A Pessimist's Guide to Manifesting 5: The Law of Experience

Why are you miserable after you had a good time?

This week’s article will be a bit different than the previous entries in this series.
Our discussion this week is less about large events than it is about the final moments of those events. These are the moments in which our memory of the event is anchored.
According to the Law of Experience, the last thing that happens to you in relation to an event is what will remain as your overall impression of the event.
Going to a party and wearing a new outfit? You had a great time, danced, and laughed for hours, but as you were leaving you overheard someone say that what you were wearing looked stupid.
From that moment forward, you probably forgot the fun of the party and only remembered the embarrassing comment. In fact, if someone approached you on Monday and asked you about the party, you’d probably temper your review and say, “It was OK,” because your impression of the party is now tied to a feeling of hurt.
When we become focused on negative feelings, we limit our experience of abundance. Our awareness, our reticular activating system, focuses on these thoughts/feelings of lack and brings more of them to our attention.
The more we become focused on limitation, the more frustrated we will feel.
From there, we begin our downward spiral of creating a life of shortage. Remember the Law of Dominant Effect?
The strongest emotion always wins. Always.
When we apply the Law of Experience to the process of manifesting, it becomes abundantly clear that we must not only become observers of our emotions, but that we must also be cautious about how we explain events to ourselves.
If we let our emotions flow, they have no control over us.
It’s easy for us to let our emotions control us rather than just experiencing them and letting them go.
Our ego, fueled by friends who tell us how they’d feel (and therefore how we should feel), stays stuck in these emotions. As you already know from previous articles, if you’re stuck in the past, you cannot create your future.
To be observers of our emotions does not mean that we don’t feel them. It is perfectly fine to feel whatever you wish to in the moment – anger, fear, happiness, sadness, etc – but you should not allow these feelings to color the rest of your experience for the day, the week, the month, the year, or your life.
How to harness the Law of Experience
I recently found myself in a situation where I had counted on someone to help me out. When the time came, they were unavailable.
I was pissed.
Thankfully, I stepped back from my anger and took a different approach to the situation.
Had I continued allowing anger to control me and define the event, I would have ruined a good friendship.
Instead, I calmly discussed the situation with my friend and we were able to create a new solution for moving forward that is beneficial to us both.
This new outcome came into reality because we both chose to view our emotions as observers and thus not speak to each other from the stories that fueled the feelings.
At the end of that day, I felt empowered.
Let’s examine this event from the perspective of the Law of Experience:
1 I had a negative experience that I allowed to cause me to feel angry,
2 I defined that moment based on previous (unrelated) stories that I told myself about my worthiness and the uncaring nature of others,
3 Once I realized I was running a negative script of these events, I stopped and stepped back to observe the situation.
4 From the perspective of an observer, I was able to release the anger and negative emotions that I was feeling. This removed their control over me and allowed me to operate from a rational perspective.
5 Because of this rational perspective, the last thing that happened was a positive, supportive, empowering discussion that resulted in a better relationship and communication.
We co-created a positive outcome where only a few moments earlier had existed frustration and division.
Homework, Part 1
For the next week, when you prepare to go to sleep, acknowledge at least one good thing that happened in your day.
This is one of the exercises in The Five Minute Journal. I do suggest that you buy a copy immediately. It’s a powerful tool to shift your mindset from a negative to a positive outlook.
As you begin to associate positive feelings with the end of your day, rather than sensing constant challenges. you’ll start to see more opportunities and things for which to be grateful in your life.
Homework, Part 2
Examine your goals and manifesting progress.
As you do, refrain from self-deprecating inner dialogues. Instead, focus on what you have accomplished.
The core of this exercise is to appreciate anything that you have done on the path to realizing your goal.
The purpose of this exercise is NOT to start a mental discussion like, “I should have more done by now…,” “I can’t do this…,” or “It’s going to take so long to make this happen.”
This exercise is to help you to see that you have taken steps (even if it was just to write down your goal – good job! Step one accomplished!) and are closer to attaining your goal than you may be aware.
In a comment below, tell us what you realized this week. How much more have you done than you thought you had accomplished?
Until next week, be kind to yourself, continue growing and manifesting.
Make it so!