Reticular Activation System vs. The Law of Attraction (Do You Really Create Your Own Reality?)

This post wont be for everyone, but if you can do yourself a favor. At least take the 1 minute mind blowing psych test in the beginning. You will learn some crazy insight about yourself. It's an awareness test that sees how long you can pay attention. Following the instructions in the vid counting the number of basketball passes. The rest of the article wont make sense without it.

Did you see the dancing bear? For most people, the honest answer is no. This is your reticular activation system at work - your RAS. RAS is your selective focus or for you spiritual folks this is the science behind the Law of Attraction. This is how you create your own realty...through your brain's perspective of outside stimuli.

Think of this example: Ophelia and Pocahontas are swimming at the beach and both get attacked by a shark. The shark takes both of their right arms. Ophelia is thankful she is alive and only lost an arm. Pocahontas is pissed she will never have her arm again (for climbing willows and shit I guess). Same exact situation. Two different responses. Two different focuses.

This means that whatever is happening in your experience is currently being distorted in one way or another either optimism (Ophelia) or pessimism (Pocahontas). You are not seeing the whole picture of reality and the quality of your life is being drastically affected because of it.

But this also means that you can choose to see any situation, however you like, by changing the filter of your RAS. So say you are broke and you want more money....right, who doesn't? If you tell your brain to look for money (think dancing bear from the vid) your brain will find ("create") places where there is money in your reality. Right now your focus is on the lack of money (basketballs) which is why you're a broke fuck lol.

Whatever it is. A new job opportunity,a great relationship, it all comes down to what you choose to focus on. What you want is right in front of your eyes but your brain is filtering it out because you are focused on the things you don't want or lack of what you want. So if you are currently miserably single:

"There's no attractive, interesting, single people in my town" is your basketball and "Love of my life" is your dancing bear.

They are both there in your reality...you are just choosing to only see one of them. Now this is where most people stop reading or tune out. If this is true, it is painful to admit. For most people this feels like they are being blamed for their current situation (shitty job, shitty love life, etc.). If this is true that I create my own experience, then there is some form of responsibility thrown onto us. The implications of this are huge.

You could have had the life you wanted months, years, decades ago...if you could only control your focus.

You could have had the love of your life years ago. You could of had the job you wanted for the past decade. You could have an endless flow of money and opportunities in your life but you missed it because your brain was looking at the basketballs and not the dancing bear.

Now it is not your fault. Your brain is mostly conditioned by society, friends, family to adopt certain beliefs when you are a kid. It's not your fault. It IS your fault if you don't do anything about it from here.

"They did it to you, but now you are doing it to yourself" - Elliott Hulse

An idea like this is going to take a while to be mainstream because it's too painful for the average person to admit. You have to admit that not only could you have the exact life you want right now but you are somewhat responsible for all the past pains in your life (your focus on losing the arm not keeping your life).

Now you can either take this as the spiritual part of it, the Law of Attraction, or as RAS which is more scientifically grounded, but they are saying the same exact thing. We are creating our experience in this world by what we focus on. Your brain focuses on whatever you tell it to focus on because it wants to conserve energy and not waste energy on things you tell it are not important. So how do we fix this fixation with the negative.

Your brain is smart. Saying "I have all the money I need" like the Law of Attraction community totes will not work unless you actually believe that you do have all that money. So don't start there. Start by simply proving that you do have control over your focus...enter what I like to call The Jeep Test.

Money and Love are too emotionally charged to start with focusing on. Your brain will fight you if you have been broke for years and now want to focus on all the money in the world vs. the lack of money. Most people will give up on that experiment.

But the Jeep Test is great because it's a unique looking car that is pretty neutral for most people. For the next week I want you to say the word Jeep as much as possible. "Jeep, Jeep, Jeep" whenever you get a chance and then go about your day looking for Jeeps. It will blow your mind how many fucking Jeeps are in the world. It's not like the company started pumping out more Wranglers, but now Jeeps have switched from your dancing bear to your basketball passes.

Start with jeeps to prove that this concept is real. Then progress just using neutral words Love, Money, Health. Just the word "money" not "I have all the money I need". Once you see more money, love, health in the world you can than dive more into the spiritual realm and do all the affirmation type stuff that most people won't admit they've tried and didn't work :)

You'll be amazed how quickly your life can turn around by actively changing how you interpret the world. Don't take my word for it...prove it to yourself first.

-Dylan