Picking Up Sticks and The Law of Attraction

On more than one occasion I’ve been apart (and probably even taught) lessons in Mormonism where I used sticks as a visual. In the lessons we would show the class that you can’t pick up just one side of the stick. If you pick up the stick (make a choice) you must also pick up the consequences. Although how I see this teaching has changed, I can’t get the visual out of my head.

We all want for SOMETHING. Even as we strive to live lives in a deep sense of satisfaction, it is our nature to always evolve. Maybe it is a better job or love (those are common), a new house, whatever. It is my opinion that we are supported – by whatever you want to call it. God, the Divine, Laws of the Universe, luck… I’ve just seen it happen over and over where people ask… And they do receive.

AND … Just like picking up the consequence stick, we are not in control of HOW what we want will come to us.

Here is where we frequently get stuck.

When we are seeking or asking for something to change in our lives, we are by nature asking to change.

However, too often we want to stay the same AND have what we want anyway. But change cannot happen without movement. Therefore, what we want will come to us in ways that encourage us to expand our zone of mastery. That means it will challenge us.

Plus, it will come in a way that it can given our circumstances AND how we are willing to receive it.

Let me give an example that showed up in my life recently. I work part-time as a barista at a local coffee shop. I absolutely love it – most of the time. How I came to this job is another beautiful story but for now I’ll say, I didn’t choose it because of the pay! However, I have been working with the law of attraction and faith as I now understand it for almost a year. I needed more income to flow to me and I asked that it would. I was willing to pick up the whole stick, not knowing how I would receive what I needed.

When I went to work that day, all coffee-shop hell had broken loose. The young woman who had opened was wide-eyed and frazzled. The shop was packed, and more people kept coming in. The espresso machine had one side malfunctioning. If used it sprayed boiling water everywhere, and the drain was clogged. The dishes were piled in the sink. The lids didn’t fit the cups. We were low on EVERYTHING. Square (payment platform) was acting up… It was a hot mess. And then shortly after I arrived, my only co-worker peaced out. Like – out of the job. It was me -by myself in this pit of disaster.

I was struggling to keep my stress from overtaking me. I was VERY tempted to quit too! Or write a scathing letter to the group chat about keeping up the machine and not having so few people working on a Saturday morning. But I decided to just joke around with customers about the situation and profusely thank them for their understanding and patience – and genuinely SMILE and laugh through it. Can’t change it anyway, right?

Not only were people so kind (for the most part), but hours later when I finally got back-up to help, and the crowd slowed to a trickle, I looked over the tips and they were… HUGE. I almost cried right then and there. My heart just filled to the brim with gratitude over the generosity of the patrons who had come in that morning.

I asked for money to flow to me – and it found a way that it could come to me in my circumstances. AND it asked me to stretch. It asked me to step up to a situation that was physically and mentally hard.  It asked me to put aside my perfectionism, my anxiety, my people pleasing, my temptation to be critical and complain, and my desire to quit. It asked me to grow and receive MORE – more abundance not just in money, but joy, gratitude, awe, and wonder. It asked me to GIVE more – more grace to myself and to others that we are all just humans doing the best we can.  

You can’t choose exactly how what you want will come to you. But if you’re willing to pick up the whole stick, you can recognize when what you want does come to you.  It’s too easy to say – but that’s not HOW I want it to come to me. Then we swirl in fear and apprehension. Like a stick-shift stalling out in first gear, gas, stop, gas, stop…. We complain or reject it. We make no movement. We don’t accept what’s coming to us. We only want to pick up one side of the stick.

But – you might say to me – what if what I want is coming to me in a way that I really cannot receive? Then we must ask ourselves, how are we blocking avenues for it to come to us? Again – what we want can only come to us in the ways we are able or willing to receive. This requires radical honesty. What is it that you are afraid of? Often giving voice to our fears is the fist step out of the swirl and a step towards what we really want, and a willingness to pick up the WHOLE stick…

All My Love,

Reh