When we talk about deliberately receiving our reality, using Law of Attraction principles to line up with the energy of what we want, a big part of that process requires us to focus on a reality other than the one right in front of us. Your bank account may have tumbleweeds blowing through it and your five year old mattress is a virgin, but you’ve been told by us LOA teachers that in order to change that, you’ll have to pretend that you have tons of money and booty to spare. We tell you to keep pretending until you can actually feel as though you already have what you want. And so you do. You stop saying things like “I can’t afford that”, and say “I choose not to buy that right now” instead. You spend your day looking forward to going home to your girlfriend, even though she doesn’t yet physically exist. You make a list of restaurants you could take her to, instead of just fantasizing about going out. You stop feeling lonely and start feeling happy and excited about your life. And instead of complaining about how much your life sucks, you tell people that everything is going great. You walk around with a smile on your face, a skip in your step and a sparkle in your eye, even though nothing has really changed in ways that other people could perceive (yet…).

And then, someone who doesn’t understand the Law of Attraction, comes along and tells you that you’d better “face reality”. You can’t just pretend that everything is ok. You can’t just stick your head in the sand. You have to face your problems, get informed about all the ugliness in the world, and be miserable with everyone else. And to do otherwise, well, makes you delusional.

Does the Law of Attraction encourage people to be delusional? And if so, isn’t that dangerous? If you study the LOA, are you going to eventually end up in a cardboard box, convinced that it’s a mansion, while eating foie gras made of cat poop? And if you are delusional, how would you know?

Deliberate vs. Clinical Delusion

For the sake of this article, I’m going to make a distinction between someone who practices LOA and deliberately chooses not to “face reality” and someone who is what I will term “clinically delusional”, i.e., someone who actually believes they are Superman, straps on a cape and jumps off the roof (I always wonder why they don’t try to take off from the ground. You know. Just in case…).

Deliberate Delusion – is when you choose to find a different perspective on a situation and you then knowingly adopt it because it feels better. It is a conscious choice to shift your perception. And if you have a deeper understanding of LOA, it’s a way to deliberately line up with the energy of what you want.

Let’s say that you’re poor, but you want to be rich. So, you decide to find ways to feel good about your monetary status, even though your bank account is empty. This is not the same as denial. Denial, is looking at the empty bank account, feeling badly about it, and pretending that you don’t feel badly about it. Deliberate Delusion is deciding not to look at the empty bank account, but instead, looking at something related to it that allows you to feel better about the whole situation. It’s focusing on the bills that you CAN pay instead of the ones you can’t. You don’t just pretend to feel better, you actually DO feel better.

Deliberate Delusion requires a large degree of self-awareness. In order to purposefully change the way you feel, you have to ask yourself WHAT you’re thinking and feeling and WHY.

Clinical Delusion – is something completely different. First of all, it’s not deliberate. No one chooses to be clinically delusional. Second, this condition is actually a manifestation of massive resistance. It’s a kind of defense mechanism, if you will. Let’s say that a woman is horribly lonely. She has some kind of belief system that keeps her stuck in her loneliness and the pain builds and builds. At some point, something has to give. Now, she could develop cancer or even manifest death. But in her case, her brain constructs a scenario that allows her to ignore the pain. She becomes convinced that she is married to Brad Pitt. She doesn’t actually shift into that reality – she hasn’t actually changed her beliefs. But she is escaping the pain those beliefs are causing by creating an alternate story. She is not aware that this is a story, or that there are many other perspectives to choose from. She only sees the one point of view.

This is a type of denial. Often, the underlying belief of loneliness is still being triggered. The woman may feel better for brief moments, but the loneliness is still there. The underlying belief is still very much alive and it’s causing the delusion.

It’s also a way to completely escape self-awareness. The woman’s brain has constructed a scenario that allows her avoid asking herself what she’s thinking and feeling or why, because it would be far too painful for her to do so.

Who’s actually the delusional one, though?

Now, when most people use the word delusional to describe someone who is not “facing reality”, they are not really talking about clinical delusion. They’re not saying that you’re ready for the rubber room. But even though they may not consider you an actual danger to society, they do think that what you are doing is dangerous, in a way, to your own life. They operate on the mistaken assumption that if you don’t focus on physical reality, i.e. the reality that you have created with your past vibration, that you will never be able to change that situation. Of course, we (the LOA crew) know that the exact opposite is true. If you continue to focus on a creation and therefore offer the same vibration that created it, you will continue to re-create that same scenario over and over again. Einstein’s definition of insanity comes to mind here…

But it goes deeper than that. When someone calls you delusional, they are not just saying that you should face reality. They are saying that you should face their reality. They have a certain, quite rigid view of the world, one perspective that they’ve decided is the only reality, and they would like you to accept that one. If you don’t, you’re delusional.

But I ask you: If part of the definition of being truly delusional is that one can only see one perspective and staunchly holds on that perspective, even when it clearly isn’t serving them, then who is actually delusional here?

They call you delusional, NOT for not “facing reality”, but for not facing THEIR reality.

Consider two people:

Bob considers himself a realist. He watches the news every night and keeps himself informed. He’s convinced that the world is in major trouble and feels it’s his duty to make sure everyone else knows it, too. He warns against taking risks, against traveling, against making waves. He rails against the banks, the government and any other group which he feels is sending the world to hell in a hand basket. Any attempt to show him a different perspective fails. And because he only views life through this one lens, he finds ample evidence to support his view, and ONLY evidence to support his view. He’s not happy, but so what? He sees one possible reality and that’s it.

Charlie sees Bob’s point of view. He thinks it’s valid. But he also sees many other ways of looking at the world, and can therefore see evidence that supports all of those views. They are all valid, as far as he’s concerned. He deliberately chooses the perspective that feels best to him. He doesn’t look at all the negatives in the world, but instead, chooses to see how the world is getting better. He sees evidence of that everywhere – good people, finding solutions to the world’s problems on a grander and grander scale. He’s happy and hopeful and looking forward to the future.

Bob might well tell Charlie that he has to face reality (Bob’s reality, that is) and call him delusional for not doing so. But who’s really the delusional one here?

Waking up from the Matrix

In my view, when you practice self-awareness and begin to see multiple possible perspectives to choose from, you are actually working your way out of the general delusion that most people who are still “asleep” are living in. And while it can feel like you’re just kidding yourself when you’re surrounded by the sleeping masses and going against the grain of their general beliefs, consider this: Who actually has a better grasp of reality: Those who are still asleep in the Matrix or those who are aware of it? Remember your answer the next time someone calls you delusional. 🙂

Have you ever been called delusional? Do you consider yourself to be Deliberately Delusional? Share in the comments!