and hopeless.
The way to avoid that terrible image of living a compromised life is to take on the world from a positive perspective. Psychologists teach a technique called ‘reframing.’ If you have a wonderful painting that begins to look shabby because of the old, broken frame, then change it.
Place the painting inside a new frame and instantly the picture looks brighter and more valuable. That’s a metaphor for reframing responses to situations. You cannot control the situation, but you can control your response to it.
Let’s say a coworker makes an error on a team report that you discover and have to stay late to fix. You can replay the scene in your mind, getting madder and more frustrated each time, which raises your blood pressure and makes you prone to making a mistake.
Or – you can say, ‘I was angry at her – now that’s over and my attention is on the report.’ You can even extend the reframing to say, ‘She is an unhappy person who doesn’t pay attention to her work, but that doesn’t have to change how I handle my work.
You can focus on the negative (her attitude, her mistake, your anger) or you can let it go and reframe your focus to what you want it to be. She can only play on your negativity if you allow her to do so.
Parents and preschool teachers are advised to ‘catch a child doing the right thing and praise the action.’ You can do the same for yourself. Catch yourself feeling negative – then turning it around.
Remember to praise yourself or give yourself a reward for making the positive choice. What you don’t see is that your mind, body and spirit are cheering you on because you have found the power of positive thinking.
Positive thinking generates power while negative thinking drains power. Which do you want in your life?
Visualization Techniques to Help You Embrace the LOA
Visualization is what Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of PsychoCybernetics, called ‘theatre of the mind.’ The more vividly you see yourself in the new career, bigger home, more energetic body or a happy relationship, the more you support the belief that this is meant to be yours – and it's on the way to you.
Another use of visualization is as a mental rehearsal to determine if it's really what you want before you ask for it. Get moving from where you are to where you want to be. Einstein's theory showed that everything is energy and energy is in constant motion.
You'll have a hard time changing the flow of energy into your life when you’re sitting still. If you want to move forward in your life, keep moving toward your goal every day. A stubborn person always insists that you ‘show me.’
That’s like most adults who have difficulty believing something until they see it for themselves. There’s another phrase you hear frequently when you talk about making changes or going for a better job – ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’
The fact is, we are socially programmed that what we see is reality. After awhile, we start to think that what we see is the only reality – the only possibility – and that’s not accurate! If you desperately need a new car and look out in your driveway, what do you see?
You see the old rust-bucket sedan that your grandmother gave to you after she drove it for 30 years. You aren’t being greedy in wanting a new car – you can no longer afford the repair bills on the old one!
You need a decent looking car so you can apply for a sales position and have dependable transportation to go to client appointments. As you prepare to receive your new car by applying the Law of Attraction, you are ready to visualize this gift.
This is not daydreaming, that’s a random musing. Visualization is a targeted and detailed way to prepare you to receive what you need. Begin each day by seeing in your mind a ‘movie’ of how you start the day.
See yourself walking outside, pause and smile at the image of your new car. Here’s where you must insert an actual new car image. To make the visualization effective, see yourself opening the door of a four door, midnight blue SUV with leather seats, chrome wheels, cruise control, CD player and tinted windows.
In order to make this image clear, look online or in the showroom at new cars until you spot the exact car that you want. After you make a choice, get a photo of that car and use this image in your visualization.
See yourself driving to work, to lunch, shopping and back home. Feel the sense of pride at your new car and enjoyment at how well it drives. During the day, you can reinforce images of being a new car owner in your mind.
Even while at a traffic light in your clunker, you can visualize how it will feel to hear the purr of a smooth motor, the comfort of the leather seats, the balanced music from four stereo speakers and the security of knowing that the new car is in top condition. Visualization works as well for actions as for things.
If you desire to be a positive person and release negativity, then begin and end each day with a visualization of yourself acting as a positive person acts. Hear what you say. Connect to the way you feel when making positive expressions and handling difficult situations without over-reacting or getting frustrated.
Each time you replay your visualization, give more attention to details or add more information. With practice, you will feel as if you are in a surround sound movie theatre watching a wonderful life unfold – with you as the star!
How to Create a Proper Vision Board
Why it’s important to have one: a vision board will help you to see what it is that you want the Law of Attraction to do for you. You can have a board for each area of your life or you can have a board that focuses on one area at time. Our brains take visual snapshots and hold on to what we visualize. It’s easier to keep focused on what we can see.
What you’ll need: something to attach the pictures on. Most people use a piece of poster board or a board like you see used in a child’s science fair project. Whatever you prefer is fine.
You’ll also need a way to attach the items onto your vision board. You can use tape or you can use stick glue. You might also want to get some labels for your vision board.
What many people do when creating their vision board is to take pictures of what they want the Law of Attraction to bring into their lives and attach them to their board. You can do this by going through magazines or printing images offline. Some people also use photographs that they’ve taken themselves.
You can do this and by arranging the pictures, create a beautiful collage of what you want to see happen. This might be pictures of a new home or a new vehicle or the direction you’d like to see your career take.
But what you can also do is to put up certain phrases that help you focus as well as bits of words – your own or something else’s – like quotes that help you to affirm your focus.
The look of your vision board will depend on how much or how little you want to do with your board. You can put a lot of energy into it or just have something simple that helps you to visualize what you want. When you can see images, it helps you imagine and believe that the image can happen for you. Whatever you place on your vision board needs to be an image or words that stir you, that make your emotions come to light and make you feel happy or passionate or moved.
Some of the categories you might want on your vision board
