I once had a client named Melody who, like so many others, was looking for love. She called me in frustration, asking why she wasn’t getting the results she wanted with a particular young man she was interested in. She said, “I don’t understand it. I’ve been practicing the Law of Attraction, which says to focus only on what you want, not on what you don’t want.” She felt that was exactly what she’d been doing, focusing on him and picturing the two of them together.

Moving From Focus to Obsession

When I asked her how often she did this, she told me that she thought about him all the time—when she got ready in the morning, when she was driving to and from work, and when she went to bed. From morning till night, she zeroed in on him dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times per day. Unfortunately, that was precisely the problem. Melody hadn’t realized it, but she’d moved from focus into obsession, and she’d done what so many people do—ignite the energies of paradoxical intent.

It’s healthy to concentrate—even determinedly so—upon your goal, but you actually lose your focus when you become overattached. Your unhealthy investment reduces your positive creativity and poisons the harmonic energy of attraction, completely reversing the direction of your desire.

Obsessing about something you don’t have makes you unconsciously brood about what you lack, totally dismissing the present value in your life. Your urgency about getting what you want shouts at the Universe that you don’t care about—or appreciate—anything else. This act of dismissal creates a dark vacuum of energy, one that nobody wants to support or even be around, and the Universe has the same response. Instead of generating the results you long for, our paradoxical intent becomes a black hole of obsessive longing, destroying any positive outcomes that may come your way.

The Source of Desperation

When I pointed this out to Melody, she could see how the patterns of her relationships had always gone the same way—and how she’d accelerated her own disappointment! Her palpable longing was energetically picked up by every man she became interested in, sending them running. In order to change this, Melody knew she had to get to the bottom of things. It was necessary to look into her quantum psychology to find out where this desperation was coming from.

When we investigated her history and beliefs, we were able to discover the source. Her father had been distant and unavailable, a capable breadwinner, but totally uninterested in being a loving father. Melody sought his affection and approval throughout her childhood, and when she became an adult, she projected that need onto the men in her life. She hadn’t realized it, but a part of her even embraced the belief that until she had male approval, she wouldn’t be happy and could never really approve of herself.

Of course this only made her go after love more aggressively. Every man she met became a potential partner, instantly causing her to become clingy and obsessed. And whenever someone didn’t call, she want further into obsession and bitter urgency, digging herself deeper into her paradox. Not only was this attitude dishonoring to her, it was absolutely poison to her desire for romance.

Building A Hologram of Self-Love

In order for Melody to find love—and even more important, real happiness—she needed to build a new hologram of self-love and self-approval. So we created a multilayered approach, one that would deal with her present emotions and conclusions as well as her history. She was willing to work through it because like most people, when she learned that the Universal laws could only return her own energy and consciousness to her, she was finally motivated to understand and change.