“Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.”
Napoleon Hill
 
I stand back to admire the work of art that is my vision board. Well, it isn’t a work of art yet, it is still just a silhouette of a tree, fake money, and a collection of words printed out and stuck on my magnet board. It will be much more.
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A vision board is a physical way of imagining what you intend. It is a creative, flowing, fun and inspiring activity. The result is your dreams made visible in whatever way inspires you.

Your vision board can be an effective tool for visualizing your specific and on-going goals within the areas of manifestation you are currently creating, and keeping these at the forefront of your mind. 

My vision board is exciting to me, even unfinished.

I’m using magnet boards that I bought at Ikea, because my goals will be developing and changing as I go along. I want to be able to change pictures and words easily as I manifest my goals and create new goals.

I have written out my intentions in the form of prayer and positive affirmations. Each morning, I will look at my vision board and read my intentions out loud supported by Huna deep breathing. This combination keeps my conscious mind focused and my subconscious mind on board, giving energy to my Higher Self for manifestation.

Looking with pleasure at what is becoming a chaos of colors and shapes filling in the tree branches, I know each goal is attainable. I don’t know how some of it will manifest, but I know that  it will. I know this because I trust my Higher Self to create for me that which I intend or something even better.

I don’t tell my Higher Self how to do this. Happily, that’s not my job. My job is to set the intention and hold the focus, keeping my subconscious on board with my new goals.

We’re moving in exciting new directions here! 

“If we don’t see it how can we magnetize it? How can we bring it in? Whenever we are thinking about wanting to manifest anything, we think it and see it and truly have the clarity of how it would feel having it, how that energy in our life would be enhanced by it. That is what begins manifesting and magnetizing it.”
Red Feather
 
I sit in my favorite, grey, wingback chair, laptop on my knees, feeling its warmth seeping through the fabric of my jeans. I look out the window at the leathery, green leaves of the spreading post oak in our yard. How I love that tree! It inspires me with its maternal boughs gracefully arched over the grass, providing home and sustenance for myriad birds, squirrels and insects. I breathe deeply of that feeling of love and set my mind to create affirmations, a form of prayer, for the goals I’ve daydreamed over the last few days.

I came up with six or seven goals with sub-goals under each one, wanting to create them all. It is an ambitious plan and I am excited about it all. However, as I look at the list now, I begin to feel overwhelmed and doubtful. Can I actually do this?

Awhile back I took a wonderful class on goal setting and prioritization with Mona Raglow of Raglow Enterprises LLC. In the class she taught us to prioritize our goals and choose no more than three to work on at a time. We learned that we are most likely to achieve from one to three goals at any one time.  She taught that any more than three goals at a time and it was much more likely that you would not complete them.

So, I look at my goals list and start to prioritize, choosing what to work on now and what to work on later. I discover that my goals fall into several different categories, spirituality, loving relationships, writing/service, travel and home.

My spiritual and relationship goals are foundational and on-going. The writing/service, travel and home goals are more specific and time dependent. These are goals I will finish and then move on to create new goals. Now I’m getting somewhere!

I decide to focus upon it this way – first, a foundational prayer that I will use on an on-going basis. Then, affirmations for specific goals I want to achieve. These will change over time.

Next, I need to word the affirmations in such a positive way that I can feel the love and excitement each time I read them out loud. The feeling is essential. Feeling, the language of the subconscious, gets the gas flowing to your engine. I want to feel and imagine myself being, doing and having achieved each goal.

Here is what I’ve come up with.
Foundational Prayer:
“My God/Goddess, Thank you.
Thank you for the constant guidance and support of my Higher Self and my Spiritual Support Team.
Thank you for my excellent health and energy as I wake up every morning feeling enthusiastic about the day ahead.
Thank you for love, joy and laughter with my family and friends.
Thank you for the abundance and prosperity that support me and all that I intend.”

​Short Term Goals:
“I am delighted with how much fun it is creating and organizing our Goddess Group with my co-facilitators.”

“I am thrilled as three of my pieces are published on other spiritual blogs, expanding our Soul Doors community.”

“I have an inspiring and love-filled experience traveling with Peter to the West Coast to visit our daughter.”

“I love how every window in our home is in excellent repair, opening and closing with ease.”

Yes, I know. I didn’t stick to just three goals, even though this was recommended. I just can’t bear to leave one out!

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“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”    
Christopher Reeve
 
This is the first of the Soul Doors series on manifesting. It is the result of my research and experimentation, and the results are quite simple and straight forward.

Each of the posts will contain a manifesting technique that you may use separately or all together. They build one upon another and each adds more oomph to your manifesting.

I’ll be sharing some of my own experience with this process, including both the pluses and the minuses as I go through this process again with you. Fears and doubts come up. Life happens. We can support each other by doing this together.
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So, what comes first to manifest? Deciding what you want of course!

The first step is to allow yourself to dream, to believe that what you most want is possible.

God is within each one of us, present as our inner knowing. God within speaks to us through our imagination, our dreams and our deepest longings. We intuitively know what is the best direction for us, the direction that will fulfill our dreams, if we will allow ourselves the quiet time to access that knowing.

Still, it is one thing to trust God in an abstract, “I believe in something larger than myself out there,” sort of way, and quite another to trust God within oneself.

God within oneself is attainable and accessible. God within oneself is a part of your daily life. Guidance and support are there for the asking and the willingness to believe it is possible. You start to believe that your desires are possible and your goals are attainable.

However, along with accepting and trusting your God within comes the necessity of taking responsibility for the direction of your life. You choose the path. You create the action. You choose what you think. You choose how you feel about what happens. You choose. You choose. You choose.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just allow life to happen to you? Maybe, but it’s not nearly as much fun!

In denying your own dreams you fragment yourself from your source of power, your imagination.

Your imagination is the conduit whereby God, your Higher Self, your inner knowing communicates. In your imagination are the seeds of intuitive guidance letting you know the next step toward your dreams.

It may feel like a gentle tug on your attention, or it may feel like a yearning desire. Sometimes you’ll have pictures in your mind, or just a feeling, a direction you want to move in. It may come as a dream during sleep time that fills you with longing, or a lightbulb moment when an idea flashes into your awareness. It may come as a series of synchronistic events guiding you toward what you want.

Be aware of guidance from within. Pay attention to hints and synchronicities in your outer world. Attune to your imagination. Stay open and allow your dreams and longings.

Today’s Spiritual Toolbox is about using day-dreaming as a way to clarify what your inner knowing is telling you, opening you to your dreams. I hope you enjoy it!

BTW, if you have any questions or have anything you’d like to share about your experiences with manifesting, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below. 

 “Everything is always working out for me.”
Abraham-Hicks
 
You’ve seen this quote from Abraham elsewhere on this blog with good reason. It is a belief that creates a foundation of trust. Following is one way I’ve learned to apply it in my life as a positive response to disappointment.

Recently, a good friend delighted me with plans to buy a home close by. When the house sale fell through, I was dismayed by how disappointed I felt.

Last summer I was disappointed when my daughter’s family decided they couldn’t join us on vacation. Peter and I had planned to go to our family summer cottage in New Hampshire with our daughter, son-in-law and all three grandchildren. I was looking forward to it. When they had to cancel it was a disappointment and a surprising jumble of emotions for me.

Peter and I still planned to go by ourselves. We’d get to see our extended families who all live in New England, yet I felt a sense of loss.

I loved it when our summer cottage was filled with family. I felt sadness that the children lived so far away from their extended family and wouldn’t have the experience and memories of the cottage that I would love them to.

I felt disappointed not to share time with my daughter and son-in-law.

Perversely, I felt relief that there would be quiet time at the cottage, sitting on the porch, looking out over the lake. I felt glad that there would be plenty of space for any visiting extended family. What a mixed bag of emotions!

Please understand, I truly believe the Abraham-Hicks quote, “Everything is always working out for me.” I am reminded of it daily as I drive around with it in a prominent place inside my car. I can’t miss it as it reflects back at me from my windshield.

As it turned out, everything did work out for me last summer when just our granddaughter accompanied us on our trip to New Hampshire and it was one of our best trips yet. I was able to share with her all that I have loved about the lake cottage, as we spent lots of time together with extended family.

I’m going to trust that this will also be the case with my friend’s relocation plans.

Perhaps it will turn out to be better than it would have otherwise. I can choose to trust that good things will come of this change in plans. I just can’t see what they are yet. I can trust that things always work out for me, even when it feels like they aren’t.