“If we don’t deal with our negative emotion, we will keep manifesting situations that will reflect it back to us, that will keep showing it to us. These are all opportunities to do this ‘work’ and if we keep passing them up, more will come to take their place.”

When it comes to applying the teachings of the law of attraction, we quickly come to realize managing our thoughts, feelings and beliefs becomes paramount. Our outer experience is simply a mirror of our inner world. We really don’t have a choice but to shift the thoughts, feelings and beliefs that aren’t serving us.

We have to change the crappy self-image we have of ourselves. We have to believe we can have the things we want. We can’t always be focusing on what we don’t want, lamenting our current reality, refusing to feel better until something gives us a ‘reason’ to.

Naturally, this will lead to a less than favorable opinion of our ‘negative’ emotion. And when I use the word ‘negative,’ I am not suggesting those emotions are wrong or bad, but simply ones we don’t like because they don’t feel so great.

The Bigger Issue is the Resistance

Feelings in and of themselves really aren’t the problem. Our resistance to them is. The resistance is what gives them more power. The resistance is what blocks us from examining the messages the feelings are giving us. Our emotions are messengers plain and simple and clue us in to how we are focusing.

The feelings didn’t just come from nowhere. They were triggered by the way we are viewing a particular situation, and when we don’t feel good, we are focusing in a way that doesn’t serve us. We need to see what is going on. The emotions help us do that.

When we are feeling badly, we heap all sorts of judgment on ourselves for not being better at this whole personal development thing. We know our inner world is creating our outer world and we are just screwing it up big-time with our inability to get all happy and shiny.

Again, feelings are not bad or wrong. They are just showing us something. It is crucial to engage with them because that is the key to truly getting what you want. Which brings me to my next major point…

The Desired Manifestations are Not the Answer

This is how our mind sees things: We are feeling things that don’t feel so hot; we are experiencing a situation that we don’t like. If X,Y and/or Z manifests, said crappy feelings and situations will go away.

So your mind latches onto these manifestations as being the answer to your happiness. We get a bit obsessed about shifting our energy so we become a match to these things. Hence the huge amount of resistance to the negative emotion that is just screwing it all up.

But it is so important to remember that the manifestations are not the answer to the joy, peace, and whatever other warm, fuzzy feelings you seek.

The answer is dealing with the crappy thoughts, beliefs and feelings that created whatever undesirable situations in which you find yourself now, that make you think you are wrong, broken, undeserving, unworthy, incomplete and lacking.

Because that is what will truly make you feel better. This doesn’t mean giving up on the manifestations—all of what you want and so much more will start flooding in. And it will just enhance and extend all the great energy you were already radiating.

You will no longer want to manifest from a space of trying to ‘fix’ things or fill some void.

I am sure we have all experienced at some point the let down of getting something we really thought would make us happy but then realizing it didn’t.

How many times have you heard the story of the person with the perfect life—great job, great spouse, beautiful children, big house, and loads of money but she just felt ‘empty’ or ‘unfulfilled.’ Too many to count.

The negative feelings are just showing you where you are wounded, and you can’t heal a wound if you don’t know where it is.

What you really want goes so far beyond what your mind is attaching to, whether it is a relationship, more money, a better job. You want to feel a certain way. You want healing. Acknowledging and working with your negative emotion is the ticket to accomplishing all that. Not the ‘stuff’ your mind wants.

Deal With the Emotion and It Won’t Be Shown to You Anymore

If we don’t deal with our negative emotion, we will keep manifesting situations that will reflect it back to us, that will keep showing it to us. These are all opportunities to do this ‘work’. If we keep passing them up, more will come to take their place.

The wonderful, mysterious thing about the Universe is it somehow manages to deliver us the most perfect manifestations to help us along our journey. We will get triggered in just the right ways. See exactly what will be most helpful to us in this moment.

And when I talk about this, I don’t mean completely eliminating these emotions from your life and never experiencing them again. Would be nice but being that we are human, it is unlikely to happen.

But we can work through them to a significant degree in terms of how they may be impacting something that is going on in our life right now. We can begin to change how we experience them. We can actually embrace them. Knowing they are a gift of sorts.

If this isn’t an incentive to be more welcoming of them, and not get all bent out of shape about feeling badly in some way, I don’t know what is. Again, this is the key to getting what you truly want. Not the manifestations that will make it all ‘go away.’

You’re Human…Deal With It

Yes, I know it’s super-annoying. We just want to be in tune with our higher selves and one with the Universe every waking moment.

On some level, we have this idea that we can totally become ‘perfect’ and never be unhappy ever again. We are hoping that at some point we’ll be ‘done’ with this whole personal growth thing, and then we can sit back, relax and enjoy the fruits of all our labor, never again to be bothered with all the fear,doubt and unwanted.

But we’re never done. It really is all about the journey. There is no final destination that you’re traveling towards.

When we can make peace with all of this, a lot of the suffering we experience declines significantly. When we can see our ‘negative’ emotion for what it is truly is, we respond to it completely differently.

We enjoy the ride a lot more.

Kelli Cooper is a blogger and coach who is passionate about educating people about what the law of attraction really is about, and clearing up the many misconceptions that surround it. If you want more LOA goodness, check out her blog Life Made to Order for posts, podcasts, products and classes.