Before I start, I want to clarify something.
It isn’t the Law of Attraction itself that creates intense suffering, it is our usage and interpretation of the LOA that harms us. (Try to put that into a single title!)
Since the launch of the mega-popular books like The Secret in 2006, the Law of Attraction has skyrocketed in popularity. These days you can find LOA principles sprinkled everywhere over social media and in endless self-help articles aimed at helping you to “find happiness.”
Although many of these memes, articles, and websites have good intentions, the majority of them misunderstand and misapply the Law of Attraction, leading to stress, anger, frustration, and sadness.
What is the Law of Attraction?
The Law of Attraction is a philosophy that is based on the simple premise that whatever you think, you attract. Therefore, if you think positive thoughts, you will “manifest” positive things. If you think negative thoughts, you will manifest negative things.
To an extent, this is true. What we think usually does become the reality we live in. As the trendy cliche goes, “Your vibe attracts your tribe.” And it’s true: whatever you think, you become. Whatever you focus on generally tends to appear in your life sooner or later.
Naturally, this reality is very appealing to people because it suddenly feels like we have control! In fact, the LOA starts feeling like a magical fairy wand that we can wave and use to manifest every single one of our heart’s desires!
But here’s where the catch comes: the moment you use the LOA to intensely manifest your desires is the moment you open the door of suffering.
Why the Law of Attraction Creates Intense Suffering
I find that focusing on manifesting is limited and exhausting since it leaves God out. It often involves a shopping list of what the ego wants to “get from the universe.” By its very nature that’s profoundly limited. – Tosha Silver, Outrageous Openness
Simply type in “the Law of Attraction” on places like Pinterest and Facebook, and you’ll see picture after picture, and blog piece after blog piece, instructing you on how to manifest your heart’s desires.
You’ll see pictures that say things like, “Believe you deserve it and the universe will serve it,” “Be the energy you want to attract,” “Create the feeling first, then the having will come!” “It’s OK for me to have everything I want,” etc.
You’ll also see blog posts entitled things like, “7 Secrets of Manifesting Money INSTANTLY,” “How to Create a Vision Board That Works,” “6 Daily Law of Attraction Hacks,” “How to Design your Ideal Life With the Law of Attraction,” “11 Ways to Manifest Weight Loss,” and so forth.
Can you see the overarching theme here?
The Law of Attraction has become so massively popular in the spiritual and mainstream world because it is all about get-get-get!
In fact, the Law of Attraction has become the face of what famous Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa calls Spiritual Materialism. In other words, the LOA is being used as a way to spiritualize desire and attachment – both of which create endless suffering.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to have more money, find your true love or achieve your goals. But when you believe all of these things will bring you the happiness you want, you’re stuck on another hamster wheel of suffering. The LOA starts to reinforce enslavement and obsession with desires rather than being a valuable tool to use mindfully. The more you try to chase and “manifest” things, the further you get from the truth that true happiness can be found right here, in the present moment, regardless of what you do or don’t have.
Even when you DO get what you so desperately wanted, you start fearing that it will be taken away from you! So you start clinging to, protecting, and fighting to keep what you’ve been given.
Does this sound like a recipe for peace or well being to you?
What hurts the most is when your desires aren’t fulfilled, and you’re left feeling frustrated, sad, desperate, and inadequate. You’ll hear people in the spiritual community telling you that your “vibration must be too low,” or your thoughts are not positive enough … even if you have been passionately “following all the rules” for months or even years. This, of course, further deepens your bitterness, emptiness, and feelings of being a failure.
Your Thoughts Aren’t Responsible For Everything That Happens
One of the cruelest misapplications of the Law of Attraction is towards other people’s suffering.
Because of our mind’s tendency to think in black or white terms, we tend to become dogmatic about certain ideas very quickly – and this has happened with the LOA. Soon, we start believing that people who lose their children to suicide or develop cancer do so because “their thoughts are attracting their reality” or “their vibration is manifesting these events.” However, not only are these beliefs insanely simplistic and short-sighted, but they also express an implicit lack of empathy towards others.
While our thoughts do have the tendency to create our reality, they are not the sole causes for certain situations in our lives. If our thinking was always 100% responsible for our reality, then we would always get precisely what we want, when we want it. (Let’s face it, this notion is precisely why people obsess over the LOA so much.)
Also, if our thinking was entirely responsible for our reality, then whenever we think negative thoughts, our lives would always take a turn for the worst. But have you ever gone into an exam and thought “I’m going to do terribly and fail,” but later, found that you passed and did well? Have you ever gone to a job interview and thought “I’m so nervous, I’ll screw this up,” and pictured yourself near-homeless, but received a phone call saying that you’ve been hired?
The fact is that our thoughts aren’t solely responsible for our reality. Our vibration doesn’t always attract experiences that “match it.” Otherwise, compassionate people wouldn’t die horrible deaths, and cruel people wouldn’t live fantastic lives.
We desperately want to make the Law of Attraction explain everything in life because it makes us feel safe and like we’re in control. That is understandable. But if we truly want to experience unconditional love and inner peace, we need to admit that there are some holes in this theory. We need to find the courage to be free of ideas that are inherently limiting.
The LOA (Lust, Obsession Attachment)
As I mentioned before, the Law of Attraction (LOA) is not the problem here, it’s people’s use and interpretation of it that is the problem.
When used by and understood through the ego, the Law of Attraction becomes more about lust, obsession, and attachment more than anything else.
We start believing that happiness can only be found in the future when we obtain or change something. But there is a serious flaw in this philosophy.
Sure, on the surface it may be fun and exciting to finally “attract” what we have been manifesting, visualizing, and creating vision boards about. This is equivalent to getting a shot of heroin. But afterward, when the buzz dies off, we start looking for more and more to manifest. We start viewing our lives through the lens of “what can I get more of?”
Very soon, we are constantly chasing-chasing-chasing what we believe, deep down, will finally “fulfill us” or bring us happiness. We become obsessed and addicted to a vision of what our lives “could be” if only we could just raise our vibration high enough and manifest all that we want.
Paradoxically, the more you try to think positive thoughts about what you want to attract, the more negative thoughts and feelings arise about how inadequate your life is or who you are as a person. In the back of your mind, you start feeling more and more anxiety, frustration, and desperation. These nagging feelings are either repressed and explode at a later date or are fought off with “positive thinking.”
Essentially, a war arises inside of your mind, in which you are constantly battling yourself in an attempt to get what you desire because you believe it will make you happy.
Can you see how messed up this all is? What a fiasco!
True Abundance and Happiness
As Sol and I have explored in numerous articles on this website, true abundance and happiness is not something you get, it’s something you are.
Thankfully, there is no need to give a shopping list to the Universe of all your desires, because the Universe (which is you at your core), already knows what is best for your growth and well-being. Sometimes you will be thrown challenges or things that appear “bad” at first. But later, you will discover that they actually helped you to evolve and find true joy. Other times, you will experience “good” things which may turn out to harm you, which may later help you to grow stronger. Can you see how nothing is linear? Everything is connected. And everything is perfectly orchestrated. There’s no need to worry.
As endless spiritual teachers and masters have pointed out through the ages, true abundance and happiness can ONLY ever be found in the present moment. Not in the past, not in the future, in the present.
The mind and ego will try to convince us that we need special spiritual techniques to “get more” abundance and happiness, when in truth, all true abundance and happiness can be found within, right now. The more you chase for happiness, the more it will elude you. The more you attach, the more you suffer. The more you want, the more lacking you will feel.
If you want to explore the topic of happiness more, you might like to read the following articles:
- 3 Personal Responsibility Tips for Health, Happiness and Deep Inner Vitality
- Instead of Chasing Happiness, Search the Darkness
- Why Am I Unhappy?
- How to Love Yourself More (Even When Others DON’T)
So tell me, what are your thoughts on the LOA? Please share below in the comments.
I’ve discovered the LoA community about 3 years ago. And rn it seems utterly crazy to say it’s been only 3 years ago, because my life view has changed so much, it seems like decades.
Before that my spirituality never bothered me. I was raised atheist and the strict rules of Orthodox Church, which is predominant here in Russia, made me even a little afraid of god and religion because of the idea, that you’ll get punished if you do something wrong.
At first, like everyone else, I’ve been fascinated by the idea. I’ve watched video after video, read article after article to the point that before opening the source I knew word to word what it would say. And it still didn’t work. Here comes the time in my life when I’ve started to question the meaning of life and my own worth. If it’s working for thousands of people all over the world, the problem must not be with the method. It must be with me. I felt miserable. I’ve started to feel isolated from my friends and family. I was terrified to tell them about this whole thing and my concerns because I felt like they gonna believe I’ve gone crazy. My self-esteem and my faith in the world had crushed. And I was too afraid of admitting it because, you guessed it, “your thoughts create your reality”. With time I developed depression and derealization. I felt truly terrified. And I am extremely lucky that at one of my darkest days I finally made a conclusion that changed my entire perspective on life: “it isn’t me what is the problem”. It was about 1,5 years ago. Since that day I slowly began the process of healing. Since that day I’ve started to walk my own path. I must say that it’s still difficult sometimes. I still get episodes of depression and utter hopelessness, I am still triggered by the words like “frequency”, “positive thinking” and “spiritual awakening” and to this day I still explore all the spiritual materials with great caution.
Looking back, I now realize that the LoA not working for me was a blessing in disguise. It had taught me to listen to my inner voice more than to anyone else’s, a lesson I truly needed. It had led me to the path of finding my own spirituality and happiness and to the greater awareness of life.
From now on, theres one belief that holds me together through my darkest times: “if you just hold on, you’ll see that everything is happening for a reason and for your greater good”.
i became a born-again christian about 6 years ago, i loved jesus …i tried to do manifesting and the law of attraction and i feel sick…like i was been tortured or something..i suffer a bit with nerves..i just didnt want this awfulness.. i believe if jesus want me to have healing or anything else in life, he will provide it his way..the other i think is foor those that it works for..the sick or disabled or vunerable are at the mercy of some very dangerous force and should keep away from it.
I’m 28. My mother has been practicing the law of attraction, among other things such as, frequency healing, and it has really escalated over the years and taken over her life. I can see the strain her behaviors have on her marriage with my dad. She and I have little to no genuine connection or relationship because of the obsessive effects of LoA. Family friends have cut off our whole family and we can’t contact them at all because they found her “love and light” practices to be too much. My mother tends to not only practice this stuff but also preach it to people that really would rather just talk about the movie they watched last week or how their kids are doing in school. The LoA has made her judgmental towards anyone that doesn’t see eye to eye with her beliefs. And most of these beliefs she bought online from videos, and ads that really aim to suck in middle aged women that find they don’t have a happy purpose in life now that their kids are grown up and moved out.
I have found that the LoA has done more bad than good in my mothers life and I wish there was a way to ironically make her “see the light.”
I have become extremely embittered by both sides of the spiritual field: LoA and getting what you want vs living in the now/being happy regardless.
On the one hand I am extremely hurt now because the LoA led me to believe if I just ‘change’ how I feel then I will attract what I want. Yet, despite doing this I have lost a couple teeth, my mouth health degraded, I gained weight and still struggle with weight, I haven’t manifested a ‘true love’…
Actually, what caused me the most suffering was a belief that a celebrity was a ‘twin flame’ and I swear the ‘signs’ all pointed to yes. However, I started seeing opposite signs that said the opposite and suggested that I was wrong and was suffering from erotomania. It is STILL painful and I have not recovered at all – especially after the death of the celebrity.
A lot of spiritual information is still causing me suffering since it all sinks it to suggest I must be a ‘creep’ who is just repelling people. This only furthers my pain and makes me feel extremely ‘bad’.
I don’t know – but a lot of it really pisses me off to be honest. I haven’t recovered from any of this and wake up feeling pained because I feel honestly trapped. No one helps me get out of this pain and the system we have at present is not helpful either – at resolving your pains/traumas and getting you to a better place.
It’s all designed too inhumanely and not at all compassionate. Otherwise, when I say I feel suicidal at the psych place they would take me seriously and help me out.
They don’t.
And again, how is a person supposed to get that help when were in a hole in every aspect of our life: financial (0 money at all), emotional (no feeling except pain), and no support system (that feels genuine)? If the system were aimed at understanding people it would succeed in rehabilitating some of us who desperately want/need healing.
And I have to disagree with much of Teal Swan (if anyone knows her you might know why) because she is very contradicting and then can use all her information to suggest it is just ‘you’ who is the problem.
Like her video on deflection being a coping mechanism. Are you freaking kidding me? If deflection were a coping mechanism it would work to keep me from feeling pain – but it doesn’t. My reasons and questionings are all in the right.
And how am I not to know that perhaps Buddha’s original teachings are the truth and others suggesting otherwise are not in service of the likes of Lucifer or others? How can we know?
Also, how can we know that negative beings don’t interfere in our life to cause pain and suffering to others? It’s been suggested by some. It seems true because no matter what I do I get more pain and things seriously do not go my way.
Ever.
Hello Aletheia Luna:
I have independently reached the same conclusion as you. The LOA movement talks only about keeping their thoughts on being rich, etc, and if you have any wrong thoughts you are not trying hard enough.
The problem I had found for myself was trying hard to stay in the “positive gym” resulted in some short term successes, however, trying this hard ultimately resulted in a flood of the negatives I was trying to avoid. So my conclusion is that the LOA as advertised leaves out certain principles which are needed. The LOA puts too much weight on the human mind which is imperfect and a product of evolution from the animal kingdom and thus can be flawed.
The other piece of the puzzle we need which is left out is the non ego, God part. From my experience, we have to believe in God and surrender those uncontrollable animal like aspects of our mind to God. Then we dont even need to use the LOA anymore, because we have peace of mind and no negative thoughts.
So yes what we think influences what happens, but if we surrender our thoughts to God then we dont have to worry about what nehative thing happens.
So my conclusion is that LOA movement focuses too much on human power and ego which is fallible, and it needs to emphasize belief in God is a must first.
Then after that, we can dream big and have it work, but we can’t do it on our own strength.
Hey Aletheia Luna. I feel that I am going through the dark night of the soul and it’s really scaring to know that I lost connection with the Divine . I need tips to end this ASAP plz help me out !!
Thanks Aletheia Luna, when you write “The more you try to chase and” manifest “things, the more you will get away from the truth that true happiness can be found right here, in the present moment, regardless of what you do or don’t have”
Do you mean that people move away because they live with thoughts of the future?
I will combine that with what I am doing to improve my results
Thank you
Hi, I believe your perspective is in the Bhuddist tradition and correct. Spiritually or just plain common (or not so common!) sense it also rings true. Using and distorting a spiritual concept, as a kind of get rich quick lottery ticket is doomed to fail. As a non-spiritual, lapsed catholic I spent most of my 63 years deeply rooted in whatever scheme would bring me gain, and I succeeded. But I also attracted a failed marriage, two hospitalizations for mental illness, many episodes of depression, missing my children grow up, alcoholism, imprisonment etc etc etc all in the pursuit of greed.
A recent spiritual awakening has saved me from committing suicide. I survived to free my children of the anguish my death would have given them. Your website, wisdom and love is helping me to work through the guilt and despair of some of my life wasted by delusion and greed…….keep your lives pure, true and loving. If you apply this to your Sadhana the rest will sort itself out.
Jeff x
One of the main principles of LOA is that you have to feel happy with your reality right now and the most important, grateful about everything you have. If you don’t do this then yes, you probably suffer because you are expecting your desires to become true to feel happy and grateful.
LOA is much more then what you wrote and your opinion is not accurate.
While I agree with a portion of your text it lacks the research that is required before practicing the law of attraction – and it lacks the understanding that the law of attraction is inherently rooted in scripture. Fact is the law of attraction has been greatly materialized by society today – but research will tell you that the true practice of the law of attraction – the “secret” – is about more than just attracting your desires. In fact I would venture to say that attracting your desire is actually a byproduct of what it means to live in to the law of attraction. It’s about being inherently thankful for where you are now and staying in that place of gratefulness allows more situations and instances to come in your life for which you are thankful. Yes you can visualize your future but in no way should you think that you are lacking anything now. You have to understand that I’m this moment – right this second – you have everything you need and you should be thankful for that. Be thankful that you have a working mind, that you have the ability to bring better into your life and that because of what’s inside you (I believe it is God but you may call it whatever you want) you are powerful beyond measure and can create the world you wish to live in because you are a child of the Creator. And oh to solidify my point that it’s rooted in scripture – Mark 11:24 “whatever you ask for in prayer, believe you have received it and it shall be yours.” God calls us to a life of abundance not a life of struggle – but we have to decide to tap into that abundance – be grateful for what God has already done and excited about what is coming next in order for that to happen.
LOVE LOVE LOVE your response. It’s a mini summary and lovely reminder. I’m copying it so I can read it when in doubt. Thank you
Very well said! The Law of Attraction has helped me to be free of schools of thought that teach people they are supposed to be miserable and suffer because that will make you more spiritual and try to tell people they are wrong for getting excited and looking forward to good things in their life. That being said different things work for different people so some may not find the law of attraction helpful.
The law of attraction isn’t about manifesting a future, and thinking that you should be miserable as a means to higher spiritualism isn’t at all what the teachers suggest.
When you stop seeking and start appreciating what’s already there, you are happy, and not suffering at all.
The law of attraction suggests that you will attract your state of being. So if you are happy… you’ll attract more happy. By not defining what that is, you’ll have an abundance of it.
I’m excited and looking forward to all kinds of great things in life, I just have no idea what that will be or look like!
Life is beautiful, and blissful in the present moment. So how can it be terrible in the next moment when the next moment becomes the present one?
You just cant hang on a verse to justify your beliefs. if you are going to use a verse, you have to put context. About mark 11:24:
Jesus is not endorsing the modern Word of Faith movement. Nor is He suggesting that God operates as a cosmic vending machine, doling out wishes. Believing that God will answer our prayer is not a spell that we place on God so He must give us what we want. The context of the promise of prayer is God’s ordained ministry, if we ask with the right intentions (James 4:1–3) and within God’s will (1 John 5:14–15). The Bible promises “if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5). If we pray for wisdom first, and ask in God’s will, we will receive what we ask for. If we ask without wisdom, we won’t ask according to His will, and have no reason to expect such a request to be granted.
We already have everything we need to be happy! Thank you for your words of wisdom.
Exactly!
Thank you very much for this post. I am practicing Low of Attraction manifestations and being honest, was a bit afraid to read your article to not lose hope for happy future. But I did that, I read it and it turned out to be actually very eye opening and comforting. This is true (at least in my case), that the focus on desire makes you realize more what you lack, and the more you want to ignore it, the more you actually feel the hole and then obviously Low of Attraction doesn’t work. I very much like the conclusion that Happiness is what we are and not what we get. Thank you again, I will read your other posts :).
I’m so glad it comforted you and helped to open your eyes, Elzbieta. :)
Law of attraction is based upon duality. The person/ego is seeking fulfillment in the future. Seeking is always based upon lack and incompleteness. So LOA combined with seeking will generate more lack. On the flip side, someone who is self realized and no longer seeking fulfillment in the future will experience joy and abundance on a moment to moment basis.
Well said, Vince. :)
I LOVE the gift of wisdom you both have & that you’ve taken on the ministry to share it to help so many! You’ve truly changed my outlook on myself & life. I’m learning to accept all aspects of myself & life & just ride out all waves as a part of my unique journey . Thank you both SO much for all you’ve given us-you’ll never realize how much you’ve done.
This means so much, thank you Lisa. <3