Your feelings indicate your alignment
To begin my education in manifestation, I’ve been reading a book called Ask and It Is Given. I'm now on page 59. It's a 300-page book, so I'm about a sixth of the way through.
The first concept I learned about was the Law of Attraction. Now I've also learned about the Emotional Guidance System.
Your Emotional Guidance System is exactly what it sounds like—a system whereby your emotions guide you. More specifically, your emotions give you guidance on your alignment with your Source and your alignment with your intentions.
When you are in alignment, you experience positive emotions (e.g., joy, love). When you are out of alignment, you experience negative emotions (e.g., depression, fear).
I've included quotes from the book that explain the Law of Attraction and the Emotional Guidance System, as well as my own analysis of each concept.
The Law of Attraction
Quotes from the book about the Law of Attraction:
"Every thought vibrates, every thought radiates a signal, and every thought attracts a matching signal back. We call that process the Law of Attraction" (25).
"The key to bringing something into your experience that you desire is to achieve vibrational harmony with what you desire. And the easiest way for you to achieve vibrational harmony with it is to imagine having it, pretend that it is already in your experience, flow your thoughts toward the enjoyment of the experience, and as you practice those thoughts and begin to consistently offer that vibration, you will then be in the place of allowing that into your experience" (26).
"That which is like unto itself is drawn, so the vibration of your Being must match the vibration of your desire in order for your desire to be fully received by you. You cannot desire something, predominantly focus on the absence of it, and then expect to receive it, because the vibrational frequency of its absence and the vibrational frequency of its presence are very different frequencies. Another way of saying that is: Your desires and your beliefs must be a vibrational match in order for you to receive that which you desire" (29).
My understanding of the Law of Attraction:
The most basic form of the Law of Attraction says that similar things are attracted to each other.
This happens on the level of vibrational frequencies.
Similar vibrational frequencies attract similar vibrational frequencies.
Each thought has a vibrational frequency and what you desire has a vibrational frequency.
Therefore, you can receive what you desire by matching the vibration of your thought with the vibration of what you desire.
Emotional Guidance System
Quotes from the book about the Emotional Guidance System:
"By paying attention to the way you feel, you can easily know if you are giving your attention to your desire or if you are giving it to the absence of your desire. When your thoughts are a vibrational match to your desire, you feel good—your emotional range would be from contentment to expectation to eagerness to joy. But if you are giving your attention to the lack, or absence, of your desire—your emotions would range from feelings of pessimism to worry to discouragement to anger to insecurity to depression" (26).
"You have a built-in, easy-to-understand guidance system within you, with indicators that help you understand the strength or power of your signal, as well as the direction of your focus. And, most important, it is this very same guidance system that helps you understand the alignment of your chosen thought with the Energy Stream itself. Your feelings are the representatives of your guidance system. In other words, the way you feel is your true indicator of your alignment with your Source, and of your alignment with your own intentions" (40).
"You were born with sensitive, evolved, sophisticated translators of vibrations that you you understand and define your experience. And in the same way that you utilize your five physical senses to interpret your physical life experience, you were born with other sensors—your emotions—which are further vibrational interpreters that help you understand, in the moment, the experiences that your are living" (43).
"Your emotions ... are about your relationship with your Source. And since your emotions tell you everything that you would ever want or need to know about your relationship with your Source, we often refer to your emotions as your Emotional Guidance System" (44).
"When you think a thought that rings true with who you really are, you feel harmony coursing through your physical body: Joy, love, and a sense of freedom are examples of that alignment. And when you think thoughts that do not ring true with who you really are, you feel the disharmony in your physical body. Depression, fear, and feelings of bondage are examples of that misalignment" (45).
My understanding of the Emotional Guidance System:
Your emotions are indicators of the vibration you are offering.
The way you feel indicates your alignment with your Source and your alignment with your intentions.
When the vibration of your thoughts matches the vibration of what you desire, you feel good.
When the vibration of your thoughts does not match the vibration of what you desire, you feel bad.
Therefore, you can determine if you are in alignment based on how you feel.
How the two are related
Quotes from the book about how the two concepts are related:
"Your emotions are you indicators of the vibrational content of your Being, in every moment. And so, when you become aware of the feeling of your emotions, you can also be aware of your vibrational offering. And once you combine your knowledge of the Law of Attraction with your in-this-moment awareness of what your vibrational offering is, then you will have full control of your own powerful point of attraction. With this knowledge, you can now guide you life experience in any way you choose" (44).
My understanding of how the two concepts are related:
The Law of Attraction says that you can receive what you desire by matching the vibration of your thoughts with the vibration of what you desire.
Your Emotional Guidance System tells you that those two vibrations are matching when you feel good and not matching when you feel bad.
Therefore, you can make sure that you are following the Law of Attraction to get what you desire by paying attention to your Emotional Guidance System.
If you are feeling good, you are on your way to getting what you desire.
If you are feeling bad, you need to make an adjustment to match the vibration of your thoughts with the vibration of what you desire.
I feel bad sometimes (and remaining questions)
I experience some of the negative emotions mentioned, like depression and fear. Does that mean I'm out of alignment?
Is it possible to experience those negative emotions while still being in alignment? Or do those negative emotions indicate misalignment 100% of the time? If so, does the book suggest that you need to be feeling positive emotions 100% of the time in order to be in alignment 100% of the time?
Experiencing negative emotions seems to be normal, i.e., it seems to be something that almost everyone deals with. So does that mean almost everyone is out of alignment?
It seems there are some instances when it would be natural and even healthy to experience negative emotions. For example, it's natural to feel sad when a loved one dies or to feel afraid when your life is in danger. Would the author say that negative emotions in those situations still indicate that you're misaligned?
So if there are some negative emotions that don't indicate misalignment, then how can you know for sure when negative emotions are indicating misalignment?
Conclusion
I'm not still totally clear on the details of the Emotional Guidance System or how you would practically apply the system, but the general idea aligns with a lesson I have learned before: when you experience a negative emotion, there is spiritual work to be done.
I want to meditate on any negative emotions that I experience in the near future. Perhaps I will discover areas of my life where I am misaligned.