THE JOY FACTOR
U.S. Elections Through a Spiritual Lens
Trigger Warning:
This post discusses U.S. elections. Feel free to skip.
Whether they call it Law of Attraction or not, there are (finally) people in high places who understand, perhaps intuitively, that joy and love are more powerful forces than fear and hate. And maybe they also understand that like attracts like, even if they don’t call it Law of Attraction. A lot of people get it intuitively without ever having heard the term.
That makes sense, doesn’t it? When you first heard these teachings, didn’t you feel a sense of recognizing something you kinda sorta of already knew? As if the knowledge had been lying dormant in the bottom of your mind until you heard or read it, and then it woke up, stretching and yawning and saying, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve been here the whole time.”
Law of Attraction is so basic to all we are that it’s embedded in us. And we tend to recognize universal truths when we hear them.
For a very long time, I have thought that if my country could only elect leaders who instinctively put positivity over negativity, we’d soar. Because obviously, that kind of leadership would raise the vibration of the entire nation. And when we raise our vibration, we create improvement in every area.
We know this works on a personal level. We know that when we stay focused more on what we want than on what we don’t, more things we want show up in our experience. We know this is especially powerful if we can focus on those things we want from a place of joyful anticipation, rather than a place lackful longing.
And that’s exactly what we are seeing in the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, not just focus on what is wanted, but focus from a state of joyful anticipation. We not only want it, we are having a great time wanting it, and we are pretty expectant of manifesting it.
Prior to this, when Biden was still the candidate, we were very clear on what we did not want from a fearful perspective. Our fear of what we did not want was far more powerful than our focus on what we did want. Moreover, we were not having a good time pushing for our desire, but were spending all our time pushing against the thing we feared. You see how opposite that energy is?
This can be applied large scale or small to anything in life. Pushing against something creates more of it. Pushing for something creates more of it, too. It’s the attention.
The other side
The opposing campaign is entirely negative and based on fear that’s spiraling into paranoia. It’s attracting more negative, paranoid elements into its orbit.
Law of attraction is always working; we’re always aligned with something and therefore living it. There is no alignment with joy on the other side. There is no optimistic view of the future to get excited about. There’s just fear. I started to list anger, hate, dishonestly, delusion, revenge, but it’s really all just based in fear.
And so more of those things are gathering, as that camp experiences more and more things that match the energy they are emitting.
What’s really happening?
I was excited about Kamala Harris the first time she ran, though I didn’t know she understood things like this. It might’ve been law of attraction acting on me, even then. Like attracts like. But now she is running a joy-based campaign, and I can see with my own eyes the effect of that. Like attracts like. Joyful campaign attracts joyful supporters and joyful voters. It cannot be otherwise. It is natural law.
This is not the result of a strategy or a plan. You can’t fake-out the law of attraction. It’s responding constantly to our energy, not our words. We can’t act our way around it. Muttering “I believe, I believe, I believe,” while not really believing will not work like it did in Miracle on 34th Street. Little Susan Walker would have to have actually believed in order for that house to manifest. And if she had actually believed, she’d have been bouncing on the seat saying, “I believe! I believe!” through an ear-to-ear grin.
Much like the people in the stands at this years’s DNC.
It turns out that Kamala Harris gets it. So does Doug Emhoff. I’ve been reading quotes of his that show it quite clearly. So, clearly, does Tim Walz.
The notion that positivity has power behind it has been slowly pervading our culture for at least ten years now. The whole idea of gratitude journals, of mindfulness, of presence, the practice of meditation, the notion that negativity sucks away our joy, all these have become normalized for us.
Recall the whole phenomenon with the Complaint-free World challenge, where you wore a stretchy bracelet, and any time you caught yourself complaining aloud or in writing, you had to change wrists. The goal was to go 21 days on the same wrist. Recall the breakout popularity of gratitude journals and positive thinking and the art of manifestation and The Secret.
It’s not a secret anymore. Far and wide, the notion of something like the law of attraction has permeated American culture.
The proof’s in the puddin’
If you’ve been reading this blog, I know you’ve experienced the power of this shift in our default setting. As we have become more positively focused, our lives have improved in countless ways. And when we get off track, never fails, something “bad” happens.
Quick reminder: The something bad that happens is not a punishment or judgment. It’s just the physical representation of our resistance and also, motivation to change something that’s been in need of changing, and that we’ve resisted changing. When we refuse to make the change, the “problem” grows bigger until we do. And then we wish we’d done it sooner.
As a nation our “problem” got pretty darn big. We got just hopeful enough to burst the bubble, and then fell right back into fear of a recurrence.
But now, there’s been a complete reversal of energy. The balance has shifted, and positive momentum has taken over. There’s no stopping it now.
A little flex
In my post, Solar Eclipse Monday, on April 7th, before anyone was calling for Biden to leave the race, I predicted that Trump was “eclipsing out.” His time in the spotlight, his political power, his personal power, his wealth, his influence, and his health are all winding down.
I feel as if that prediction is proving true, and will continue to prove true right through the election.
And this whole thing, like every experience, is a metaphysical masterclass. Observe how, as our national attention has shifted away from him and toward the excitement and joy of the alternative, we see him shrinking before our eyes. As we observe this, we are observing proof in real time that attention is fertilizer. What we pay attention to grows. (That’s why the media has so much power. They control where our attention goes, if we let them.)
The reverse is also true. What we ignore shrinks.
That does not mean action is unnecessary. It means, take action from a place of positive expectation. Take joyous action. So in the case of, say, a tumor, we don’t ignore its exsitence. We notice it. We don’t like it. We let what we don’t want inform what we do want— a tumor-free body. We get aligned with the outcome, and with that alignment, the path forward lights up for us. We see clearly which doctor, which treatment, which clinic we should use. We take aligned, positive steps toward our desired outcome. We leave all the fear and worry and most of the attention to our medical professionals. Our own job is to get so excited about our desired outcome we make it inevitable.
Our national tumor
I know you think I mean a person, and I kinda did when I thought up that headline, but honestly, our national tumor is hate, which is based on fear, and I think the underlying basic fear is fear of lack. Fear there’s not enough to go around, and therefore I must stay on top to get my share and provide for my kin. That survival of the fittest, me vs. you kind of outlook.
But the truth is that abundance expands with positive expectation. I mean, how many dollars are in the economy today? How many were in the economy 100 years ago? 1000 years ago? 10,000 years ago? Money didn’t even exist. It’s an artificial representation of abundance energy. The energy itself is limitless.
The planet is perfectly capable of feeding every last one of us. Not on factory-farmed meat and dairy, but on the scientifically proven healthiest human diet. There IS enough to go around. There’s enough for all of us to live brilliantly and abundantly. We don’t need to compete.
Fear of change is also a big thing. Some people fear that with so many of us mingling, our own personal skin tone might cease to exist. Some fear that with so many new ideas, their own personal religion might cease to exist. Some fear that with so many new ways to earn a living, their own art or craft or skill will no longer be needed. A select few fear they will have fewer billions if they have to pay taxes.
Here’s the thing— the people who fear this stuff will not be alive when those fears come to pass. (And they will.) That’s why we have death after 100 or so years of life. To make way for the next round of expansion, evolution, and growth.
Fear
Fear can be useful. Fear of the dark makes me turn on a light and not trip over a stray dog toy and break my neck. Fear of an angry bear makes me not walk up and pet one. Fear of pain makes me not stick my hand into an open flame. Fear of prison prevents me from smacking strangers in public (and it’s sometimes the only thing preventing it.)
But fear can also be an incredibly destructive force. Violence (despite my above statement, which was a joke) is only committed by fearful people. Hate is nothing but an expression of fear.
The Joy Factor
I’m going out onto a limb again with a prediction. I haven’t pulled any cards or tossed any stones or bones on this, this is just my gut feeling. I feel the element of joy in this election is going to result in a landslide win for the democrats, and that the other guy will either die, go to prison, or leave the country. (And I can’t quite envision him in prison.)
The lesson
Watch what’s happening. We should apply its lessons to our own lives!
Focus less on the things you most want to be rid of.
Focus more on the things you most want to live.
Do that focusing from a place of joyous expectation.
Got thrillers?
