The Principles of Attraction

“Birds of a feather flock together” is an often heard cliché.Usually we use it in the context of people of a certain type of character, personality, nationality or other categorisation, who are drawn together by their common bond, and it is easy to observe that the adage holds true in everyday life.

Used in this way, it is nothing but a mundane observation. But the birds of a feather saying can also be used to illustrate a much more profound and useful principle, which we can use to great effect in our daily lives, by applying it to a different type of ‘bird’ altogether - those elusive and invisible birds that we call ‘thoughts’.

The principle is simple: thoughts have a kind of ‘magnetic’ quality - thoughts of a similar nature are drawn to each other. The more we hold a certain type of thought in our minds, be it positive or negative, the more it will draw similar thoughts into our mind, until those thoughts begin to dominate our entire outlook. When a strong pattern of similar thoughts builds up, those thoughts tend to stir up an emotional reaction too, and those emotions add momentum to our thoughts, like a rolling snowball gathering more and more size and weight.

Emotions, in turn produce a bodily reaction - we don’t just experience emotions in our minds, we feel them in our stomach, shoulders, heart, legs, arms and other parts of the body. For example, anyone who has ever given a public speech will know that the nervousness is not just felt in the head, it is experienced as ‘butterflies in the stomach’, or perhaps tension in the shoulders, or shaking in the hands and in various other parts of the body. The same applies to positive emotions such as joy, excitement and others.

Our thoughts and emotions influence the way we see things, and provide the basis for the things we say. As we talk about those things that we are thinking of, we usually find our words reflected back at us, which adds more weight to the snowball that is gradually becoming an avalanche.

For example, if we stop to talk to someone about a terrible crime that we have heard about in the news, they will typically respond with a story of their own about a similar or even worse tragic event. At the end of the conversation we will probably sigh about how terrible the world we live in is and about how things are “getting worse”. In this way we have added impetus to our thoughts by putting them into words and drawing a relevant response from others.

Ultimately, thoughts and emotions combine in a way that eventually results in outward bodily action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality.

This whole process is summed up by a saying (of unknown origin) which I once heard at church and now carry in my wallet:

“Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

How can we apply this in daily life? Simply, by focusing our thoughts and attention on those things we want, and not on those things which we don’t want. If we focus on what we don’t want in life, then those thoughts will do nothing but reinforce the very things we don’t want, attracting similar thoughts and giving us more of what we don’t want. If we place our emphasis on what’s wrong with the world, then that is all we will ever see, no matter what positive changes may take place.

Think about what you want to see in the world. Dwell on the positive things, or if you see nothing positive in your current situation, dwell upon how you would like things to be - what positive changes you would like to experience, what results would you like to see in your life?

Our thoughts will literally determine, sooner or later, who we become. This is perhaps what is meant by the proverb, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”1

Luca Radovic is…

Taken from the Holy Bible, Proverbs 23:7