GET THE LIFE YOU WANT

Can you send positive energy out into the world and, in return, get everything you dream of, or does that sound too good to be true? Brigid Moss finds out if the universe really has her back…

A little positivity goes a long way

If you’re going to follow a guru, why not choose one who wants you to feel good? This is how Gabrielle Bernstein, American spiritual teacher and author of seven books, rolls. And how, she says, you can manifest the life you want. ‘People believe they have to push and control to make things happen,’ Bernstein tells me. In fact, the root of her technique is exactly the opposite. ‘Do less to attract more! Trust what is coming is exactly as it’s meant to be.’ We are Facetiming and Bernstein is lying on a couch in her living room. She’s resting mid morning, she tells me, because she has a cold that she’s caught from her baby daughter. Petite, with long blonde hair and huge hazel eyes, she’s the kind of person who looks great even with a cold, the only sign being slight redness around her nose. And even with a cold, she’s super-positive. What’s your big message? I ask. ‘Wanting to be kind, to be connected, to be and feel loved and wanting to love others. It’s wishing for others to receive. Do this and you will attract more of what you want for your own life.’ Her promise is that doing this will turn you into a ‘super attractor’ – someone who attracts all the good stuff – and that’s also the name of her new book. The strapline is: ‘Methods for manifesting a life beyond your wildest dreams.’

‘WHEN YOU FEEL GOOD, YOU’LL ATTRACT WHAT YOU WANT’

I am naturally suspicious of this kind of promise. You’ve likely heard of the Law of Attraction, aka ‘cosmic ordering’? Its manual is The Secret, a book that has sold 30m copies worldwide. In its most basic form, The Secret

says: you decide what you want, send it out into the universe… then boom!

It comes true.

So how does Bernstein’s book differ from The Secret? ‘It is not about how to get things, it’s about how to feel good,’ she tells me. ‘When you feel good, you’ll attract what you want. The book helps clean up the energy you put out.’ You do this by changing your thoughts and feelings, a positivity upgrade, if you like. ‘And when you put out a more positive energy, that’s what you receive.’

Bernstein, who has 672,000 followers on Instagram, says she hears from people all the time who’ve ‘super attracted’. ‘People have shifted careers, manifested partners, left relationships so they can be guided to the right one,’ she says. In the book, Bernstein writes about her own struggles to get pregnant, how it only happened in her third year of trying to conceive. At the time, she was diligently tracking her ovulation and trying her hardest to make it happen. ‘But the more I tried to control my conception, the more disappointed I became,’ she says. It was only by surrendering to the universe and having faith it would happen that it was able to happen, she says. One of the hashtags she uses is #theuniversehasyourback.

I tell her I’m a cynic, especially when it comes to the ‘spiritual’. ‘Oh, you are a classic British journalist,’ she says. The British don’t take naturally to this stuff; our native cultural programming goes against it, she explains.

Tasked to trial it, I decide to start with the principle of feeling good even when things are tricky. The mantra you have to repeat to sort this out is: ‘I recognise I’m out of alignment with [whatever it is]. I choose to release the outcome and feel good now. Thank you, universe, for guiding me.’ There’s a friend I have had a small falling out with. We are talking but are a little cooler than usual. I really think she should make the first move. Childish, right? So I write the mantra, including her name, on a Post-it. And boom! Less than two hours later, my friend calls me. And she is warm, friendly and tells me how much she has been missing me.

‘THE EMOTIONS YOU FEEL BECOME THE ENERGY YOU EMIT’

I repeat the same mantra for money. The next week, for the first time, I have to borrow money to pay my mortgage. Not such a good result. I ask Bernstein why and she tells me that the deeper and more ingrained stuff takes longer. What I do know is that I never want this to happen again. And so I’ll make sure it doesn’t. Maybe that’s my lesson?

The programme also includes daily meditation – any kind works – and affirmations. The only useful affirmations, Bernstein tells me, are ones you can believe. I choose these: ‘today is a great day’ and ‘nothing holds me back’. Also, she adds, ‘Doing this alone won’t work. You can’t just sit on your ass and meditate all day. Take action!’

Action doesn’t mean pushing, manipulating or controlling but simply receiving. If I’m struggling to work – which I am – Bernstein says I should ‘relax and tune into your breathing. Check you feel great before you start. Set an intention to allow your inspiration to move through you.’ I try this. I get loads done. I hope it keeps working.

But it’s Bernstein’s emotional practice, the ‘choose again method’, that I find the most revolutionary. ‘The emotions you feel become the energy you emit,’ she says. So, when you feel bad, look at the Abraham-hicks emotional guidance scale

(see right) and identify where you are. Think of it as a ladder you climb to get to the happier feelings at the top. That doesn’t mean you can go from grief to joy in one leap, but just going up one rung to guilt is movement in the right direction.

So when I find myself frustrated after an argument, I follow her instructions. Step 1: notice the thought (I am angry). Step 2: celebrate your desire to shift. Say to your negative thoughts and feelings, ‘Thank you for revealing to me what I don’t want so I that I can clarify what I do want’ (I said: ‘Thank you for revealing to me that I am hurt’). Finally, step 3: choose a new feeling. Ask yourself, ‘What is the best feeling or thought I can find right now?’ Then take action to find it.

This, I think, is genius. There is such power in seeing all possible emotions laid out in order. I put on some music, dance and remember the last time I danced to that track. And in two minutes 40 seconds, I have jumped up the ladder to contentment.

Bernstein’s book also asks you to write out your vision for your life. But in order for it to come true, she explains, what you want cannot just be for you. It needs to be in ‘service’ to the world, then it will tap into the universe’s energy of abundance.

I tell Bernstein my list. I say I’d like, in no particular order: good times with friends, a happy child who finds joy in life, lovely holidays, love and passion, more than enough money, fascinating work, to help people write books and get their passions out into the world, and to write my own bestseller. It all sounds pretty selfish. ‘Is there enough service?’ I ask. ‘It feels like it makes you feel good when you talk about them,’ she tells me. ‘That in itself is service. Your joy brings joy to the world.’

Can I really have all of that? I ask. ‘Of course you can!’ she says. Not believing you can have what you want, she tells me, is a very common big block. ‘There are lifetimes of fear and attack and drama and story and limitations that have been placed on us or that we have picked up. Those stories become our belief systems.’

I like the way Bernstein talks about not being perfect herself – her own fertility struggles, for one. It’s all a process, not perfection, she tells me. ‘You can live more in your “super attractor” state and less in fear. So you may not completely dissolve fear altogether but you won’t believe in it any more – it will become the quieter voice.’

Every time I go off track – start regretting things I’ve said or done or worrying about the future – she tells me to say: ‘I forgive my past, I release the future and I honour how I feel in the present.’ I’m still unsure about the spiritual language of Bernstein’s philosophy but I can’t help loving her positivity. Plus, the process of choosing to feel good – and, in fact, knowing I can – has transformed the way I think about my emotions. So while I’m not sure the universe has my back, I know I have it. Super Attractor: Methods For Manifesting A Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams (Hay House) by Gabrielle Bernstein is out now