Vision boards are toxic but also I kinda love making collages about my goals
Or: The Law of Attraction is not attractive. Har har. (No really, it's not a good look.)
Vision Boards: I love them but I hate them.
Love: Making a collage of my hopes and dreams? Don’t mind if I do! I love a craft project. Bonus points if it can involve Mod Podge.
Plus, my dad taught me that goals are good to have.
Hate: The way a vision board becomes something more than gettin’ crafty with your goals. A “vision board exercise” quickly escalates into “manifestation” and “positive thinking” self-help claims, a.k.a. The Secret or The Law of Attraction.
Your vision board becomes a version of Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.” But with fewer cornfields.
The Law of Attraction: not just for vision boards and cornfields?
Simply put, the Law of Attraction is “like attracts like.”
The “law” is that if you emit positive thoughts into the Universe, envision your best self and happiest future, then good things will come to you. You’ll manifest that shit.
OTOH, if you put negative energy out into the Universe, negative experiences come to you.
This simple “law” becomes the basis of all sorts of guru-ical teachings, prosperity-gospel sermons, and self-help podcasts, books, and seminars.
Case in point: The Secret, which has sold eleventy billion copies and —spoiler alarm— is just The Law of Attraction with a better cover.
The Law of Attraction is a repackaged version of Norman Vincent Peale’s 1952 bestseller, The Power of Positive Thinking. (Donald Trump used to attend Norman Vincent Peale’s church.)
The Power of Positive Thinking is a rebrand of New Thought from the beginning of the twentieth century, and on back we go.
To be clear: thinking positively is fine.
I happily condone putting good energy into the Universe.
That part is cool. But…
HERE COMES THE ICK.
The more you think about it, the more problematic The Secret and The Law of Attraction get.
It’s kind of like my friend Banks says of reading the label on a bottle Dr. Bronner’s Soap. “At first you’re like, ‘Cool, yeah,’ but as you read on, it starts to get weirder and weirder until you’re like, ‘Ummm…. Say what, now?’”
(Shh, nobody tell Banks I quoted him. Let’s see if he reads this.)
Does putting good out into the Universe mean good things will come to you?
If we’re being honest? I don’t think it guarantees anything at all. Except that you are putting good into the Universe. Which is a good thing.
And isn’t the point of giving, the point of developing a generous heart, that we might learn to give without expectation of receiving? To let go of outcome? I think so.
I think, maybe, that being a genuinely good person means you do good for good’s sake.
Not because it might bring you good things.
You see what I’m poking at here.
But that’s just the tip of the problematic iceberg.
Let’s make a list. I love a list.
ICK FACTOR 1: THE LAW OF ATTRACTION IS TRANSACTIONAL
We just covered it, but I do so love to start a list with something I’ve already done. I can check it off right away. Satisfying.
The Law of Attraction is transactional. “I’m putting good out there so that I can get good back.”
So we’re basing a big life philosophy on “What’s in it for me?”
I don’t love that.
ICK FACTOR 2: TOXIC POSITIVITY
Let’s talk about what happens when those cute “Good vibes only” pillows reflect an actual belief.
“Good vibes only” sounds okay.
If you’re committed to “good vibes only,” you maintain positivity and look on the bright side of everything. Gratitude is great. Cheerfulness is lovely. Yay.
But pain and grief are real, both your own and other people’s.
So… where does it leave you if you’re “good vibes only”?
How do you live with and respond to the fact —the FACT— that humans are suffering all around us?
You look on the bright side. You turn that frown upside down.
You tell people their dead loved ones “are in a better place now.”
You namasté yourself into a lovely, perfect yoga-studio world that requires you to ignore pain and suffering.
This practice is huge among spiritual influencers, wellness gurus, energy workers. It’s also really big in the evangelical Christian community.
And. Every true mystic and contemplative implores us against it.
Every non-religious wise person advises against it, as well.
There’s an important reason one of the Twelve Steps is a fearless moral inventory and another is making amends.
A person cannot live in integrity — as an integrated, whole person, a caring person to self and others — and maintain the mantra “good vibes only.” You’re ignoring more than half of human existence.
Personally, whenever I try to suppress or ignore grief or sadness or anger, it boomerangs back around and whacks me on the noggin, and hard. It might show up in my mood, by turning me depressed, bitchy, or judgmental; or in my body, by twisting my stomach in knots.
Ignored trauma and pain don’t just disappear, no matter how staunch your “Good vibes only” policy.
ICK FACTOR 3: YOU BLAME YOURSELF FOR YOUR PROBLEMS.
If like attracts like, and negativity brings bad things, then if you’re going through something hard, if calamity occurs — an accident, a cancer diagnosis, a job loss — you’re likely to blame yourself for not being positive enough. You didn’t put enough good into the Universe. Obviously, you failed.
And not just you:
ICK FACTOR 4: YOU IMPLICITLY (OR EXPLICITLY) BLAME OTHERS FOR THEIR SUFFERING.
Surely the unhoused person sitting on a milk crate by the Harris Teeter parking lot has put a lot of negativity into the world. How else would she have ended up there?
This is closely related to the general understanding of karma, or “what goes around comes around.” Cause and effect. Which rolls downhill into blaming the unhoused woman not just for being negative in this lifetime, but also maybe she was a Debbie Downer in a past life. So this is what she gets in this life.
And this leads us to:
ICK FACTOR 5: FEAR OF CONTAGION.
You gotta keep your vibration high, brah! Good vibes only!
Better stop reading the news because it’s usually negative.
Better distance yourself from your friend who has cancer. That’s a real low-vibe situation, dawg.
Same with the friend whose husband just died. Grief is a real buzzkill. Ever been around someone who is recently bereaved? All they do is cry and complain.
True story: I was once listening to a podcast with a self-proclaimed spiritual guru who advised keeping your vibrations high, especially if you wanted to “attain” spiritual enlightenment. Negativity and disease will lower your vibes. Don’t do it, girlfriend!
I was genuinely perplexed. Genuinely.
I do feel pretty mystical when I’m joyful. Maybe she was on to something?
I asked Husband his thoughts.
Me: Do you think you have to keep your vibrations high to be an enlightened being?
Husband: What on earth are you talking about?
I explained the premise.
Husband: (raises an eyebrow) That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
He was right, of course.
Do you think Mother Teresa or Jesus, or the incredible helpers you know in your life, worried/ worry about keeping their vibes high?
“Better not treat those lepers or minister to the poor. Them guys have notoriously low vibes.”
Also: definitely do not volunteer at a homeless shelter, hospital, prison, hospice. Those places are just teeming with negativity. The walls are permeated with low vibrations.
Which takes us to:
ICK FACTOR 6: DIMINISHED CAPACITY FOR COMPASSION AND ACTION.
If people deserve what they get, we’re off the hook. We don’t need to accompany them in their pain. Just the opposite: we need to stay away.
The very dichotomy of positive-versus-negative vibes, good-energy-versus-bad, or faith-versus-lack-thereof, lends itself to kind of thinking that lacks nuance. This either/or thinking is fertile ground for judging others.
“Tsk. Tsk. Not a good person. Not positive enough.”
You can imagine my delight when I saw that Teresa of Avila, a fave mystic in Spain from 1515-1582, dealt with these very issues — especially points 5 and 6: spiritual seekers afraid of contagion, espousing “good vibes only,” showing diminished compassion for others.
Boy howdy, did she also have some opinions.
When I see people … so completely wrapt up in their prayers that they seem afraid to stir… lest they should lose the slightest degree of the tenderness and devotion which they have been feeling, I realize how little they understand of the road to the attainment of union [with God]. They think the whole thing consists in this [feeling of rapture]. But no, sisters, no; what the Lord desires is works. If you see a sick woman to whom you can give some help, never be affected by the fear that your devotion will suffer, but take pity on her: if she is in pain, you should feel pain too; if necessary, fast so that she may have your food…. That is true union with His will.
—Teresa of Avila, “Interior Castle.” E. Allison Peers translation, pp. 79-80.
You tell them, Teresa.
ICK FACTOR 7: THERE IS NO SPACE FOR UNDERSTANDING —AND WORKING TO TRANSFORM— SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION.
No space for critical reflection. None.
Why would positive, high vibration thinkers get the cops called on them for birdwatching in Central Park? They wouldn’t. It’s negative thinking that attracts negative experiences.
The surging numbers of folks who are unhoused?
Black folks who have been shot by police?
… well, do I really have to explain?
It has nothing whatsoever to do with institutional racism, patriarchy, lack of universal health care, white supremacy, capitalist greed, gutting unions and affordable housing initiatives. Nothing at all. (This is sarcasm.)
ICK FACTOR 8: A BRITTLENESS OF FAITH.
I’ve lost track of the number of Power of Positive Thinking-ers and The Secret and Law of Attraction folks who fall to pieces — their whole world and faith shattered — when something bad happens to them or someone they love.
Sigh.
Another true story: I had a dear friend and mentor when I was in my early twenties.
He was a tender soul, an ex-hippie, he’d been a big believer in the Power of Positive Thinking. We were having lunch one day when he recounted the hardest years of his life. He said he almost didn’t survive the loss of this wife. She had cancer. He spent the whole time she was in treatment thinking positive thoughts with her, visualizing healing light, doing all the things he’d learned to do from books and gurus.
Despite their best efforts, his most positive thoughts, she died.
He didn’t just lose his wife. His entire belief system, the foundation of his understanding of the world, shattered. For awhile, he became cynical and cruel.
It took him many years to come back from it. (Buddhism helped him a lot.)
To be durable, to last, a faith, a spirituality, a belief structure — it must provide room for suffering.
I’m not a Buddhist scholar, but I do know that the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths, the first of which is suffering. Birth, aging, illness, death — basically a whole lot of our lifespan is guaranteed suffering. To try to escape this by ignoring it, to believe you can Positive-Thinking or Law-of-Attraction it away from you is a recipe for disaster. No one escapes this life unscathed. Everyone gets hurt.
You can do your best to hold on loosely like a Buddhist, or to trust deeply in The Great Cosmic Echidna, but if you think you’ve made yourself exempt from pain, you’re in for a rude awakening.
Better to cultivate a faith or belief system that can hold, honor, have compassion for, the suffering we all endure to one degree or another.
And so.
So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a goals collage to make. I’m gonna Podge it out, baby.
It’s not a vision board. It’s not about boomeranging positivity all over the place. It’s more like a modest couple of things I’d like to work towards in the next couple of years.
Come on over if you want to make a goals collage, too. I have plenty of scissors and Mod Podge.
There’s always room at my table.
XOXO
P.S. In the center of my goal collage? “Increase number of paid Substack subscribers.” You can make that happen! Start a paid subscription today. Thank you!
P.P.S. As always, big, squeezy thank-you hugs to you darling paid subscribers. You elevate my vibes… in a non-icky way.
Good stuff Jen! Thanks~