I don’t think that what she is saying is that the act of believing you will get dirty silverware CREATES that event, but if you think that, you are more prone to look for such an occurrence, notice when it happens and rack it up in your tally of “this always happens to me”, thereby contributing to your perception of your own reality.

I’ve definitely noticed that positivity and visualizing the best possible outcome can really help, like you say. Recently, I got back together with an ex because although he’d said he was ending it for one reason, he was really ending it because he was scared. In my heart, I always knew and believed this, and though I remained cautious in my hoping, I kept imagining the best scenario where he realized this and came back around… to the point it even entered my dreams! Then it happened. So hey, cautious optimism can sure be the way forward.

The person that expects dirty silverware, then gets it, they are merely not seeing when they get clean silverware. As it doesn’t support their in-graven worldview, they ignore the clean silverware and only see the dirty.

Check out Maxwell Maltz’s book “Psycho-Cybernetics”. Athletes have used this technique for decades. You practice over and over what you want, and so when it happens you can do it. They did a study on this back in the 60s on free-throws and found that those who actually practiced and those who only practiced in their minds improved their scores over the control group who didn’t practice or dream it.

For all those deniers: Try it, it can/ does actually work.

Keith

So why then am I not getting what I want?