reaping. He prays to higher
forces to bless and guide him in all of this, and he listens within for
that guidance. Ultimately, however, he knows that much remains beyond
his control. He feels that he is a part of the nature he is working
with, and this makes him feel safe: he is at home in this world, for
the very forces that hold so much power over what happens in his life
are the source of his own creation. He therefore wisely surrenders
ultimate outcomes with faith that no matter what happens, everything
will be fine.
I believe this is a wise and powerful approach, for it allows us to
both cultivate what we want in our lives while at the same time feeling
a sense of peace with the way things are. Ironically, letting go of
outcomes actually makes us more powerful cultivators of what we want in
our lives, for when we can relax and feel good without straining for
control, we are able to maintain a high vibration. This is like being
calm and assured when yoked to that donkey. If we approach the donkey
feeling stress, strain, anxiety or frustration, the donkey will sense
it and may rear back on us and make things very difficult. If, however,
we are calm and assured, we remain masters of the situation and are
able to steer toward where we want to go and align with a smooth
journey to fulfillment.
Julia
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