Manifesting and living a charmed life.

I was at a friend’s house. I brought a new set of tarot cards. Oooh I get all hot under the collar (in a good way) when I get a new set of tarot cards or angel cards or oracle cards. Any type of fun manifesting/truth-ish/insight card to get the party started.

She asked me if I believed in manifesting.

I stopped short. Gosh, I had forgotten that it sometimes is a thing to “believe in.” But it’s a question worth pondering, so here we are. The answer is:

Yes and No.

Way to be vague.

I mention this because it’s the beginning of May and at the beginning of every month I give myself the gift of sitting down to ponder, plan, and wish for what I want and hope will happen in the month.

When I went to the University of Santa Monica, we did something called Ideal Scenes. This is basically a list of things we hope for ourselves. It is written in present form and with feeling.

Examples from Ideal Scenes of my past:

• I am thanking friends for coming to my art show… before I even considered painting.

• I am delighted to be walking around my garden filled with blooms and vegetables… back when I lived in an apartment without a balcony.

• I am dancing on my porch… back when I didn’t have a porch.

These little wee wishes and dreams seemed like a heavy lift at the time, but eventually this happened:

• The art show happened as a result of me joining an art class… that had a show at the end of the semester that I didn’t know about until later.

• The garden happened because I planted flowers and vegetables… after I bought a house.

• The porch happened because I bought a house with a porch… then had a guy come and put on an even bigger porch, because PORCHES.

Were these manifestations or just me making things happen? A bit of both. Luck was involved.

• I happened to join an art class that had an art show at the end.

• I happened to make enough money to buy the house with a backyard.

• I happened to make enough money to pay for a bigger porch.

The Etsy shop took off (thanks to you, dear reader), I landed a great book agent and publisher, took action, and wrote out those Ideal Scenes. And the luck part is the invisible woo-woo-magic part. So do I believe in manifesting?

Yes and no.

There with the vagueness again.

There is an invisible layer. That’s where luck lives. And I believe in that more than I don’t believe in that.

A long time ago, when The Secret was a big movie, when Agape was new and cool, when I was seeped in every guided meditation class I could find… I started PLAYING with manifesting.

• I cut out a picture of a girl in a red dress on a beach… then I won a trip to Hawaii, went and packed a red dress.

• I wrote Paris Letters and got it published… then it became a New York Times best seller… who knows how these things even happen.

• I fell in love with reading Business Insider. Then they featured me on their site… my nerdy finance mind was THRILLED.

Hawaii, New York Times, Business Insider… these were NONE of me. None of my doing. And yet, I entered a contest, I wrote a book, I landed a publisher… so sort of me and yet not all me. And I think there is a clue in this.

You can only do what you can do. Plant your own seeds. As often and as well as you can.

Then let Luck show off.

But then what about the cancer? What about the infertility? What about unexpected bull roar of life? Did I manifest that as well? Were they all just stepping stones toward the good stuff?

No idea.

Then there is MONEY. How many of us have wished, wanted, done all the things we could to make the money that is swirling around in the invisible layer swirl into physical world reality?

And WEIGHT. How many of us have wished, wanted, done all the things we could to get to a certain size, number, shape?

Where is all the manifesting then? Are all our angels just sitting around playing Solitaire ‘til dawn with a deck of 51 half the time?

So you have to decide.

You have to decide if life feels better believing in magic and manifesting or does life feel better not believing in it.

So how do you do that?

Well, I have a little trick. You can use it, too. I have this mantra:

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That’s it. I live a charmed life. I wake up and say to myself, to the air, to anyone who will listen: “I live a charmed life.”

Then I make my list, start plugging away at the list, and wait for the miracles and manifestations to roll in. Some of those things are crossed off by #1-oh-me-oh-my. Others are crossed off by luck-angels-magic-shoulder-shrug.

PS When I was writing Paris Letters, I signed up for some coaching. On the intro night, our host Linda said she wrote a book called Lives Charmed. WHAT?!?!?!?!

PPS The pajamas from the last post. Bought them at the grocery store. WHAT?!?!?!?!!?