5/08/12 Manifesting a Maelstrom

My life has been in turmoil - not just the passing of my mother and the associated emotions and matters to handle, but also a firestorm of problems in my household.  For the last few days, I’ve been living on a never-stopping, never-slowing-down roller coaster of emotions.  Several times, I thought my life, as it is now, would change forever and in a way that seemed like a huge personal loss.  Perhaps all the craziness was energies of the extra large full moon on Saturday, perhaps it was the result of some long-marinating passive-aggressive behavior in my home.  A shake-up was long overdue.  The smoke has settled and, with the exception of a few emotional scars, we are all still alive and all still together. 

After telling a friend about some of the drama, she said, “You manifested a maelstrom!”  Probably an overstatement, but not too far off base.  When I put forth my Manifesting Mount Dora request to the Universe, I was asking for change.  When I began my search for positivity in all areas of my life, I was asking for change.  We cannot always see all the bits and pieces that have to be altered to bring about the needed changes that will allow a requested desire to manifest.  Just changing ourselves may not be enough.  If areas of your life are marbled with negativity caused by others, they will probably experience a shake-up, too.  To allow your manifestation, the Universe will help open a positive pathway and maybe those with negative attitudes who were traveling with you will be pushed in a different direction.  Of course, this also allows them to make positive changes for themselves, but if they choose not to, you may part ways.  So, in essence, you may be unintentionally “manifesting a maelstrom”.  You/me did not plan it or consciously ask for it and will not enjoy it, but the maelstrom will come nonetheless.  Sounds rough and, believe me, it has been.  Sounds a little unfair, but the Universe is just doing what was requested. 

I am still not sure how to deal with the fallout of the maelstrom and am not even sure the upheaval has ended.  All I can do is work to stay grounded, rested and positive - all very difficult right now - and hope that those I love will do the same and continue on the same path as me. 

I received the following email from The Secret website and shared it with someone:

A Secret Scrolls message from Rhonda Byrne
Creator of The Secret

From The Secret Daily Teachings

To allow the Universe to move you in your life to happier and better things, you are going to need to look around you and appreciate the good things here and now. Seek the beautiful things and count the blessings of where you are. Dissatisfaction will not bring the happier and the better into your life. Dissatisfaction roots you to the spot where you currently are, but appreciation for what you have attracts the happier and better to you.
Remember that you are a magnet! Appreciation attracts appreciation!

May the joy be with you,
Rhonda Byrne
The Secret... bringing joy to billions

My sharing seems to have made a difference and making a difference is really what we should be manifesting.  Making the difference in the lives of those we love.  Making a difference in the world.  Those are the true manifestations of life.  Share a positive email, smile at a stranger, hug someone, cry with someone, let someone cry with you.  Make a difference.  Mount Dora may be my goal, but making a difference, I hope, will be my legacy. 

4/14/12 Manifesting Manhattan and My Man

Like many Southerners, I once viewed mega-cities, such as New York, with distrust and even a little fear.  Although I was born in Baltimore, lived in Atlanta and had family in Chicago, I was raised in the country and felt more comfortable in rural areas or very small cities.  To me New York City seemed unfriendly and unsafe.  My husband disliked crowds, so we avoided cities of any size.

In 1998, my marriage was crumbling.  My husband and I were like roommates who did not like each other very much.  I was depressed, I was cynical, I was lonely.  And, that was the year the movie “You’ve Got Mail” was released. 

Starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, “You’ve Got Mail” was a romantic comedy set in Manhattan.  For me, “romantic” and “Manhattan” meant the movie had two strikes against it.  I attended the movie with my then sister-in-law and her daughter.  Through the show, my face was frozen in disgust.  Who believed this drivel?

Unbelievably, I sat through the movie again with some girlfriends who wanted to see it.  Second time around, I was more annoyed than disgusted, but I was also a little interested, in some strange inexplicable way.  Afterwards, to my surprise, I thought about the movie often.  When the video was released, I bought it and chastised myself for being so silly. 

I watched the video over and over and over again.  I woke up in the middle of the night and went to the living room and watched it.  I could not seem to stop watching it.  Was I going crazy?  Why was I doing this?  Thus began my first manifesting experience, although I was unaware of what I was doing or why I was doing it.  Without knowledge of The Law Attraction, I could not understand my fascination with the movie or comprehend that the movie could actually help me create a new life. 

My bizarre preoccupation with “You’ve Got Mail” lasted for about a year, but even after my obsession subsided, I continued to watch it two or three times a year.  From that movie, grew a very strong desire to visit Manhattan.  I wanted to walk the streets of the Upper West Side.  I wanted to visit Riverside Park.  I wanted to experience the city that once frightened me.  I remained cynical about romance, but I wanted to be wrong; I wanted to believe in love again. 

Little did I know that I was manifesting in the purest way possible.  Long before I knew about the Law of Attraction and before “The Secret” was created, before my daughter entered my life, before I left my husband, I was manifesting Manhattan and my new man-to-be. 

Six years after the release of “You’ve Got Mail”, I met my man.  He differed from Tom Hanks in many ways, but he was romantic and he lived many years in New Jersey, right across the river from Manhattan, a city he visited as often as he could.  He knew the streets of Manhattan well and he also loved the movie “You’ve Got Mail”.  From the first time we watched the movie together, it became “our movie”.  He told me where the movie scenes were located in Manhattan and shared many stories of his times in the city.  My desire to see Manhattan, born from the movie, became a longing, a very strong wanting that was nurtured by his stories.  

Another five years would pass before we were able to go to Manhattan, but I finally walked the streets I’d seen in “You’ve Got Mail” and visited all the city places my man so often told me about.  Since then, we have returned two more times and try to visit there every year now.  I love Manhattan and being there with my man is romantic, fun and exciting. 

I believe, without a doubt, that I manifested my man and Manhattan through my preoccupation with “You’ve Got Mail”.  I cannot explain why my opinion of the movie changed or why I became obsessed with it, but obviously that film was filling some need in my life.  By watching it many times, I attracted a man to love, a man who also loved Manhattan and would later delight in introducing me to his favorite city. 

Right now, we are all manifesting, whether we realize it or not.  We may be manifesting the same sort of experiences that currently fill our lives - perhaps they are good, perhaps not.  We may need a change and, without realizing it, we start creating that change by focusing on something different.  In my case, the “something different” was a movie. 

If we can manifest without knowledge, without conscious effort, imagine what we can do when we put the Law of Attraction to work purposefully!

4/8/12 Mount Dora Morning

Our stay in Mount Dora is coming to an end.  Just a couple of morning hours left before we load the car and head north.  The morning is cool, but the heavy breeze that was constant for two days has abated.  As soon as the sun is higher in the sky, the temperature is sure to reach the high 80's.  I awoke to the chiming of Easter morning church bells, but now, other than an occasional passing car on this quiet street and the twittering of birds, the only sound is the soft taping of my computer keys.

The time here has been good.  The petty irritations that followed us were blown away in the stiff lake winds.  My man and I have fallen into the softness that surrounds this town.  Many long, long walks have left us comfortably tired.  We spent precious time with our friends who own or work at the Cuban restaurant where we dined twice.  We choose to eat there at off-hours when the owner and the staff are not busy, allowing us to have leisurely conversations with them.  On Friday morning, before her shop opened for business, we visited with the owner of my favorite women’s boutique and again yesterday when I shopped there.  She and I recently became friends on Facebook and I look forward to strengthening our friendship when we move here.  

An important part of manifesting is to act and talk as if your desires are already plans in progress.  The details are inconsequential.  We need not be bothered with all the hows and whens; we just need to live as though our dreams are happening right now because they are.  Right now, everything we do and say is part of the manifestation process.  With our shop owner friend and the owner and staff at the Cuban restaurant, we shared our plans to move here and my man even invited them to our future Mount Dora home for an Argentine asado (cookout).  I know all the pieces and parts will fall together in time. 

Now seems a good time to review how my commitment to positivity is progressing.  Since March 20th, the first day of my Manifesting Mount Dora project, I only missed one day of writing in my Gratitude Journal.  New posts to my blog appear every two to three days just as I planned.  I am listening to more music which soothes the rough edges of my hours.  I also bought and listen frequently to a CD call “Music to Inspire Positive Thinking Scientifically Designed by Dr. Lee R. Bartel”.  I bought the CD at an independent bookstore.  It was in one of those electronic displays where a sample of each CD for sale can be heard with the press of a button.  I did not know about Dr. Bartel and I had no opinion as to whether or not music can be scientifically designed for positive thinking, but I liked the gentle tunes and figured listening to the melodic sounds certainly was relaxing and so could possibly have the ability to inspire positive thinking.  Since then, I Googled Dr. Bartel and found that he is a Professor of Music and Assistant Dean at the University of Toronto and is the Acting Director of the Music and Health Research Collaboratory.  He teaches graduate classes in Music and the Brain and the Social Psychology of Music and certainly seems qualified to design music for positive thinking.  A quick visit to Amazon.com revealed that he also has CD’s to promote rejuvenation, stress relief and relaxation. 

I stay focused on being positive and search for ways to promote happiness and a sense of well-being in my life.  Tonight, we will attend a Crystal Bowls Concert and Mediation in our current hometown.  If you have never experienced the sounds of crystal bowls, I highly recommend searching for a musician who uses them in your area or downloading/buying some crystal bowl music from a website.  The sounds will touch your soul and give you a deep feeling of peace.  So, the concert tonight is one more step on my journey to “be peace” which is also part of my journey to Manifesting Mount Dora.  It is all related.   

I continue reading positive and inspiring books.  While at the same independent bookstore where I bought Bartel’s CD, I also picked up a used book called “The Architecture of All Abundance - Seven Foundations to Prosperity” by Lenedra J. Carroll, which I started as soon as I finished re-reading The Secret.  Carroll’s book is wonderfully entertaining, informational and inspirational.  I want to share a biblical quote from her book that seems very appropriate for this Easter morning. 

    Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
    Wherefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field - which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven - shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith.
    Therefore take no thought, saying, "What shall we eat?" or,"What shall we drink?" or, "Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" for the God of your Being knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
    Seek them not, nor be of doubtful mind but rather seek ye first the kingdom of your God, and in his righteousness all of these things shall be added unto you, for it is God's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.     Matthew 6:28-33, Luke 12:27-31

Being more of a spiritual nature and not a religious one, I use that quote in a non-preachy sense.  In my church-going days, those words were read aloud many, many times, but not until I read them in Carroll’s book did I notice “the God of your Being and “the kingdom of your God”.  To me that just confirms my belief that we all have our own spiritual path and you may walk with the Judeo-Christian god or with the many Hindu gods or with Buddha or you may connect spiritually with an all encompassing Universe, but we still are lilies of the field and we should live in faith that we will be cared for as they are. 

I will end with another quote from “The Architecture of All Abundance”:

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.  The way that it actually works is the reverse.  You must first be who you really are, then do what you love to do, in order to have what you want.”     —Margaret Young

I find a correlation between “. . .seek ye first the kingdom of your God, and in his righteousness all these things will be added unto you” and “You must be who you really are, then do what you love to do, in order to have what you want.” 

Perhaps, just perhaps, being who we are meant to be and doing what we love to do is the way we are to seek the kingdom of God.  What do you think?  

4/3/12 Roots

Since last week was challenging, to say the least, and there were times I felt a little overwhelmed with this whole “being happy to manifest” project, I decided to go back to my “roots”.  By that, I mean to go back to when I first started learning about the Law of Attraction and manifesting.  I dug out The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and read it again.  Truthfully though, my earliest roots of manifestation education, besides the first conversation with my neighbor Kathy about Edwene Gaines, was when my man chose the book “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Refield for me to read.  Let’s take a trip back in time. 

With no knowledge of the Law of Attraction, I managed to manifest a move and a new place to live without knowing what I was doing.  To me, that just proves the power of the Law of Attraction.  I was so happy with my new daughter that I climbed out of my martial funk and began living again.  My vibrations went from ultra-negative to uber-positive and, without realizing it, I was telling the Universe that I wanted a new life and the Universe responded to my request.  But, as often is the case, my new life came with new challenges and worries and I dragged along some of the old ones as left-over baggage.  I was happier, but had even more worries. 

A year or so after a new man entered my life (I manifested him, too!), we were in St. Augustine for a little R&R and continued a new-found tradition of choosing books for one another.  We were in the bookstore Second Read and he chose “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield.  He’d never heard of the book, as neither had I, but was drawn to it and thought I would enjoy reading it.  I read that book into the dawning hours of the morning.  I researched similar books online thinking I would find none or only a few and was amazed when I found lists and lists of books that “people who read The Celestine Prophecy” also read.  I began reading them, all the while thinking I was an odd-ball because, other than my neighbor Kathy, I did not believe there was anyone in my city who knew about manifesting and The Law of Attraction.   

I had a friend who shared the same profession and hometown as Kathy, so I introduced them and sat in amazement as they started talking about all this manifestation stuff that I thought was a true secret and which I had no idea my other friend new about.  Then, at a party, another long time friend struck up a conversation with the other two and I found out that she also knew what they knew.  I was shocked.  How could it be that my friends had these beliefs, this knowledge, and had never talked to me about it?  As they explained, they were careful who they talked to about the Law of Attraction because mainstream people, a/k/a their work cohorts, would think they were nuts.   

Shortly after, the video of The Secret was released.  My neighbor invited my man and me and my other two friends as well as a room full of other people to watch the movie.  I could not believe all those people already knew about manifesting and were wanting to learn more.  From there, I progressed to book after book, video after video, class after class.  People I did not know would enter my life to discuss the Law of Attraction.  Synchronicity was in action. 

Yet, still I was struggling with many problems.  I worked to release my worries, to believe that answers would arrive.  And, they did.  One after another, solutions appeared.  And, I learned that just because an answer is provided, it does not mean that everything falls into place easily, especially when you fall back into old routines of “not allowing”.  There was work, lots of work.  I was overwhelmed usually, confused often.  But, I made progress, I learned so much and little by little the problems resolved and my life became less stressful.  I fell into complacency and although I was still reading and studying, I was not doing as much.  And that is why I felt the need to return to the roots of my adventure.

Actually, I think The Secret is one of the less profound books/movies about the Law of Attraction.  It is flashy and presented in sound bites that play well with modern audiences, and provides just a superficial explanation of manifesting.  But, it does hit the highlights and I enjoyed reading it again.  It was nice to revisit the excitement I felt when I first read it.

So, how am I doing?  Today I was tired and a little sad and often irritated.  I listened to music and repeated affirmations to bring up my vibrations.  Should have taken a walk, but I didn’t.  Did I become happy?  Not really, but I became less sad and less tired.  Sometimes happy is just not attainable today - tomorrow, yes, but not today.  Sometimes the stars and our planets are not in alignment, sometimes our body chemistry is out of whack, and sometimes we just feel tired of all the junk going on around us.  We shut down or get wound up or just can’t stir up enough interest or energy to go beyond the day’s necessary tasks.  Downtime is required.  Why?  Because being happy takes effort and commitment and time, especially when you are not accustomed to being happy, or are at least used to just being neutral.  At some point, happy may become my default, no matter what gunk is swirling around me.   But, right now, it still takes effort. 

My happiest time today? Writing this blog.  I feel better than I have all day.  I feel stronger.  
At this moment, I wish I could start my day over and react differently than I did.  But, by thinking that, I am dwelling on the past.  It is better to just appreciate what I am feeling right now - because I am happy right now.  While writing I removed myself from the negativity and chaos and I was able to be involved in something I love.  That is why creativity is one of the best forms of manifestation there is.  When in a creative mode, we are centered and focused, naturally tuning out all the superficial noise and chattering and unconsciously  shaking off all the negative vibrations and toxic energies.  If you want to put the Law of Attraction into action, find something creative to do on a regular basis.  Give yourself that gift of happiness.