Law of Attraction: If I create my reality: Why am I getting this ?! part 1

In arguing against law of attraction as a valid principle, one of the most frequently asked questions is: "If I create my own reality, why on earth did I create this"? Sometimes it is phrased: "I can't possibly be creating my reality because I never would have chosen this". Everybody wonders about this. This article explains how we create and why trying to understand why we created something is a pitfall. How we create We create the reality we experience by our thoughts and feelings. Our thoughts and feelings create a tone or a vibration that acts as a magnet which draws to us more of the experiences or events that will give us more of the same thoughts and feelings. This has to be brief here because volumes and volumes have been written on the specifics of how we do it and how to control it. Our dominant vibration draws situations of like vibration to us. Most of the time we are creating from default. We are not consciously aware of what we are thinking or believing, and we are not making conscious choices for our preferences. The nine ways we create unconsciously are: 1. Habit Current research in neuro-psychology says we think 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day and over 90 percent of these are the same thoughts we thought yesterday. They are often the same thoughts our parents had. We seldom examine or question the random, repeating small voice in our heads. Often it is saying things like "this is the only way to do this", "this is just the way it is". Or it is saying things like "this can't happen to a person like me", and "I'm not good enough, smart enough, lucky enough to do . . ." or "everybody knows . . ." 2. Ignorance: Not knowing I had a better choice or even any choice at all We often don't realize we can have a choice about things. Until we start learning about deliberate creation we often feel like we are victims of circumstance, of randomness, or of a judgmental and capricious god. None of this is true. Learning deliberate creation is empowering. We come to understand, through knowing the physics of it, that we can influence EVERYTHING in our world. And yet, we still often think, but I can't affect my health, for instance, or but I can't affect world events. Not true. We always have choice and we always have free will. We can affect and influence everything we experience. I don't mean we can affect our response to it only after it has appeared in our lives, but that we can control the balance and frequency of our experience of joyful and less joyful events in our lives. Yes, it takes practice and awareness, but it can be done and it's not too difficult to do. 3. Expectations of those around me, media conditioning, group think How often have you heard thoughts stated like "if something can go wrong, it will", "the change in temperature is causing everybody to catch a cold", "because the economy is bad, jobs are hard to get now" "you're too old - nobody your age ever did that", "your body will deteriorate as you get older". A friend of mine who works in the medical profession said, "all men get prostate problems as they get older". I was horrified. I playfully punched him on the arm and reminded him not to think that way if he doesn't want to be one of them. Advertisements, particularly on TV, and especially those by the pharmaceutical companies are powerful influencers if we believe them. They try to make you believe "everybody has . . . ", or "everybody needs . . ". Magazines, newspapers, movies and the culture we live in all perpetuate ideas they take as truth. In reality, truth can be what we define it to be for each of us. 4. Selective Observing Observation of a state or condition brings more of the same. This is what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy. We use our minds, unconsciously, to shift through our thousands of interactions to find the ones that justify our ideas, beliefs, and expectations about the world. Then we say, "See? I knew it would be this way!" If we believe all cashiers are rude, for instance, we won't notice all the times our experiences are pleasant. But when we encounter the one who is less than friendly, we declare it to be the truth about all cashiers. We talk about how insulted we were, we tell our friends not to shop at that store and we rehash the event over and over, magnifying our feelings with each telling. This strengthens the vibration that all cashiers are rude. The next time you go shopping you will more likely gravitate past the five cashiers who are pleasant and friendly to the one who is tired and having a bad day. Even if she says nothing to you, you will be anticipating some sort of insult and will probably find it. 5. Beliefs A belief is a habit of thought. It is a thought we keep thinking until it becomes a paradigm, a filter, through which we view and relate to the world. Like any thought, beliefs that limit us can be changed. The tricky part is in recognizing our beliefs as thoughts about a thing and not as the absolute, unchangeable truth about the thing. A lot of our beliefs are below our level of conscious awareness. "I can't do that, I'm not skilled, talented, rich, lucky enough". "I have to work hard to make money." "Taxes eat up everything." "Easy come, easy go." "No gain without pain." "Life is hard". A friend of mine says she learned from her parents that, "People like us. . " usually finished by, "always have to work hard", "never get a break", "don't have the means to travel". Those of us who think we're scientific use statistics to justify or 'prove' our beliefs. Yet, there is the quote by Mark Twain, "There are three kinds of lies: there are lies, damn lies and statistics." We know statistics and even scientific experiments usually show only what we expect to see. In quantum physics this is called the 'observer effect'. If we accept our beliefs without question, we create our reality from them. When we change the beliefs, we create our reality by choice and through joy. Continued in Part 2.