There’s been a lot of buzz lately in the Law of Attraction world about Limiting Beliefs, with everyone offering to expose, remove, re-program or otherwise eradicate them from your mind in order to allow you to have the life of your dreams.

But what are Limiting Beliefs?

Where did they come from?

Are they all bad?

Today we begin a multi-part series that delves into those questions in an attempt to provide you with a better understanding, not only of Limiting Beliefs, but of yourself.

To understand Limiting Beliefs, we first need to look at how our brain works.

The human brain is a complex organ, capable of performing multiple operations simultaneously. While you are reading this, your brain is processing the input from your eyes, converting the image into ‘language’, monitoring your heartbeat, regulating the chemistry of your blood, maintaining your breathing, keeping an ear out for the phone, and much more.  And all this is happening at the same time.

But consciously, you are only aware of the words you’re reading.  Everything else is happening in the background, without your conscious interaction.

But how does the brain know what to do when I’m ‘not there’?

This is where the subconscious comes in.  The vast portion of your mental activity is controlled by the subconscious part of your mind.  At birth, the subconscious mind basically functions based on genetic knowledge.  In other words, knowledge passed down genetically from your parents and their parents, and so on.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lately there’s been some discussion about whether outside forces like astrology have an influence on our reality, and if so, how much. Does our “sign” dictate what our lives will be? Or can we choose what we want in spite of the stars? Does astrology and other forms of divination contradict our understanding of Law of Attraction?

Really what it comes down to is the basic question: do we have ultimate control over what happens in our lives, or is there some outside force (the stars, god, the numbers of our birthday) that can influence our experience regardless of what we do? That’s a question that’s been on the table for a really long time.

I’m not an astrologer by any means. My understanding of it can best be described as basic. I’ve read a few books, and had my chart done, but that’s all. Here’s an example of the way I look at this kind of thing: I do know that my sign is Libra, with Libra rising. To the best of my understanding, this means that not only was I born in the Libra weeks of the year, but Libra was the sign that the sun rose in on my birthday. This is sort of a double whammy of Libra qualities, one of which is a focus on or importance attached to the idea of “home”.

To me, this just gives a sort of coloration or cast to my experience; it isn’t an “assignment” or even a limitation. It doesn’t mean I have to “be” or “do” anything. Home is something that IS very important in my life–in the normal sense of valuing it, but also in the sense of having built with my husband several experimental houses, as well as lots of renovation projects. All we do, it seems, is build or move or buy or sell houses.

This kind of unsettled but home-focused lifestyle doesn’t feel like I was “destined” to it, though. I think that I could have gone in any number of directions with it. I could have been an architect; I could have been another Martha Stewart! I could have written about houses; I could have stayed in one house that I loved for my entire life. I could even have been homeless and had the focus be on the lack of the thing I was focused on. The astrological characteristics don’t seem to me to be dictates, but tendencies that we can play with any way we like. Read the rest of this entry »

The Secret seemed to trigger lots of resentment and anger in some people. It always makes me wonder what is going on there. If it were as inaccurate and unrealistic as they say, why not just dismiss it and move on? But those who are angered by it seem to give it more attention than those who believe in it!

Some people attack ‘The Secret’ for leaving out the ‘action’ part. But even though it was not overly emphasized, it was not left out of the movie–and is not left out of the teachings of those who were in the Secret. James Ray even says that if you expect to just sit on your couch and change your thoughts, without acting, they’ll come and repossess your furniture!

The Secret was a 90 minute movie. As I’ve said before, it was an introduction. How could they cover it all, in depth, in one movie?? It’s not possible. When I first learned about this information, long ago, I didn’t expect the first book I read to tell me the whole story. I read more and more and more, until I have a whole library of books on physics, metaphysics, religion, psychology as well as the more targetted “self-help” books that deal directly with this idea. I have to believe that the makers of The Secret intended people to follow this kind of process.

Read the rest of this entry »