I was recently asked:
“With the law of attraction, like attracts like. So why is it that with a magnet, the negative and positive poles attract? That is not like attracting like. Am I missing something here?”
Yes, you are confusing two completely different meanings of the words positive and negative. Many people who explore spirituality and personal growth mix these up. Let me show you the difference in a way you can feel and understand.
Two Different Meanings of Positive and Negative
Think of positive and negative like the word ‘bat.’ A bat can be a wooden stick for hitting baseballs, or it can be a flying mammal. Same word, completely different meanings. Positive and negative work the same way.
First Meaning: Positive and Negative As Partners (Like Electrical Poles)
When we talk about magnets, batteries, or energy, positive and negative are partners. They work together like two dancers. Neither one is good or bad. They are like yin and yang, or like your left hand and right hand. Both are needed to create something whole and complete.
Think about these everyday examples:
- Breathing in and breathing out (one is not better than the other)
- Your heart beating: contraction and expansion working together
- Day and night creating the full cycle of 24 hours
- Sweet and salty flavors in your favorite meal, both making it delicious
MINI PRACTICE: Feel the Partnership
Right now, rub your hands together quickly for 10 seconds, then hold them an inch apart. Feel the warmth between them. That warmth came from opposite forces working together (friction and movement). Now press your palms gently together. Feel how your left hand and right hand create something neither could do alone. This is how positive and negative energies work as partners.
When positive and negative work as partners, they create wholeness. Many spiritual traditions call this wholeness by different names: Unity, Oneness, Love, or the Divine. When you think about the Creator or the Source of all life, you might sense that it contains both of these energies working together perfectly.
Second Meaning: Positive and Negative As Judgments (Good Versus Bad)
This is entirely different. When someone says ‘be more positive,’ they mean ‘be more good’ or ‘look at the bright side.’ When they say ‘don’t be so negative,’ they mean ‘stop being bad’ or ‘stop complaining.’ This is about your opinion or judgment, not about energy.
Here’s the key: nothing in the universe comes with a label saying ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ You decide what to call good or bad based on whether you like it or not. Rain is ‘good’ if your garden needs water. Rain is ‘bad’ if you planned a picnic. Same rain, different judgments.
QUICK AWARENESS CHECK: Notice Your Judgments
Think of something that happened to you this week. Notice how your mind labeled it ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Now ask yourself: Could someone else see this same event differently? Could you see it differently if you looked at it from another angle? This helps you realize that good and bad are your interpretations, not fixed facts.
Why People Mix These Up (And How to Stop)
The confusion happens when people think that yin and yang are the same as good and bad. They are not. Yin and yang are energies that work together. Good and bad are your opinions about whether you like something.
Let’s use temperature as an example:
- When it is too hot, you might say ‘this is bad’
- When it is too cold, you might say ‘this is bad’
- When it is just right, you say ‘this is good’
But hot and cold are not opposites like good and bad. They are just different spots on the thermometer. Your comfort zone is somewhere in the middle. The same goes for any quality: loud and quiet, fast and slow, bright and dim. These are scales, not battles between good and bad.
PRACTICE: Find Your Inner Thermometer
Close your eyes and place your hand on your heart. Take three slow breaths. Now ask yourself: ‘What temperature does my heart want to be right now?’ You might sense warmth, coolness, or just-right. Notice that your inner wisdom knows the perfect balance without judging hot as bad or cold as bad. Your soul naturally seeks harmony, not extremes. This is your built-in guidance system.
Like Attracts Like and Opposites Attract: Both Are True
Now let’s go back to the magnet question. Magnets show us that opposites attract (north pole attracts south pole). But ‘like attracts like’ is also true. How can both be true? Let me show you with a relationship example.
Imagine a couple:
- One partner has more yang energy (more active, assertive, physical)
- One partner has more yin energy (more gentle, emotional, receptive)
These opposite energies attract each other.
But they also share similar interests (like attracts like):
- They both love hiking
- They both enjoy old movies
- They share the same values
- They laugh at the same jokes
So both things are happening: their similar interests bring them together (like attracts like), and their different energies complete each other (opposites attract). And notice: neither yin nor yang is good or bad. They are just different flavors of energy that work together.
DEEPER PRACTICE: Discover Your Inner Yin and Yang
Sit quietly and place one hand on your belly, one on your heart. Breathe naturally. Notice: Is there a part of you that wants to take action right now? That’s your yang energy. Is there a part that wants to rest and receive? That’s your yin energy. Both live inside you. Neither is better. Ask your inner wisdom: ‘Which energy does this moment need?’ Trust the answer that comes from your deepest knowing.
The Mystery: Should You Always Be Positive or Always Be Authentic?
You have probably heard two pieces of advice that seem to disagree:
- “Always be positive!”
- “Always be authentic!”
These sound like opposites, but they are not. They each hold part of a bigger truth. Being positive means looking for solutions and possibilities. Being authentic means being honest about what is real, including challenges. You need both.
Here’s how to bring them together: For any situation, look at both the good possibilities and the challenging possibilities. For every good possibility, ask yourself ‘What can I do to make this happen?’ For every challenge, ask ‘How can I prevent this or reduce its impact?’ This is actually true positive thinking, because you are turning every problem into a potential solution.
Being realistic does not mean only seeing problems. Being realistic means seeing the whole picture, both opportunities and obstacles, and then choosing where to put your energy.
HEART-CENTERED PRACTICE: The Whole Truth
Think of a current situation in your life. Place your hand on your heart and breathe. Ask your heart: ‘What is the opportunity here?’ Listen. Then ask: ‘What is the challenge here?’ Listen again. Your heart knows both the light and the shadow. Now ask: ‘What is my next wise step?’ Trust the guidance that rises from within. This is authentic positivity—seeing clearly and acting from love.
The Law of Attraction: How It Really Works
The law of attraction is based on the law of resonance. Think of a tuning fork. If you strike a tuning fork that vibrates at middle C, and there’s another middle C tuning fork nearby, the second one will start vibrating too—even though you didn’t touch it. This is resonance. Like attracts like.
This is how the law of attraction works: whatever you vibrate with (your thoughts, feelings, beliefs) will resonate with matching vibrations in the world. If you align with peace, you draw peaceful experiences. If you align with fear, you draw fearful experiences.
But here’s what worries many people: ‘If I think about a problem, will I attract more problems?’ No. Looking at possible problems and finding solutions is not the same as dwelling in fear. When you examine challenges with a creative mind, you are still aligned with solutions, not problems.
The Hidden Patterns Inside You
The real issue with the law of attraction happens when you have hidden patterns inside that you have not looked at. These are called unconscious patterns or shadow beliefs. For example, if deep down you believe ‘I don’t deserve success,’ that hidden belief might attract failure—even while you are thinking positive thoughts on the surface.
This is why it is healthy and important to look at your inner shadows. You are not attracting problems by looking at them. You are discovering what’s already there so you can transform it. Avoiding your fears makes them stronger. Facing them with awareness makes them dissolve.
SOUL-LEVEL PRACTICE: Meet Your Inner Patterns
Sit in a quiet space. Place both hands on your heart. Take five slow breaths. Now ask your inner self: ‘What belief am I carrying that no longer serves me?’ Wait in silence. You might hear words, see an image, or just feel a sensation. Whatever comes is perfect. Now ask: ‘What truth wants to replace this old belief?’ Listen with your whole being. Your soul knows the answer. You are not attracting negativity by doing this—you are clearing space for your light to shine.
The Big Picture: Wholeness Is the Goal
After everything we have explored, I know many people will still use the word ‘positive’ to mean ‘good.’ And that’s okay. Words are tools. What matters is that you understand the difference.
When you align with good intentions and good energy, you resonate with a good reality. The law of resonance helps connect you with positive experiences. You are safe to be optimistic. You are safe to dream.
At the same time, you are wise and strong enough to look at challenges. The truly positive people are not the ones who pretend problems don’t exist. The truly positive people are the ones who see reality clearly and still choose to reach for the stars.
CLOSING PRACTICE: Embody Your Wholeness
Stand up and stretch your arms wide, as wide as they can go. Feel yourself taking up space. This is your yin and yang, your light and shadow, all held together. Now bring your hands to your heart center, palms together. This is your unity, your wholeness. Say to yourself: ‘I am both the question and the answer. I am both the journey and the destination. I am whole.’ Take a breath and feel your own divine essence, already complete, already perfect, already home.
So in that spirit, I wish you a truly positive day—not because you avoid the shadows, but because you embrace the whole truth. Your positive intentions resonate with the greater positive reality, and this places you in a world of delightful, positive experiences.
And remember: you are already connected to your inner divine essence. You don’t have to become positive. You just have to remember who you already are.
Joel Bruce Wallach
Great piece, thank you.
Well conceived and written.
Of course, there are no true opposites, there is just a scale and interpretations we use for descriptive and communicative purposes.
Good and evil for instance are not opposites; I think of it like this: evil is a deviation from good, a type of corruption, kind of like how cancer is “bad” because something went wrong and “good” cells went wrong somehow.
Similarly, there is no such thing as cold, it is simply a word created for descriptive purposes so cold is not the opposite of heat. Only heat actually exists, it is just on an unlimited scale, another reason there can never be any opposites in such a scenario.
The goal is always homeostasis in any given system, but interestingly the second law of thermodynamics (entropy) also shows that all things decay and move into chaos, which is also an interesting opponent (seemingly) to the theory of energy conservation, all of which leads to the much debated creation VS materialism arguments.
Very interesting indeed.
David,
Insightful comments!
Regarding the tendency of things to decay through entropy:
It’s true that everything decays. However, what’s missing in defining reality through entropy is that consciousness — and divine order as well — has the ability to look at what seem to be decaying energies, and then to re-conceive these “dying energies” as “raw material” from which to create fresh new organized realities.
This suggests that decay is a temporary perception, perceived only as such through the narrow lens of the present moment. When we take the long view a cycle like a sine wave becomes evident. The continued decaying and rebuilding cycles suggest that decay and rebuilding indicate a dynamic polarity – ever dying and ever being reborn.
Perhaps those who teach about everything decaying are fatalists who lack the deeper perception that would recognize the ever-continuing and ever-being-reborn nature of the universe. Death is life is death is life… and so on.
It is like a piston in an engine. It operates in opposite polarities. Compression and decompression and so on, to drive the engine forward. The same is true with humans…we have negative and positive to drive the conscious awareness forward within the boundaries of time…called evolution ! So we have an ever evolving experience of life and awareness or consciousness.
Peter,
Fascinating insights about polarities!
With the law of attraction, like attracts like. So why is it that with a magnet, the negative and positive poles attract? Because with the law of attraction you choose which pole to be.
Thanks, Yang energy and yin energy attract. (not a yang energy person attracts another yang energy person) so they are both assertive and physical or ( a yin energy person attracts another yin energy person) and they are both emotional and gentle and then they find that they have similar likes and dislikes, for instance the yang couple like politics, and the yin couple like romantic movies.
I don’t know………………………………………………………………………
How can someone assertively yang like someone emotionally yin? as the assertives get cruel mouthed when the emotionals cry a lot.
I don’t know……………………………………………… wouldn’t it take two gentle people to get together first.? Two yins? then they can find their yang strengths like …skating??
Georgie,
Good question. The extremely yang person is imbalanced, and lacking yin. Such a person will unconsciously be drawn to an extremely yin person. Their combined energies will bring some temporary balance, but there will be a problem over time.
These two extreme people will eventually find each other to be too strange and extreme, and the relationship won’t work.
The extremely yang person needs to become more balanced. And, the extremely yin person needs to become more balanced.
When the moderately yang person meets the moderately yin person, their energies will combine in a complimentary way that creates a healthy yin-yang combination that is mutually strengthening and centering for both people.
When two very yin people meet, they feel compatible at first, but they eventually tire of each other, because they weaken each other.
The same is true for two very yang people who discover each other. They excite each other at first, but then they tire of each other because their combined energies are too overly stimulating, and they exhaust each other.