Imagine a balance beam, you know the kind that the gymnasts use in the Olympics. A balance beam is 5 meters or about 16.4 feet long and 10 cm or 4 inches wide.
So imagine that this beam is flat to the floor and you are asked to walk across it. Do you have any doubts that you can do it? Easy, right? You may lose your balance a bit but it is likely that you dont have any fear about walking across the beam.

So now put that beam up to the regulation height of 125 cm or about 4.5 feet high. Now think about walking across it.

Do you have more trepidation this time?

Next imagine the same beam, the same piece of wood balanced between two large building that are say&
30 stories high. What do you think about walking across it now?

My guess is that the higher the beam goes into the air, the more frightened you become of that little walk. Yet, it is the same beam, it is still just a short walk of 16.4 feet balanced on a 4 inch plank. It is essentially the same walk.

The difference is your perception.

Now consider this. Circus performers walk tight ropes and do wild things at great heights all the time. If they share the same fears we do then somehow they overcome them and they do it anyway.

The gymnasts not only walk across the beam but they do back handsprings, aerials and turns, leaps and dance poses. All you had to imagine was walking across. The gymnasts have overcome any doubts and fears that they have while the typical, normal adult is too scared to even try.

And the difference is perception. The circus performers and the gymnasts have learned to overcome their fears and do it anyway.

Now, lets shift to something that you can probably relate to.

Think about taking a trip, a trip of a lifetime, to someplace that you have always dreamed of going. You call the airline and the tickets are $25.00. Wow, pocket change, whoohoo, going on a trip! Easy, fun, effortless! How lucky you are!

Now imagine the same trip…..you have always dreamed of going……its still the trip of a lifetime but now the tickets are $2500.00.&.or $25,000.00.&. or (are you ready for this?) $250,000.00.

How lucky do you feel now to be taking that trip of a lifetime?

Its still the same trip. But your feelings about the trip have changed.

At what point does your heart stop and you say I cant do that!.

Its all a matter of perception.

There are people in the world who would not flinch at the price of $250,000.00 or even more for the trip of a lifetime and there are people in the world who would flinch at $250.00 and probably even at $25.00.
(reminder: this is not a conversation about value and worth but rather a conversation about perceptions).

So which one are you?

If you cant even imagine having something that you would want, if you cant even imagine having an abundance of money, love, time, energy, health, whatever it may be that is your wildest dream&.

If you cant imagine your wildest dream then you cant achieve it.

But if you can imagine your dream, you can have it.

And imagining it is all a matter of perception.

I loved it and I wanted to share.

It is a breath of fresh air, especially after all of the political news that I have been paying way too much attention to!

Enjoy! As I did.

There are many resources out there that will teach you how visualize effectively. But I am going to give you the absolute “secret” to making your visualization as powerful as it can be. This is the most important thing. It is more important than clarifying what you want. It is more important than the time investment. It is more important than imagining your visualization in full color and details. It is the absolutely the most important thing you need to do if your visualization is going to be effective in assisting you in creating your best life.

Are you ready? Do you believe me that what I’m going to tell you here is the most important thing?
(Okay, enough with the drama, now I’m just being silly!)

But this really is the most important thing.

The most important thing you must do when you visualize is to FEEL GOOD! The purpose of your visualization is not to actually “create” what you want. The purpose of your visualization is to raise your Energy Levels to a point where you are in alignment with what you want. So in order to really do that you must “FEEL GOOD”, the entire time your mind is engaged in the visualization.

I am going to offer some simple examples that may really clarify this concept. Think about this.

You want a really clean house. You really, really love to have a really clean house. You know exactly what you want. So you decide that you will visualize a really clean house to see if you can manifest it. (No, I am not talking about manifesting with “No action”! That is a different part of the story! Stay with me here!)

So, you enter into a daydream/visualization about how you love your house when it is clean. How much you enjoy knowing exactly where everything is and how nice it is when there are not toys all over the living room and all of the clothes are put away and not hanging out in laundry baskets waiting for attention. A place for everything and everything is in its place, your house is immaculate!

So far, so good! Your visualization is doing its job well! Your energy levels are rising up to the alignment that you are looking for!

But as our monkey minds tend to do, all of a sudden it occurs to you that you are the one who will have to clean that house! Oops, there is a little energy adjustment for you, headed the wrong direction but hey, you’re still seeing that clean house aren’t you?

So carry on with the visualization. You’re still feeling it. But all of a sudden your monkey mind reminds you that you have a stack of laundry that is about 3 feet high. Ooooh, another energy dip! And then you remember that pile of mail that you’ll have to go through, “Why did I just pile it there? Couldn’t I just throw it away or file it immediately? Why do I make this harder than it is?”. And your monkey mind just keeps adding more and more that you have to do.

Now your energy levels that were rising high at the beginning of your little visualization exercise are faltering. No, worse… your energy levels have plummeted completely. Now the thought of the clean house fills you with dread.

You may be even worse off than before you started visualizing!

By not paying attention and making sure that you “only” feel good, you have effectively rendered your visualization a complete bust. Not a chance that it will assist you now.

And here are a couple of other quick examples—

Visualizing a lean, fit and muscular physique….feels good….until you let in that thought about how you hate dieting and how exercising is just so damn hard in the winter, and “How on earth did I ever let this happen to me in the first place?”

Or here is an example from a friend I used to know. Every time he thought about making money, he sabotaged himself by thinking that if he made a ton of money he would just have to pay a ton of taxes and he really didn’t want to do that! Now how logical is that kind of thinking? I would think it would be a joy and a pleasure to pay taxes on millions of dollars. In fact, I would love to do just that! I think I will!

But back to the subject at hand, the real secret to effective visualizations is Feeling Good and the real trick to Feeling Good during the visualizations is to stay focused upon and only think about the End Result!

The End Result is all you really want anyway!

Oh and by the way, as for that “action” step that I spoke of earlier. A fun example that you may or may not remember–a couple of years ago, it was reported on the national news that a woman (from Minnesota, maybe?) came home from work, looked at her home and ended up calling the police. Apparently her home had been broken into. They didn’t steal anything. They just gave it a good cleaning.

I wonder if she had been visualizing a clean house?

If you stay focused on the End Result, it may surprise you how it happens!

Related posts:
Visualization Realization
Rainmaker
On Your Way
Visualize and Create

Give up destructive habits of self-criticism and self-doubt and Learn to Love yourself, wholly, absolutely and completely!

Other people will lead you astray, intense analysis will lead you astray, your own mind will lead you astray, but your gut instinct, the connection that you have with your Highest Self and the Source of all that you are will never lead you astray! Connect to your Source, your Inner Being, your Soul. Learn to use and trust your own intuitions and you will know the direction to take your life.

Your life is not about other people, your life is about You! If other people have hurt you, damaged you, destroyed your confidence, not given you what you need, it’s still not about them, it’s about you. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, Love yourself enough to forgive the other people who have hurt you.

Remember that forgiveness does not mean allowing that person to hurt you again, you can’t trust a scorpion, but you can forgive them for what they have done in the past and then not allow them to do it again.

Your mind cannot hold two competing thoughts at once. When you are in a mode of gratitude and appreciation you feel good and wonderful and you know that you have a great life and you develop the Faith to know that everything will be okay. Your good and happy thoughts attract more good and happy thoughts and before you know it your troubles have fallen away.

The emotion of Appreciation is akin to the emotion of Love, it’s on the same vibration.
Learn to Appreciate and you will know and experience the Joy in Life.

You are blessed with an incredible mind that can imagine anything you wish, anything in the world. Learn to use your powerful mind and learn to visualize for the fun of it and the Joy of it. Discover the pure pleasure of effective visualization.

And there is the winter curriculum. It looks to be a full-class load. My focus will be on acing all of these classes in the next few months. Some will be more difficult than others but all are of vital importance for me as I create my best life.

The New Year is a time of new goals, new resolutions, new intentions. But when you master these classes you will allow your intentions, dreams and aspirations to come to you. You will have a head start!

So what were we talking about again?

Oh, I remember. I promised to write about how I manifested my soul mate. That would be that man who is going with me and my cohorts as we go trick-or-treating. On Halloween, he is known as “SuperDad” and I am “SuperMom”. It is so great we don’t even have to dress up!

I am so blessed. This is the life I wanted. I am grateful and happy now.

But there was a time when I didn’t know if I could have this life. I was a single mom for 7 years before I got remarried. We did date for over 2 years before we got married so I guess I was only alone for 5 years. It wasn’t always easy. I was lonely and I didn’t know if I would ever meet someone. And I really didn’t want to do any of the regular type stuff to try to meet someone. As I look back now I can see how I attracted what I wanted when I was ready. When I was ready to meet the right person, he came along and I didn’t even have to try and find him.

See the general consensus from the advice-givers (you know, everyone from your mother to your co-workers to the neighbor next door) was to get out there and try to meet guys. In my part of the country that usually meant either going out to the bars or going to church. Neither one of those activities appealed to me. Not that they can’t be fun and that they don’t have their merits but it’s just not for me. It always seemed incongruent to me to try to find the kind of man I was looking for at a bar. I mean after all, I wanted a family man, not a bar-fly. And the majority of the churches in my area would give me the other extreme. I knew I didn‘t want that either.

So, I didn’t date much. Most of the time, I would rather stay home with my son than go out so that is what I did. Based upon my “action” steps, the chances I had of meeting a man were “slim and none”.

But I still wanted this great relationship. I wanted to be married. I wanted a family. It was a process throughout the whole time I was single but I was launching big rockets of desire for what I wanted. One of the things I wanted was to find someone who I loved so much that I would live with him in a tent. (I wrote about that previously at A Love Story and the Law of Attraction).

I was also a “Mom” and I really thought that was a great gig. Yes, I still love that Mommy job! So I wanted someone who would love and care about me and also love and care about my son. I was a package deal, Love me, love my kid, period.

You can see why I wasn’t sure it would ever happen.

But I was already familiar with the Law of Attraction and visualizing so I thought I would try to visualize this person. Well, it is not always easy to visualize an abstract concept. I couldn’t see a face, of course, but I did get to the point just a month or so before I met Kevin where I felt like I could “feel the energy” of the relationship. I can describe it that way now but at the time I just thought I was being silly and imagining something that would never happen. That only happened one time and then I stopped trying to visualize it. I thought maybe I was just being silly and foolish and the “dreamer” that people had always told me I was. I gave it up.

But actually I think now that the “giving up” was the turning point. I became completely detached from even finding a date, let alone a husband. I decided that I would be just fine if I never got married again and I would live happily and create a great life all by myself. I know now that there is a big difference between just saying you are “detached from the outcome” and really feeling “detached from the outcome”. In this case I really let go of any let go of any attachment I had.

About a month later, before Thanksgiving 1991, I attended an early holiday party put on by a Title Company. It was during the day and I just went with a friend. There was this absolutely gorgeous guy sitting at the table with some other people I knew. My friend talked to him but I didn’t because I was too scared. I didn’t often meet anybody that I was so immediately attracted too and I didn’t know how to handle it.

So I watched him over the next few months. I talked to him a few times, just a little bit.
Then one Sunday he came into the office and I was the only one there. We started talking, it turned out that we had quite a bit in common and I felt safe and happy and comfortable with him from then on.

Our actual first date was on Valentines Day 1992 (I know so romantic, and I’m not even a romantic kind of girl–many novels, no romance novels for me!) We got married on July 3, 1994.

We now have five 5 kids, (that would be one each and three together), one grandchild, 1 dog, 2 cars, and a nice house in a cul-de-sac.

And we are both still chasing our dreams (and each other)!

Yes, I am blessed. I am grateful. I am lucky to have this man in my life.

And now I’m off to trick or treat.

Related Posts:
July 3rd-the Love Story
A Love Story and the Law of Attraction
Lessons in Visualization
Manifesting Life

Not only that, it also had a “For Sale” sign in the yard!

It was available. We could have it. We just needed to be able to pay the price.

I think we drove by that house every day while the sign was up. This was the kind of house that we dreamed of ( in our wildest dreams, of course!).

Needless to say, we did not get that house. One day we drove by and the sign had a big sticker on it, “Sold”. That house now belongs to someone else. It’s still a beautiful home, a wildest dream kind of home but it is no longer for sale.

Somebody else was ready for the house. Somebody else was able to buy it. We weren’t. We had not yet manifested the capability to purchase a home of that price (I don‘t think I mentioned the price, but I‘ll just say it was rather expensive, quite pricey!).

But like I said—-

So we can and we will.

So will our “wildest dream home” be there when we’re ready? Yes, Absolutely!

Will it be that specific house? Probably not.

But will we find another house that we love even more? Again, absolutely Yes!

The fact is that we live in an infinite Universe. We can all have what we want even more. There is an abundance available for everyone.

When we set our intentions for what we want to be, do and have we need to remember that the Universe is infinite, abundant and ever-changing. We need to open our hearts to the highest potential and the best possible scenarios and often we don’t know even realize exactly what that is. We can’t see the future or the abundance of pure potentiality, so we need to remember that there are no limits. We need to allow for the gifts and the abundance of the Universe.

How many times have you wanted something and you thought you knew exactly what you wanted but the Universe gave you something else? Oftentimes it’s better than what you originally had in mind, the manifestation is better than you even imagined. Sometimes it’s not.

But you can’t get it wrong because you never get it done.

So try again.

Have the faith and know that it is out there for you. You can be, do or have anything that you want. Yes, sometimes it’s easier than other times and some people have an easier time of it.

That’s Life.

But don’t get so specific with your intentions that you can’t recognize the gifts. You might not manifest exactly what you thought you wanted, you might get something better!

By the way, I might have dreamed of that beautiful home in my wildest dreams but I am also absolutely blessed, very happy and extremely grateful for the beautiful home that I already have.

But what about that other elusive matter, the one thing that we all have the same amount of, yet most of us never have enough of?

I’m talking about time. What would you do if time were no object? What if you could complete all of your work in just 4 hours and you had an extra 36 hours to use in any way you wish each and every week?

Use your imagination here, let it run wild and consider just how your life would be and what you would do with the days of your life if time and money both were no object. Can you imagine that? What would you be doing? If you can imagine a life with no limits on time and no limits on money you could definitely flow that into a glorious visualization. Think about it. Enjoy it. Revel in it.

I have been enjoying this fantasy and visualization for about a week now. Last week, my friend Ed Mills from Evolving times issued a meme challenge-”What would you do with 36 extra hours a week?” Well that all just sounded so tantalizing and wonderful that my imagination started going wild. This was a meme that was too much fun to miss, even though I was distracted with family things and bloggy birthday stuff last week and I wouldn’t be able to get to it until this week. The delay actually made it even better though, because I was able to really think, enjoy, ponder and play with these thoughts. I do believe that I could happily fill up an extra 36 hours a week and make some of my dreams come true at the same time.

Thank you Ed, for the happy reverie!

He came up with the idea from Tim Ferriss’ new book “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. I have yet to read the book but it is on my endless list of reading material to get to someday (there is that time thing again!). But in this case, perhaps someday will come sooner if I can really get into this imagining and visualizing the extra 36 hours!

So the challenge was to come up with the things that you would do. How would you spend the extra time if you only had to work 4 hours in a week? While there were many things that came to me that I would love to do with an extra 36 hours a week, I will just include a few of the top things that came to me. These are the things that would take priority.

With an extra 36 hours a week I would…..

Become a Yogi. Yes, you read that right, a Yogi. I would have a consistent and disciplined yoga practice and I would do Yoga almost every single day (a day of rest once in awhile, of course). A few days a week I would do Bikram, other days Ashtanga, and I would also explore the many other disciplines.

The next thing I would do is actually my very favorite thought for this visualization. This one is an absolute, no doubt. I would write. And I would write, and I would write! Look for me on the “Bestseller” lists! We can be, do or have whatever we want right? And this is my fantasy, my visualization, I will make it wonderful! I would love to write inspirational/motivational books for grownups but I also have a fantasy to write a children’s book series, perhaps like the The Little Housebooks or my current favorite Junie B. Jones. That would be the dream come true for me, something I have thought of since I was just a little girl myself. 36 extra hours could sure help me accomplish that!

I would also like to paint. I have a love affair with watercolors. I love to look at them, I love to play with them, I love to create with them. The colors are so translucent, so incredibly vibrant and beautiful. Watercolor is unique in the fact that you can’t really “fix” your mistakes but rather you have to work with them. If you have too much water and it runs away, there is no erasing it! The challenge is to work with the flow of the paint without resistance. And I have often felt that challenge. I would love to spend the time to become better at painting watercolors.

And Gardening, I would spend more time gardening. Flowers, vegetables, herbs, I would grow them all. There is a certain magic that comes from getting your hands dirty in the soil of the earth. I would love to deepen that connection.

And I would also enjoy more traveling, reading, knitting, quilting (my Grandma taught me how to quilt years ago yet I’ve never had time to pursue it). I would spend more time playing with my kids and my husband, more time on a houseboat on Lake Powell, more time waterskiiing, and more time just enjoying life.

That’s it! The magic of the whole visualization–More time enjoying Life!!

And now who can I send this wonderful meme too? Hmmm, let me think. Who could really benefit from doing this visualization?

Priscilla Palmer of course, from Personal Development Demands Success

Alan Torres from Made to be Great

One of the hardest working people I know has already been tagged but

Aaron Potts from Today is that Day is someone I’d want to hear about!

Someone who already does Yoga almost everyday!
KL Masina of be Conscious now

and
Lorraine Cohen from Powerfull Living

Tell us! What would you do with an extra 36 hours a week?
(please check out Evolving Times for all the details!)

Have Fun!

I was reminded of this as I planned to start a new deliberate creation process that I recently learned. You may remember last week when Jeannette Maw from LOA playground was a guest blogger for me. When she submitted her excellent post I responded back to her with just one question, “What is a Pray Rain Journal?” Jeannette quickly wrote back and told me about it.

A Pray Rain Journal is a special journal that you use to help get yourself into vibrational alignment with your dreams. You write about your dream as if you were already living it.

It is named after a story that was told by author Gregg Braden about accompanying a tribal shaman on a rain dance. He expected a big production of music, costumes and dance. However, he was quite surprised by what he saw.

The Shaman walked alone to an area marked with stones. He quietly walked around the perimeter for a moment, stopped and closed his eyes in a quiet, meditative state. There was no sound, no costumes, no dancing. It would seem there was no visible ritual. After a short time in the silence the Shaman said he was finished and he was ready to return home.

Gregg was surprised at what he saw and he exclaimed to the Shaman “I thought you were going to pray for rain”. The Shaman said “Not pray FOR rain, but PRAY RAIN”. He explained that he “prayed rain” by imagining and feeling the rain landing on his skin, sensing the moisture as it collected on the dirt beneath his feet, smelling the sweet and fresh fragrance, hearing the pitter patter of the drops as they fell, seeing the dewy wetness upon the foliage and watching it fall from the sky. He felt it. He saw it. He lived the experience with every minute detail all within his own mind.

He “prayed rain”.

And that is the purpose of a “Pray Rain” journal. You write everyday about this dream of yours, and how it feels as it is manifested, how it is to live this dream, what it is like, who is enjoying it with you. You write your dream everyday as if you are already living it in all of its glorious details. Make sure and write in the present tense and really feel the joy and the happiness that comes from your fulfilled dream. You can expand your dream as you wish with the only stipend being that it feels good. It feels joyful. It feels happy.
The sole purpose of the “pray rain” journal is to get you into vibrational alignment with your dream.

The promise is that by the time you get to the end of your journal, you will have already reached your dream or you will be in the process of it unfolding within your life.

“Pray Rain” is feeling it accomplished while “praying FOR rain” is keeping it out in the future.

So as a new resolution for my new year, I planned on starting a “pray rain” journal. I thought I would buy a beautiful journal and write everyday as I “prayed rain”. But as I thought about it, I realized that the real “flow” of writing comes to me as I sit at my computer, as my fingers dance over the keys and the words flow from my mind. That is where I find my bliss. When I get a pen in my hand, I usually end up doodling and drawing flowers, faces, writing names in calligraphy but not writing. So a formal journal would probably not be quite as effective for me as a special “pray rain” file on my computer. And I really believe that most things in life are more effective when you individualize it and make it your own.

But I do love beautiful journals, perhaps I’ll do a little bit of both.

Is reality a fact? A concrete, unchangeable fact of what is really happening, what is real?

So do you just blindly accept it because after all it is real?

Think about this. You created your reality. The fact is that it exists and even if you don’t like it, (which many of us have created some things in our reality that we are not totally pleased with) you created it.

You can un-create it.

Fighting against it isn’t the answer to your un-creation though. When you fight against reality you fight a losing battle. Besides that you add energy to an already unwanted situation, which just makes it worse, like putting fuel on a fire.

But you don’t have to accept reality as it is.

If you have created some things in your life that are not quite what you want, perhaps a mountain of debt or a overweight body or even a difficult relationship, you have the power within you, you can un-create your reality.

So how do you go about un-creating?

First off, accept where you are now. Don’t fight against it. Don’t cry, complain or carry-on. Many of the problems that we have are made much worse because we attach such negative emotions to them. Accept that “You are Here” and release the emotions attached to that. You can only start from where you are. You can’t start from anywhere else. Accept that and release the energy and the negative emotions.

Next put a plan to solve the problem into place. That may be a debt repayment plan, an exercise and eating program, marriage counseling (or divorce proceedings) or whatever you need to do to solve the problem. In the case of relationships, it is wise to remember that you are responsible for you and you can only control and change you. Don’t expect the other person to conform to your wishes (that would be fighting against again!). Keep at the plan, do what you have to do.

And now forget about it. Yes really, I mean forget all about it. Don’t give it any more energy. As you are working on your plan, think and imagine and dream about the outcome, the goal, the achievement. Never think about the problem as a problem again.

Now imagine what you want your reality to be. Visualize it, see it, feel it, imagine it, make it real in your own mind. Imagine what it would be like to already have achieved it. What would you do? How would you feel? How would other people treat you? How would you treat yourself? What is your life like now that you have everything that you want?

Go there, feel it, become it!

Become it in your own mind. Make it glorious! You are the only one in your own mind thinking with you so let your imagination run wild. No censorship. No voices from other people. Keep them out!

This is your Dream, Dream it!
This is your future “Reality”.
This is what you will be creating for your future so mold it, refine it, make it great!

Don’t accept reality unless it is exactly what you want! Un-create what you don’t want and start creating what you do want!

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this post is included in the July 9, 2007 edition of The Personal Development Carnival located this week at Creating a Better Life.

The paradox is that if you accept the assignment and follow through with an open heart and a willing spirit even as it is difficult, your life will be easier.

If you choose to accept this assignment you can expect to be able to tap into your own personal power. You can expect to truly create the life that you want, the life of your dreams.

Are you ready to call forth your Best Life?

That is your assignment. To think of the very best you and imagine what you would be like, imagine what your life would be like, imagine how you would handle every situation.

Imagine the best you in every aspect of your life, the best you physically, the best you financially, the best you intellectually, the best you spiritually, the best you in your relationships with other people, the all-around best you!

And as you go take the actions that you imagine. Become what you imagine.

Since this assignment came from “Conversations with God” you could consider it an edict from God on how to create your best life.

Or not.

Where it came from is irrelevant. Look into your own heart and your own soul. What does your own core tell you about this assignment?

Your own heart and your own soul resonate with truth. Your intuition never lies.

If you focus upon your own highest thought of yourself, that is what you will become, that is what you will create in your life.

Are you ready to accept your assignment?
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This post is included in The Next 45 years blog carnival located at the Next 45 years

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A. M. Salls Inspirational and Motivational blog carnival has included this post in the June 29, 2007 edition. Read all of the great posts at A.M. Salls Motivational and Inspirational Ramblings

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The Living by Design blog carnival No. 11, 7/8/2007, has included this post. You can see the carnival at Ananga Living by Design Blog