In a recent article I answered a reader’s question about why it can take so long to manifest what we want in life. In that article I talked about the importance of being in alignment with what you want, but I did not get into the very important concept of resistance and Law of Attraction. When you’re having problems manifesting something, it’s because you’re not yet in alignment with it, but why is that? Why aren’t you in alignment with what you consciously want? It’s because, at a sub-conscious level, you’re experiencing resistance to it.
Resistance and Law of Attraction: What is it?
When we’re talking about LOA, resistance means the thoughts and feelings within you that are contrary to what it is that you say you want. It’s all the unconscious stuff that’s holding you back from really committing yourself, on a vibrational level, to what you’re trying to manifest.
For example, say you want to manifest lots of money; you want to be a multi-millionaire. There’s nothing wrong with this desire. Lots of people want money, lots of people have money, and let’s face it; having lots of money makes a lot of things a whole lot easier. And say you also understand that insisting that you win the lottery to get that money is counter-productive and hampers the Universe from getting that money to you in any other of the many, many ways that it could get that money to you. So you’re open to that money coming to you in any way it wants to. So it sounds like it’s all good, and it should be really easy to get in alignment with all of that, right?
Except that you still haven’t won the lottery. Or uncovered a stash of ancient gold coins buried in your backyard. Or been contacted by your great-great Aunt Mildred’s lawyer to be informed that she was a secret billionaire and you were her favourite family member and she’s left everything to you in her will. Despite your visualizing and your vision board and your openness to letting the Universe handle all the details while you don’t mess with the how of things, you’re still struggling to pay your bills every month. So what gives?!
Understanding where resistance comes from
Resistance, my friend… resistance. In order to understand resistance and Law of Attraction, and to understand where your particular resistance is coming from, you’ve got to look at the whole picture behind what you’re trying to manifest. In the case of manifesting huge piles of money, most people think about the “wouldn’t it be fab to be freaking rich?” aspect of things. But they don’t think about what comes with all that money, at least not consciously. But it’s all percolating around in the recesses of their mind. So somewhere inside you, the thought of suddenly becoming incredibly wealth is generating thoughts such as:
- I have no idea how to look after tons of money. What if I lose it all just as quickly as I gain it?
- What if people treat me differently if I’m rich?
- What if everyone I know starts asking me for money? If I give some to everyone, there’ll be nothing left for me. But if I don’t give it away everyone will think I’m a bitch/bastard.
- What if crazy Uncle George wants me to invest in one of his harebrained schemes? How do I say no without causing a family war?
- What’s going to happen at tax time? It’s going to be so complicated.
- I don’t know anything about investing! And I hate all that stuff… it’s so boring. What am I going to do?
The thing is that a big change, like suddenly getting lots of money in your life, doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s not just your money situation that will be different. There are ripple effects to changes like that, which affect every aspect of your life. And even if you haven’t deliberately taken those into consideration, rest assured that your diligent little subconscious mind certainly has. And while you’re daydreaming about your future yacht, that little gremlin is focused on all the negative effects of your desire, instead.
And all those negatives add up to tip the scales in favour of not manifesting that desire. If you want to clear all that stuff up, you first have to figure out how to identify your hidden resistance so that you can deal with it.
How to identify resistance
In order to identify any resistance and Law of Attraction issues you may have around a particular desire, there are a few things you can do:
- Sit quietly and imagine yourself in the already manifested situation, as if your desired outcome has already happened; you’ve already won the lottery, or gotten the job or met “the one”.
- Now imagine all the effects that this will have in your life (remember that nothing happens in isolation!). Think of both the big things and the small things.
- How does the manifestation of your desire affect your daily life? What are you eating? Doing? Where are you living? How do you spend your days? How are the people around you reacting? Try to imagine these things as realistically as possible – don’t catastrophize things, but don’t gloss over things, either. Make a list of everything you can think of.
- If you know that you have specific fear that might be holding you back from manifesting what you want, then be sure to write these down as well, in your own words.
Once you’ve made your list, take some time to review it. The happy things or good changes that you think would come about through your manifestation are the things that you should be putting on your vision board and what you should be concentrating on when you visualize. The negative things are the ones that are holding you back. These are the fears that are messing with your vibrational alignment and delaying your manifestation. These are the things you need to work on and eliminate in order to move ahead.
How to eliminate resistance
The first step in eliminating resistance is to understand that there is nothing outside of you that causes it. Resistance is completely an internal thing; it is fear caused by what you think might happen.
This is so important so I’m going to say it again: resistance is an internal struggle. None of what you are worried about has happened in your real world; all of these fears are hypothetical and may never come to pass, but your thoughts about these “maybes” are strong enough to mess up your intentions. It is not your crazy uncle trying to get you involved in his harebrained schemes that is holding you back from your money; it is your own mind (your thoughts and fears) about possibly being in that situation that is holding you back.
In order to eliminate the fear you have three choices: 1) accept the fear rather than avoiding it, 2) decide that it’s not as bad as you thought it was, or 3) find a way to deal with it.
A strategy for eliminating resistance
When it comes to resistance and Law of Attraction, sometimes just bringing the fearful thoughts out into the open by writing them down like you just did is enough to dispel them. When we bring fear out of the shadows and into the light of day, it often loses its power over us because we can see that it isn’t as powerful as we thought it was. When something is unseen or unknown, our imaginations tend to build it up into a worst-case scenario, but shining a light onto it lets us see it for what it really is.
For the fears that still concern you, figure out how you can deal with them before they happen. For example: if you’re concerned about how you’re going to look after lots of money, then make a plan to hire an accountant and financial planner who can help you because, after all, if you have that much money you’ll certainly be able to hire such help! Do some research and draw up a list of certified financial planners and tax accountants near you, and include their phone numbers and email addresses so you’ll be prepared. Heck, why not research private banking companies in your city while you’re at it?
If you’re still worried about Crazy Uncle George, then script it out. Write down what you think he’s likely to say and then write down a good response that you can give him so you’ll know how you’re going to handle it before it ever happens.
Do this for each of the fears on your list; create a response list or task list for every single one of them. Figure out how you’re going to handle each fear and write it all down. Once you know how you’re going to handle your fears – and more importantly, once you realize that you are more than capable of handling those fears – they will lose their power over you and stop interfering in your ability to manifest what you’re after. You may not manifest that windfall immediately, but you should certainly start seeing signs that your energy has changed and that things are starting to progress.
Photo credit: Walt Jabsco / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Nathalie, you are reading my mind! I was thinking about this very topic this morning. How to eliminate fear holding us back.
It is even more difficult if you were raised with fear. It is so ingrained in you, like an appendage that weighs you down, so cutting it out from your life does work wonders. It is also helpful to do all these things you say incrementally. Slow and steady wins the race, so to speak. Fears do keep s from living and it isn’t fair because we are here to live our dreams. It is so sad that people give up and lead sad lives, you know?
I would add this to the list, make it a habit to focus on what you want regardless of what the peanut gallery says or thinks. Also, what have you got to lose? Only everything to gain!
I think that fear of one sort or another is ingrained in all of us. We can’t help but learn it. One of our biggest opportunities for growth, I think, comes when we start to realize how much of our fears we picked up from our parents. But we are different people than they are, and we’ve had very different life experiences than they did. Very hard to explain what I mean in a comment — I think I’m going to go write up an article about this because it’s important.
Incremental changes are always good… less shock to the system compared to what happens with sudden big changes. And yes, you have to find ways to keep yourself focused on what you want, despite what happens around you. When it becomes certain in your own mind, that’s when the real magic starts to happen. 🙂
Update: here is the post on fears picked up from parents.
I think my hang up was being in a large family I could never keep anything..There was stickers of the Lone Ranger in Wonder bread..I finally got up early enough one morning to get one from a new loaf of Wonder bread..It didn,t even last 2 days in my room..Someone searched and found it..I couldn,t keep anything . I heard in adult hood they were worth thousands of dollars..Oh, If I just could have kept just that one over the years Now I am terrible with money and It seems to slip thru my fingers..Its worth while..Things I need but its always gone quickly..Not gambling booze or drugs..But especially clothes I never wear..I hope exposing it to the lite and facing it helps..I will look up financial advisors and do mt research on finding the best one and I like real estate for investments..Especially when Im the banker handling the money..
Hi Bev, welcome to Vibe Shifting and thanks so much for commenting. 🙂
Money and finances are one of the biggest issues out there for so many people. It’s by far one of the most requested topics I get asked about in emails that people send me, and I will be posting more articles around the topic over the coming year (look for a post on money mindset tricks over the next couple of weeks!) In the meantime, it might help to take a look at my Money-Manifesting Tips article that I posted last month… it’s got a bunch of tips and links to help shift your money mindset (because, as with all areas you want to change in your life, changing your money situation begins with your mindset).