It’s been a long time since I’ve reported on my ‘impossible journey’ to becoming man magnet (and woman magnet. I still need to find a term to encompass both.) To my surprise, it’s going incredibly well, a least the “man” half of the magnet. It seemed to hinge on finding the right question to ask myself. In this case, my magic question to completely turn my energy around was, “How would I use that man’s body?” I would ask myself this question routinely while out and about, and it worked beautifully. I didn’t plan to do anything about my answer, but asking the question got me out of my old negative, self-conscious pattern of being. And men suddenly started to smile at me, and talk to me, and tell me that they’re incredibly happy when I’m present.

In the meantime, I’ve gotten a ton of messages about defining what I want in terms of a relationship – from friends, and even from a channeled spirit guide, who told me all I needed to do was define what I wanted and then go get it. I’ve been oddly resistant to this; I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to create a list of twenty essential characteristics I’m looking for in a partner. I want to just see what happens.

With this new attitude and an influx of male attention, I decided to try my hand at internet dating, more for the experience than anything else. And wow – the magnetism really works, even apparently without consciously asking myself the magic question. I think it shifted some fundamental energy pattern. However…I’m not sure it shifted in a really positive way. In a couple of days, I had many bland exchanges, a fairly painful date, a scary hostile conversation, and was solicited by a gigolo. No kidding.

One year ago, I might have just succumbed to internet dating fatigue and quit. Luckily, as I mentioned last week, I fell in love the audiobook The Vortex by Abraham-Hicks, and this gave me a fantastic frame for this experience that I want to share with you. According to Abraham, we are all conscious, deliberate creators of our experience, and we knew we would be even before we decided to incarnate here on Earth. We were excited about coming here because we knew there would be many experiences of what they call “contrast” in order us to form preferences. Whatever your religious views, there’s some real value in the idea of contrast. Let’s check out a dating example to see how this works.

The situation: my potential date has announced that he’s “not homeless, but is looking for new sanctuarie.” I could react to this in many ways, of course – I could make it mean something terrible about me and my ability to attract quality men. I could instead make it mean something terrible about him or the quality of men as a whole, my chances of meeting anyone normal by using a dating site, or the dismal spelling prowess of today’s average man. I could laugh, embellish it and turn the incident into an amusing anecdote. I could never think about it again.  I could do all types of things, most of them not particularly helpful. Or, I could take it as an opportunity to get clear.

From a creator’s perspective, this is a great example of contrast. When I read this, I knew that this man was someone I am not interested in meeting. Taking the idea of contrast, I could learn many things about a man I AM interested in meeting if I were to choose to look at this a little deeper. I could learn that these things are important to me:

• He’s established roots and a home for himself that he’s happy with
• He has self-authority, he takes responsibility for situations in his own life
• He loves words and uses them well

I can also look at the positive aspects – in this case, the man was very honest and forthright about who he was and what he was looking for, both of which are desirable qualities to me. Meaning I got five of my suggested twenty characteristics out of this one line of text.

I think it lends credibility to Abraham’s claim that contrast is not only good, it’s essential. Imagine that every man was the exact same type of man. Every man was “looking for sanctuarie” or had established roots and a happy home. You would never have to make any kind of choice. You would never get to develop a preference. Imagine how dull and boring that type of existence would be!

I have to confess, it was a stretch for me to come up with an LOTR reference for this topic, and this is the best I’ve got for you this time: even Galadriel, most revered seer, could not see the end of the journey. The characters had too many choices in front of them, too many possible ways to evolve. She did not know what they would choose, because they had yet to be faced with the consciousness-raising act of choosing. It seems similar with us and any ‘impossible’ type of journey we would take. This time last year, I could never have guessed that I would have switched from an attracting problem to a sorting problem when it came to my love life. It was the act of choosing different things that led me all the way on the journey.

So, my invitation for you this week – next time you encounter something “bad” or unpleasant – something you don’t like – instead of being unconscious about it, take a minute to define what you would like instead. Notice any gifts that come with the unpleasant experience. Then ask yourself a question that will activate that vibe instead of negatively dwelling on what you don’t want.

Though I’m an on and off skeptic of the law of attraction, it’s hard to argue it when asking, “how would I use that man’s body?” resulted in being approached by a gigolo! So I’m thanking that question as an interim growth opportunity and forming one more in line with what I do want. Right now I’m toying with, “what amazing gifts might that person bring to a romantic partnership?” I’ll let you know how it goes. Please let me know how yours goes! Leave a comment below with what you learned from ‘contrast’ recently or what new question you’re going to experiment with!