Attracting More Delicious Coincidences
Many of you have written and I am so grateful for every email I get. I am so sorry If I haven’t gotten back to you. Caring for Bill is 24/7 but I do attempt to chip away at correspondence as best I can. What I want you to know is that every time I hear from you, it is as if a lovely wind sweeps across my heart and says, “Keep going.” Thank you.
What I want to talk about this week is reacting versus responding. The best explanation I’ve ever heard of the difference between reacting and responding is this: when you react, you put the circumstances in charge of your emotions; when you respond, you are in charge.
Let’s say someone hurts you emotionally. A response would sound like a normal tone of voice saying, “Ouch. That hurt.” A reaction would sound like a voice shouting, “How DARE you speak to me like that!” In many ways respond/react are kissing cousins to assertive/aggressive. Being assertive requires you to ask for what you want. When you are being aggressive, you are demanding what you want. Responding is assertive; reacting is aggressive.
No matter which of these you are engaged in, it is important to remember that, just as you cannot fool Mother Nature, you cannot fool the Law of Attraction. Aggressively reacting is a negative response that is triggered by putting your full focus on something you don’t want and then holding your attention there. The situation gets worse and worse as your negativity deepens, and not only that specific situation but other, unrelated things begin to go wrong because when you are holding yourself in a negative state the only things you can attract are other circumstances that match your negativity: your car breaks down, you trip and fall or your wicked Aunt Julia comes to visit.
On the other hand, when you are assertively responding, you may be initially focused on something you don’t want but you quickly change your focus to what you would rather have and your positivity grows. Things start getting resolved in unusual ways without your seeming to have to do anything.
While Bill’s being treated in Chicago for his cancer, we are in the Midwest travelling about between treatments in a 23’ travel trailer we purchased second hand. When we unrolled the sunshade it was filthy! My response was, “Yuck!” I realized it was going to have to be scrubbed clean and I did not want to be the one to do it. Not five seconds later, I realized that the sound I’d been hearing that I thoughtwas a lawnmower was actually a power washer. There was a young man cleaning a neighbor’s motor home. I approached him, found he was available for hire and made arrangements for him to clean our sunshade. By the end of the day, it was spotless! It looks brand new! (See photo.)
If I had reacted versus responded, I don’t think I would ever have seen the solution. Probably I would have been mad about all that noise being made by the power washer while I was having a tantrum. That is why responding versus reacting is such a powerful skill to develop.
Big deal, right? It’s a sunshade. But think about it! What are the odds that, at the exact moment I realize I need something, the solution is right across the street?!? I find that amazing. Every time it goes from bad to worse, you are witnessing the Law of Attraction at work. And the same is true for every “coincidence,”
What coincidences have happened to you lately?
