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It’s hard not to notice that 2015 is the year of what I like to refer to as Manifestation Mania. I think it actually started in 2006 when “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne was published and introduced the general public to the Law of Attraction. Now every third post I see on social media is related to manifesting our dreams. We can manifest abundance, relationships, and apparently weight loss, new cars, and our dream jobs. If you read any article or book about it, they will tell you that anyone can do this if we just believe and visualize our lives as though we already have what we desire. So how do we tell whether it’s Manifestation or Magical Thinking?
Whenever I read about this topic I find myself thinking back to elementary school. I could wile away an entire class in Teresaland, where I had an abundance of friends, a menagerie of pets, and my family and everyone around me were cast in an unending musical, singing songs about life, and every event was carefully choreographed to my satisfaction. In Teresaland I was outgoing, witty, popular, smart and always knew what to say in any situation. If visualization were the key to getting what we want in life, I would have a horse farm in Scotland and be sitting in my study overlooking the sea, wrapped in an old, comfy sweater, a fire burning in the fireplace behind me as I contemplated my next project. My two Scottish deerhounds would be curled up nearby. My bookshelf would be lined with my successfully published creations, all best sellers. I would have a lot of zeros in my bank account. My soulmate would be out riding his favorite black stallion through the meadow, and my children would think I’m the coolest and best mom ever. I would spend summers in my beach house along some secluded tropical coastline. The waves would sing me to sleep every night. Everyone would love me and I would never be lonely. So where is the disconnect? Why did my life not materialize as I had dreamed? When I imagined a lot of zeros in my bank account, did the Universe hear “zero” and oblige accordingly? When do daydreaming and wishful thinking become more? How do they grow up and grow into manifestations and affirmations that can be useful in helping us achieve the lives we desire? Is manifestation even a real thing? Let’s face it. The stories in the media are success stories. We don’t read about those who fell short of their dreams. If stories about mediocre results were in demand the internet would be exploding with them. BUT… I have seen people bring about some amazing changes in their lives with manifestation and positive affirmations. I can also say that I have brought about some significant shifts in my life since I began focusing on living a positive, light filled life, and practicing affirmations and meditation. For everyone I know who has had success, I admit I probably know just as many people whose attempts have not successfully transpired into reality and there have been plenty of times when I thought for sure that something was going to happen for me and it didn’t. Still, I am convinced there is something to all of this. Observations and experiences over the past few years have convinced me that manifesting is a powerful tool in building success, and it seems believing and visualizing do play an important part in the manifestation process. So why are some people more successful at it? What I have sorted out is that the people who are successful have an abundance of self confidence and self esteem. It’s the same reason why positive affirmations are easier for some people than for others. One person can look in the mirror and say “I love you” and really feel it. No hesitation, no doubt, no self degradation. For the next person it’s not that simple. They may spend weeks or months looking in the mirror and repeating “I love you” before that sinister voice in their heads stops whispering “Liar!”. Often they may give up long before that voice is silenced. Where does this voice come from? Well, we all have a balancing act going on internally at any given moment, between the ID, the Ego and the Super Ego. Without delving further into a subject that I am not qualified to get into further, I am just pointing out that we all handle this balancing act differently based on a lot of different factors in our lives, and I believe that this is the basis of the reason why some people are more successful at manifestation while others struggle with it. The Ego is always trying to police our decisions and actions, and is based in fear. For some of us, those fears announce themselves very loudly and very often. The other important factor that it seems people often overlook is the action plan. We can sit in our rooms every evening and make lists of the things we want to manifest in our lives, from fancy houses, to exciting dream jobs, to our perfect life partner. We can light candles and practice our affirmations, do mirror work and meditate. Those are all very beneficial things. If we don’t have an action plan then we are just putting those desires out into the universe with no way to bring what we are trying to manifest back to us. Making changes in our lives takes work. It can be hard, and a little scary. Maybe even very scary. We’ve got that voice in our heads, whispering warnings every step of the way. What I have learned is that we can take steps to make that voice much quieter so that we can hear our intuition. Intuition is our soul speaking to us. Intuition is how we receive Divine messages and Divine assistance in our lives. Once we recognize those whispers of caution for what they are - the Ego trying to keep us from venturing outside our comfort zone, it is much easier to turn the volume down and allow room for our intuition to be heard and felt. There are many excellent articles and books out there about manifesting the life we have always wanted. I am curious and excited to take things to the next level. For anyone who struggles with believing in yourself like I do, I thought I would share my plan.
Let’s remember, we don’t have to create our abundant lives overnight. We don’t even have to have every step of our journey planned out. That’s the beauty of it. Sometimes we just have to have enough faith to start walking, even if we can’t always see where we are going. We will get there - One glorious step at a time. Because my Angels love to send messages to me at very appropriate times, I received this on my Facebook page today from “illuminatingsouls.com”. I’ve never liked the page or heard of it before. “It’s okay if you are not sure where you are going. Your soul knows the way.” Laurel Bleadon-Maffei. Love & Light, Teresa https://www.facebook.com/moonlightoracle/ https://www.etsy.com/shop/MoonlightOracle
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Someone recently suggested that I come out of the Spiritual closet. I found it funny at the moment, I suppose because I hadn’t realized I was “in the closet” about anything, especially about anything Spiritual. I’ve always considered myself a very spiritual person. I meditate, I do yoga. I listen to Hay House Radio, for crying out loud. I was on the verge of shouting with joy about how enlightened I have become, then it dawned on me. I really have been living my life, all 56 years of it, hiding from who I really am. Is accepting myself really acceptance if I keep the truth to myself?
So here is the deal: I am an Empath. I am Clairvoyant. In my entire life, I have only shared snippets of that information with maybe 3 people. At the moment I am writing this, I am not even sure my mother knows. Or that she knows that I know. My mother has a few gifts of her own which she is only mildly aware of, or at least the closet door might be open but she only has one foot sticking out of it. Still, that woman is connected. She prays and she is heard. She knows it and we all know it. If any of us need some serious prayer, we just ask mom to pray about it. Sometimes she gets “a feeling”. Sometimes she “knew that was going to happen”. I can relate. I’ve had a lot of those “feelings” myself. We have had conversations about this feeling and that, like watching the teaser for a movie. We just never got around to buying a ticket and committing to the entire show. That way we could relish the good parts and never have to see the parts that aren’t teaser worthy. I was pretty little when I realized that I didn’t listen to the same music as the other kids my age. Being a people pleaser since infancy, I soon learned how to ignore my inner voice in favor of trying to fit in and be normal, loved and worthwhile. I still ended up being a circle trying to fit into a world made for squares. Being brought up in a family where we attended a church regularly and attending a faith affiliated school further convinced me that my interest in Angels, Demons, supernatural entities and anything paranormal was undesirable. As I grew into adolescence, I began to often feel overwhelmed with emotions and uneasy in crowded places. I spent a lot of time praying for protection and struggled emotionally and spiritually all through high school. I was hypersensitive and anxious most of the time. After having a few dreams that foreshadowed tragic events in the lives of people around me, I turned away from my gifts, while still mostly unaware of what they were. It wasn’t until just a few years ago, 36 years later, that I began to open my mind to accepting myself as I am and began exploring the gifts I have. I did so with a lot of fear and apprehension. I struggled because I wanted to remain faithful to my religious upbringing and beliefs. The church still considers much of this to be dark and evil. The first time I went into a New Age/Spiritual Shop, I admit I looked both ways, up and down the street to see if anyone I knew was driving by. I contemplated this outing for months before I made the decision and actually went into the store. I expected to feel negative JuJu or Voodoo magic or something that would send me right back through the door. What I found instead was comfort. There is a corner of the store that I still to this day stay away from, because I don’t deal with darker aspects of this phenomenon. I choose to stay in the light. And I found light and peace and tranquility among the crystals and books and with the shopkeeper and I learned what smudging is and how to clear negative energy from myself and from my space. This was a lifeline for me. For the first time in my life I don’t have a daily struggle to keep from being overwhelmed with other people’s negative energy and all of the negative energy out in the world. I understand it and know what to do now. I am learning how to know what are my feelings and when I am picking up someone else’s. Imagine spending a lifetime not being able to separate your own feelings from the feelings of those around you. When I realized I am an Empath, I cried. It explained so much of my behavior and so many of the unexplained feelings and rollercoaster emotions I’ve experienced in my life. Once I realized that, I began reading everything I could on the subject so I could learn to protect myself from taking on the negative feelings and energies that are constantly around us. I think back to my teenage years and I wonder how many other teens are struggling with depression and anxiety for the same reasons and nobody knows what the real issue is or how to help them. I’ve always been called to be a healer and caregiver in some capacity, from bringing home stray animals in distress when I was a child to becoming a nurse and caring for people to this day. Even though I buried my gifts, that part of me that needed to take care of others managed to leak out. I spent most of my life not even knowing who I am, or not wanting to admit it. It was extremely freeing to finally embrace my gifts and realize that I needed to acknowledge all aspects of myself, and love myself in order to fulfill my life purpose. Meditation, prayer, yoga and positive affirmations have put me on the path I am on now. I have studied Reiki Energy Healing and am a Reiki Practitioner with plans to offer healing sessions in the future. I am now comfortable and confident enough in my gifts to be able to help other people by doing intuitive readings and assisting them with receiving the Divine messages that are available to all of us to help us on our life journey. I am hoping that in sharing this story with others, it may help others who are struggling. I wonder how many people who have been diagnosed with social anxiety are actually Empaths like me. It’s something to think about, isn’t it? Maybe that child everyone has labeled as weird is just on a higher vibrational level than other children his or her age. Maybe that adolescent that everyone has labeled as anti-social is uncomfortable around other people because they get overwhelmed with other people’s emotions and negative energy. They don’t understand what is happening to them or what the reason is for it. Even into adulthood, people can struggle with extrasensory gifts they don’t understand, especially if they were raised in surroundings that were not open to differences such as this or they have not had any exposure to information that could provide any clues about what is going on. People think that you can’t be on this New Agey spiritual path that I am on and still be a Christian or still be religious. I know people think this because I was one of them and that is the main reason it took me so long to embrace ME. I have come to believe and understand that being religious and being spiritual are not the same thing but they aren’t mutually exclusive either. Being religious is about honoring a religion’s customs and rituals as part of a person’s faith. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. I have found that, for me, being spiritual is faith without the confines of a specific religion’s customs or rituals. When I became willing to step outside the box I knew as my religion, I found that spirituality is so much bigger than I ever realized. I still love the church I was raised in, even though I don’t fit into the expectations the church has for its members. What I have learned though, is that I am able to connect with God, my Guardian Angels, and Spirit Guides and accept their guidance and assistance now. I can do this on my own, without a middleman. That in itself is very enlightening. I am able to appreciate others beliefs and honor them too, because really, it’s all about love. Being a Beatles fan, I can’t help but add, love is all you need. (Although money to pay the bills makes life a little easier too.) Love & Light, Teresa |
AuthorI’m Teresa West. I’m the mother of 3 amazing and now grown children, mother-in-law to an amazing guy and mom and grandmom to a host of energetic and exuberant dogs, and cats. My family is the center of my world. We’re close, a little quirky, and best of all, we’re friends. Archives
January 2016
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