On the very first day of my 5-year college course, we all sat in a small classroom for our Introduction to German. Of the 20 or so students in that room, I clearly remember a couple that caught my attention. Five years later, we were still talking and they had become my friends.
The couple turned out to be the only students I resonated with and with whom I could exchange views. Quite remarkably, all the other groups of friends had also been established during that first week and never changed. Even months later, when occasionally we tried to talk there was something forced. We sensed we had not much in common.
One day as I looked at a gambling center in my local town, I marveled at the fact I had walked past it many times without noticing it. But why were other people magnetized to it, while I had been blind to its invitations? Would I have noticed the same place more if it had been a second hand book store?
I wondered if it might be that people pick up on vibes and energy that emanates from certain places. It would also explain my stable friendships at college.
For unless the world is a collection of dead matter, it makes a bit of sense that at least in some measure, there is such an energy.
Looking at the case of my cousin’s TV and radio habits, there also seemed to be a certain magnetism. Often I wondered “How does he do it to find such awful music! It’s always the same type of dancy robotic pop songs.” With the same remote control in my hand, I would not have been able to find the same channels he did among the hundreds on display.
It is then that I first asked myself the question if it was possible that the object could find the person. It could go both ways and there could be a mutual magnetism. The right side of my brain cried out “Nonsense!” but the left side thought; “Hmm, let’s think about this…”
You may have made the experience of finding yourself in a foreign town, walking around and discovering places that seemed in line with yourself. Those who wish to go drinking usually find all the bars, those who wish to see art find that little hidden art gallery, those who love skateboarding discover that little tattooist or skate shop.
Has it ever happened to you to accidentally walk into a bar in which everyone except you looked like a Hell’s Angel? If not, why so?
There is an author and “success coach” by the name of Bob Proctor who speaks about these things a lot in the context of achieving the goals you desire. He calls the same idea “frequencies” and says that in his experience, achieving a goal is all about being on the same frequency as that goal.
A simple example would be the fear of being unpopular. Instead of thinking “I’m going to make lots of friends” and visualizing this goal, the error to make is creating the opposite reality by thinking about how much we are afraid on NOT making friends. Proctor says that most people spend time focusing on the opposite of what they truly desire. (Actually he says that most people don’t think at all. And when they do it’s the wrong thoughts)
Have you ever met a very successful achiever, be it a sports champion or a rich individual? Maybe even in passing in a hotel lobby? The few times I did, I was always struck by how natural it was to them. As if they were perfectly in line with the success they met. You could literally drop them naked in the street in a different country with no social connections or money, and they’d do it all again. Could it be they are simply in touch with the frequency of the desired goal?
This is indeed what Proctor seems to think. The whole question of course is how to be in touch with a goal. For him, there is an effort to be made to de-magnetize ourselves from our current frequencies of which we are often not aware. It would make sense that a person who is magnetized to going to a Ladbrokes betting center everyday will have to make a substantial mental re-education to be magnetized by a different and more opulent social circle.
It is here that visualization and daily repeating of new messages come into play. We want to teach the subconscious to want different things, or rather to have the belief that we can achieve them. You may have heard before “Act as if you were already in possession of that which you desire” – which is a similar way of getting to where you want.
The more I think about this, the more it seems to make sense. All that I have achieved came from either a strong desire or a form of visualization. I saw myself with a college degree in hand. I saw myself fit and strong, and able to run into my 80s. I saw myself having a great woman in my life. I saw myself playing the bass guitar like a champion. (A feat I modestly believe to have achieved)
Guess what I didn’t succeed at? Anything I didn’t visualize. I never did see myself getting good at some of the other sports I tried. I never did see myself finishing a novel or film script. I never did see myself actually finishing the countless projects I have in my mind.
When I used to go to England for stays of several months, I developed an even stronger emotional attachment for the land of my ancestors. I saw myself living in the Midlands, in a small English village close to my cousins, uncles and aunts. It happened.
The year I went to Warsaw for a week with my friend, we were in the mood for partying and adventure and dare I say, we found it in ample measure. Underground bars with actual earth for flooring, bars in abandoned apartment blocks, musicians, concerts, all-night discos that we just walked into by accident… we experienced it all and it was just one unique nightlife scene after the other.
But the most remarkable thing was that the second year we went, we were incapable of finding the same places we had been to the year before. Why was that? Our frame of mind was certainly different, and perhaps our vibes too. We began to find the city of Warsaw a bit boring and accused it of having “changed”.
The choices we make in life usually draw us to “right” outcomes, meaning those outcomes we are already on the same frequency with. We don’t need to try all the sports in the world to find the one that is right for us. We don’t need to try all the social circles before finding a group of people that we relate to. We don’t need to be a trainee butcher to see if we prefer that to real estate.
Naturally, we may decide that was is “right” for us is not the same as being satisfactory. A person who is naturally attracted to low-paying jobs will have to change this in some way. They will have to do different readings, mix in other circles and change the way they naturally think that “right” is.
If you are not convinced about this, consider this next example. Still in college, one day I was sitting in a big lecture hall that held several hundred students. I was early and was waiting for everyone to take their seats and for the class to begin. After a few seconds, I raised my head and looked around, I sensed that the energy was off. Naturally they looked like any other student on campus: same clothes, same age group but something was different. I turned round and asked a girl which class this was. It turned out I was in the wrong room and that they were people from the Economics faculty. The vibe they created was different.
How amazing that I would feel this energy without even looking at the individual students. I experienced similar changes in vibes when I did my teacher training year. The crowd of people in that faculty behaved and spoke very differently to what we did in Linguistics and Literature. Same goes for the History of Art students which whom I had occasional classes in common.
We’ve all seen that cities also have vibes that the citizens create and bounce off each other. Some people feel right at home in a certain city while others don’t. Have you noticed that when you wake up on a Saturday or Sunday it “feels” like a day off? What is it about the energy in the air that makes you know that people are not as agitated? Perhaps they’ve all changed their energy.
I find all of this a most remarkable topic, and regrettably one that is often relegated to the status of “pseudo-science”. We are taught about things such as “the luck of the draw” or “it’s who you know in this world” or even “sheer luck”. But yet at the same time we have all encountered that one person of whom we said “if anyone can do it, it’s them” or “Wherever he or she goes, they’ll make friends”. As if to say that the things just fall into their lap but without considering what makes it so.
Why indeed do certain people marry and divorce 4 times? Why do certain people always seem to find new brutal relationship partners? Why do people start musical projects and immediately “make it work” and develop a following?
When I started my one-man acoustic band I visualized a low-key type of music just for my own pleasure. I got the exact results I set out to get: no one ever followed me on social media or liked any of my songs. When my parents bought their house 40 years ago, they did it with a vision in mind of what they best resonated with: a detached house in nice area with a garden. They didn’t fail at having a big house, they succeeded at getting the one they set out to. I didn’t fail at developing a fanbase, I succeeded in enjoying my music just for myself.
I feel that a lot of the simplistic conclusions we are given don’t go further back enough. We look at a result and conclude that it is the result that sent the waves without considering the frame of mind in which it was made. We look at the results of an athlete and say it is the points they scored that made them famous without considering in which frame of mind they were approaching the game. The Rolling Stones became famous because of their music. But what if they had already “seen” the fame before it happened? What if George Lucas already “knew” that Star Wars was the next big thing?
Bob Proctor calls upon our faith to make it work. Now deceased, he was told to follow the principles without questioning them when he was very young. And it worked. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe, do it anyway”, he keeps repeating.
It’s a shame, is it not, that in school we are told to “work harder” instead of “see yourself be smart and getting good results”. Many students that I encounter bring this frame of mind to our lessons, and with it many unnecessary limitations. Instead of seeing themselves having completed the OuiCommunicate programme and being “post-French”, they rather see themselves on the first page of an exercise sheet, scratching their head and not being able to understand.
Instead of seeing themselves a year from now knowing all the French they would ever need, they don’t visualize anything and probably don’t know if they will still be doing French in a year. Instead of seeing me and knowing “This is the guy who will make me know French fast and well”, they see a tutor who keeps them busy twice a week.
Well, just as my acoustic music band and the house of my parents, so do these students get the results they visualize. They achieve the exact results of a student who spends a nice time with a friendly tutor and doesn’t see further. Because in truth, I can only be what you see in me. Nothing more, nothing less.
Let’s repeat this to make quite sure: I can only be what you see in me.
And if any student ever wanted to change this but doesn’t know how, do as Bob Proctor advises: “It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe, do it anyway.”
You might just get very good at French and believe later.