Let’s begin with a little Law of Attraction 101: Circumstances are neutral.
All of them. While you might be tempted to divide circumstances into columns of good and bad, they are all neutral.
But circumstances don’t stay neutral for most of us.
And that’s because we layer on meaning. We think thoughts about X, Y, or Z circumstance and make it mean this or that or the other.
I’m going to simplify the meaning you layer on the circumstance. The meaning you assign to a circumstance either makes you feel good or makes you feel bad. Pretty simple, right?
But do not mistake the simplicity for being unimportant or inconsequential. Because what I’ve just shared is really everything.
All circumstances are neutral, but you are going throughout your day assigning meaning, layering on meaning, giving that circumstance meaning, and then feeling in response to the meaning you assign.
The meaning you give a circumstance is where you have control.
It is the meaning you assign that is your place of power.
But for too many of us, the meaning we assign to circumstances makes us feel very bad indeed. And then what happens? Law of Attraction responds to the vibration we are offering. It can be no other way.
For instance, one of my clients is considering a job change, but she is making her age, which is a neutral circumstance, mean she’s too old, it’s too late, she should have the whole career thing figured out by now, she shouldn’t be making a job change at her age.
She’s 42.
Her age, whether she’s 42 or 22 or 62, is a neutral circumstance. But my client is layering on meaning to that circumstance. She’s making 42 mean something that doesn’t feel good to her.
It’s not her age that is the problem. It is her thinking about her age.
Circumstances are neutral. Your thoughts about the circumstance either make you feel good or make you feel bad.
If the meaning you’ve attached makes you feel good, that’s high vibe. That creates a point of attraction that will attract what you want.
But if the meaning you’ve attached to the circumstance makes you feel bad, makes you feel negative emotion, that is your sign. And it is the clearest sign you will ever receive.
It is pointing you in only one direction: You need to change your thinking. You need to change the meaning you’ve attached to the circumstance.
Because negative emotion always means you are mis-creating. You are lowering your point of attraction.
Many of us rail against circumstances.
Especially things from our past that we really can’t change at this point. We assign a meaning to that circumstance, event, situation that makes us feel bad, and then we spin our thoughts around wanting the circumstance to be different.
Trust me, it is way easier to simply change the meaning you’re giving the circumstance. That is your golden ticket. Be intentional about the meaning you give circumstances. Change the meaning you give circumstances so you can feel good.
“If you’re not thinking about a negative thought, your vibration is going to raise to its natural positive place.” —Abraham
Circumstances are neutral. They are not good circumstances and bad circumstances. You have all the creative power because you give the circumstances in your life meaning with your thoughts.
Here’s another example: A client shared she and her fiancé have four rescue dogs and live in a small apartment.
They are on a journey to buy a bigger house, but for now they live in a certain size apartment with four dogs. That is the neutral circumstance.
My client was feeling bad about the dogs. According to her, they don’t have enough space. The apartment is too small. House buying is taking longer than she would like.
She said, It’s not fair to the dogs to be in such a cramped space. Again, neutral circumstance, but my client was giving the circumstance a meaning that made her feel bad. Made her feel frustrated and guilty.
I suggested she could look at the exact same situation—the exact same neutral circumstance—in a different way that would feel good. She could choose to think: We provide so much love to our rescue dogs. We may not have tons of space right now, but we have so much love to give them.
That thought—that meaning being assigned to the circumstance, felt good.
This is always a choice you have. Always.
You can choose to assign a meaning that makes you feel good or makes you feel lousy. Many of us are so used to doing the latter.
You may need to train yourself to be intentional about the meaning you assign to the circumstances of your life.
When you feel bad about a circumstance because of the meaning you’ve layered on, you have an opportunity to re-assign meaning. To reconsider the meaning you are attaching.
Now, why would you make a circumstance mean something that makes you feel bad?
Well, sometimes it’s because you don’t really believe circumstances are neutral. Maybe in theory you buy into this notion, but when it comes to how you live your life, how you really show up, you simply don’t believe circumstances are neutral.
Instead, you see a circumstance as either positive or negative.
- If it’s positive, you can feel good.
- If it’s negative, you feel bad.
That is so disempowering. It robs you of your creative power. It makes you one gigantic ball of reaction to the circumstances of your life.
Have no doubt: The Law of Attraction will respond to how you feel.
So if you’re making the circumstances of your life mean something that makes you feel bad, guess what? LoA will respond to your negative emotion by bringing you circumstances, people, events, situations, and things of a similar frequency.
So the meaning you attach to the circumstances in your life is so important. It is anything but inconsequential. It’s everything!
The meaning you layer on determines how you feel—and I want you to feel good!—and LoA can only respond to the vibration you offer. So you can see why you need to be careful, need to be intentional about the meaning you give circumstances.
“When you care about how you feel and you’re willing to pivot and turn your thoughts towards better feeling things, you will quickly begin the positive deliberate transformation of your life.” —Abraham
I’ll share a recent example from my own life where I was at a crossroads of a circumstance and could choose its meaning.
By crossroads I mean I could ascribe a meaning that made me feel positive emotion or a meaning that made me feel negative emotion.
I was very clear that it was not the circumstance causing me to feel one way or the other. It was my thinking about the circumstance. It was the meaning I would attach, the story I would tell.
I’m a few months into a brand new yoga practice. I’m absolutely loving life on the mat, but there are asanas, poses, that I cannot hold. I do the pose imperfectly or fall out of the pose. There’s this one, moving from downward dog into a lunge, that continues to elude me.
In the first few weeks of trying to do the pose and failing, trying to do the pose and failing, trying to do the pose and failing, I was at a crossroads.
Just to be clear: Being unable to do the pose is the neutral circumstance. Now, what would I do with that? What would I make that mean?
Well, I’ll admit, one narrative in my head was decidedly down the negative emotion route. That story went something like: I’m just not coordinated or flexible enough. I don’t have the core strength to do this move and maybe I won’t ever be able to do it. It’s embarrassing not to be able to get my foot to the front of my mat. Everyone else seems to be able to do it. Maybe yoga is not for me; maybe I should just stop.
So think about what happens if I choose that story. If that is the meaning I give to the neutral circumstance, I feel frustrated and discouraged. I feel impatient with myself and irritated.
From that place of negative emotion, I would very likely add to the story I was telling. I would dread the instructor calling out that particular pose. I would start hoping class would be without that pose. I would look to others doing the pose and feel the despair of comparison. Eww!
I was definitely at the crossroads and even took a step or two down that road of negative emotion wanting the circumstance to be other than what it was. And that’s often a sign: When we want a circumstance to be different than it is, when we don’t accept what is, when we resist what is, we often attach a meaning that produces negative emotion.
But I know circumstances are neutral. Not some of them. Not just the easy or convenient ones. No, all circumstances.
My being unable to move from downward dog into a lunge and get my foot to the front of the mat is a neutral circumstance. My falling out of the pose is a neutral circumstance. No matter how many times it happens. So what did I want to make it mean?
Well, first and foremost, I want to make it mean something that feels good. Now, if positive emotion is too far a stretch, at the very least go for neutral. But I wanted to make my currently inability to do the yoga pose mean something that felt good.
Remember, you have to give a thought a try in order to know how it feels. Here are a few thoughts I tried.
- This is an opportunity to embrace being a beginner. And that will yield good stuff on the mat and off the mat.
- Not now doesn’t mean not ever. I’m OK with being where I am. Mastery doesn’t come in a couple months, Jennifer. After all, it’s called a yoga practice.
- I can still bring my total presence to this pose even as I do it imperfectly.
- I am a yes for yoga. I am a no for resistance. I’m going to go with the flow of how this pose unfolds for me, or doesn’t unfold.
Those thoughts, the meaning I intentionally attached, felt a whole lot better and higher vibe than I suck at yoga. I’ve always been inflexible. I’ll never be able to master this pose.
I was at the crossroads of the neutral circumstance, and I deliberately and intentionally chose to go down the path of positive emotion.
Now, if yoga isn’t your thing, that’s not my point here. My point is we are assigning meaning to the circumstances in our lives. And we are doing this all day long.
It is a beautiful skill to do this in a way that allows you to feel good. To actually prioritize feeling good and make that the lens through which you assign meaning.
“As you think thoughts that feel good to you, you will be in harmony with who you really are.” —Abraham
I have four steps to help you be in harmony with who you really are.
- Accept circumstances are neutral. Really embrace this notion. As long as you refute this or want to argue with it or find loopholes, you will not be a deliberate creator. Which means you won’t be able to create the results you want in your life.
- Start noticing the meaning you give circumstances. Start noticing the lens through which you are interpreting the circumstances of your life. Just start noticing. Oh, that’s the story I’m telling about that event. Oh, that’s what I’m making this situation mean.
- Pay attention when the meaning you assign to a circumstance makes you feel bad. It doesn’t matter what the particular low-vibe feeling is. Just notice when the story you tell about a circumstance causes you to feel some flavor of negative emotion.
- Be intentional about the meaning you assign to circumstances. Tell the story that feels good. Pick the highest vibe interpretation of events and situations. Abraham says: “All of your power is in your choice of thought.” Choose to make meanings that benefit you and raise your point of attraction.
“We promise you, if you pay the price of happiness…if you are willing to change your thoughts even though the current reality doesn’t justify the happy thought, it is our promise to you that, if you are able to direct your thought and sustain more positive emotions, that the manifestations you have been seeking must come. And they must come fast! It is Law. It is our absolute promise to you.” —Abraham
