Oprah has taken an interest in people who had vision boards that produced positive and abundant change in their lives. On February 11, 2007, after the February 8th airing of the The Secret with James Arthur Ray and Michael Beckwith, I sat myself down and spent the entire day creating a vision board of my own. Since I have no problem visualizing anything, I felt this was a terrific exercise in setting goals, creating an intention, and thanking the universe for what I have already received. I remember looking at my new vision board and thinking, Well, God wants us to have it all, so why not? I held nothing back in creating the board. It was complex, crazy, I shot for the moon.
When I finished, I celebrated. I spent at least an hour dancing joyfully around the living room in a state of gratitude. I allowed every experience on that board to come into my being (and believe me, there were events on that board of such complexity I think even God would have to pause to figure out how to make them manifest into reality). For the first time, I allowed myself to really feel what it was like to receive these gifts and have these events happen in my life. To be given all the gifts on that board, to know them, was humbling. When we ask, it is given, and then we offer thanks to the Divine for being a co-creative partner in our growth and evolution. This is one of the secrets of the visualization process. It’s how we attract new conditions and circumstances. I was reminded in Oprah’s show that after we create in the mind we must express deep gratitude from the heart. This expression tells the universe that we are already in receipt of what we asked for.
But after we ask, how do we draw ourselves into alignment with what we want? With healings, gifts, or more love? During the last three years, the gifts on my board I received were healthy skin (I beat cancer), a healthy body (made it through back surgery), and improved family relationships. I asked for simplicity at work—and wound up losing my office; I wish I knew why I asked for that one!
But many other things I did not experience or receive. Things like working with Michael Beckwith in raising consciousness, or my next book hitting the New York Times best-seller list. The book I was writing at the time didn’t get picked up by a publisher, and since the idea was not well received, I dropped the project. There was no media blitz, no fresh material, and I went back to the drawing board. How long would it take, I wondered to write a book that everyone wants to read? And what am I not doing to support this vision of being a teacher who uplifts the human spirit?
I put the board away.
Then one day I got an email whose subject line was “What guest I learned the most from on Oprah.” …continue reading the entire article here…>
The dawn of a new year brings refreshing new beginnings. It’s an opportunity for new thoughts and choices and certainly, a time to remind us of a new way of being. Hopefully, this means “being” awake spiritually and using every opportunity in 2011 to open our minds to divine direction and guidance. And it is a time to celebrate relationships – friends, lovers, our communion with Mother Earth, or even our abundant and productive business connections. After all, life IS relationship, the very foundation of what constitutes our oneness as a human community.
