When I was in kindergarten, we were asked to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I hadn’t given it much thought, and I just drew the first thing that came to mind. Apparently, it was so distressing to my teacher that my parents were called in for a meeting.
When they arrived, my teacher showed my parents the pictures the kids drew—a fireman, an astronaut, even the president. Then she pointed to my picture and asked: “What do you make of this?”
My mom responded, “Knowing my son, there is probably a very good reason why he drew this picture.”
So I was called in from recess, and standing before my teacher and parents, I said, “When I grow up, I want to be the garbage man.”
“Why the garbage man?” they asked.
Without even missing a beat, I just looked at them and said, “Because they only work on Fridays.”
My teacher and parents were doing their best to hold back their endearing laughter as my mom informed me, “No, Matthew. They only work on Fridays on our street.” To which I responded, “Forget it then,” running off, hoping to capture as much recess time that remained. Apparently, even in kindergarten, I was trying to figure out how to work the least number of hours! And yet the Universe had a plan for me. One that didn’t fit into the conventional workforce options children often imagine. More of this plan became evident in sixth grade, when a classmate asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I remember hearing it rained a lot in Seattle, and I’d always had a fantasy about living somewhere it rains on a regular basis. I had also loved creative writing, so I said, “I will live in Seattle, writing my best-selling books.” I remember the kid looking at me, in awe of my confidence, unsure if it was prophetic or delusional. If we fast-forward my life 28 years, I am an author of two best-selling books that were both written in Seattle, where I’ve lived for the past 13 years.
This was a plan the Universe always had for me. Although I didn’t know I’d be writing spiritual books, that such a career as a healer even existed, all of that would be revealed in time. While I had glimpses throughout my life of where I was headed, I was always being guided by an intuitive force of inner-knowing: an unexplainable will of clarity that knew exactly what needed to be known. Looking back, I always knew there was a plan for me, just as the Universe always has a plan for you.
This is why the sixth Golden Rule reminds you: “The Universe always has a plan.” It is a plan you are always fulfilling—no matter the choices made along the way.
All too often, what gets in the way of you knowing the Universe has a plan is also one of the ego’s mortal enemies. To make things even more difficult for ego, its mortal enemy is one of the soul’s greatest allies. It is the dimension of time. When lost in time, you often have the dilemma of everything you want seeming so far away, while you’re unable to get away from the things you don’t want to experience.
The ego often wonders, “Why do I get more time with the things I don’t want and so little time with the things I do want?” It is through the gift of time that you are able to measure how much or how little ego remains by how often disharmony arises in your experience.
You may ask yourself: How easily can I be frustrated? How impatient can I be? Such questions help you determine the type of relationship you have with time. Once your relationship with time is centered in true abiding harmony, then you are given access to understanding reality as a co-creative process. While there is a law of attraction, it is essential to understand it from a heart-centered perspective. In the old paradigm, the antiquated way of teaching the law of attraction certainly felt exciting, but it didn’t quite amount to bringing you the things you were eager to manifest. This is because in the old way, you’re often trying to manifest a different reality by being in opposition with time. You’re trying to create something that isn’t here right now. From the soul’s perspective, the law of attraction is a chance to say, “I accept that my desire confirms that what I want is somewhere up ahead waiting for me. I acknowledge my desire as a sneak preview that I’m being prepared to receive. Perhaps the reason I don’t have what I want right now is because I’m developing the worthiness to handle having it. Thank you, Universe, for this time to prepare as I open up to being a more worthy receiver. Thank you for the gift of time.”
Your desire for what you want is remembering what’s already been created. Throughout the dimension of time, you are preparing to receive at a higher level by cultivating the maturity and worthiness to actually have what you want, without slowing or stalling the trajectory of your ever-growing expansion. If you got what you wanted at the wrong time, it would stunt your growth by distracting you with shiny new objects. The Universe has to give you what you want, but in a way that complements and continues your rate of expansion. This is why everything happens over a period of time. If you could snap your fingers and heal right now, it would indicate that there was never a greater purpose for having something to heal.
Like the law of attraction, true healing isn’t always a matter of getting what you want, but receiving all that you need to help you transform at your most optimal capacity. There’s a certain amount of time you are meant to spend under specific personal conditions and various states of consciousness. By being at certain levels of consciousness for specific periods of time, you build up the necessary pressure to inspire the growth, and expansion, needed to guide you along to your next highest level of consciousness. This is why everything is the way it is.
Here’s another way of looking at it: you aren’t sad because you are an unhappy person. You are experiencing sadness as part of your healing journey, to create space for more light to be embodied. You will receive everything you desire at exactly the moment in time it is meant to arrive. Until that moment comes, any degree of sadness is a sacred stage of healing that is essentially making more space for happiness to dwell within you. The more space you create for more happiness to be, the greater happiness you are able to feel. Once happy, you are able to allow external creations to come as they will without defining new people, places, and things as a promise of greater happiness. Sadness is a catalyst of healing that makes space for true happiness to emerge.
The law of attraction means the law. The law means a truth that is never false. The law of attraction is you are always attracting exactly what you need to become who you were born to be. Whether you have manifested everything you’ve wanted, or are still waiting for the payout, here is an amazing discovery to uncover. Try repeating these words out loud:
If at this moment
I had everything I ever wanted,
I’d feel exactly the same as I do right now.
From this space, you are no longer under the impression that new people, places, or things are going to change how you feel. In the new spiritual paradigm, your feelings change as healing occurs, which unfolds with flawless precision when you allow yourself to heal openly and authentically. As you allow the Universe to hold the vision of life’s greatest plan, you are strengthening the attribute of faith.
Faith is a willingness to let go by making peace with time. It is relaxing, unpacking your bags, and turning wherever you are into a home. Even if displaced miles away from your desired destination, faith says, “Everything’s okay.” The ego contends with the wisdom of faith by asking, “How can it be okay if it’s not what I want?” The soul already knows everything is okay, whether you have what you want or not. Wanting is a sneak preview of what’s coming your way. It’s not a reward or a punishment; it’s the Universe preparing you to handle the gravity of having your deepest desires fulfilled. While it is common for the ego to believe it cannot feel better until external circumstances become better, through the eyes of the Universe, it is healthy to desire as a way of getting excited for what’s on the distant or not-too-distant horizon of your experience.
When grounded in the wisdom of the soul, you can embrace your desires as a part of the plan the Universe has for you without holding out for such creations as the only way to get excited about life. While the ego maintains this type of standoff with the Universe, it is all a part of the ego’s letting go process, which cannot be rushed or forced, but welcomed through the cultivation of faith. In faith, we realize the ego mainly wants what it doesn’t have—simply because it doesn’t have it. Once it gets what it previously didn’t have, the ego shifts its focus to something else it doesn’t have and continues its never-ending standoff with the Universe. While this is all happening, the Universe holds loving space for the ego to let go, knowing getting what you want never changes how you feel. It is just a subtle way of fighting with time. In order to make peace with time, it is important to use your time wisely through the cultivation of faith. In doing so, you activate the true law of attraction from a more heart-centered space.
As auspicious as it sounds, in order to activate the true law of attraction, you must venture beyond your understanding of it.
What if the plan the Universe has for you is so extraordinary, so miraculous, so unthinkably precise, that it is beyond your ability to visualize it in any way, shape, or form? What if the reason why you can’t envision what you want, or why you don’t know what you desire, is because everything that’s already coming your way is beyond your wildest imagination?
In the art of letting go, it is far more helpful to go there, instead of holding out hope for one finite outcome or static conclusion. This is what it means to go beyond the law of attraction. In order to venture beyond it, you must explore the highest way of understanding the co-creative process. Co-creation is the marriage between destiny and free will. Destiny knows everything is meant to be, while free will understands the unique journey you are exploring, in order to fulfill your destiny, is based on the freedom of options available to you. It’s not one way or another, but a marriage of both—intertwined as one.
To really understand the law of attraction from the soul’s perspective, let me share an experience I had. I remember driving to the grocery store one afternoon, and saying to myself, “I will have a parking spot waiting for me in the front of the store!” As I pulled into the parking lot, I immediately noticed a car pulling out right up front. I thought, I did it. Thank you, parking angels! As I pulled into the front spot, my guides offered me a vision. I was shown the exact same scenario from a parallel dimension. In this dimension, I didn’t declare any intention for the front spot, and yet I still got the same parking spot—just seeing it as a moment of surprising fortune. In both examples I wound up getting the same parking space, but in the dimension I was inhabiting, there was still a belief that I had to will the spot to me.
I then realized that my declaration was only a reminder of the parking space that was waiting for me. It wasn’t as if the parking space didn’t exist before I declared it. It was already meant to be. There are many of us who have made bold declarations to manifest specific outcomes into reality. Often times, we declare life will be a specific way. And when it doesn’t unfold as planned, we either think the law of attraction is phony or we use it to get down on ourselves for not being able to attract our desires on command. As I’ve stated earlier, every desire is a sneak preview of a reality awaiting your arrival. Each outcome coming your way is cross-referenced by the emotion you imagine feeling, once the thing you are hoping to attract arrives. Let’s say you envision a different romantic partner. From the perspective of your vision, you are picturing the qualities and attributes of who you’d like to call into your reality. As you envision this new romance, a feeling of fulfillment engulfs your senses. As this occurs, the Universe takes a snapshot of your vision and searches through the infinite potential of parallel dimensions to deliver you into a reality that allows you to feel as fulfilled as you envisioned feeling. It may include a new partner, or an entirely different scenario, where you are able to feel as fulfilled as you envisioned feeling, but throughout a set of circumstances more aligned with your soul’s path.
The ego hears this and gets intimidated by the notion of being able to feel as you desire without it requiring life to give you the circumstances you crave. Again, from the perspective of ego, it can only envision feeling different within the construct of a different reality. One of the ego’s core beliefs is: “I can’t be happy here.” This is because the ego is not equipped to exist in the present moment, which is the only place happiness exists. If the ego stopped for more than a few minutes to observe the present moment, it would begin unraveling and integrate into the light. Inevitably, the ego does let go into the light, but it requires your physical relaxation and heart-centeredness to help it feel safe enough to be set free.
From the soul’s perspective, whether the pictures held in mind match the outcomes you are attracting or not, it rejoices in the grace of Universal magic that will always help you feel the exact emotions you desire. Even if the very things you want don’t seem to show up, the soul thanks the Universe for helping to loosen the grip of personal attachment. You may not immediately get what you want, but you will always get exactly what you need, whether to help you see through one of the ego’s core limiting beliefs or to inspire a series of emotional reactions that would have otherwise stayed dormant and unhealed.
When you are aligned with your soul, you create a harmonious relationship with time. This type of harmony is called “being in the flow.” Whether your ego tends to crave the outcomes that are always far off in the distance, or your soul inspires you to only want the things that are unfolding before you, you are always on a trajectory to feeling the way you desire throughout the Universe’s plan. It may not be the news your ego wants to hear, but it could only be the exact wisdom you need.
EXERCISE: Letting Go of Attachment
Write down all the things you want to attract. As you do this, pinpoint the exact emotions you would feel when those realities take shape in your life. Acknowledge that no matter what is meant to be, you are always destined to feel as you desire, since well-being is an attribute of your awakening soul.
Now, take the next step into alignment with the Universe by asking: “If these things don’t immediately manifest, what are the gifts of not getting what I want?” Imagine the possibilities that might exist for you.
For example, if you envision a newer reality that makes you feel fulfilled, then not getting what you want is a perfect way to face and heal the opposite vibration of discontent. As layers of discontent are healed, greater space for fulfillment arises, whether bringing you everything you’ve envisioned or under more surprising circumstances. Such an experience not only escorts you beyond the law of attraction, but also beyond the limiting viewpoint of your ego.
To embody the wisdom of Golden Rule #6, please read or recite out loud the following words:
The Universe always has a plan—no matter how anything seems to be.
As you will continue to see, life has a plan for you and has since the beginning of time. When you’re in ego, there are two plans: what you want, and what life has in store for you. Once aligned with the soul, there’s only one plan. Even when unexpected things happen—you always get your way.
The ego thinks in extremes: if it’s all predestined, the ego is likely to sit back and wait for life to change, only to grow more frustrated when new things don’t unfold. If it’s all a matter of free will, the ego adopts a belief suggesting, “It cannot be unless it’s up to me.”
As always, the truth exists somewhere in the middle. Yes, destiny shall always unfold, but your choices are determining how direct or circuitous of a path it takes to get from point A to B. While your participation is necessary, it doesn’t require exhaustive effort, or pushing against anything, in order to play your part.
If the way in which you participate in the unfolding of your destiny seems exhausting or overwhelming, try making choices from a space of renewed faith and boundless courage, without attachments to the outcome. When you are able to work in collaboration with the hands of fate without a constant fixation on the circumstances you desire, you are able to be transformed over a period of time to fulfill the will of the Universe—countless lifetimes in the making. There is a destiny. It is guaranteed, and it also requires your participation. It may include outcomes the ego may desire, but it can only be fulfilled by the light of your soul.
From this depth of understanding, you develop great respect for the role of the ego that must let go in order for your highest potential to be. You are able to thank the ego for the gift of letting go, as you discover all the ways you can participate in the evolution of your journey, but from a space that is always aligned with the truth of heart-centered consciousness. This is the heart of inspired action.