I was only in my twenties when I started dreaming about and planning my perfect life. But I didn’t just think about what I wanted and put the dream up on a shelf somewhere. I went about trying to “manifest” it. I have always enjoyed reading self-improvement and motivational books and one of the topics I learned about back then was the power of positive thinking and the law of attraction. Basically, the Law of Attraction says that you can attract the things you want into your life if you really focus on them and believe in them. Of course, there is a fine line between “attracting” and “creating” and the difference may just depend on how much you believe in miracles and magic.
When I was in my thirties, I followed one of the exercises I found in a book and wrote down what my perfect day would be, from start to finish. I wanted to wake up next to a wonderful happy man that I loved and cherished. I envisioned us living in the woods, in a beautiful home that we had built ourselves. In my vision, I woke up first and went out to our back deck, overlooking our woods. I listened to the sounds of the wildlife waking as the sun came up through the trees and drank my coffee as I thought about the topics I was going to write about for my successful and meaningful writing career. Then, I would go crawl back into bed and snuggle up to my husband and we would start our day together.
Of course, there were many more details that I wrote down. But that is just to give you an idea of the detail I put into the “vision” for my perfect life.
I didn’t spend much time actually trying to get any of the things I needed for my perfect life, except that I did my best to save money. Other than that, I dated men that were obviously not perfect for me. I had many jobs that had nothing to do with writing. Looking back, I think many of my bad choices were because of fear. I didn’t really believe that I COULD have what I wanted and for the Law of Attraction to work, you HAVE to believe.
I married one man who was completely wrong for me and who didn’t care much about my dreams. He actually instilled more fear in me by making me feel like I really wasn’t good enough. When I left him, I was a little reluctant to believe in my dreams again.
Little by little, I began to get over some of my fears and put more belief in the idea that I COULD have what I really wanted. When I got my first job writing for the local newspaper, I didn’t have any real credentials to back me up but I just TOLD them that I was a writer. They gave me a shot and that is when my writing career started.
Then one year, I had sort of given up on dating and went out to a show with a friend. After the show, we walked next door to a music festival that was going on. And it was there that I met a wonderful man. Even though he was attractive, funny, and fun, I really didn’t think I was ready to date. Once your heart and your dreams get stomped on enough, it’s hard to keep believing.
But we did begin dating, and when I got to know him, there was no denying the fact of how much I loved him.
Four months after I met him, I entered a contest in which the grand prize was a house. I already owned a house and so did the man I was dating. But I was an avid contest junkie back then and entered everything. Plus, the odds on that particular contest were pretty darn good. They only gave out 300 keys to see which one opened the front door so a 1 in 300 chance could win me a new home.
So we stood out in the summer Florida heat for several hours as one person after another tried their keys in the front door and we were totally amazed and thrilled when my key opened the door.
I took the alternate cash prize and because it was a large sum of money, thoughts of my dream house in the woods came back to my mind, encouraged by my wonderful new boyfriend who just happened to be a builder.
After a year or so, when I couldn’t just ignore my dream any longer, I began looking for property. I spent months going over maps and driving up and down streets and traipsing through uncleared land but nothing seemed to be just right.
When I finally did see the two-acre piece of property we finally bought, I knew it was the perfect place to build our home, because it was exactly what I had envisioned in my youth.
There was no “For Sale” sign on the property, so I looked the address up on the County tax rolls and contacted the owner. When she told us she wasn’t interested in selling, we were heartbroken. I kept looking but never found a place we liked as much as that one.
Several more months passed when the property owner called unexpectedly and said she had changed her mind and was willing to sell the land to us. The price seemed outlandish at the time. But the amount of money I won in the contest was almost exactly what we needed to buy the property and start building.
So we built our home in the woods. And because I was surrounded by so much beauty and wildlife to inspire me, my writing career took off. It was over ten years after I visualized it, but I had exactly the life that I wanted: the perfect man, our home in the woods and a personally and professionally rewarding career as a writer. It was so identical to the life I had envisioned, that it is almost eerie to me every time I think about it.
Did I manifest any of that? I certainly didn’t go out looking for a man who was a builder to fall in love with. I had no control over the fate that made me have the winning key to that house. It was nothing I said or did that changed the mind of the property owner and made her decide to sell. All of those things just happened. Or did they?
All I can really say is that I have learned to believe in my dreams. And I have also learned that those dreams may never really come true unless I truly believe they will. That’s really the basis of the law of attraction. You have to believe in your dreams to achieve them.
Book suggestions: The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne ; The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale ; The Law of Attraction, by Jack Canfield
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