The Law of Association

We hear a lot these days about "the law of attraction", but here I want to talk to you about what I call the law of association.

One of the principles of this law is that you become like those with whom you associate with. Human beings are contagious. The attitude, mannerisms, emotional reaction patterns, desires and even the thought patterns of those with whom you associate rub off on you, to some extent. The more time you spend with someone, the more like them you must become.

You also take on some of what I call "the destiny patterns" of your associates. In other words, you begin attracting to your life what they attract.

Now, the law of association begins in your head. It begins with whom you think about, and how you think about them. If you think about highly intelligent people, you take on the qualities of their intelligence. If you think about people making poor choices, you take on the qualities of their choice-making.

Think of people prospering and you begin prospering with them. Think of impoverished people and you begin experiencing more of the impoverished conditions they experience in your mind.

The problem with this powerful law of association is that if your emotions rule your thinking, you lose control of whom you associate with and the qualities you take on. For instance, if you feel angry with your spouse and think about him doing something that causes you to think of how stupid he is, you are now associating with a person who makes unintelligent choices.

No one is responsible for how you think about them. When you feel angry with someone, you feel tempted to think about that person in unbecoming ways. But you become like whomever you think about. You are responsible for your thinking, no one else is.

So the power of forgiveness comes very much into play here. Holding onto grudges means that you hold onto people, in your mind, who conduct themselves in ways that you do not approve of. This increasingly influences you, however, to conduct yourself similarly.

Think of people who are achieving the results you want to achieve, demonstrating abilities, talents, gifts, strength that you want to demonstrate. That is how to utilize the law of association to be and do what you want.

Pay very close attention to who you are thinking about, and to how you are thinking about them. If you feel angry or hurt, the odds are that you are thinking of people behaving in ways you do not want to behave in, heading for painful consequences you do not want to land in.

There is another important aspect of the law of association. It is based on the law of manifestation which states that you bring about what you think about. Applied to the law of association, we can also say that you bring about whom you think about.

What this means is that you attract in your physical world individuals similar to those you spend time with in your mental world. This is why doing much complaining and criticizing is really of no use. You talk about what you think about, so complaining means that you are mentally associating with people behaving in ways you don't want, and this draws to you more people who behave that way.

Think only about people you want to actually be with, people who can help you, people who value your help.