Positive Thinking, The Law of Attraction, and Faith

[Gene]

I’ve been thinking a lot about the principles behind positive thinking and the law of attraction and various related ideas behind how we think. Just how well do these “laws” and theories work to combat fear and negativity and attract prosperity? The Bible speaks a lot about dispelling fear. I haven’t counted, but a lot of sources say that fear is mentioned some 365 times. That kind of repetition should draw the attention of any believer. Clearly, there is a battle going on that challenges us in the areas of fear/anxiety.
 
There are many self-help experts/gurus who work, in large part, on the principles of positive thinking and the law of attraction. You have The Secret, which covers the Law of Attraction. Of course, there is the Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, which preceded so much of what we see today. There are numerous gurus like Tony Robbins, as well as those who approach these ideas from a Christian perspective such as Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyers, the late Robert Schuller, and many others who speak frequently about being positive and turning bad circumstances around.
 
I am not here to advocate any single method or any of them for that matter. At least not right now. I am in the novice category who wants to learn more and apply it to see what happens. While I can’t attest to the results yet, I can see the need having been brought up around a great deal of negativity and having difficult circumstances throughout my life that tax every ounce of your hope. I see many others going through very difficult things – much more than seems to be their fair share. Definitely a lot more so than some who seem to float through life with positivity, happiness and prosperity. Is it about luck? If you have read this site you already know what I think about luck. I might refer to bad luck or good luck because we so often call it that, but the luck I am speaking about is not chance. The good and bad are coming from somewhere and at times way beyond mathematical probability. If you’ve lived it you know exactly what I mean. If you are one of us who has experienced the repeating numbers and patterns phenomenon then you at least know how things can happen way beyond rational chance.
 
So how much of our circumstances can we control with the mind? The need is definitely there. There are so many people fighting battles that seem to start from within, but most likely come from external forces that we cannot see. Clearly these circumstances are happening for a reason. Right? Do we have power over them? There is no shortage of people who claim they have overcome the difficulties that have haunted them in the past. I am a pretty good test subject for this myself so I will try to learn and hopefully can help others at the same time. I do know that negativity, whether it comes from within or is thrust upon you from the outside is very damaging.
 
Whether you were raised under difficult circumstances or are involved with abusive or negative people in your day to day life, the effects of negativity weigh heavy and can follow you throughout life. It can not only lead people to depression and a general state of unhappiness, but also freeze them with anxiety from being able to do even the most basic of things. It can push them into a variety of damaging bad habits. Stress is known to have a very damaging effect on the body as well so it seems without question that the things that cause stress will do a terrible number on you. But can we really change it all with our thoughts, habits, and our words? For some the whole idea may seem silly. We all come from different backgrounds and were raised differently. We have had different circumstances and the minds we were born with may process it all in different ways. Yet despite all that, countless are in similar battles when it comes to anxiety and the like. Bad “luck” seems to hit many of us like a curse. Is it? And can we break the curse?

I have little doubt that a positive outlook will help make you think more clearly and be able to make better decisions in general. But overcoming the so-called “bad luck” is not easy to do with decision-making alone. At least not some of the luck I am speaking of here. And when you get knocked down so many times the vicious cycle can really take a toll. If something happens to a person enough times is it irrational to fear it is going to happen again? People question whether the hard work that goes into making sound decisions is even worth it when the unforeseeable turns those good decisions into wrong decisions time and time again.
 
There are people who are born into horrible circumstances and areas in the world. They didn’t do anything in the womb to bring on such terrible things. There are things such as generational curses that may be an explanation for a lot of what people go through in their lives. I have also seen more than a few people who think whatever happens to others is always a person’s own fault. I certainly don’t agree with that. Most likely they have been on the other side of the breaks in life and simply cannot relate. It is even understandable for a person whom the coin lands on heads 50 times and tails 50 times to not understand when someone tells them it landed on one or the other 90 out of a hundred in their lives. If you get what I’m trying to say.
 
The real question here is, can we, through our thinking, attract more of the good forces and breaks in life? And by doing so bring more of the “good luck” into our lives? Is the law of attraction real? Is visualization the answer? It has helped countless people in all walks of life. Can it help those who can't seem to shake the bad breaks in life?
 
I’ve seen people so negative that they could undermine any so-called good luck. In fact, this has been done many times in monumental fashion. We have all seen so many incredibly successful people who weren’t really happy and have either committed suicide or slowly did themselves in through unhealthy lifestyles. In these circumstances there is an intersection of attraction and positive thinking. On one hand they were able to attract success, but on the other they then sabotaged it through some form of negative thinking. Maybe positivity and negativity can hit great highs and lows in a person’s mind at the same time or at least in different areas? The people I’m talking about managed to attract great things, but also managed to destroy those very same gifts in dramatic fashion.
 
So there are a lot of questions and examples when it comes to the law of attraction, positive thinking, and faith. I will probably be bouncing around various people, books, and methods to try to get a handle on this. I have a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking that I borrowed from the library so I will definitely be examining that right off. There is no shortage of information and videos online regarding similar methods as well as the law of attraction. I think the key is in understanding whether or not these principles actually do work as well as we have heard and what are the common threads. Examining as many methods as possible will help in finding the similarities and maybe the reasons behind whey they do work.
 
 Getting encouragement and inspiration from the quotes and principles of other people who have risen above their difficulties can hopefully give us inspiration. I’m not really looking to critique various methods or people. If I find things that I don’t like I may comment on it, but I think there are things to be gained from most positive and successful people and I think for obvious reasons that it is best to focus on what works. In the case of faith, positive thinking, and the law of attraction we are talking about more than just habits of successful people. It is about the mind and spirit and things we can’t see. Can anyone tap into these incredible forces to help themselves and the world around them? I’ll do my best to learn and apply what I can to my own life and hopefully others will as well. And more importantly, with great results! More to come…

[Gene]

Here are some excerpts from chapter 1 of The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale:

In a sense there may be such a thing as “the breaks” in this life, but there is also a spirit and method by which we can control and even determine those breaks.

It is no speculative series of extravagant assertions that I make, for these principles have worked so efficiently over so long a period of time that they are now firmly established as documented and demonstrable truth.

I need not point out that the powerful principles contained herein are not my invention but are given to us by the greatest Teacher who ever lived and who still lives. This book teaches applied Christianity; a simple yet scientific system of practical techniques of successful living that works.

There are various causes of inferiority feelings, and not a few stem from childhood… It is some emotional violence done to us in childhood, or the consequences of certain circumstances, or something we did to ourselves. This malady arises out of the misty past in the dim recesses of our personalities.

The greatest secret for eliminating the inferiority complex, which is another term for deep and profound self-doubt, is to fill your mind to overflowing with faith. Develop a tremendous faith in God and that will give you a humble yet soundly realistic faith in yourself.

The acquiring of dynamic faith is accomplished by prayer, lots of prayer, by reading and mentally absorbing the Bible and by practicing its faith techniques…

According to your faith be it unto you – Matthew 9:29. So the bigger your problem, the bigger your prayer should be.

If your mind is obsessed by thoughts of insecurity and inadequacy, it is, of course, due to the fact that such ideas have dominated your thinking over a long period of time. Another and more positive pattern of ideas must be given the mind, and that is accomplished by repetitive suggestion or confidence ideas. In the busy activities of daily existence thought disciplining is required if you are to re-educate the mind and make of it a power-producing plant.

If in our thoughts we constantly fix attention upon sinister expectations of dire events that might happen, the result will be constantly to feel insecure. And what is even more serious is the tendency to create, by the power of thought, the very condition we fear.

…Everywhere you encounter people who are inwardly afraid, who shrink from life, who suffer from a deep sense of inadequacy and insecurity, who doubt their own powers. Deep within themselves they mistrust their ability to meet responsibilities or to grasp opportunities. Always they are beset by the vague and sinister fear that something is not going to be quite right. They do not believe that they have it in them to be what they want to be, and so they try to make themselves content with something less than that of which they are capable. Thousands up thousands go crawling through life on their hands and knees, defeated and afraid. And in most cases such frustration of power is unnecessary.

The blows of life, the accumulation of difficulties, the multiplication of problems tend to sap energy and leave you spent and discouraged. In such a condition the true status of your power is often obscured, and a person yields to a discouragement that is not justified by the facts.

…Any fact facing us, however difficult, even seemingly hopeless, is not so important as our attitude toward that fact… You may permit a fact to overwhelm you mentally before you start to deal with it actually.

It seems pretty evident from reading the Power of Positive Thinking that much of what follows it in the realm of self-help and motivation can be traced to Norman Vincent Peale's book.