For most - if not all - of us, our path in life requires continual adjustment. There are things we want but don't have. There are things we have but don't want. And there are things we have that would be fine with a little alteration. For some, this process of course correction is natural and flowing. But for many of us, we grow impatient and/or discouraged.

Compounding our discomfort, law of attraction says that we attract into our lives more of what we focus on. When we focus on something we want, we attract more of that thing or condition. If we focus on a condition or thing we don't want - a problem - we attract more of THAT thing or condition.

Unwanted situations will always come up whether we like it or not. The good news is that those things and conditions which are not to our liking are the birth of all creation. How would we ever know what we do want without the contrast of what we do not?

THE 3-STEP PROCESS

As humans in an attraction-based universe, we live in an endless, looping, 3-part creative cycle. A thing or condition we want to be different gives birth to a preference, the new preference then exists in our consciousness where it did not before, and finally we receive the new thing or allow the new condition into our experience.

When we've identified what we don't want which happens constantly (step one), step two begins. We become aware of what we do want. We begin to notice things. If in step one we had the thought, "I want or need more money," we might now begin to notice other people with money or things that cost money. What we now desire exists as a concept in our consciousness, but we don't have it yet in our experience. How we feel about this new desire is our most valuable clue about how we are doing with step three. The better and more optimistic we feel, the better we are doing.

Step three is where the artistry of law of attraction really comes into play. This is where we receive the manifestation of what we've so far only summoned into our consciousness with the first two steps. Doing this takes allowing. By allowing, I mean the releasing of resistance.

RELEASING RESISTANCE

Even though it may not feel like we are resisting what we want, we are. For even in resisting the circumstance that we want to change, that same resistance is at work preventing us from receiving the thing we do want. Resistance is energy. When we focus in a resistant way, that energy is present in all areas for us.

Learning to release resistance can at first be counter-intuitive. We cannot release resistance directly. Attention given to anything, whether our intention is to get rid of the thing or summon it, causes MORE of that thing in our experience. To truly release resistance to a circumstance is a function of allowing the circumstance to exist and putting our focus on how we want things to be instead. However, there is a difference between focusing on how we want something to be and focusing on that it is not that way yet. How we feel about something is our indicator of allowance or resistance. The better it feels, the less resistance (and more allowance) is present.

Albert Einstein suggested that a problem cannot be solved at the same level of thinking at which it was created. Here I equate "problem" with "circumstance". After all, a circumstance we don't want is indeed a problem. If Einstein is correct, we need to think on a new level to change our circumstance. We need to focus our attention on thoughts that cause allowing energy or, at the very least, that don't cause resistance.

RECOGNIZING RESISTANCE

A thought that creates resistance is one in which we say something is one way and it should not be that way. When we reject something in its entirety as wrong or bad, we generally introduce resistance. "I'm having a terrible day," is usually a resistant thought. "Nothing is going the way I want," is another. With this kind of "problem" thinking, we leave ourselves very little room to affect change.

When we can summon the wherewithal to say, "My day isn't all bad," and think, write or talk about those aspects that ARE working, resistance is released. Perhaps what Einstein had in mind with his observation about the level of thinking it takes to solve a problem, is to think on that more subtle, component level. Focusing on those aspects of a circumstance that do work summons more workability.

The steps of noticing what we don't want in our lives and having what we'd prefer show up in our consciousness happen with no effort on our part. Becoming effective within the law of attraction is a function of getting good at step three. The more we can notice resistant thoughts that come up for us, and practice choosing thoughts that release that resistance, the better our results - and our experience - will be.