Can you imagine - learning to manifest.

One of my favourite things to witness is the power of manifestation in someone’s life.

What do I mean by manifesting? The ability to bring something into reality.

It’s a super power we all have but don’t often harness.

Too good to be true…read on.

To truly learn the skill of manifesting I first had to master visualising and by visualisng I mean creating pictures or scenarios in my mind. Now, I’m not sure I’m a great believer in, just think about it and it will happen. Law of Attraction from my perspective, isn’t about sitting around waiting for good things to drop in your lap. True manifesting takes place when you match visualisations with belief, behaviour and action. The ability to see something so clearly in your mind’s eye, that you take steps to make that come to fruition. I’ve had too many personal experiences of manifesting to deny its existence.

The first time I came across the concept of visualisation I was 17. At a 2nd hand book shop I bought a copy of “Creative Visualisation” by Shakti Gawain. Along with “Living in the Light” I give these books credit for setting me on my path. The idea that you could close your eyes, imagine something, replay it over and over in your head to the point where it began to change or create a belief and a possibility. That belief leads you towards certain actions, which when repeated over and over, create a pattern of behaviour. Next thing you know, due to your change in belief and actions you begin to manifest something into your life.

So first visualising, then creating a belief that it’s possible, directing your action and behaviour, resulting in manifestation.

I want you to read that again…because it’s the flow that’s important.

Probably the first experience of using the concept of visualising and manifesting was in 1991 during my first year of university. This is where I learned the importance of getting very specific with your visions.

I had the travel bug bad. I wanted to work in travel but decided to study Education at University and do the “sensible” thing. About 2 months into the semester, an American man walked into a lecture to promote an exchange program. I knew right there and then that I was going. I couldn’t eat or sleep until the list of successful applicants was released and was beyond gutted when my name wasn’t included. After a week of begging him to reconsider I realised that it was ok, I would be accepted the following year. I believed that 100%. I’m not sure why, but I knew it for sure. And so I waited, and imagined, and visualised and created the scenarios over and over in my head until the time came to apply again, and yes I was accepted. Success…well you might think. I made it happen, I saved the money, I created the opportunity and then off I went at the end of 1992 to the USA, bags packed, full of excitement, on the trip I had been visualising for 2 years.

What I hadn’t visualised or anticipated was how I would feel, being away from home for the first time, leaving my family, my boyfriend and my familiarity. I guess up until then I had been pretty sheltered in my middle class Sydney surrounds. I was struck with the most crippling case of homesickness imaginable. Miserable, lonely and terrified I lasted 8 days before I bailed. I flew home, 9 days after I had left, 2 months’ shy of my original return date. I wasn’t prepared for the emotional journey of being away from home. I had visualised the logistics but not the feelings. The minute the plane landed in Sydney I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I was embarrassed, humiliated and ashamed of myself. It took me a few weeks to pick myself up, but I did and made a decision to go for a 3rd attempt. I had to go back. With this goal in mind I convinced an angry tour leader to take a chance on again and give me another shot. I believed in my ability to give it a go, was honest about my previous fears and was so convincing that he said yes! For 12 months I imagined myself saying goodbye to my family and boyfriend, waving goodbye at the airport, walking down the air bridge with my ticket in my hand. Travelling for 3 months, missing home but knowing it would be there. For 12 months this was my pre-sleep ritual. It never changed, the picture was the same. It was detailed, specific and anticipated feelings as well as logistics. Twelve months later I boarded that plane for my 3rd attempt. The feelings were familiar, almost déjà vu. I had already been there in my mind so many times that every moment of the trip felt familiar. When the homesickness came, and it did on occasion, I had a mantra rehearsed “make the most of this opportunity” and would repeat it whenever required. It worked!

These moments have continued in my life and I can clearly identify when visualising has assisted in overcoming fears, such as my fear of heights. On two separate occasions in my corporate job I’ve been forced to face my fear of heights in conference activities. First, I had to abseil into a dark cave, combined with water and small spaces in New Zealand and the other was an abseil off a cliff face in the Blue Mountains. I was in desperate need of some preparation. Visualising myself successfully doing the activity and walking away with all body parts intact became the focus! For the Blue Mountains abseil I took visualising to a whole new level by engaging the behaviours. There I was on a Friday night (probably with a few glasses of wine for courage) practicing stepping backwards off the dining room table onto a chair, onto a couch whilst being cheered and supported by my wonderful flat mate Mary.

Maybe it helps being a visual learner because I find it very easy to slip into seeing something I wish to manifest. Creating pictures in my mind is something I have always done. Maybe all those years of long family drives where I was forced to entertain myself by escaping into my head have exercised that part of my brain. I used to imagine I lived in Italy with a family who owned a villa, rather than with my family driving across the Nullabor with 2 parents, 3 kids and the family dog. But I think it’s a good place to start…not driving across the Nullabor, but imagining a scene in your mind. I see it like a play happening before me. I’m watching it but I’m a character in the play. It takes practice but it works for me.

Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP talks about “Being As If.”

Simply put, living as if the desired result has already happened. So dressing for the job you want not the job you have or seeing yourself as already in love and having that happy relationship whilst your seeking it. The premise is that if you allow yourself to feel and experience those outcomes as if they have already happened, you are more likely to attract them into your life. Perhaps this is the theory behind you cannot be loved until you love yourself. By loving, caring and nurturing yourself you are already feeling how you wish to feel in relationship with others. You exude happiness, confidence and energy which we all know is attractive in a mate. So attracting a partner becomes about enriching your life rather than filling a void or “completing” oneself.

Whatever way it goes the premise is the same. Imagining and believing that you deserve only good in your life and having a vision of what this looks like can only be good for you. It gives you a benchmark to measure against. Does this job fit with what I’m looking for? Is this the kind of man I want to spend my life with?

So where do you start? Just several weeks ago I wrote about finding your purpose and a meaningful life. How do you manifest this when you don’t even know where to start? This isn’t an overnight process, it takes practice, but it’s never too late. In 2005 I remember sitting in a coffee shop outside my office writing a list of what I wanted to manifest in my life. Eleven years and maybe 6 notebooks later I can honestly say much of what I wrote has been manifested. Family – tick, variety in my work life – tick, flexibility to create income – tick, out of the 9-5 daily commute – tick. Am I lucky? I’m grateful, I don’t believe in luck.

I believe we create our own luck or our own life through belief, focus and getting to know who we are.

I got specific, I imagined something better for myself. I wrote lists, I dreamt and I kept my antenna up. At the stage when I wrote family, I had no idea whether I would be able to have my own child. So I wrote family because I knew I would be a mother, I just wasn’t sure how.

I’m not sure there is a set formula but I know what has worked for me. It started with getting to know myself and recognise what I care about. About 6 years ago I was offered a fantastic job. I spent the next few days visualising what it would look like. What would the days look like, how would it fit with Charlie and Marks schedule, and even what time would I have to leave in the morning and return at night. When the pictures I was imagining didn’t match up with the visions I had for myself it was so easy to turn down. It was an amazing opportunity but it didn’t match my vision…it wasn’t what I wanted for my life. Had I not imagined the reality of this job I would have been swept up in the status, the money and the opportunity of this position. And I would have been miserable, and given up all the other things I had written on my list that day in the coffee shop. The balance, the flexibility and the desire to live a life of purpose.

You have to be clear on what you are seeking and the person who is seeking it. Freedom, love, choice, variety, purpose and security, it doesn’t’ really matter what it is but it matters to get specific. Once you’ve mastered that, then you can begin to create images and pictures in your mind. Next thing you know, new beliefs emerge and you begin to act differently. As your behaviour changes, new neural pathways are formed, laying down the possibility for something which once seemed impossible. The ability to manifest what you seek into your life.

Can you imagine?

Love and light

Jo