Pre-paving isn’t working. Why not?

Awesome Anurag wants to know: “I would like to know how to use the law of attraction to alter the course of my whole day? Like, in the morning I always imagine doing some things which I’ve planned for the day, but I’m not able to do those things. WHY is this happening!? This leads to further disappointment when I’m not able to do the things I’d planned to do, and maybe causes some resistance and attracts some bad experiences. How do I fix this?”

Anurag is trying to use a process that Abraham fans will recognize as “Pre-Paving”, whereby you work to line up your energy with what you want BEFORE trying to take any action. So, you might do a bit of pre-paving in the morning, before even getting out of bed, and set yourself up for a fabulous day. Or not.

Here’s what’s going wrong:

Dear Anurag,

It sounds to me like you’re planning out your day intellectually instead of emotionally. And that’s why it’s not working. You can’t just make a To Do list. After all, people have been doing that unsuccessfully for ages. Sure, you might complete your lists for a while, but it takes willpower and motivation, and sooner or later those always run out.

Here’s what I suggest: Instead of thinking of all the things you’d like to do that day, think of how  you’d like that day to feel. If you have certain events coming up, like a class or a meeting with a friend, think of those events and decide how you want to experience them. Do you want to have fun? Do you want to shine? Do you want to be confident? Do you want to be relaxed?

Once you decide how you want each event to feel, take a few minutes and see yourself experiencing each segment of your day the way you’d like to. So, let’s say you’re meeting a friend. Visualize yourself talking to your friend, smiling and laughing together, and having a great time. You don’t have to worry about what you’ll say, or how exactly you brought up which topic. Just see yourself and your friend having a fantastic time. If the visualization itself is already fun for you, you’re doing it right.

If there are things you’d really like to get done that day, see yourself at the end of the day, having gotten them all done easily and joyfully. Focus on it being easy, on the feeling of things working out without stress. Don’t focus on how much you have to do, how overwhelming it is and how hard it all is. That’ll just line you up with a horrible feeling day (sound familiar?).

I’ll give you a personal example:

I’d been looking to buy a new laptop. I’d been researching models for weeks, going to stores to try them out, and had narrowed it down to a couple of models. I woke up a few days ago, and actually dreaded my day. That’s not an emotion I’m going to tolerate for long. I stayed in bed and asked myself what was causing me to feel this way. Well, I was feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of spending yet another one of my flexible days (I have coaching days full of appointments and flexible days where I do everything else), hunting through stores, trying to figure out what I needed, and not really getting any help from sales staff. The whole thing had become such a burden. So, I deliberately chose a different thought: What if it was easy? What if I could just attract the perfect laptop without doing any more work? I’d researched enough to know exactly what my requirements were. So, I essentially knew what I wanted. I just didn’t know which model was going to tick all my boxes without costing me more than necessary. Just deciding to let it be easy immediately made me feel better. I also decided to give myself a break that day and not go hunting for a laptop. That made me feel even better. I couldn’t drop the subject altogether, but I could reprioritize and do something else that day.

So, two days later, I set out to look at laptops again. I noticed a model that I hadn’t previously seen. I thought I’d looked at it and had deemed it too heavy, and yet, when I picked it up, it wasn’t. The keyboard felt like a dream, it had all the CPU power I wanted, the storage, the RAM, the portability, the screen size, etc. And, it was on sale. So, there was my manifestation. I knew this was my perfect laptop. I couldn’t get the sales person’s attention, and I was tired from running around all day running errands (I’d stopped by the laptop shop at the end of the day, just because I could fit it in), and so, feeling happy to have found the right model, I made the better feeling choice to just go home and come back the next day. I could’ve given in to the voice that said “Oh, let’s just get it over with!”, but that didn’t feel good. Truth be told, it would’ve been a huge hassle to buy the laptop. The store was really busy, the lines were mega long and like I said, I was tired.

So, earlier today (the day I’m writing this), I walked into the shop, all relaxed. Remember, I’d lined up with things being easy and just working out for me. I didn’t know the details of how they would work out for me, but that wasn’t my job. That’s what we have LOA for.

Badabing Badaboom

I found a very nice and helpful sales assistant within minutes. It turns out, the model I wanted has been discontinued. They don’t have anything with nearly that much power and those features for anywhere close to that price and they won’t be getting anything else like that in, anytime soon. Huh. I had a teensy moment of confusion and then thought, “Oh well. I guess today’s not the day. It will come to me in perfect timing.” And then, Mr. Helpful told me that I could buy the (flawless!) floor model at a discounted price (off the already ridiculous sales price). He took me to a special desk where I paid (no waiting in line! I had no idea those special desks existed!!), got me to sign up for a store card which gave me an extra 5% off, wrapped it all up for me while I shopped for a wireless keyboard (purchased with that 5% savings!), which he then also rang up for me (still, no lines! No waiting!) and sent me on my way. Easiest. Electronics. Purchase. Ever.

When I Focus On Something It Goes Further Away!

Awesome Ana asks: “What if the thing you want the most seems to be the one thing that’s furthest away from you? My experience tells me that the more you imagine, feel, or desire an event or a fact, the further away it is. But if I don’t think of it, somehow, sooner or later it appears! Why? I always try my best to apply the LOA, but it doesn’t work in my case…or am I doing something wrong? When I try it deliberately, just the opposite occurs. Even now, at the very beginning of 2013, I decided to apply it and what I’m finding is that my car, devices, and technology in general are breaking down!!! Help!!! What is going on? I’m so confused!”

Oh dear, Ana. You seem to be experiencing a very common issue – you think you’re focusing on what you want, but in doing so, you’re actually focusing on what you don’t want. Or, to put it another way, you’re focusing on what you want, but in a way that doesn’t feel good.

When you move towards what you want, energetically speaking, any obstacles that lie in the way of what you want (beliefs you hold that contradict what you want) will manifest. This happens so that you have a chance to notice these contradictory thoughts and shift them. And you can do that in a couple of different ways.

So, let’s say that you’re focusing on having a wonderful life in 2013. And then your car and all your other techie toys start to break down. What gives? Well, obviously, you’re holding on to some beliefs that contradict that beautiful life. How does the breakdown of all your stuff feel, emotionally? I’m going to guess it’s frustrating, overwhelming, difficult, a hassle – it feels like a burden and like it will be a lot of hard work to sort out. Well, is that how you generally view life? In this example, I’m betting that it is. You have an expectation, one that you may not have been aware of, that life is hard work. Notice that I’m making a lot of assumptions here, because I don’t really know what you were focusing on or how exactly those obstacles felt, but this explanation is more about the process so that you can figure this out for yourself, rather than just telling you exactly what the beliefs are (which would require a coaching relationship). In other words, the negative manifestations you’re having are very, very useful. They’ll help you to figure out what beliefs you hold that are blocking you from having the life you want.

The second method you can use to line up with what you want is to stop focusing on what you want, and focus only on things that make you feel truly good. You’re not letting go of the desire – the Universe knows exactly what you want – you’re letting go of the need to make it happen. When you align yourself with good feeling topics, you automatically attune yourself with everything you want, because you stop contradicting what you want, and that’s all it takes to manifest your desires. The Law of Attraction is always bringing you everything you’ve ever wanted. But it’s up to you to let it in.

My advice to you would be to just spend a week or so doing nothing but things that make you feel amazing. Daydream, dance, sing, take it easy, nap, eat chocolate, etc. Just get really happy. Make the manifestations you’ve been after unimportant to your emotional state. Let go. Then see what happens. 🙂

How Can You Find a High Vibrational Thought From A Low Vibrational Place?

Awesome Chandni wants to know: “If thoughts are manifestations and the law of attraction can’t bring us great thoughts when we are mired in misery, then why do you and all teachers talk about thinking good thoughts when the vibes are low? If thoughts and ideas are manifestations, then how can we actually raise our vibes (apart from meditation)? And once we raise the core vibration (or once we shift), how can we stay there and become more stable in the core vibration?”

Excellent question, Chandni! If we only have access to thoughts that match our current vibration, then how can we get access to better feeling thoughts with a frequency which is higher than our current one? We can’t. That’s why trying to think super positive thoughts when you’re depressed doesn’t work. You don’t have access to thoughts with a completely different frequency.

You do, however, have access to a range of frequencies. So, instead of just vibrating at 5 MHz, for example, you could vibrate at an average of 5 MHz, with access to everything from 4.5  to 5.5. In that case, you’d focus all your attention on 5.5 MHz until that became your average vibration, giving you access to everything from 5.0 to 6.0. And so forth.

In other words, you could focus on the best feeling thought you have access to (not necessarily a happy, shiny thought, just the best feeling one you can find), until you feel a touch better and that thought no longer represents the top of your accessible range, but the middle. The longer you focus on this thought, the more energy you give to it, the easier it gets to think this thought, and consequently, the more “stable” you become. And once you were completely stable, you could now find the next best feeling thought you’d have access to and repeat the process.

The stability comes from not moving too fast, but rather spending enough time focusing on each incremental step of the vibrational ladder so that the urge to slip below that point vanishes. The longer you spend on each step, the larger it becomes, and the more “surface” you have to stand on.

This is why our negative thoughts often feel more stable than our positive ones. We’ve been trained to focus negatively and have given much more focus and power to our fears than our hopes and dreams. But it’s really all a matter of focus and time; all we have to do give more energy to what we want than what we don’t want, and tip the scale in favor of the positive.

Now it’s your turn: Do you have any questions about manifesting? How about examples of how you’ve been able to manifest successfully? Share in the comments!