In July I bought an interesting book, The Attractor Factor: Five Easy Steps for Creating Wealth (or Anything Else) From the Inside Out, by Joe Vitale.
I will admit to a sort of love/hate relationship with these kinds of books. Part of me wants to believe that I can get whatever I want in "Five Easy Steps." My heart yearns for that to be true. This is the emotional part of my make-up, the little girl who believes in miracles.
I also live with the "adult" in my head who is quite cynical about these sorts of things, putting them on a par with other get-rich-quick schemes. This Michele tells me that I might as well just burn my $20 bill for all I'll get out of purchasing such a book.
Apparently I was feeling childish that day, so The Attractor Factor came home with me.
It was an interesting read--a mixture of the spiritual and material that I have to admit makes me feel a little uncomfortable. To me, there's something that is profoundly unspiritual about using my spiritual power to attain material goods At the same time, I can see where blockages in my spiritual power can limit me in all kinds of ways, so if I unblock in one facet of my life, might it not have the corresponding effect of unblocking my ability to attract money?
I think that what disturbs me about it is the direct asking for money that goes with this approach. It's one thing for me to say that I want to work on attracting more loving and giving people into my life. It feels very different to say I want to work on attracting a new car. Now if the loving, giving people happened to bring a car WITH them, I'd be cool with that. But it's the asking for wealth that makes me uncomfortable.
Where I have found Vitale's practices to be helpful is in attracting certain people and experiences into my life. In a lot of ways, what it's come down to is that I've become better at articulating what I want. I can also see more clearly how my past beliefs have limited my future possibilities.
Vitale's approach has also allowed me to cultivate the practice of putting things out into the world and then just letting go of the outcome. As someone who has some "control issues," this has been a very healing thing for me, as it's a reminder of my need to let go of a certain outcome resulting from any of my actions. Now I can say "this is what I'd like, and however it comes to me, I'll take it." In the past I would have dictated not only what I wanted, but HOW I wanted it. Not always so good for me spiritually.
I'm not sure if I'll ever get to the point where I'll be comfortable using my spirit to ask for a house. And for it to work, I would have to be OK with that. But I will say that it's been good for my growth to use spirit to attract other things. And if nothing else, it's created within me a much greater ability to be clear about what I want and then "give it up to God."
Michele
