manifesting

This morning, on a friend’s Facebook page, I read a heartfelt plea for a newsfeed devoid of a Donald Trump’s face. And while I, too, would love an opt-out button for that, it makes me wonder: is that her Algorithm? is she clicking on posts that generate more of that same face? That happens to me, a lot.

Our Algorithms, if you think about it, are mirrors of our thoughts — are they not? How we think, what we’re thinking about, often what we thought about yesterday or the day before. The omnipresent Big Brother feeds us more of the same until we are beyond sated, until we’re over-stimulated and over-whelmed, jacked up on fake dopamine, or banging on Read More Read More Read More like a sugared-up teenager at a carnival whack-a-mole.

And while I know (I know) it’s important that we keep informed about current events, that we pay attention to what’s happening in our world — I’m also concerned that we’re collectively helping to create what’s happening by focusing on what’s happening.

It’s called Manifesting. You can read about the positive effects of manifesting in popular books like The Secret (Rhonda Byrne) and Law of Attraction (Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks).

And before you say hocus-pocus. Remember that prayer is also a form of manifesting.

“According to many spiritual teachings…consciousness creates our reality. What we desire is what we receive. If we are uncertain, we receive the energy of uncertainty. If we respond to crises with worry and negative, thinking, we increase the likelihood of a painful outcome.” — Yehuda Berg, The Power of Kabbalah

Yes, we are living in scary times. Yes, we need to pay attention to what’s going on. But in our attempts to pay attention to what we don’t want, are we losing sight of the things we DO want?

How can we ever hope to create a safe, peaceful, equitable world if our thoughts (and hearts) are always focused on threats, war, and inequalities?

We can all talk about what we don’t want — easily and profusely. Think about it, how many conversations have you had in the past six months about Donald Trump and his insane antics? About the circus that is our government, the atrocities happening to our immigrants, in Gaza, in Ukraine? About what’s happening to America, democracy, and our way of life?

Now, how many times have you talked about what makes a great leader? about the people on the ground doing good work on behalf of those who are suffering? about what you want the world to look like in the future? how many times have you laughed, planted something, created, danced?

All week long, activist and author Jessica Craven’s Chop Wood, Carry Water emails focus on what’s going on, the scary things happening in our government, and actions steps to take. But once a week, she posts Extra! Extra!, a glorious accounting of all of the good things that have happened lately.

I’ll be honest, by the time Extra! Extra! arrives on Sundays, I am usually stacking another shipment of canned beans in my basement and making sure my stun gun is fully charged. So to read all of the positive things that are happening, all of the forward steps we’re taking, all of the good news despite my Algorithm? My Hope tank fills right back up!

We all need a full Hope tank. So, here are 10 Ways to Fill Yours…

1. Go outside and breathe.
2. Listen to your favorite music and dance (or sing) (or both).
3. Go for a walk in the woods.
4. Have a playdate with a friend.
5. Get creative: make art, write something, bake, garden.
6. Watch a favorite movie.
7. Go to the library and find a book to read.
8. Take a day off social media/media/technology/work.
9. Keep a Gratitude Journal.
10. Change your Algorithm by reading good news; start here.

Let’s all MANIFEST the kind of world we want to be living in together!

Vision’s Hard to Come By when It’s 2020

About 10 years ago, I took a workshop about Vision Boards with the lovely Lisa Lelas. If you’re not familiar with Visions Board, they are a great way to set your intentions, to work with the Law of Attraction to manifest your goals and dreams.

They’re part collage and part meditation, part craft and part reflection. You cut out pictures from magazines, add words and phrases, and include meaningful symbols to create a picture — your vision — of what you would like to see come into your life.

One of the exercises in the workshop was to think about the things that brought us joy as a child, and ways we could bring that back into our lives. I happily remembered my days as a little girl, always playing outside and exploring the woods near my house. To represent that, I cut out a woman walking outside with a contented smile on her face. The other thing I remembered was enjoying reading books and writing stories, so I cut out a picture of a desk with a stack of books and a typewriter.

Fast forward four years, and there I was, with not only a daily woods-walking habit, but publishing my first book, LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, about the experience of reconnecting with those things that brought me joy as a child!

Vision Boards can be powerful tools that way. For years, I recreated mine every December — see one version, above — setting my intentions for the new year ahead: write, travel, create, love, meditate. For years, I loved my Vision Board. Paid it daily homage with incense and incantations.

But then my best friend died suddenly, and the Universe started regularly walloping me over the head with unseen circumstances —philosophical, spiritual, political, technical, medical. And my beloved Vision Board just wasn’t cutting it.

As a matter of fact, I started to resent it.

This past December, I was telling my friend Judith about my Vision Board conundrum — surely the daily exercise of cursing my goals and dreams was not manifesting positive outcomes. That’s when she said the unthinkable:

“Take it down.”

“Take it down?” I was shocked, but I let that idea sit for a while.

And a while more.

And then, one day in January — I took everything off the Vision Board. I took down my visions of traveling, of writing and publishing, of being a yoga warrior and mediation maniac. I took down Thoreau’s reminder to “go confidently in the direction of your dreams,” because even his encouragement had been falling on frustrated, deaf ears.

At first, I felt a great loss. As if letting go of those visions was somehow letting myself down or giving up on myself. Giving up on hope, perhaps.

But then, there was a sense of relief. Like some pressure had been released or the volume turned down.

As if, for a while, it was OK to just be.

As if it was OK to just get up and attend to the day as the day presented itself. To live in the present.

I’ve been reminded of this exercise lately, as we settle into this new way of being in the world, as we learn to let go of our visions and our dreams for our immediate futures here in 2020. As we change our expectations to match these strange, crazy times.

It is OK to just be.

For now, it really is OK to just be.

Today, five months after my Vision Board experiment and almost three months into the Covidpause, my Vision Board sits nearly blank on a wall in my office. Nearly blank except for this: Anything is Possible, Gratitude, Be Happy, Play.

Amen.