The Law of Attraction

I have tried a number of different self-development approaches, including visualization. These approaches rely on me to be proactive. They go something like this. I picture something I want.

Let's say, just for example, I want a house. I am encouraged to visualize in as much detail as possible what that house looks like. Perhaps I'm encouraged to draw the house. Perhaps I'm encouraged to cut out photos from magazines and paste them onto a vision board.

Then, having done that, I'm encouraged to hold the vision of that very specific house in my mind. The hypothesis is that, if I visualize effectively enough, the house will be manifested in my life.

I do not believe that. Rather, I believe in the Busting Loose model.

According to the Busting Loose model, there is no effort that I, the Player in the hologram or illusion, can put forth that will create anything. It is my Expanded Self who creates everything that shows up in my life.

In the Phase 1 world, there are many sayings that are True. When we're immersed in the Phase 1 illusion, however, we often miss the Truth in those sayings. One of these sayings that I recall and that I believe to be True is, "Man proposes; God disposes." In the case of that saying, "man" represents to me the Phase 1 Player, and "God" represents the Expanded Self.

Living in the hologram, I (the Player) can run around and do all kinds of stuff. I may think that I achieve results, but in fact all of those results come from my Expanded Self.

For example, I may submit myself to a certain kind of medical treatment, and I may appear to be healed. However, the health practitioners who appeared to treat me and the modalities that they appeared to use did nothing to create the result that I call "feeling better."

It was my Expanded Self who created the result and who used the health practitioners and the treatment modalities to create a storyline that felt plausible to me, the Player. If my Expanded Self had preferred, she could have created the outcome of healing with the snap of a finger, so to speak.

In the example of the house, mentioned above, I know a woman who lives in a beautiful house that overlooks the ocean and that exactly fits the vision she had when she participated in a workshop in which she drew her dream house. She believes that she succeeded in getting the Law of Attraction to work for her. According to my belief system, though, she got the house because her Expanded Self gave it to her, along with a storyline that felt plausible to her.

The Busting Loose model does not involve long term planning. Playing the Phase 2 Game involves living in reactive mode. You get up in the morning, you ask yourself what you want to do, and you do it. You trust your Expanded Self to figure out where your life is going.

There is one qualification that may be helpful to someone who is new to the Busting Loose material. You may be asking yourself about logistics that involve the future. For example, I currently am in discussions with my sons, who live in Calgary, about whether or not they will visit me in Nanaimo over Christmas, which is more than three months away.

According to the Busting Looose model, it is fine to issue or accept invitations to future events and to put into place arrangements that will enable you to participate in those events. However, at the moment that you make the decision whether or not to issue or accept the invitation, you live in reactive mode. You ask yourself whether or not you want to participate in the event, and you issue or respond to the invitation accordingly.

If you agree to participate in a future event and, before the event takes place, you no longer want to participate in it, you contact anyone who may be affected and tell them you have changed your mind. Robert Scheinfeld reports that, since he has been living in reactive mode, the number of occasions on which he has cancelled engagements has been small. He says his experience is that, if he was living in reactive mode when he made the commitment, more often than not he feels like fulfilling the commitment when the time comes.

I must admit that, for me, the notion of reactive mode seemed seriously weird when I first encountered it. Actually, I'm still getting used to it. It is so very different from the proactive approach, which I've believed in for decades.

This blog is an example of my new life in reactive mode. I woke up one morning, and felt it would be fun to create a new blog. I chose a name, created the blog, and typed the first post. The next day, I typed another post. The day after that, I typed yet another post.

I have no idea whether or not I will publish a post tomorrow. If I do publish a post tomorrow, I have no idea what it will be about. I have no idea how long I will maintain this blog. I have no idea in which direction this blog is going and to which other things, if any, it may lead.

My Incomparable Dad

In explaining the Busting Loose model, Robert Scheinfeld asserts that, if you choose to enter Phase 2 of the Human Game, your Expanded Self will take you on a tour and show you specific ways in which illusions were created that convinced you, an infinite being, that you were limited.

I felt sceptical when I first heard that claim. However, I recently had an Aha moment in which the structure of one of those illusions was revealed to me. Actually, it had been revealed to me earlier, when I had viewed it through a Phase 1 lens. What felt fascinating to me recently was to look at it again through a Phase 2 lens.

The insight involved the creation that I had called my father.

ONCE UPON A TIME

In the storyline, my dad had dyslexia, and experienced a lot of shame around that. His sense of limitation was locked in by his father who never went to any of the sports events in which he excelled but who only lambasted him for doing poorly in school.

When my parents married, my mom colluded with my dad to hide his dyslexia. My dad, who managed a cattle ranch and sugar cane and citrus plantation, worked outdoors, while my mom stayed indoors and did the administrative tasks. My mom must have done a good job of downplaying her role, presumably to protect my dad's ego. As I was growing up, I received the impression that the important work was what my dad did outdoors. I received the impression that the administrative work was secondary.

Another element of this story that I find interesting is my parents' secretiveness. My mom told me about my dad's dyslexia when I was nearly forty. It had been the proverbial elephant in our living room.

From a Phase 1 point of view, this was tragic. Even in the Phase 1 world, enough progress has been made with respect to learning disabilities that this sort of thing shouldn’t be an issue now. But, in my dad’s day, it created “suffering,” not only for him but for subsequent generations of our family.

AN INSIGHT

About ten years ago, I remembered an incident involving my dad and my brother, William, when he had been about seven and I’d been about ten. My dad sometimes used to take one or other of us kids with him when he visited the sugar cane fields and cattle stations on the plantation and ranch that he managed in Swaziland. To do this, he drove his Land Rover for miles, sometimes through rough bush.

One day, when we were sitting down to lunch, my mom said, "Claude, where's Billy?" My dad turned around and said, "I don't know. I had him with me this morning. Oh gosh, I must have forgotten him when I was out and about."

No one said any more about it. My parents were amazingly casual about us kids. Mind you, even Canadian friends of my age tell me that, when they were kids, they would disappear for hours in summer. As long as they were home for supper by six o’clock, their mothers didn't worry. Be that as it may, when he was forgotten on that huge farm, Billy faced a walk of many miles in order to get home.

I remember a tired looking Billy walking up the driveway in the late afternoon. I remember my mom looking up and casually remarking, "Oh, Billy, there you are." I don't remember anyone making a fuss. I don't remember my mom running to Billy with outstretched arms and exclaiming, "Oh my goodness, Billy, you're all right!"

When I recalled that incident about ten years ago, it seemed to me that it was connected to Billy's intelligence. By this time, I knew about my dad’s dyslexia and his deep sense of shame about it. I remembered that my dad seemed to have been threatened by clever people. I recalled his habit of saying things like, "Don't be such a Smart Aleck," and, "You're too smart for your own boots." I also recalled how quick witted Billy had been as a kid and what a sharp sense of humour he had had.

At the time that I had this insight in 1999, my husband, sons and I were living in Melbourne during my husband's two-and-a-half year work assignment in Australia. William had emigrated to Australia several years previously. I saw William nine times during my two-and-a-half year sojourn in Australia. Seven of those occasions were weekends during which I participated in a series of self-development workshops that he ran.

During an early morning walk in the forest, I said, "William, I think Dad tried to kill you. Not deliberately, of course. I'm sure that, at a conscious level, it was an accident. I think Dad used to say, metaphorically, 'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is smartest of us all?' I think that one day the mirror replied, 'Billy is the smartest of you all.' I think that explains why Dad forgot you during his rounds on the farm."

William said that that indeed was the sense that he had. He said it was felt meaningful to him that another family member had recognised the dynamic and was acknowledging his reality.

A FOLLOW UP INSIGHT

Fast forward to May 2009, when I participated in a workshop called The Wall. It was run by a company called Excellence Seminars. Although it was what I would call a Phase 1 creation, I got tremendous value from it.

The agenda of The Wall is to assist the participant in identifying his or her driving needs. Armed with that information, the participant is equipped to identify his or her life purpose. The workshop is comprised of a number of exercises that help the participant to tease out those insights.

During The Wall it emerged that my driving needs were connection (with others and nature), understanding (in the sense of unraveling what made human beings and society tick), and recognition (for my accomplishments). One thing that mystified me, though, was why I had done so little to achieve recognition. If anything, I had gone out of my way to avoid it. I had married a man with a strong personality, and had lived in his shadow for 35 years. This did not jive with the hypothesis that driving needs are those needs that a person will fulfill no matter what.

On the last day of The Wall, I had an epiphany experience. I realised that the threat of death hadn't applied only to William, as I originally had thought. In one way or another, all four of us kids had received the message that it was life-threatening to be smart.

I recalled the period in August / September 2008 in which I had separated from my husband, invested in Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community in Nanaimo, and driven from Calgary to the British Columbia coast. I remembered the exhilaration I'd experienced as I'd driven westwards through the Rocky Mountains in gloriously sunny autumn weather.

But I also remembered the terror that I had felt. Yes, I had been afraid that I was taking financial risks during a period of my life in which it would be difficult to recover if my investments went sideways. But the fear of the potential economic consequences was not enough to explain the existential terror that I had felt as I had driven away from my old life in Calgary towards my new life in Nanaimo.

During The Wall, I realised that, in separating from my husband and creating a new life in which I would have an independent identity, with opportunities to shine, I had broken a taboo. A parallel example in mythology was Bluebeard's bride, who risked murder when she unlocked the door to the forbidden room in the castle.

No wonder I felt a level of terror that was disproportional to the risk I was taking when I moved to Vancouver Island. If you look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the drive to stay alive trumps the needs for achievement, respect, creativity, etc.

DOUBLE WHAMMY

Now, if you think that was a dandy of a Phase 1 set up, it was only half the story. While my dad felt threatened by intelligence, my mom despised stupidity. I remember her saying in a tone of contempt, "Oh, for goodness sake, stop being so stupid!"

Actually, come to think of it, that may have been another reason for my mom's colluding in hiding my dad's dyslexia from the world. She may not have wanted anyone to find out that my dad was "stupid." In fact, my dad was very far from stupid. He was brilliantly innovative in the arena of agriculture, and later went on to become a consummate statesman.

But, to return to my story, I recall my childhood as one in which I walked a fine line. I avoided being clever enough to annoy my dad, and simultaneously avoided being stupid enough to annoy my mom. Wow, even from a Phase 1 perspective, I had to have been pretty slick to manage that.

Still, when push came to shove, the threat from my dad felt greater than the threat from my mom. I wanted my mom's approval, to be sure. But, if she disapproved of me, all that would happen would be that she would despise me. When it came to my dad, however, the worst case scenario might be death. That seems far fetched in the cold light of day, but I'm relaying how I experienced life as a small child dealing with a bad tempered man who appeared to me to be a giant.

THE PLAYERS TODAY

William's training has some similarities with Robert Scheinfeld's Busting Loose model. I did not make the ultimate breakthrough when I studied under William in 1999. However, I believe the work I did back then prepared me to be receptive to the Busting Loose model when I encountered it in 2008.

I’m delighted for William that his book, The Magician’s Way, which already is the best selling metaphysical book in Australia, will be available from Amazon on October 1st, 2009.

What about my dad? Even from the Phase 1 point of view, I feel as if I have come to terms with his memory. At times he was angry. But he also had some wonderful qualities, and I loved him very much.

Now that I view my parents from a Phase 2 point of view, I marvel at their Oscar-worthy performances as they enacted the scripts my Expanded Self handed them. Boy oh boy, were they ever supportive in locking in the illusion of limitation and helping me to pull off my Phase 1 Miracle.

In the storyline, my mom still is alive. My Expanded Self continues to hand her some "interesting" scripts from time to time. But she increasingly is playing that other role that our creations fulfill, which is to provide us with opportunities for fun in the Earth Amusement Park. There are occasions now on which I experience her as a delightful creation.

I deeply appreciate the creations called my parents. I also appreciate my Expanded Self, who created (and still is creating) simulations that make the Star Trek holodeck look amateurish by comparison.

Down the rabbit hole

My entry point to the Busting Loose material was an audio archive of a telephone interview with Robert Scheinfeld that I heard on one of T. Harv Eker's websites. That was in August 2008. At the time, I was trying to escape from a feeling of financial insecurity and powerlessness, and was immersing myself in Eker's book, "The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind" and related workshops.

What Robert Scheinfeld said in the interview seemed to me represent a quantum leap that left the Millionaire Mind material in the dust. Robert's message deeply intrigued me. At the earliest opportunity, I bought his book, "Busting Loose from the Money Game." I stayed up late, and read it all in one go.

The book, in turn, fascinated me so much that I ordered the Money Game DVD set and watched it during a marathon weekend. By this time "fascinated" did not even begin to describe how I felt. I joined the Phase 2 Player Community website, and listened to the archives of the audio Discourses that Robert publishes once a month. Those hours and hours of Discourses still did not satisfy my appetite for information about the process for accessing Phase 2 of the Human Game.

Around that time I seized the opportunity to register for Robert's five-day workshop entitled "A Path to True Joy" in Sedona, Arizona in October 2008. There my understanding of the Busting Loose process expanded to some extent, I met some interesting workshop participants, and I delighted in the physical surroundings of Sedona.

Most of all, I enjoyed meeting Robert. He struck me as personable and sincere. I was impressed with how approachable he was. For example, his workshop was small, and he took his meals with us participants. This made it feasible to chat with him one-on-one.

From the amount of time and money I invested in absorbing Robert's teachings, you probably can tell that I resonated very strongly with his philosophy. Nonetheless, I found that embracing Robert's message required a leap of faith that was beyond me at the time. It was as if I was standing at the edge of a canyon and someone was asking me to jump across it. My legs froze, metaphorically speaking. Instead, I did it the slow, arduous way. I climbed down into the bottom of the canyon and up the other side.

Even after the significant level of commitment involved in participating in the "Path to True Joy" workshop, in many ways I continued to live in the Phase 1 illusion, gripped by its limitations, terrors, sorrows and frustrations.

But, somehow or other, I clung onto my faith in the existence of the True Joy state. Even during moments of despair, I implemented the practices that Robert advocated. I felt bound by the Phase 1 limitations, but I implemented the Phase 2 Process anyway.

Over the month of August 2009, a year after I'd first encountered Robert's material, I felt an expanding sense of having reached the opposite edge of the canyon, panting and perspiring so to speak. I do not feel as if I have reached the Busting Loose point as such. However, the bonds of Phase 1 feel as if they have loosened sufficiently that I have an unshakable faith that such as phenomenon as Phase 2 exists.

I now regard myself as a committed Phase 2 Player, even if I have not reached the Busting Loose point.