Have you seen all those articles on “How to attract your soul mate?” What about how to use the law of attraction to help your relationship thrive once you are in it?
The law of attraction is simple – “like attracts like,” “what you think about comes about,” or as Mike Dooley says with such ease and clarity, “thoughts become things.”
So how can you apply this powerful law in your marriage (and any of your relationships really)?
1. Think about what you are thinking about.
When you think about your relationship, is your first instinct to remember happy times or the last thing that went wrong? Are you focusing on when he got the wrong brand of chicken at the grocery store or the endless amounts of times she has done something sweet and kind and loving, like for example, stopping by the grocery store so you could focus on something else?
Noticing where you go first is important. If you like your first thought, great, keep it up! If you don’t, you can start looking right now for what is going right and retrain your mind to start noticing more of the good things and less of the bad things. (Or small annoying things that we label as bad, that in the big scheme of things, really don’t matter all that much. Yes, I am looking at you. What matters most? Focus on that please.)
2. Visualize.
Visualizing is just imagining the future you want instead of worrying about the future you don’t want. Which one do you think is more fun?
I heard somewhere that “worry is just pointing your faith in the wrong direction.” In other words, worrying is giving power to your fearful thoughts and amplifying them by giving them your attention.
I believe your attention is one of the most valuable things you own. That’s why everyone wants some of it. Your attention – where you focus – is how you create your life.
When you visualize, or just spend time thinking about what you want and how you would like it to be, you’re focusing your attention, like a laser. Think about a laser for a moment, it is powerful because it is concentrated light. The power comes from the concentration. This is what visualizing does for your attention, it focuses it and makes it more powerful.
Visualizing can be super simple. Think of a feeling you enjoy having: loving, connectedness, joy, glee, surprise, delight, contentment… and imagine feeling it in your body. Let the sensation wash all over you. Then think of a happy moment you want to have – a deep conversation, holding hands, a date you want to go on, a vacation you want to experience.
Imagine, in as much detail as you can, how it would look if it went as fabulously as it possibly could. Remember that awesome feeling? Let it wash over you again as you imagine this moment. That’s it.
Don’t worry about how the moment will come, just imagine celebrating that it happened. Telling your family and friends how awesome it was. Anything that gets you to an excited, happy, and grateful feeling state.
NOTE: If visualizing something AMAZING feels too big, visualize something better than what you are experiencing right now. Some of my private coaching clients can feel happy and excited when they think of the ultimate kind of awesome they want to experience. However, I have found that for others, it feels too big and intimidating to think of something fabulous, and accept it as possible for them. Especially if there hasn’t been a lot to smile about recently.
In those cases, what I recommend is to think of your feelings as a ladder. It can be easier to go from “sad” to “hopeful” than from “sad” to “Queen of the World.” It is absolutely okay to visualize whatever feels good to you. Wherever you can access a better feeling thought, is a good place to start.
3. Take action.
Once you have visualized the right size of awesome for your personal situation, take the tiniest action in that direction. I call them micro-actions. You can call them baby steps or turtle steps, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is small, simple, and feels doable to you. Doability is absolutely critical to anything changing in your life. Every magnificent achievement we have ever seen in this world did not start with the most complicated part. It started with the simplest.
When NASA builds space stations and satellites and rockets and other life changing technology, they start with diagrams and drawings. You know what drawings are? A visualization written down. They imagine what it’s going to be, then they break it down to a step by step building process and build the thing. See?
If it’s good enough for NASA, it’s good enough for you and me.
What is the tiniest action you could take today, right after you read this, in the direction of where you want to go and how you want to feel?
Decide right now that you are going to do it.
And remember, you can use the law of attraction not only to attract your soul mate in the first place, but to build a loving, thriving relationship every day.
