The Science Behind the Law of Attraction Magazine Mar April Full mag | Page 33

T he Evolut ion of H uman Pot ent ial:
From Posit ive T hinking t o Energy M ast ery
By C hrisy W hit man
The first few months of the New Year are a time when many of us become aware of our desire for
self-improvement. The drive toward growth, personal mastery, and expansion into more and more of our full
human potential is healthy, natural and ? as far as I can tell ? never ending. But identifying the things that we wish
to improve on is the easy part. After all, life simply continues to show us, through the experience of living what we
don?t want, what it is that we do desire in relation to each important aspect of our lives. The real question is, once
our life?s contrasting experiences have produced this clarity within us, how do we go about creating the desired
change?
Over the past fifty-plus years, the human potential movement ? sometimes called the self-help or personal
development movement ? has offered a succession of methods and strategies to support us in fulfilling the goals
and desires that we?ve deemed important. In the 1960s, the widespread use of psychedelic drugs upended the
illusion that there is one objective ?reality? that each of us experiences in the same way, and opened our minds to
the existence of more subtle dimensions of reality where energy, not matter, is dominant. The 1970s brought a
surge of Eastern practices such as meditation, chanting
and yoga to the West, providing reliable ways to access
the universal consciousness that is the source of all
manifested experience. Health-related studies
published in the 1980s and 90s revealed the benefits of
practices such as goal-setting, visualizing one?s desired
results, and cultivating a positive mental attitude. Most
recently, many of these techniques have been
reinterpreted in the language of science: Positive
psychology is the new norm, and awareness-training
practices such as mindfulness meditation have made
their way into the mainstream.
Underlying each of these methodologies are powerful universal principles that have remained constant, and will
continue to do so, regardless of how the techniques themselves continue to evolve. This article provides an
exploration of each important pillar of understanding ? many of which I?m sure you are already very familiar ? that
has emerged as a result of our desire to realize our full human potential. By studying these precepts, we not only
strengthen the foundation of the understanding we?ve already gained, but more importantly, we prepare ourselves
to embrace the next cutting-edge phase of our self-discovery. As philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
"If you learn only methods, you'll be tied to your methods. But if you learn principles, you can devise your own
methods." Here are the principles behind each of these methods:
Principl e # 1: We are sel f -empowered.
One of the first realizations we come to as we travel along the path of expanding consciousness is that, because we
have complete control over the thoughts, moods, attitudes and beliefs we hold, we have some power to affect the
outcomes of our own lives. At this stage of awareness, we begin to understand that our thoughts and emotions
manifest into the ?things? that make up our life experience. We simply cannot approach life with negative
expectations and reap satisfying results. Whether we are happy or unhappy with the reality we are creating, we
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