four years ago i wrote a post about the law of attraction (nov 2021) from a spiritual standpoint, and then wrote ‘a subtle theory of love’ (apr 2023) about attraction in romantic context. and then i intended to continue the ‘subtle theory’ series but most of it got buried in my drafts.
this topic feels like a different territory, but i want to talk about it.
and i don’t know everything but i might know a thing or two.
law of attraction
`that which is like unto itself is drawn`
i first read these words in 2021 and i thought there’s something there, but didn’t pay much attention to it. it means we attract what we are, and repel what we are not.
trust me when i say this is not some fuzzy woo-woo. i never had a doubt it’s true, but always thought i will only fully learn it at the right time. for me the right time has been this year. i will tell you why.
there’s a certain degree of holism i cannot explain - it’s when everything in your life seems to be connected, and moving as a whole towards something bigger than you but you cannot fully put into words yet.
it’s when you’re afloat, when you deeply believe everything in your world happens for a reason and that your life is a semi-complete picture that will only be complete at the right time and in the right way.
we’re often so clingy to our desires, and we do it for all the wrong reasons. this pushes us further away from where we’re supposed to be. paradoxically we only get where we want by way of detaching from the outcome. and so my theme for this past year has been ‘surrender’ - i learned that only when you sit back, you can unlock more than what you want.
i also learned that in order to align with the stream of wellbeing, you have to learn how to read the signs - signs are not going to be screaming at you, they will just hope you’re at peace. maybe if you’re at peace you’ll see everything; but if your mind is loud you’ll miss all the gist.
i learned this a long time ago, but i only started applying it this year. as a result, i have experienced too much coincidences that were far too unhinged to even call real. if someone met me at the start of this year and told me that what had happened would happen i’d have thought they were sure tripping. in my work and my life, i’m starting to unlock what it means to have peace, even if as a rough concept.
and now, because i have a full clear sense of knowing when things are supposed to be working, all what i can say is: god will put you on the right way, send you signals you’re on the right way, and then constantly enforce those signals. if you have to move out of alignment to achieve a certain outcome, you should rather not achieve it but stay aligned. at some point, suddenly, and effortlessly, you are at your destination. zero cognitive load should be involved on your part as to ‘how i will get there’. it took me time to treat this less as a pep talk and more like a mindset shift, but it works.
when you believe everything is genuinely working for your good, you unlock some mysterious magnetism to your life that you can feel but can never communicate. people who believe the universe is conspiring for their own benefit ultimately get everything, because it has to fulfill.
how attraction works
now all this is to lay the ground for what i’m about to tell you about the type of attraction we care about the most: romantic attraction.
first, any understanding about romantic attraction wouldn’t be complete without understanding how the law of attraction works. this means there’s always a hidden component as to why we get attracted that is often hard to articulate, but could be felt. so while you could say that you like someone because of xyz, there’s almost always more to it than you can express.
when we like someone we like to think there’s an invisible chord out there in the universe that indicates this is it. we even start projecting every single trait we would rather see in our dream partner on them - in this process we fly so high we forget they’re only human; that our expectations of them are only our mistake, not theirs - that there probably are many other people out there with the same interests, laugh, and connection we think are so unique but aren’t.
second, it’s important to note that we attract what we are, not what we want. if you know for a fact that you attract on your very same wavelength, then you know you’re not missing anything. the ideal configuration should be: not a step forward, not a step backward, just what’s here.
the fastest way to attract what’s meant for you is to express yourself so honestly that everything misaligned falls away on its own. i also found this has consistently been the fastest way i wanted to talk to other people and other people wanted to talk to me as well.
third, the next layer is mental attraction. and this is where things get fuzzy. because it is either there or it isn’t. and it’s different from one person to another. i tend to fish for depth and excitement. but this doesn’t have to be the case for everyone.
because mental attraction is often hard to gauge quickly, one of the mental exercises i’d be doing early on, is work backwards from my dream life - can this girl grow into a woman that would fit this life? i think constructing that type of visual in mind is crucial. because this is how you know if both of you would fit into each others lives. not as soulmates but as normal people who are being their everyday normal selves. think places, activities, work, traveling, hanging with friends, etc
fourth, i do think happiness is an important groundwork for romantic attraction (true attraction, not fake one).
which means, more than anything, i deeply believe that if i’m happy alone, and she’s happy alone, we’re sure going to be happy together. if any of the first 2 conditions wasn’t met, it’s not going to work.
that’s also why i think how she generally views her life is one of the most important things to me. you’d be surprised how many people in their 20s who believe that their best days are over. fishing for these signs early on is extremely important. you wouldn’t like it if you like someone but now you have to do the tedious work of making them fall in love with life. i wouldn’t wish this for anyone.
i think for me one of the biggest factors of attraction has always been “in your head, what do you think about your life? do you believe you’re just starting? or do you believe you’re past everything you think you deserve?”
you’d be surprised how many of your married friends are secretly depressed. i have seen this happen multiple times and it sounds like my biggest nightmare. can you imagine if you chose the perfect partner, on paper, but you kept fighting for the rest of your marriage for something you always assumed is there but isn’t?
how repulsion works
repulsion also follows the law of attraction.
repulsion is also attraction. every time you get away from one truth you’re closer to another.
i want to explain why if you don’t understand this, if you don’t understand how repulsion is also attraction, especially in romantic context, you’re setting yourself up for failure:
if for example, you’re a girl, and you broke up with a guy, and it was the type of breakup that was extremely tough that it left you wondering why they did what they did in spite of your ‘good’ intentions - this is the law in motion. if you don’t see it, you’re missing the point.
sadly, this type of situation affects self-esteem, sometimes even leaving the person questioning their self-worth, then they’ll start miscalculating other people’s self-worth in the process. if this did happen to you, i’m sorry. but you have to understand that repulsion is protection. this is not a datapoint, this is the datapoint.
whether you’re a man or a woman, when things are not working in your favor for some silly stupid reason, it’s often a mask for something deeper down the line - i do think it’s even a gift from god that we don’t always have to deal with the bigger stuff.
in my youth i was broken multiple times. i went through the toughest heartbreak of my life at age 21, i remember silently yearning for help and not even my closest people could offer it. i wasn’t aware this is the type of work that has to be done alone and in silence. i kept thinking about her for an entire year, i halted my life and i woke up one day after losing lots of things, and i had to man up and sweep back everything that i lost. i attended her wedding and i took it like nothing because i wanted to prove to myself more than to anyone else that i now have what it takes to not break again. i know i won’t love with the same intensity again, and i made peace with it. it wasn’t for nothing - it took everything. and i had to rebuild my life over the years focusing on one thing at a time until it happened. at one point the dean at my university told me you’re not going to graduate in time and i did it. i spent my first few undergrad years living like a loser, by graduation year, even my old teaching assistants were reaching out to me asking for technical help. i had to prove myself from scratch in multiple contexts and i did it every single time.
it took years and years of being heads down, and if i’m proud of just one fact, it is that i now know that whatever it is, i can handle it, just because i once picked myself after thinking i was broken.
if only back then i knew that i’m not supposed to cling so much to things that were not supposed to work by god’s will, i would have been much calmer. but i didn’t know it and i had to learn it the hard way. god always gives you on the level of your goodwill - and i like to think that that worked for me. i had pure intentions, god knew it, always has. i’ve been receiving good things since then.
this framing makes you invincible. now i really can’t lose and i’m giving you the exact same handbook. if you’re trying to identify with the basic laws of nature at all times, you’re operating on a dimension most people cannot even understand.
today i know full well that i only attract on my same frequency. if there’s even the slightest friction, that’s still a very useful datapoint. key is to try come up with those asap.
most people when they feel repulsion, they run to overcompensate. overcompensation could come in many forms - “i’m focusing on my health”, “i’m focusing on my financials”, “i will run talk to other people” - bro you have to know this is still not it. until you have freed yourself spiritually, you’ll still be suffering, even after years.
instead, the right configuration should be: repulsion triggers harmony.
healing is not about money or fitness. healing is believing wholeheartedly that whatever didn’t work, it only didn’t because it wasn’t for you. and that you’re off to better things. until you believe that thought, you’ll keep hurting because healing is not a mask, you have to fully surrender to the feeling.
end notes
anyway, i believe everyone ends up with what they deserve.
when it doesn’t work out between men and women, it’s always because either of them deserves better, but not both - and no one can know which is which until enough time has passed. you always, always, end up with exactly who you deserve, and where you should be.
in the end:
take things at face value, and don’t think too much
be at harmony with your world and surroundings
read ‘the alchemist’ every now and then
move through life with no agenda
always be fun to be around
i’m also working on the next installment of this series, which will be called: “real recognize real” - an extension of the law of attraction, but in a more practical sense.
thanks for reading,
Zeyad Mahran