I feel like I’m finally “getting there”… I think I’ve finally got a handle on life. Yes I know it’s taken 51 years but better late than never – right? I’ve spent years stumbling in the dark, looking for answers, trying to work out the who, what, why, where and how of life. I always felt like life was for other people to enjoy, but not me, yet I so desperately wanted it to be good for me too. Some people cruise through life as if they know everything will always fall into place for them. Was that the answer?
For the last few years, I’ve done a lot of research into the Laws of Attraction. You’ve probably all heard of “The Secret” if not read it or watched the DVD. The basic premise of the laws of attraction is, the more you focus on something, the more you’ll get of it. So if your focus is solely on “not” getting bills.. chances are you’ll get them as your focus is on bills.. How then, you may ask, do I avoid them?
The Law of Attraction gurus will tell you that the thing to do is to focus on the positive, not the negative. Instead of focusing on not getting bills, focus on getting cheques or money. Focus on a bank statement with a high balance in your mind rather than the pile of unpaid bills you keep thinking about. Now you don’t have to tell me that this isn’t easy. I know it. I’ve studied it and tried very hard at times to practise it but it is still not an easy task.
How hard is it, when you have no food in the house, a pile of unpaid bills and debt collectors phoning you, to be able to say to yourself.. “Oh I’m a millionaire. Money is attracted to me and I have more abundance than I’ll ever need.” It is almost impossible. While you’re busy saying it to yourself, another bill has just been delivered, the kids are bringing home excursion notices and the fridge is just about empty. When it doesn’t happen, you blame yourself again as it must be that you didn’t say it loud enough or want it bad enough. Nope, we’re just not wired that way. But there are steps to get there…. and the operative word here is steps.
To go from being broke to imagining a millionaire status usually involves the dream of winning lotto. Now while I know people win lotto all the time, the chances are still pretty low. I’m not saying you can’t win it, as I know people who have, but fact is, it’s the luck of the draw. I know a lot of people view the Law of Attraction as just some new age mumbo jumbo but the more I have studied it and practised it, albeit rather haphazardly, the more I believe even more strongly in it. However it is not a quick fix, hallelujah moment type answer.
Have you ever noticed how a millionaire might lose all of his money but within a few years will have achieved millionaire status again. Yet a labourer who has won lotto will possibly have lost all his money in a few years, never to get it back again. Assuming they have the same IQ, the same mix of friends, the same emotional support, one will manage to claw his way back from the brink of financial disaster where the other one will be back to working hard for his money all over again in a short time. What sets these two people apart?
It’s their mindset. The millionaire believes himself to be a millionaire, He acts like a millionaire, he thinks like a millionaire, he expects to be treated like a millionaire and voila….. in a short amount of time, he’s back to millionaire status.. The labourer on the other hand believes himself to be a labourer. He acts like a labourer, he thinks like a labourer, he expects to be treated like a labourer and in a short time, he’s back to his working class status. Now I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that. We each have our own levels of happiness and we all know that money doesn’t buy happiness. I’m using wealth as an example although you can replace it with health, happiness, love, fame or anything else you want.
Our brains have been programmed from an early age and how they have been programmed is generally a fair indication of our environment. In most working class families, kids grow up listening to terms like “filthy” rich, born with a silver spoon in his mouth (gotta make for a painful birth lol) and of course the most famously misquoted bible verse of all time, Money is the root of all evil. The saying is actually something along the lines of “The LOVE of money is the root of all evil.” The millionaire has possibly grown up hearing the stockmarket, savings, bonds etc. He may also be a self made millionaire but has been driven either by praise, encouragement or occasinally, embarrassment.
If we bring our children up listening to a negative connotation on wealth, why would they possibly feel they should embrace it? I grew up listening to my parents saying we were poor but proud..Well, I don’t want to be proud of being poor.. I want to live comfortably. I want to not have to worry where the next meal is coming from. So how do we re program what has been fed into us from childhood. We’re not computers so we can’t just reformat with a click of a button, but we can change the way we think and see ourselves.
When I was only about 12 and going through that horrid gawky stage that young people go through, I had one horrendous experience that had me stuck in that moment for years. I was a very pretty child and when I reached that stage, I really was gawky. My nose had grown before my face so looked huge (it still is big but it was completely out of proportion), my hair had become that ordinary dirty blonde color rather than the white blonde I had been. I had grown taller and was just starting to develop so was uncomfortable in my body. I was getting pimples and had a bit of a mono brow. At my sister’s house, she said to a friend of hers, “Oh do you remember my little sister Yvonne?” He replied, while looking at me scathingly “God what happened to you, you used to be so pretty.” That one sentence defined how I saw myself everytime I looked in a mirror for the next 20-30 years.
I became stuck in that moment so that I still saw that gawky, awkward, pimply faced girl whose nose was way too big for her face. I was in my 30s before I started to look properly in a mirror and see the realistic version of myself. What changed that perception? People telling me I was attractive. What others tell us and indeed what we tell ourselves becomes our reality unless we change our mindset. It wasn’t easy to look in a mirror and try to like the way I looked but I knew I had to try. I had to overcome that one sentence from a complete jerk who thought it was funny to humiliate a little kid.
I’m sure you all know someone else who fits the description of a beautiful person who thinks of themselves as fat and ugly. They look in a mirror everyday and tell themselves how bad they look. One negative comment may have been enough to make them start to doubt themselves and they fixate on the negative rather than the positive. This is negative brain reprogramming. It is what too many people do to themselves when it comes to every part of their life. They won’t give themselves permission to be happy until they are prettier, slimmer, richer, funnier, blah blah blah. So they spend their time beating themselves up for not being all of the above. This has been my life for years but no longer.
I decided to try to change my mindset but as I said, that’s really difficult to do when you are living hand to mouth. Still, I read everything I could on the laws of attraction and practised it as I could. This then opened up a whole new way of beating myself up. Obviously it was my fear of losing a child that caused my daughter to die and of course, the constant worry about money ensured I stayed broke. I worked through this same nonsense and started to REALLY change the way I thought about myself.
It is a step by step process. It is sheer madness to think that as you are running round the house trying to find 5 cent pieces to buy milk for the kid’s breakfast in the morning that you could possibly imagine having enough money to do grocery shopping without counting every penny, let alone having so much money you never had to worry again. BUT, I could start to imagine myself finding enough money to make ends meet. From there, I could start to imagine what it would be like to do grocery shopping on a weekly basis, still frugally, but not having to put things back. I started to trust life enough to know that if I needed something, it would turn up.
Of course there have been really hard times still, but generally, when life is looking harsh, something or someone always comes along to lift the burden. Having just been keeping my head above water for the last few years, I decided to really work out what I wanted to do and to make it my everyday purpose to make it happen. I had always wanted to write and excelled in English at school, so beginning to write a book, I also decided to start to write this blog. I imagined constantly what it will feel like to have a best selling book and that the numbers of people reading my blog would build steadily. I mocked up book and magazine covers to trick myself into believing it even more. Having won “Blogger of the Year” for Star Central magazine, they are now preparing the next edition magazine with yours truly on the cover.
I made a vision board a few years ago, of things I wanted to do and have. I looked at it closely the other day and realised I have a lot of what I had on there. On the board there was a good camera, a garden with a huge birdbath (that I hadn’t even realised had a birdbath), a flat screen tv, a high powered computer and numerous other things that I’ve been fortunate enough to stumble upon at bargain prices, which I had just enough money for when they were available. On the same vision board is a photo of Ayres Rock (Uluru) which of course is my destination in July, having been invited out of the blue by my cousin to go with her. Suddenly, my ‘vision’ board is looking more like an ‘already have’ board without me having realised it was all happening.
Starting college again this Tuesday, I knew I needed more clothes to see me through as I spend a lot of time in comfortable, not good enough for going out in, clothes. I went to the second hand shop around the corner the other day after thinking about what i needed and they had a $1 sale on. I bought a full wardrobe of clothes for under $50 including brand new shoes that had never been worn but were the ultra comfortable padded type for all day wear.
Unexpected things and people are turning up in my life as I need them, for whatever reason. My boys are finally settled into their niches and I feel the pressure of worrying about them is off. Finances still aren’t fantastic, but nowadays, i know they will be. I know that my trip to Ireland WILL happen as I have a spiritual need to go there, so of course it will fall into place. Nowadays I feel like one of those people who has things work out for them. I feel like my life is unfolding exactly as it should be. I don’t stress so much about things as I have a deep seated belief that everying will happen as it should.
For someone who has always felt like the biggest loser in the world, this is just the best feeling and I have to say I’m adapting to it quickly. This is the way life should be. Of course I’m working hard on making it all happen too, not just sitting back and waiting for it. I’m recognising and taking the opportunities that are coming my way and looking at what I can do to make sure I can do the things I want to do. I am working to achieve the goals I want to achieve. I’m still working on my mindset too. The idea that I could make something of my life is no longer a vague pipe dream but an honest look at my future. I know I’m on the right path and it feels good.
It took me years to realise that I couldn’t achieve my goals for so long as I didn’t know what they where. How can you possibly know where you’ll end up if you don’t know where you’re going? When is the last time you really sat down and assessed what you want to do? It’s not as easy as you may think. I recommend everyone to make themselves a vision board. Get a large frame or board of some sort and cut pictures out of magazines of things you really want. Stick the pictures on the board. It can be travel, diamonds, stereos, a house, pool.. whatever you think would make your life that bit better. Don’t think small….think big. Then start to put yourself in the picture. It’s amazing how much easier it is to imagine something if you have a picture of it to look at.
Whilst the picture on this magazine cover is just one I made up….. it started something that I hadn’t actually wished for but is now coming to pass. When I get the REAL cover from the magazine featuring my story, I’ll put it up here.. Until then I’m going to update my own vision board.. I think I need to photoshop myself into a picture kissing the Blarney Stone. Before you know it, I’ll be writing to you from the beautiful Emerald Isle if my theory is correct.