This is a really important question, and I believe that we need an answer without spiritual clichés, because the idea of “you attract what you don’t want” is often misunderstood and can even become self-blaming.
No — it does not mean your energy is “magnetically pulling” what you don’t want.
What’s usually happening is conditioning, nervous-system patterning, and identity-level expectations, not some cosmic punishment or ironic law of attraction.
What’s actually going on (energetically and psychologically)
1. The nervous system repeats what feels familiar, not what feels good
If something keeps happening that you consciously don’t want, it often means:
👉 Your body and subconscious learned this pattern earlier in life
👉 It feels known, even if it feels painful
👉 The nervous system prioritises predictability over happiness
📍 So the “energy” isn’t attraction — it’s default wiring.
📍 The system says: “I know how to survive here.”
2. Resistance keeps the pattern active
When you strongly don’t want something, your attention often stays on it:
👉 monitoring it
👉 bracing against it
👉 trying to control or avoid it
Energetically, this creates engagement, not attraction.
👉 Think of it like this:
👉 Attention = activation
Activation keeps the neural/emotional loop alive
📍 This is not “you’re manifesting it.”
📍 It’s you’re staying in relationship with it.
3. Identity-level beliefs override desire
If deep down there is a belief like:
👉 “This is how life is”
👉 “This always happens to me”
👉 “I have to handle everything”
👉 “I’m the strong one / the fixer / the one who endures”
Then the system unconsciously organises reality to stay coherent with identity.
📍 Not because you want it.
📍 Because identity wants to stay consistent.
4. Trauma patterns are often misnamed as “energy attraction”
Many spiritual frameworks label this as:
👉 “You attract what you haven’t healed”
That’s partially true, but incomplete.
More accurate:
📍 Unresolved emotional memory creates perceptual filters.
📍 You notice, tolerate, or stay longer in situations aligned with that memory.
📍 Boundaries engage later than they could.
📍 Again: not attraction — tolerance.
It means one (or more) of these is true energetically:
1. Your system learned this pattern as survival
2. Your identity is organized around handling or enduring it
3. Your attention is locked in resistance rather than neutrality
4. Your boundaries activate after the pattern has already started
5. You’ve outgrown the pattern, but your body hasn’t caught up yet
None of these mean you’re doing something wrong, you’re “low vibration” or you secretly want it.
The shift happens when the body no longer expects the pattern, the identity no longer needs it and the nervous system feels safe without it.
That’s why ‘insight’ alone doesn’t stop repetition.
’Safety’ does.
Instead of asking: “Why am I attracting what I don’t want?”
Ask: “What part of me learned that this was normal or necessary?”
That question removes shame and opens choice.
With Love, always
Sanem
