Aug 30thManifesting for Dummies

It seems that a majority of the conversations I’m having these days are centered around the Power of Intention, Conversations with The Universe, and all varieties of incredible, philosophical, spiritual learnings. It’s exciting and inspiring!

Exciting in that more and more people are talking about this stuff, are asking questions about how to live their lives bigger and fuller and with more purpose. I LOVE these conversations. I love reading the books, perusing the websites, pondering the implications, doing the experiments, and sharing my thoughts and experiences.

When a friend asked me if I’d like to attend a Belief Re-Patterning seminar with her, I quickly agreed. Even though I’m unemployed, giving up a Wednesday evening to go sit in a conference room wasn’t entirely appealing. And like I said, I eat, sleep and breathe this stuff, so I wasn’t confident the speaker would have anything new to add to my repertoire. But just like learning to play guitar, or draw, or speak Spanish, if you practice once a week, chances are your skill level isn’t going to improve much. If you practice every day, even for 20 minutes, you’ll retain more information and muscle memory, and you’ll improve pretty quickly. But the only way to really become proficient is by becoming immersed in the activity, by taking every opportunity to talk about it, learn about it, and practice the techniques you are learning.

I went to the seminar, and not only did it feel good to be surrounded by like-minded people and to absorb the energy they generated, but I actually learned a few new things.

The event was called, “Inner Critic to Inner Coach,” and the very engaging speaker was Hay House author (and Calgary native) Suze Casey. My favourite technique from the night was when Suze asked everyone to write down the days of the week, beginning with Thursday (the next day). She then had us write beside each day a feeling we want to experience more frequently, such as “secure” or “free.” We now had our intentions for the week mapped out, so each day we would be able to look at this list to remind us what to focus on. Of course the next step being to concentrate on that feeling, in order to draw more of it into our immediate daily life. So if you’d decided you wanted to feel more freedom in your life, on the designated day you would devote a few moments in the morning thinking about all the times you’ve previously felt free. You’d recall specific details about what you were doing, who was there, what prompted your freedom, and exactly how it felt. Throughout the day you would take snippets of time to draw up that feeling of freedom again, and really feel it: how your lungs expanded, your skin was tingling, your muscles were loose and relaxed, your brain was calm yet excited yet laser-focused all at the same time. You feel all of that again. No need to think it through, no need to ponder why you were feeling free, or to try and formulate a plan to replicate it, just feel. And keep on feeling.

*mind blown*

Suze’s theory here is that so much of our “New Age” manifesting is focused on things. Sure, if you’re in tune enough with The Universe you can manifest yourself a brand, spanking new car, it happens all the time. However, for the majority of us, no matter how much we WANT to believe this is possible, our logical know-it-all brains just roll their eyes at us and put their ear buds back in – effectively ignoring the thing we’re desperate to manifest: “Pfffft! You think you can just dream up a new car and it will “magically” appear?! Riiiiiiiiiiiight.”  The champagne coloured Audi A4 allroad quattro inevitably doesn’t arrive and we subsequently dismiss the entire notion of manifesting.

The reason we’re so crap at manifesting specific things is simply because we’ve been taught our entire lives that it’s not possible, it’s not that simple, and it’s pretty darn difficult to turn 36 years (in my case) of cultural conditioning on its head. You most certainly can flip your worldview 180 degrees, but it usually takes a few steps and a lot of determined effort to get there.

So what if, instead of trying to materialize arbitrary items out of thin air, you start setting goals? And instead of having objects become the focus of your goals, what if feelings were what you were after? For example, what does that gorgeous Audi represent for me? Success perhaps. If somebody were to hand me my dream car tomorrow, would I actually feel successful? Probably not. Oh, I’d be pretty stoked about it, but if I’m counting on an Audi to make me feel happy and fulfilled, I’ll likely be disappointed, and then confused as to why achieving this goal didn’t tip my success scale. How do I define success? What does success FEEL like? If I focus on those questions, instead of what success might look like, I’ll be much more likely to achieve success (and who knows, maybe I’ll end up with that Audi after all).

A few years ago I learned about feeling oriented goal setting from the always enlightening Danielle LaPorte (check her out! www.daniellelaporte.com “What will I do to feel the way I want to feel?”) but suddenly Suze had handed me a new tool to really be able to create these emotions, as opposed to just trying to manifest them. Talk about a lightbulb moment!!!! Now, instead of telling myself, “Hey, I’d really like to feel more accepting. K, thanks, bye,” and then hoping all these opportunities to feel accepting appear in front of me, I can go, “I really haven’t been feeling very accepting lately. Sonja is an amazing example of Accepting because she just radiates light and love, I should spend more time around her and try to emulate that kind of presence. And remember the time in a ferry terminal where I opened up and was really attentive and kind to the odd hippie dragging around a giant garbage bag? How he was sweet and interesting when I decided to actually listen to him, and then he gave me a hand-dyed shirt out of his bag, simply as a gesture of appreciation and good Karma? It felt like I was sending little tendrils of love from my heart to his, that’s what accepting felt like, and I want to repeat that experience regularly.” Now I can conjure up that syrupy, rose-gold tinged heart-feel at will throughout the day, and if I continue to recreate that feeling of acceptance, it won’t be long until I simply AM an accepting person.

My list looked like this:

TH: passion

FR: proud

SA: harmony

SU: freedom

MO: sparkle

TU: open

WE: synchronicity

Already I’m feeling more focused!!

If this strikes a chord with you, Suze is having another FREE seminar in Calgary on Tuesday, September 15. You should reserve a seat at www.critic2coach.ca (you can use code 1182 when signing up). You can also check her out at www.beliefrepatterning.com  Or pick up her book Belief Re-Patterning http://www.amazon.ca/Belief-Re-patterning-Technique-Flipping-Positive/dp/1401935567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440989564&sr=8-1&keywords=suze+casey