February 2008

The Laws of Attraction and the Power of Thought

The more clearly you imagine and picture what it is you want, the more likely you are to attract it. When you take your vision and write it down, draw a picture or make a collage you are much more likely to effortlessly attract what you want. This technique for attracting what you want is so powerful and effective it seems like magic, but it isn’t. The fact is, your thoughts are not fluffy, insubstantial stuff – they are real. I’m not the first author to insist that the key to success is harnessing the power of thought. Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, is a classic example. And the scientific proof that thoughts are real is old news.

“The April 5, 1999 Newsweek article, “Thinking Will Make it So” by Sharon Begley describes how thoughts are electrical signals that can be picked up by an electroencephalograph (EEG) to control mechanical equipment. Neurobiologist Niels Birbaumer of Germany’s University of Tübingen has six patients with sound minds trapped in completely paralyzed bodies. Living with the aid of machines, these patients are wired to a “thought translation device” which amplifies their brain waves and enables them to select letters of the alphabet from a computer video screen and compose sentences. Here’s how they did it: Tübingen’s team placed electrodes behind the patient’s ear and on the scalp. The electrodes are designed to detect brain waves and carry them to an EEG, which picks out a single type of wave from the many waves, much like you’d tune in a radio to pick up a favourite station. After hundreds of hours of practice the patients learned to control their brain waves, by focusing on an audio tone. Once they master this they can spell out words on a video screen using only their thoughts. The researcher’s next project is to go wireless by creating electronics sensitive enough to “grab” brain waves out of the air. The groundbreaking science proves that thoughts are not only real, but interact with the environment.

Once again, it all comes back to energy. Thoughts are electrical signals—just another form of energy as real as a solid mahogany desk. Science is catching up to what many radical or New Age thinkers have been saying all along—that our thoughts create our reality. Only there is nothing mystical or magical about it—it is simply the power of thought.”*

—More readers have sent in examples of how they have used the power of thought to create the reality they want:

Sent: 05 February 2008 00:53
To: talane@lifecoach.com
Subject: write it down or draw it or say it!

Your story about the woman who wrote down a description of her future husband reminded me of a true story of a couple we’re friends with. When she was single, the wife, who is a professional artist and illustrator, drew an exact picture of her future husband as one of the illustrations for a book. This was several years before she met him… but the likeness is unbelievably exact! Such a cute story!

For myself – I find that without fail, any time I hang up a copy of W.B. Yeats poem “The Lake Isle of Inisfree” (“I will arise and go now, and go to Inisfree…”) where I see it all the time, I end up getting to take a trip to my most favorite place in the world, Ireland. Very often the trips occur totally serendipitously – not necessarily through my own planning.

Dear Talane,
Thanks so much for your tips. My whole life comes from just what you described – I started doing creative visualisation in the 80's while "stuck" in New York. I dreamed of living in France, speaking French, getting married having kids and raising bi-lingual children. These were all separate exercises of course, and it took some time but it all came to pass.
Most recently, while looking through magazines, I found my perfect little house and little dog and cut them out and stuck them on a big poster board. Well, I am writing from the house and Cowboy, my dog (who looks EXACTLY like the cut out) is at my feet.
I am still dreaming of worldwide travel, particularly to Asia and to having a full-blown business. Think I'll describe these and cut out pictures again for good measure. I'll keep you posted.
Meanwhile, keep those excellent tips coming!
Much love,
MJ

Mary-Jeanne “MJ” Cabanel is a Personal and Professional Coach and can be reached at mjcabanel@gmail.com. You can read her profile at www.lifecoach.com in the International Coaching Directory.

How does this actually work? Well, I’m a life coach, not a neurobiologist, but, my best guess is that the act of drawing, writing or making a collage is taking your vague thoughts and crystallizing them. You have to be very specific and clear to write something down or draw a picture. And the act of doing so is “making it real” in the physical world. So while the thoughts are real in your head, by making your vision or dream physically viewable it becomes real in reality and therefore, real to you. Then it is just a matter of time before you will attract it. The coaching program/process helps do two things: 1) clarify your thoughts and 2) it dramatically speeds up the time in which you manifest your vision in reality. This I’ve personally seen after coaching thousands of people. If you want to speed up the rate of return, try working with a life coach or working the personal coaching program outlined into Coach Yourself to Success book and the Coach Yourself to Success Workbook .

Enjoy!

Warmest,
Talane

*Excerpted from Tip 101 from the international bestseller, Coach Yourself to Success: 101 Tips from a Personal Coach for Reaching Your Goals at Work and in Life by Talane Miedaner.