Thoughts Matter

By Evette Gardner
June 2010


There's no such thing as an idle thought. Every thought you think impacts your life experience. Thoughts are tremendously powerful things. And these thought "things" have actual characteristics. While thoughts are not material in nature, they do have some manner of substance. They do have properties. The Law of Attraction is based upon what is presumed to be the magnetic property of thoughts -- although this presumption is, as of yet, unsubstantiated by modern science. The Law of Attraction is currently regarded as a metaphysical concept. It is a principle which is born out of the observation that the things you attract in your life, in some way, symbolically reflect the thoughts you entertain about life. And while today's science is not yet in a position to fully corroborate this philosophical observation, this does not make the observation itself invalid. Just yet to be scientifically proven. You do not, however, have to wait on scientific corroboration to test this notion on your own. Each of us has the ability to hold the Law of Attraction concept up alongside our own personal experience to decide for ourselves how well it bears out.

For my personal observation I do believe that there is some soundness to the general idea behind the Law of Attraction, although I do take issue with some of the purported details of how it plays out. For example, just because you dream of an event unfolding in your future -- winning the lottery, marrying that person you have a huge crush on, or whatever else it may be -- you're having faith in the possibility that this dream can come to pass doesn't necessarily follow that it actually will literally come to pass. Life doesn't seem to work this way all the time, for everybody. And if it's not true for one, all the time, then it's not true. For truth to be genuine it has to be universal. While the Law of Attraction gives you the power to strongly influence your life's situations, it does not give you the absolute power to control your life's situations. You cannot plan your life's events with supreme certainty because the events that transpire in your life usually involve more than just you. And while you have absolute power over yourself -- your thoughts, your actions, and so forth -- you do not have absolute power over anyone else. Therefore, in any given situation, you cannot say for sure what will take place. Sometimes stuff just happens which is beyond your control. That is the thrill and challenge of the physical life experience. But when stuff does happen you can, through the Law of Attraction, influence how the situation you find yourself in evolves. Not by commanding the situation itself, but by commanding your experience within the situation. There is a distinction here. Work to understand the difference. Influence and control are two very different things. Just like your life's experience and your life's situation are also two very different things. Your experience in life is not the same thing as your situation in life. Your life's situations are determined by events. Your life experiences, by contrast, are determined by your thoughts.

Through your thoughts you have the power to absolutely control your life experience because experience is an internal phenomenon. Experience happens within. Experience is what you feel, and feelings are the products of thoughts. Every thought you think gives rise to an equivalent emotion. And while the situations you encounter may set the stage to draw you into buying into a certain kind of mindset, you can decide not to take the bait. You can decide to think in a way which seems to contradict what is considered reasonable for the circumstance you face. You can choose to live above, or even beneath, your situation. It is absolutely possible, for instance, for a person living in an impoverished situation to at the same time live a rich life experience. The reverse is also true. It's absolutely possible for a person living in an affluent situation to at the same time live a wanting life experience. Attitude makes the experience. To use another example, two people may go hiking. And while one has a marvelous experience - enjoying the crisp fresh air, the exhilarating exercise, the beautiful scenery, and the captivating wildlife; the other person may have a miserable time - disliking the cold air, the tiresome exercise, the backwoods scenery, and the filthy wildlife. Same situation, but two vastly different experiences. Why? Because your experience is not defined by your situations; it's defined by how you choose to perceive your situations. One of the most basic powers attributable to your thoughts is the power to directly determine your life experience. But the influence doesn't end there, it goes much further. Your thoughts also have the power to act as an agent of attraction to indirectly influence your life's situations.

Have you ever notice that when you're in the midst of a trying circumstance in your life, that it's usually only when you learn to adopt a genuine positive outlook amid this difficult circumstance that the situation seems to start evolving for the better? The things that start happening when this positive mental shift occurs may at times seem serendipitous. But are you really stumbling upon your good fortunes, or are you somehow actually prompting them to happen? The Law of Attraction takes the latter position. The Law of Attraction assigns you the credit for being the author of your own life's script. The problem comes about when people take this understanding too literally. You do not get to literally write the script of your life. What you do is set the tone, but God writes the details. So in actuality you are really more of a muse, inspiring your life's story, rather than an author, writing your life's story, because while you do indeed facilitate your own fate, you do not actually control it.

Reflect on this idea and see if it's not true in your own life experience… The things that transpire in your life often do not exactly match the things you envision for your life. But that's just scenery. Look deeper. The Law of Attraction is at work. Just because you used to be so sure you were going to someday marry your high school sweetheart, for example, but you in actuality ended up marrying someone else does not mean that your dream did not come true in such an instance. Learn not to be so literal about these things. Take a subtler view. Think about the person you are in fact married to. Do the qualities they possess correspond to the qualities you used to ascribe to your high school sweetheart, the person you used to be absolutely convinced you would someday marry? Okay, so you didn't actually marry that person. But you did in fact marry exactly who you said you were going to marry. Didn't you? Not in body, but in spirit. Perhaps your perceptions about your high school sweetheart were off. And your perception of him or her didn't really mesh with who they really were. Hormones can make us blind to many things. Stop looking at the package, look instead at the actual substance. You do get all that you ask for in faith.

The situations you go through in life are often predisposed to inspire the very same dominant feelings you experience as inspired by your beliefs about life. Your life's situations evolve to reinforce your adopted life outlook. That's the match you see. That's the Law of Attraction at work. You draw into your life the kind of people and conditions which corroborate your predetermined perceptions. And as your life outlook changes so does the evolutionary direction of your life's situations as you begin to draw into your life things which, on a substantive level, match the tone you have set within yourself. The stronger your life outlook is inclined towards lovingness, optimism, and other constructive qualities, the more you prompt the development of new and fruitful opportunities amid the circumstances you face. The stronger your life outlook is inclined towards hatefulness, pessimism, and other destructive qualities, the more you prompt the development of new, and ever increasing, sources of stress amid the circumstances you face.

Life is for you exactly what you think it is. This is not to say that you will never encounter situations in life which challenge your perceptions -- because you will. Life is filled with all kinds of surprises. Things can appear to come from out of nowhere. Situations will occasionally arise in your life which, on the face of it, may look like something you would never have asked for. But if you were to hold off on jumping to conclusions and let the situation play out without struggling against it, what would it reveal? Perhaps you are in fact getting exactly what you asked for, just in an unexpected way. Or perhaps there's a lesson to be learned from the situation you're in which is preparing you to receive something that you've been asking for. Don't let the look of things persuade you to adopt a pessimistic point of view. Despite however scary, or even foolish, it may seem at times, always try to summon the courage to surrender to a more constructive outlook than the one you have now. Decide to be and do better in every successive moment.

Your life experience is little more than a series of successive moments. And in each and every one of these instances you are presented with a choice -- the choice to see the things and circumstances before you in a way which is allowing of an experience of enjoyment; or the choice to perceive these same things in such a way as to foster discontentment. But again, this is the thrill and challenge of the physical life experience. Everything is always moving. Everything is in constant flux. Doesn't it always seem the way that no sooner than you learn to master a constructive life outlook amid one difficult situation in your life, that another trial arises to test your ability to handle another. This is not a curse, it's actually a blessing. Its purpose is to help demonstrate to you the boundless depth of your inner strength. For to think and act positive amid a situation which is just as you want it to be is easy, but it allows you to realize nothing of the true and awesome depth of your inner strength. However, to think and act positive amid a situation which does not immediately reflect your desires -- well this may be more challenging but it also let’s you see and experience just how strong and powerful a being you really are. Choosing to hold fast to your constructive beliefs in the face of seeming contradiction is what faith is about. And the feelings you get just from being open to the constructive or destructive viewpoints you adopt is either its own reward or its own pain.

Evette Gardner can be reached at Comments@YourDivineInheritance.com
© 2010 Evette Gardner