Eight years ago today I was celebrating the 28th year of my one and only marriage - a marriage that was plagued with great problems, a marriage that had sucked the life out of me. I am able to look back with almost no animosity or regrets, but getting to this place has been a slow and difficult trek.
On that anniversary night, I was on anti-depressants, I felt helpless and hopeless, but just a few months before, I had made a choice that would, in time, change my life forever. I had convinced my husband to allow a homeless, runaway girl, originally from Honduras, to live with us. The plan was just to help her a little, give her a safe place to land until she turned eighteen and could be on her own. That choice was uncharacteristic, particularly since we never had children of our own, it was unexpected, it was different, it was outside of my comfort zone. And, I have learned, it is often those steps into the unknown that change everything.
That teenage girl wrapped herself around our hearts and by the time of our anniversary, only four months after she filled our guest room with new smells and sounds, we thought of her as our daughter.
Isabel was too astute not to notice almost immediately that our marriage was melting like snow on a summer’s day. She finally had a home and a family and she did not want to lose us and she did not want us to lose each other. She worked harder to save our marriage than we did. Well, that is not entirely true. My husband and I did try, at various times, to save our relationship. A previous go at marriage counseling failed miserably and the current weekly meetings with a different therapist were not producing great results.
For several years our anniversaries had become less about happiness and celebration and more about irritation and disappointment. Isabel tried to make our 28th anniversary special. She cleaned the house, prepared a lovely dinner, made arrangements to be away during the evening and then left us alone for what she hoped would be a romantic and love-rekindling night. It wasn’t.
Within six months, I was announcing, at our marriage counseling session, that I was done, I was through, I was ready to move on. To get to that place of giving up, something I’d not been able to do for the previous ten years of marital decline, I had to throw out the “happy” pills that only masked my depression with a manic giddiness and hyper-activity and face the reality that my life was in shambles. Disdain was the strongest feeling we had for each other. Not hate, but disdain. Disappointment surrounded us every day. Our finances, which had never been good, were a sinkhole of too much, too little, horrible mistakes, neglect and fear. My situation had worsened over the years and I did not see it happening because of the happy pills and a belief in the old and horrible adage: Life sucks and then you die.
After my grand announcement at the therapist’s office, my husband stormed out and the counselor asked what were my plans. I had no plans. I had no idea how to get out or move on. But, I knew I must. Somehow. I had no answers, but my desperation was so immense, just knowing that I needed to go was enough.
I had no desire to stay where we lived in the country and I knew my husband would never move so, somehow, someway I needed to move to town. At the time, we, or should I say I, had six dogs and four cats. How could I go anywhere with all those pets? I could not buy a place and who would rent to me with a menagerie like that? I had almost no money. I had Isabel to think about. How would I start this new life?
I still look back in amazement that I was brave enough, or maybe desperate enough, to take a step into the unknown future, especially since I’d spent most of my life avoiding uncertainty and insecurity.
I hoped someone would come to my rescue, but no one did. My first ideas and plans were bad ones, but I pursued them aggressively until my forehead ached from hitting brick wall after stone wall after concrete wall. A month had passed and I was still somewhat inhabiting the same house as my husband, spending as much time as I could in town with friends, running Isabel back and forth from town to our country home and then heading back to town myself. This lifestyle, if you could call it that, could not go on indefinitely. I needed to move, I needed to get out of there.
Without realizing it, I had a put an Intention out to the Universe - a concept I did not know at the time. My Intention was to move to town. I tried to make it happen my way and it didn’t. Not until I ran out of my ideas and stopped beating my head on all those walls did the pieces began to fall into place.
So, why am I writing about all of this? Because in the time that has passed since then, I’ve studied and learned about the Law of Attraction. On and off I have seen it work in my life and in retrospect I know it was working in the fall of 2004 - I just did not know that at the time. My experience with manifesting has been spotty at best. My inability, or my unwillingness, to be focused and steadfast has kept me from using the Law of Attraction as often or as well as I would have liked.
I am now faced with a strong desire that I wish to manifest and I am using this blog to put the Law of Attraction to work for me. By writing about what I am learning, doing and experiencing, I intend (Ah, another of those intentions!) to stay focused, inspired and in a state of learning, growing and manifesting. And maybe someone who is reading this will learn something, too.
The number one question at this point is what do I want to manifest? First, I should explain that my husband passed away before we ever divorced. Isabel will be 26 in less than two weeks and is the mother of an almost five-year-old boy and a girl who turned three yesterday. A wonderful man is in my life and we live together. Isabel and her two children moved in with us 18 months ago, while her husband is in chiropractic college in another city. I have a bookkeeping business that mostly supports our household. Life is busy, stressful and sometimes gloriously wonderful. But, it could be better.
We live in the same rental house that the Universe provided in 2004 and although it has been a good home for us, I feel our time here is coming to an end. Our home is too small for everyone living here and the stress in mounting. We are very dissatisfied with the landlord’s upkeep of the house and the constant maintenance issues are also causing tension. Add personality and money issues to the mix and our family is dealing with a lot.
Not only do I feel we are drifting from this house, but also from our town. Many ties we had to people and places here have dissolved. This has been a slow process and over the last few years I have imagined living elsewhere - St. Augustine, New York City - and although I put out the Intentions to move to one or the other of them, I always had this little nagging feeling, this wiggly uncomfortable feeling, that something was not quite right, that those places were not quite right. Yes, I put out the Intention to the Universe, but I held back. The Law of Attraction says your Intention has to be 100% focused and visualized and the best I could do was maybe 75%. Not enough.
I think back to 2004 and realize that my desire to leave my husband and our home in the country was more than 100% - it consumed me. And I need that kind of dedication now.
Three years ago, my man and I started visiting a little town in central Florida named Mount Dora. We unexpectedly loved that sweet, historic town. But, it was not until this past December, our fourth visit to Mount Dora together and my fifth including a trip with my daughter and grandchildren, that I was hit with the realization that we could live very happily there. In fact, I felt as if we were meant to be there. And, that is how this Intention was born.
I have no idea how to make this happen, especially since I really want to live in Mount Dora and not have to work. I am 57 years old and I have worked almost non-stop since I was seventeen. Our country and the world are in the midst of what is being called The Great Recession. My chances for retirement before death were never good to begin with and are now almost non-existent. So, not only does the move to Mount Dora seem logically impossible, but my retirement seems even more so. I see no way to make this happen with working harder, trying harder or thinking harder so I must choose a different path - the same one that led me to the house in which I sit right now - the path of Manifestation Through The Law Of Attraction.
I was first introduced to the Law of Attraction and other New Age-y ideas and beliefs in 2005, a year after my exodus from my husband and our home. Raised Catholic, married to a Southern Baptist and surrounded by what are commonly called “rednecks”, I was, for many years, isolated from anything but conservative, Christian-based thinking. As a teenager and in college, I dabbled outside mainstream beliefs, but my adult life was sadly un-adventuresome with little creative thought. But, a random conversation with a neighbor about Rev. Edwene Gaines of the Unity Church and the purchase of a book called The Celestine Prophecy shook up my world.
I immersed myself in books and conversations about the Universe, as opposed to a male-based God, and about the Law of Attraction. I learned about Abraham-Hicks. I read Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay, Rhonda Byrne, Catherine Ponder, Napoleon Hill, Shakti Gawain, and many others. I reacquainted myself with Buddhism, I learned to chant, I made vision boards and kept a gratitude journal, I co-created a group called Prosperous Living that met weekly for two years, I attended prosperity classes and practiced Feng-Shui, I participated in Chord Cutting Ceremonies and learned about astrology and Tarot, I visited psychics and card readers, I met my power animals and spirit guides, I discovered synchronicity and watched it work in my life. And, then I just lived my life. I worked and paid the bills and worried about money and got older and more tired. I watched the economy go bust and read depressing articles about foreclosures and homelessness and high unemployment. I felt trapped in a very negative world until that cool December evening, standing in Gilbert Park, Mount Dora, when I realized that I can create a better future for myself and hopefully for my family, too and I knew that future would be in Mount Dora.
So, the Intention is out there and I am going to use every tool I know to manifest my new home in Mount Dora and I am going to share the experience right here.
On that anniversary night, I was on anti-depressants, I felt helpless and hopeless, but just a few months before, I had made a choice that would, in time, change my life forever. I had convinced my husband to allow a homeless, runaway girl, originally from Honduras, to live with us. The plan was just to help her a little, give her a safe place to land until she turned eighteen and could be on her own. That choice was uncharacteristic, particularly since we never had children of our own, it was unexpected, it was different, it was outside of my comfort zone. And, I have learned, it is often those steps into the unknown that change everything.
That teenage girl wrapped herself around our hearts and by the time of our anniversary, only four months after she filled our guest room with new smells and sounds, we thought of her as our daughter.
Isabel was too astute not to notice almost immediately that our marriage was melting like snow on a summer’s day. She finally had a home and a family and she did not want to lose us and she did not want us to lose each other. She worked harder to save our marriage than we did. Well, that is not entirely true. My husband and I did try, at various times, to save our relationship. A previous go at marriage counseling failed miserably and the current weekly meetings with a different therapist were not producing great results.
For several years our anniversaries had become less about happiness and celebration and more about irritation and disappointment. Isabel tried to make our 28th anniversary special. She cleaned the house, prepared a lovely dinner, made arrangements to be away during the evening and then left us alone for what she hoped would be a romantic and love-rekindling night. It wasn’t.
Within six months, I was announcing, at our marriage counseling session, that I was done, I was through, I was ready to move on. To get to that place of giving up, something I’d not been able to do for the previous ten years of marital decline, I had to throw out the “happy” pills that only masked my depression with a manic giddiness and hyper-activity and face the reality that my life was in shambles. Disdain was the strongest feeling we had for each other. Not hate, but disdain. Disappointment surrounded us every day. Our finances, which had never been good, were a sinkhole of too much, too little, horrible mistakes, neglect and fear. My situation had worsened over the years and I did not see it happening because of the happy pills and a belief in the old and horrible adage: Life sucks and then you die.
After my grand announcement at the therapist’s office, my husband stormed out and the counselor asked what were my plans. I had no plans. I had no idea how to get out or move on. But, I knew I must. Somehow. I had no answers, but my desperation was so immense, just knowing that I needed to go was enough.
I had no desire to stay where we lived in the country and I knew my husband would never move so, somehow, someway I needed to move to town. At the time, we, or should I say I, had six dogs and four cats. How could I go anywhere with all those pets? I could not buy a place and who would rent to me with a menagerie like that? I had almost no money. I had Isabel to think about. How would I start this new life?
I still look back in amazement that I was brave enough, or maybe desperate enough, to take a step into the unknown future, especially since I’d spent most of my life avoiding uncertainty and insecurity.
I hoped someone would come to my rescue, but no one did. My first ideas and plans were bad ones, but I pursued them aggressively until my forehead ached from hitting brick wall after stone wall after concrete wall. A month had passed and I was still somewhat inhabiting the same house as my husband, spending as much time as I could in town with friends, running Isabel back and forth from town to our country home and then heading back to town myself. This lifestyle, if you could call it that, could not go on indefinitely. I needed to move, I needed to get out of there.
Without realizing it, I had a put an Intention out to the Universe - a concept I did not know at the time. My Intention was to move to town. I tried to make it happen my way and it didn’t. Not until I ran out of my ideas and stopped beating my head on all those walls did the pieces began to fall into place.
So, why am I writing about all of this? Because in the time that has passed since then, I’ve studied and learned about the Law of Attraction. On and off I have seen it work in my life and in retrospect I know it was working in the fall of 2004 - I just did not know that at the time. My experience with manifesting has been spotty at best. My inability, or my unwillingness, to be focused and steadfast has kept me from using the Law of Attraction as often or as well as I would have liked.
I am now faced with a strong desire that I wish to manifest and I am using this blog to put the Law of Attraction to work for me. By writing about what I am learning, doing and experiencing, I intend (Ah, another of those intentions!) to stay focused, inspired and in a state of learning, growing and manifesting. And maybe someone who is reading this will learn something, too.
The number one question at this point is what do I want to manifest? First, I should explain that my husband passed away before we ever divorced. Isabel will be 26 in less than two weeks and is the mother of an almost five-year-old boy and a girl who turned three yesterday. A wonderful man is in my life and we live together. Isabel and her two children moved in with us 18 months ago, while her husband is in chiropractic college in another city. I have a bookkeeping business that mostly supports our household. Life is busy, stressful and sometimes gloriously wonderful. But, it could be better.
We live in the same rental house that the Universe provided in 2004 and although it has been a good home for us, I feel our time here is coming to an end. Our home is too small for everyone living here and the stress in mounting. We are very dissatisfied with the landlord’s upkeep of the house and the constant maintenance issues are also causing tension. Add personality and money issues to the mix and our family is dealing with a lot.
Not only do I feel we are drifting from this house, but also from our town. Many ties we had to people and places here have dissolved. This has been a slow process and over the last few years I have imagined living elsewhere - St. Augustine, New York City - and although I put out the Intentions to move to one or the other of them, I always had this little nagging feeling, this wiggly uncomfortable feeling, that something was not quite right, that those places were not quite right. Yes, I put out the Intention to the Universe, but I held back. The Law of Attraction says your Intention has to be 100% focused and visualized and the best I could do was maybe 75%. Not enough.
I think back to 2004 and realize that my desire to leave my husband and our home in the country was more than 100% - it consumed me. And I need that kind of dedication now.
Three years ago, my man and I started visiting a little town in central Florida named Mount Dora. We unexpectedly loved that sweet, historic town. But, it was not until this past December, our fourth visit to Mount Dora together and my fifth including a trip with my daughter and grandchildren, that I was hit with the realization that we could live very happily there. In fact, I felt as if we were meant to be there. And, that is how this Intention was born.
I have no idea how to make this happen, especially since I really want to live in Mount Dora and not have to work. I am 57 years old and I have worked almost non-stop since I was seventeen. Our country and the world are in the midst of what is being called The Great Recession. My chances for retirement before death were never good to begin with and are now almost non-existent. So, not only does the move to Mount Dora seem logically impossible, but my retirement seems even more so. I see no way to make this happen with working harder, trying harder or thinking harder so I must choose a different path - the same one that led me to the house in which I sit right now - the path of Manifestation Through The Law Of Attraction.
I was first introduced to the Law of Attraction and other New Age-y ideas and beliefs in 2005, a year after my exodus from my husband and our home. Raised Catholic, married to a Southern Baptist and surrounded by what are commonly called “rednecks”, I was, for many years, isolated from anything but conservative, Christian-based thinking. As a teenager and in college, I dabbled outside mainstream beliefs, but my adult life was sadly un-adventuresome with little creative thought. But, a random conversation with a neighbor about Rev. Edwene Gaines of the Unity Church and the purchase of a book called The Celestine Prophecy shook up my world.
I immersed myself in books and conversations about the Universe, as opposed to a male-based God, and about the Law of Attraction. I learned about Abraham-Hicks. I read Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay, Rhonda Byrne, Catherine Ponder, Napoleon Hill, Shakti Gawain, and many others. I reacquainted myself with Buddhism, I learned to chant, I made vision boards and kept a gratitude journal, I co-created a group called Prosperous Living that met weekly for two years, I attended prosperity classes and practiced Feng-Shui, I participated in Chord Cutting Ceremonies and learned about astrology and Tarot, I visited psychics and card readers, I met my power animals and spirit guides, I discovered synchronicity and watched it work in my life. And, then I just lived my life. I worked and paid the bills and worried about money and got older and more tired. I watched the economy go bust and read depressing articles about foreclosures and homelessness and high unemployment. I felt trapped in a very negative world until that cool December evening, standing in Gilbert Park, Mount Dora, when I realized that I can create a better future for myself and hopefully for my family, too and I knew that future would be in Mount Dora.
So, the Intention is out there and I am going to use every tool I know to manifest my new home in Mount Dora and I am going to share the experience right here.
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