I nearly dropped the phone in shock yesterday when I called my friend Gary up because I had not spoken to him in three months. He explained that he had been preoccupiedwith a new relationship and that he believed that he had found the love of his life. Now this may not appear to be shocking. After all, people fall in love all the time, and sometimes with the right person, too. What makes it shocking is that it happened to Gary. Youll probably want an explanation. Gary was an A-type personality, and he had achieved tremendous success in business. He had then purchased several nice homes, quit working, and began to live off the income from his rentals. Since he did not enjoy working, he anticipated that his early retirement at the age of 35 would be a blessing, a situation that most people can only dream of achieving. With nothing to preoccupy his time, apart from taking checks to the bank every month and budgeting his expenses, he tried to take an interest in gardening, but this soon faded and he hired a gardener and maintenance man to look after his properties. Now with even less to do, he was faced with coming to know himself. Most people are too busy earning a living or raising a family to pay much attention to self-inquiry. Gary, too, had once been preoccupied with making it in the world. He came to me for therapy, but since he was not an analytical person, he did not like my approach, which is basically to look at your past and start cleaning it up by loving, accepting, and forgiving yourself. He looked back on his life and in his bleak mood saw only a history of struggle, humiliation, and defeat. A deep existential angst engulfed him. He decided that what he really wanted and what he had always needed was a soul mate, a woman who truly understood him. Since his depression got worse, he went to see a psychiatrist, who gave him some drugs to elevate his moods. These did not make him happy, but they made him feel more even-minded. He, then, started dating, and began a series of disastrous relationships, one after another, each getting worse. This serial dating continued for some years and he became somewhat of a misogynist. On the phone, Gary babbled happily about the easy dynamics of his relationship and their perfect compatibility. I asked Gary how this shift had happened. He said, Well one morning I decided to stop trying to fix things and even to stop dating. I decided to be happy anyway. A long pause followed. Finally, I asked, And? And she just showed up, he said. Im not sure whether Gary realized that he had shared a profound truth with me. In our various ways, we are always working hard to make things happen. Yet the laws of attraction work in a completely different way. When we choose to feel good, the universe responds to our desires. Feeling good raises our vibrations and puts us in direct alignment with our inner power to manifest. |
