A few months ago, I was driving home from a client visit, on I-495 in Foxboro, Massachusetts when an unexpected event changed my schedule.
I was enjoying the ride home, cruising along at 75 MPH, and feeling quite content. A client meeting had gone superbly, the weather was beautiful, and I was counting my blessings, but as I approached mile marker 36, everything got strange.
An avid motorcyclist, I have a habit of checking my mirrors often, but in this moment, it seemed like something took a hold of my head and jerked it up to look in the rearview, while at the same time this incredible sense of urgency pushed up from somewhere in my solar plexus.
WHAT?
It’s amazing what heightened senses and reflexes can do. I’ll play back the thoughts and choices that happened in a flash of a second:
“Gold Lincoln Town Car”
“Too fast!”
“Not slowing.”
“He’s going to hit me!”
“I have five car lengths ahead of me.”
“Hit the Gas!”
There was no horn or other warning—just what seemed like a giant silver grill on a 4,500-lb. gold missile hell-bound for my ass-end.
I am fortunate to have a responsive car. At 75 MPH, I can stomp the gas pedal, the car will downshift, the turbo will kick in, and I the car will do over 90 MPH in about 3 seconds.
On the physical level, this probably saved my life. The Lincoln must have been doing over 100 MPH, because even as I accelerated, and its driver braked to avoid me, the the car collided with my rear bumper with enough force to snap me like a whip in my seat, and cause some bruises and sore joints in the process.
To be continued…
***
So why do accidents happen? How could something like this happen to a Law of Attraction practitioner, coach, and teacher? How could this happen on a day when I was feeling so good?
The word “accident” generally means an unfortunate, unexpected event. OK, to state the obvious: the unexpected is only unexpected because we aren’t looking for it. Perhaps we haven’t paid attention to upstream thoughts, or conflicts between desires and beliefs. Perhaps we were asking for a way out of something, and that way out is not something we would not choose with our fully conscious mind, but is something that LOA presents as an elegant answer to the conflict between our desires and our habitual thoughts (including our beliefs) and attention.
In Jane Roberts’ “The Nature Of Personal Reality,” Seth tells us “Your thoughts blossom into events,” and that “There are no accidents in cosmic terms, or in terms of the world as you know it.” He goes on later in the book to inform us that accidents, like illnesses, can have their origination in creativity. They can be a way of unifying parts of the self, creating challenges, or bleeding off negative energy. Abraham-Hicks tells us that we the universe responds to our vibration, and the stories that we tell ourselves that get the most “air-time” are the ones that will (eventually) manifest.
But what good is an understanding and practice of LOA, if, in spite of our best efforts, something like this can STILL happen?
Practicing LOA eases the ego to health, and greater transparency (so we can begin to sense more of who we are, and express more of our true selves, while retaining our sense of “I”).
Practicing LOA thus allows us to loosen the resistance that cuts us off room our inner richness, and connection with our source—increasing both the joy we feel in the moment, and our capacity to feel and express even greater joy in the future.
More desire = more energized life, greater longevity.
Practicing LOA in order to avoid accidents is a sub-optimal approach, and misses the point of the value of LOA in our lives. When the contrast of an accident or any kind of suffering comes into our lives, that contrast is an opportunity to correct vibrational resistance that is keeping us from our desires, our highest interest, and our joy.
Suffering is not punishment.
Suffering is not failure.
Suffering is not noble.
Suffering, or life contrast, is our built-in mechanism for putting us back on the path to what we really want. While in some situations suffering can reveal our gifts and our strengths, the overarching aim is to teach us now not to suffer, and in the process, open the way for more joy, more freedom, and if you prefer, a more powerful, clear-channel connection with our Divinity.
Depending on where you are right now with contrast in your life, this message could prove difficult to hear, but rest assured that the final point is an empowering one: you have choice, you have power, your life is your own.
***
After I was hit, I threaded my way through the traffic to the breakdown lane as the Lincoln did the same. We pulled to a stop in tandem, and I carefully opened my door and stepped out of the car.
On the way to greet the Lincoln driver, I glanced at my rear bumper, and my mouth fell open. Save for a tiny scratch, there wasn’t any damage at all. I took a look at the Lincoln’s front end, and except for a license plate that was bent perfectly to wrap around my bumper (formed that way from the impact), it also was without damage.
The driver was from Denmark. The Lincoln was a rental car. The driver said he was going so fast and hit me because he “lost consciousness.”
So, what was my lesson from the car accident?
There isn’t one. There never is. There is only feedback to our vibration.
In other words, if you really know Law of Attraction, you also know that everything is vibrational, and so there really is only one “lesson” ever, and that is:
This is where my habitual thoughts and attention and intention (and resulting vibration) brought me, and if I want something different, then I want to change my habitual thoughts, attention and intention—I want to tell a new story.
At the time, I was in the habit of splitting myself in multiple directions with a sense that I couldn’t cover all the bases. I was feeling a bit rushed, and those thoughts were energetically slowing me down. In other words, by feeling rushed, I was actually falling behind.
Students of LOA know that anything that throws us out of alignment with our flow of wellbeing will also delay or distort our manifestation. When our thought, intention, and attention are running contrary to the outcomes we are looking for, we suffer. I could have experienced this disfunction as “hitting a road block,” but another way of manifesting it externally was getting hit from behind by the momentum of my aspirations. In other words, I had set the pace of the race with desire and intent, and then fell behind by entertaining thoughts and directing my attention in ways that slowed me down.
The fix? I had to speed up, so that a hit from behind wouldn’t hurt. And what did that look like psychologically? Choosing thoughts, and paying attention to things that would energize and keep me on pace with what I was putting out there, and not what would slow me down and create resistance.
The fact that the driver said that he had “lost consciousness” made him eerily like my own subconscious* mind—on an autopilot that I had set, and not capable of the adroit changes in direction and speed that my conscious mind can easily perform. I was not so subtly reminded to keep ahead of what I am programming!
The “Lincoln Event” shook me up, brought me right to the present, and without any real damage, called me to examine some thoughts and beliefs that were slowing me down. Though I wouldn’t want to repeat the incident, I am grateful for that bounce from behind that has lead to freer, more elegant forward motion.
I’m so relieved that you weren’t hurt by that accident but glad it caused you to reevaluate your thought processes etc. I may not agree with everything precisely as stated but do agree with you that suffering is not a punishment or a failure necessarily. It may be noble in certain cases such as our military that are wounded as a result of their fighting for our freedoms. However, in spite of what good may come from LOA priniciples, I still believe that no one gets through life without some suffering…..although there certainly are varying degrees. On the other hand, I believe we all have the capacity to bring forth or experience joy and happiness in our lives that balance the suffering(and sometime even in SPITE of suffering) Certainly, our THOUGHTS and attitude play a major role in what manifests in our lives and you have written a thought provoking article.
readerro, thank you!
As far as the nobility of suffering, personally, I separate the nobility of the intent to risk suffering for a cause one believes in, from the actual suffering.
In other words, the suffering is what it is, and does what it does, but the intent to risk that towards accomplishing what is meaningful to us, is where, personally speaking, I would place the nobility. That is, if we associate “noble” with a quality of exemplary leadership character, which I believe is a fair assessment of the origin of the word.
I agree that we can bring joy into one area of our lives, while we experience suffering in another… my thought is that if we are experiencing suffering anywhere, though, that is an area where we may have other available choices.
I’ll conclude by elaborating on a point I made in the blog: suffering is not failure. Not only is suffering not failure, but some may choose it in order to accomplish something meaningful or important to them. In such cases, my thinking remains the same: suffering is simply suffering, and the important thing is the meaning, journey, or outcome that one is seeking.
—Mark
Very well said! Thank you for giving more clarity to your position. It appears that you are attributing some meaning to suffering, while you and I and the average Joe would not actively seek it out. There may be a disparity, tho,in our views with respect to some suffering that may occur in a person’s life. I can see that personal choices,to a certain extent, can lead to suffering, while in other instances it would appear that(in the case of a child for example) the suffering has not been chosen, even unconsciously. But I didn’t intend to go so far afield from your original message re the accident. Being aware of “vibrational resistance” (as you put it) so as to make “corrections” can ultimately bring about a more desirable state of being. We all allow our thinking to be too cluttered at time in this busy world of multi-tasking so you have called attention to a prevailing problem that can lead us away from what we truly desire. Bringing clarity of thought back can defeat negativity and attract more positive aspects to our lives. If I have misunderstood or misrepresented your views in any way, though, please correct me, as I’m endeavoring to sort it all out for my own comprehension.
Readerro,
Yes, and I would call what you describe towards the end of your post “life alignment”: a better aligning of habitual thought and intent with what our desires are.
We get what we habitually pay attention to, whether we consciously want it or not. That’s the trick. And to make it a bit more challenging and fun, if we have a desire, but we concentrate on the lack between now and achieving the desire, we will keep getting the lack, not the desire.
Thanks for writing!
~MKP
Great article well articulated and explained, love to know who is behind it..
Don’t know how I came across this blog, mystery! No name on the about page. only ‘Welcome to my BLOG’ on a blog named wordvibe… from a guy called wordguy..??!!
who r u? do you have another web site? or a name?
Are you trying to be anonymous???
Anyway like what you said here…
Love from down under
KS
KS, thank you for writing and for your supportive comments!
Who am I? You can find out more here. I don’t use my full name here because I have a few “brands” out there on the Web, and doing it this way keeps the SEO stuff simpler so that folks searching for my professional development work won’t get bleeding edge LOA stuff that they are not looking for. Does that make sense?
I am always looking at ways of further integrating material from several domains of Web presence, and as I get better at that, it may prove feasible to change things here so that I am less of a mystery. LOL! Thanks for asking, and please feel free to leave feedback on my article at the other site as well.
~MKP
so what you are saying is that you don’t think other professionals you would like to work with, that provide income to you, would appreciate this leading edge LOA information..
I find this strange coming from someone who is so well versed in LOA teaching…
Dosen’t LOA sort all this out for us…
let the people who are a Vib match to it find this blog and the ones who are NOT a vib match to this information, not find it no matter who’s name is on here…
I think you have intentions to teach LOA ??? , so are you teaching it or just offering some tips to anyone who stumbles upon this blog?
so in answer to this question….
I don’t use my full name here because I have a few “brands” out there on the Web, and doing it this way keeps the SEO stuff simpler so that folks searching for my professional development work won’t get bleeding edge LOA stuff that they are not looking for.
Does that make sense?
No Not really …
SO it’s just a bunch of words from an unknown source, a non embodied entity floating in space… (having fun..) the ‘WORD-GUY’
why do you hide? Is this who you are and how you live your life or not?
I think you have made this decision, but are you lining up with it?
You don’t have to put this writing up here… Just curious that’s all…
So many people out there teaching LOA who have little understanding of it… Just thought it was nice to read something in alignment…
love from down under KS
Hi Karen,
Thank you for your comments. Of course, they reflect some questions of my own that you are reflecting back at me because of what I’ve am currently paying attention to.
That said, here are a few answers for you:
I appreciate your questions. Not only do they reflect back to me my own recent musings, but they may also reflect the curiosity of others who have not reached out as you have. I also appreciate your affirmation of my grasp of LOA, and looking at your site, I am further gratified, as I see that we admire some of the same thought leaders in the field, and in particular, Esther and Jerry Hicks, and the Abraham material.
You’ll probably see some changes at my sites over the next few months. I am busy developing courses and also involved as a partner in a more conventional, but fun business, so the changes may come slowly, but perhaps one of the first will be to include include more info at this site. We’ll see.
Thank you again for your participation here, and your questions…
~Mark