How to Get What You Want
How to Manifest What You Want
When I first heard the word “manifesting” it was when I read the popular book “The Secret” many years ago. I was intrigued by the idea you could get what you wanted simply by thinking about what you wanted. I’m a reporter at heart so while I thought it was interesting to consider thinking about expecting good things to come to you so they can, the majority of me felt it was probably a bunch of hogwash. I mean, you have to physically do something to make something, right?
It was about that same time I was whining to my therapist guru about not getting the things I wanted in life. One of the things I wanted was a walk-in closet. I told her I used to have a lovely walk-in closet years ago in another house (seemingly in another life), and now I live in a beautiful neighborhood but in an older home with closets the size of a postage stamp… and with two little kids, two dogs and a husband, my postage stamp closets were bursting.
“Why can’t I have a walk-in closet?!” I would protest. “I work very hard I deserve this. Is it asking too much!? I don’t see how I can ever have one because I don’t have the money to move or add on to the house.” At the time I couldn’t see any possible way to get my needs met and I was mad about it.
My guru, who has a gorgeous walk-on closet, nodded and validated me, saying she could understand being frustrated. She reminded me of her previous home when she had so little closet space she had to hang two dresses on one hanger to fit everything in.
Then she asked me, “How do you think you would feel if you had that walk-in closet?” I replied, “How is that going to help me get a closet?” She explained in more or less words that when we are angsting over something we are emitting a negative energy, and negative energy always blocks us from getting what we want. My whining and believing I would never get what I want was negative energy. Essentially, I was blocking myself from getting my own needs met. Interesting.
She asked me again, “How do you think you would feel if you had that walk-in closet?” I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a gorgeous, huge, closet with one of those islands in the middle with little drawers below for bras and socks, several drawers just for jewelry with glass tops so I could see inside easily, and all my clothing color coded and folded and stacked neatly. “I think I’d
feel luxurious, spacious, like a have a spot of my own, my own space… I’d feel like I could breath.”
She told me to imagine the closet as many times as I could throughout the day and to hold on to those good feelings as many times as I could. Ridiculous, I thought. Like that is going to get me a closet…
But, I tried it. I imagined my closet and held on to those good feelings that came with the imagining part two or three times a week.
Then, a few months later after everyone had gone to bed I was walking around me home trying to brainstorm as to how to make this walk-in closet thing a reality. I circled my small home probably three times. Then, I went to a very small closet by the front door (called a coat closet in the old days). I opened it. It was stuffed with coats and long dresses and boxes of junk from I don’t know what on top. I closed it. I opened it again. I parted the sea of dresses and coats and shoved myself inside the closet to see if I could close the door. I could.
“THAT’S IT!!!!!!!” I thought. “If I gut this closet and take everything out, it’s pretty deep, I could put in a few drawers and shelves to the ceiling on one side and rods to hangs things on the other side — and this could be my walk-in closet! I mean, a walk-in closet for one but who cares, I was creating a space for me and didn’t expect visitors.
The very next day I was so excited I gutted the closet myself, and scheduled a cheap closet guy to come and install drawers and rods. Four days later, I had my walk-in closet. I put up some beautiful wallpaper and ordered a lamb skin rug. My husband installed a light and an outlet, and I was so happy I didn’t care there was no a/c.
As I stood there in awe of my walk-in closet, I realized that indeed I had manifested this. It wasn’t exactly what I pictured, but it absolutely made me feel like I had a space of my own, I felt luxurious and I felt like I could breath.
Manifestation in Practice
Manifesting is about this: Asking yourself how you want to feel when you have what you want. The feeling is the power to manifesting what you desire.
Think of the rocket boosters on a space ship: if you want to propel something forward, the feeling is the booster that will send it into the universe..
Here’s my manifesting recipe:
1) Ask the universe or God for what you want
2) Imagine or picture what you want
3) Hold the feelings that come from imagining
4) Let go of trying to figure out how to make stuff happen
5) Accept what is
6) Repeat
I’m not whining much anymore. I realize I have the power to create pretty much anything. And you know what? You do, too.
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