It’s time for another reader question! [Note, I’ve got quite a queue of these at the moment, so if you’re waiting for your answer, just be patient. I will not forget about you.]

Andrew asks: In order to attract something new into your life, let’s say more money, the LOA says that you must find the feelings of having more money. For most of us, more money would feel really good, we would feel a sense of freedom, eagerness and excitement to have this extra money.

It is easy enough to cultivate the present-moment feelings that extra money brings. It feels great for a few days. But after two or three days of feeling awesome about this new scenario, I find that something always seems to bring my feelings back down even lower than when I started.

Interestingly, if you understand the LOA as bringing to you the things that match your current vibration, this pattern makes complete sense, doesn’t it? You can’t get too far above your current set-point without having an equal drop below this set point to balance things out. You might be +3 on the vibrational scale for a few days, and then -3 for a few more days, making 0 progress overall. I’ve found this to be totally accurate in my own life, and I’ve heard similar results from others as well.

My question is, how do you maintain a higher level vibration without having an equal pull backwards? In other words, how do you break through the “gravity” that is holding you where you are (vibrationally) and create steady improvements over time that cause the LOA to bring results that match your constantly improved vibrations?

Here’s my answer:

If you’re experiencing this kind of “rebound” effect, where you raise your vibration, only to have it plummet back down and leave you worse off than before, then you’re making a fairly common mistake: You’re trying to do too much at once. You’re trying to take a quantum leap.

You have a core vibration

Your core vibration is a mixture of all the thoughts and beliefs you hold. All of those frequencies mesh together to create a kind of average vibration. Now, let’s say that on a scale of -10 to +10, our core vibration is represented by 0 (I’m stealing your metaphor, Andrew. I love it!). But on the subject of money, you’re generally at a -5. You’ve got some real resistance going on. Thinking about money brings up fears of being poor forever, of not being able to pay your bills or provide for your family. And your manifestations so far have been less Armani and more Walmart.

So now, you begin to do some work on the subject of money. You think better feeling thoughts. You do affirmations of “I am secure. I have plenty of money. I love my account balance. Money comes to me in many different ways.” The thoughts you’re reaching for are at around a +5.

Multiple Choice: A, B or C

Depending on how much movement you’re trying to achieve, one of following is going to happen:

A.)   You’re trying to raise your money vibration from a -5 to a +5. Chances are you’re not going to make it. It’s just too damn far. Now, you may actually temporarily reach +5, but because you’ve made such a huge leap, that new vibration will be very hard to hold (not impossible, but very difficult). You won’t be able to stabilize there, and before you know it – BOING! – the old vibration of -5 takes over again, which now feels even worse by comparison.

B.)    Let’s say your core vibration and your money vibration are at 0 and you’re trying to raise your money vibration to +5. Again, you make it for a little while, and you feel better. You’re not going quite as far this time (only 5 steps instead of 10), so you actually stabilize for a little bit. But, the vibration of +5 is too far away from your core vibration of 0, which will begin to drag you back down, sooner or later. This, in and of itself would do no damage, except that in these situations, we tend to begin beating up on ourselves and/or focusing on the fears of not ever getting what we want. Why couldn’t we hold on to these higher frequencies? Why aren’t we already earning more money? Why did we fail? What if we never succeed? What if we’re poor forever? And – BOING! – we rebound down to a place lower than we were before. Now, we don’t just have the fear that we’ll never be rich, but we’ve added the fear that we may not be able to do anything about that. Our core vibration will eventually drag us back up to 0 (providing we don’t hold on to that lower frequency too fervently), but it’ll be a while before we’re willing to put ourselves through THAT ordeal again.

C.)    For the ambitious among us: We’ll subject ourselves to both A & B.

In all cases, we simply tried to do too much, too fast. We got impatient, or perhaps we feel that we should be able to make the leap. Other people might have to move up the vibrational ladder incrementally, but not us. Oh no. We’re stronger than that! We’ll make that ladder our bitch!

Like trying to jump a ravine

Only, that’s the wrong approach.   It’s like you’re standing in front of a ravine and you’re given the plans and materials to build a bridge. Only, you’ve decided it’ll be faster just to jump across. And so you take the leap and promptly fall into the ravine below. Beaten and bloody, you finally pull yourself up to where you jumped from, wondering what went wrong.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible to make quantum leaps. I’ve made a couple myself. But I can tell you this: they are not comfortable or even the tiniest bit gentle. It’s like being loaded into a giant slingshot and being hurled across that ravine. The flight through the air is terrifying and when you land on the other side, a rabid bear jumps out and eats your face off. You’ve made it, but it’ll take you a while to heal. In fact, it may take you longer to recover from such a leap than it would’ve taken you to build the damn bridge and cross over while whistling a happy tune.

The ladder metaphor

There’s a reason I chose to use a ladder as the metaphor for raising your vibration. You have to climb up rung by rung. If you try to take two rungs at a time, it becomes very difficult. Try do to more than that, and you’ll almost certainly fall.

Now, don’t get me wrong. You can’t actually do any damage. Even if you try to jump the ravine, you’ll survive and live to jump another day. But why would you want to, when there’s a gentler way? Perhaps to prove that you’re da man. Or out of a belief that at this point in your spiritual development, you should be able to move faster than this. Or, as is often the case, because you’re simply not yet able to tell exactly how far you can step at once without rebounding. So, you accidentally stepped off the ravine, or even off the bridge about half way across. You saw the edge of the other side and thought “I can make that.” Next time, you’ll know better. You’ll know how far you can comfortably leap without being subjected to the rebound effect.

It really is about the journey

Remember that the process is the goal. The point here is not to just get through this and get to enlightenment already, damn it. The real point is to enjoy the bridge building, enjoy the scenery, and make friends with the rabid bear.  The real goal is to enjoy the process, right here, right now. Spiritual development shouldn’t be “work”. It’s not something you have to knuckle down and fight through. Just focus on moving up the next rung on that ladder (I know. How many freaking metaphors am I going to use in this article?). Enjoy where you are at each level. There’s no rush. There’s nothing you have to do, and nowhere you have to be except present, exactly where you are, in this very moment.

Have you had any experiences like Andrew described? Tell us in the comments!

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