I do a lot of things to help make my dreams come true in the physical world. I take a lot of action steps. I do the things I should do. I do the things I’m inspired to do. I seek answers and solutions and I work at achieving my goals many hours a day. I don’t give up. I don’t accept rejection as failure. I ‘m determined. I persevere.

But there are some other things I do, too. These are not necessarily done on the physical plane…or not all of them. They have more to do with using my mental focus to create what I want in my life. Some of you may find these actions, if you will, somewhat woo woo, metaphysical or spiritual, but some of the most successful athletes, businesspeople and creatives I know use these same steps in one form or another. So, today I thought I’d share them with you.

First, I get very clear about what it is I want to create. For some people, this might be a new job or relationship. For others it could be better health or a new car. Because I work with a lot of aspiring writers, I’m going to use a writing example. Maybe you want to create a career as a writer, a published book (a career as an author), a relationship with an agent, an acceptance by a publication, or something else related to your writing. In this first step, write this down in fine detail, but do so in the present tense (as if you had already manifested what you desire). You can write about it in the past tense, too. Create a clear picture of what you want using words.

The second step often is missing from this process. Consider how your creation–your article, book, career as a writer–will serve others? How can you give to others by getting what you want? Will you donate money to charity? Or will your book or article actually help solve an important problem people have? Can you give the gift of support via your writing? Or can you go a step farther than that? Consider how you will share your creation into the big picture of actually creating it.

Third, read this description of what you want aloud. When you do, instil in it all the feeling you can muster. By feeling I mean all the emotion you would have in this moment if you already had what you want. How would it feel to have just gotten off the phone with your agent, to be holding your published book, to see your article in a magazine, to pay your mortgage with the income you make as a writer? Don’t forget to imagine what it will feel like to share your dream come true with others. Muster up these emotions and combine them with your imagined scenario.

Third, close your eyes and consider what actions will bring  your dream into reality. What must you do? More importantly, what do you feel inspired to do? Or what do you feel intuitively that you must do? Create a to-do list and start taking action to help bring your desire into your experience.

I employ these steps all the time. In particular, I use them when bringing my dreams into reality feels difficult, or when I feel things aren’t going as I’d like.

I call this Kabbalistic conscious creation. It’s similar to other deliberate creation processes, but they tend to not include the aspect of giving. When I teach this, I also speak about the four worlds. You can learn more about this in my book, The Kabbalah of Conscious Creation.

Try the process, and then tell me how it works for you. Leave me a comment, and tell me your results.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about people who do things that are inspirational. People who are courageous in large ways and small ways.

They take risks. They put themselves on the line. They overcome obstacles. They move through fear. They don’t let anything stop them from pursuing their dreams. They put others before themselves.

And their actions–their courage and determination–makes us cry, makes us smile, makes us laugh, and gives us hope. They inspire us and make us realize that if they can do it, so can we.

My son inspires me. He left home his senior year to attend the School of American Ballet in New York City. He left behind his friends and gave up whatever normal life a teen might have to pursue his dream of becoming a professional dancer. This might not seem like a big deal, but it took courage, and I find it inspiring.

Watch the video below of Emmanuel Kelly, a victim of chemical warfare and a survivor from Iraq. Orphaned and found in a shoe box, he doesn’t know how old he is, but he does know that he wants to sing.  And he has managed to become a great singer. Here’s a young man who, despite his past and his physical deformities got up in front of the whole world to pursue his dream of becoming a professional singer. That takes courage. That’s a risk. But let’s not forget about his mother who had the courage to adopt him and his brother. That takes courage, too.

If this video does not inspire you to have the courage to pursue your dreams not matter what obstacles lie in your way, think about the people who inspire you. Martin Luther King? The non Jews who helped saved Jews during the Holocaust? Moses, with his speech impediment, who freed the Israelites from Egypt? The first responders who went into the Twin Towers on 9-11? I’m sure you can think of someone.

Much of the time, we are consumed with desires. We want to have something different than what we now have. We want to be something different than what we now are. We want to go somewhere different than where we now exist.

Although God created us in such a way that it is natural for us to have strong desire, it’s also important for us to learn to accept where we are and what we have in this moment. We have to learn to have desires and also be in the moment—and feel okay in the moment. If we are constantly longing for something else, this causes us to “future” in a negative way. We constantly creatively vision about the future and create negative thoughts and feelings that go with those visions because we don’t have what we desire.

Thus, we must learn feel good about our desires and then to move into acceptance. We must feel “okay” with where we are and with what we have despite the fact that we possess as yet unfulfilled desires.

If we remember that God is in the moment—not in our futuring and dreaming and visioning. That’s why creation happens in the moment. We create our desires in the moment. Knowing this helps us learn acceptance.

Simply be with God in the moment and know that as you connect with God and feel good about that connection, your desires are being fulfilled. Let God know about your desires and then let them go: Let go and let God.

This video pretty much says it all…Human’s have a huge ability to survive even the worst situations–even concentration camps. Yet, many of us feel we can’t survive much less difficult situations in our lives. We need only look at the huge suicide rates in teens to know that this is true.

Here we have a Holocaust survivor and his grandchildren dancing to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” at each Holocaust-related site they visit together. What a wonderful reminder that we can survive almost anything if we we have the desire to live. It’s also a reminder to celebrate life.

[]

Today I had the chance to speak about my Kabbalistic conscious creation process on Europe’s Secret to Success Internet radio show. (You can listen to the show here.) While I spoke with the show’s host, Natasha Abudarham, I began thinking about how important it really is to begin any project with a desire to fulfill your soul’s purpose.

You see, no matter whether your project entails manifesting a new car, finding a new job, writing a book, improving a relationship, losing weight, or getting out of debt, you must begin by asking yourself how doing or accomplishing these things allows your soul to do what it came to this Earth to do. Every soul has a job here. Each person has a unique talent or gift. Everyone is good at something or especially suited to some task. We each feel passionate about something–when we do that something our heart sings. That’s what we are supposed to be doing. And when you or I understand how what we want or need–the project we want to undertake–serves that purpose, we’ll have an easier time meeting our goal or manifesting our desires.

That’s why the first step in my conscious creation process asks people to get in touch with what the Kabbalists called “Adam Kadmon,” the blueprint of all creation or, what I call the repository of your soul’s purpose. I want you to discover your unique talent or gift and how you are going to bring that into the world. I want you to create from a place that is in touch with your soul’s purpose–with the reason you are here. When you create things that help you fulfill your soul’s purpose, you manifest those desires more easily. They fit into the Divine plan and, therefore, you find them taking physical form almost miraculously when you set your mind, emotions, and actions to creating them. Additionally, you will want to share them as a way of fulfilling your soul’s purpose and completing the conscious creation process as I outline it.

I think overall we manifest things more quickly and easily when they fit into the Divine Plan…not into some human plan. If you aren’t just manifesting more “stuff” but things that help you fulfill your soul’s purpose–things that help you do what you are meant to accomplish in this lifetime, you’ll have more success with your conscious creation efforts.

Remember, this is a co-creation process after all. You and the Ultimate Creator are creating together.

If you don’t have any idea what your soul’s purpose might be, you might find this post helpful.

For more information on Kabbalistic conscious creation and the Law of Attraction, check out my booklet, the Kabbalah of Conscious Creation, or the articles here.

I just returned from the San Francisco Writers Conference. This year I had the great privilege of not just attending or working as a volunteer but of working with attendees as a “book doctor” – freelance nonfiction book editor.  I also helped judge the annual “pitch” contest, during which aspiring authors practice their “elevator speech,” a 30 second or 25-word sound bite they will use to entice a literary agent to say, “Tell me more,” and eventually – hopefully – send me your book proposal. 

In both the Book Dr. sessions and the Pitch Contest, writers were able to hone the pitches they hoped would lead to their fulfilled desires – a published book. Then, on the last day of the conference, they could use that pitch with agents in a three-minute, face-to-face meeting during a session called “Speed Dating for Agents.” This would be their chance to have their dreams become reality, to have an agent voice interest and have that interest possibly lead not only to representation but to a book contract with a publishing company.

On Sunday morning I spent some of my time either in the “Speed Dating for Agents” room or walking up and down the line of people anxiously awaiting their turn to enter the room where those agents would hear pitch after pitch after pitch. As I did so, I was struck by the huge number of dream and desires held so tightly by this large amount of people.

“My goodness,” I thought, “look how many people have the dream of getting a book published! And this is just one small handful of the all the people in the world who share this dream. These are just the few with the money and the time and the interest in coming to this one conference.”

Indeed, there are thousands – millions – of people with the desire to have their writing published. That, however, represents just one dream. What about all the other dreams people hold dear to their hearts? Every person in this world, on this earth, has a dream or a desire they would like to see made manifest.

What’s the difference between the people standing in line to get into the “Speed Dating for Agents” session or the people in the room actually talking to literary agents at this one writing conference and all the other people in the world with dreams and desires? They are making their dreams come true. They are taking action to fulfill their desires and to bring their dreams into reality.

How many of us have a dream – of becoming a published author or hiking to the top of Mt. Everest or painting a portrait or becoming a nurse or running a marathon or losing 20 pounds or becoming successful in our business - and never do anything to realize that dream? It’s all well and good to dream, but there exists just one difference between a dreamer and someone who realizes his or her dream: one takes action and one doesn’t. In other words, one does something to make sure to fulfill his or her dream while the other simply continues to dream.

I believe in deliberate, conscious creation. I have often written about the fact that when we combine our thoughts of what we want with the feeling of having already having received our desires, we help bring that desire into physical existence. Yet, I have always qualified this by saying that we have to add to this formula inspired action. Or, if we don’t feel inspired, we must do what we know is required to bring that dream into reality.

These writers at the San Francisco Writers Conference, and writers like them at conferences all around the world, were doing something to manifest their dreams. They were imagining what it will be like to have their published book in their hands. They were visualizing an agent saying, “Yes, I want to represent you,” or a publisher saying, “I’ll send you a contract tomorrow,” and what that might feel like. But rather than just daydreaming – or even consciously visualizing, they wrote their books or their book proposals and they paid the money, got in a car or on a plane, and took the time to be somewhere where they could meet someone who could help them make their dream come true. They practiced their pitches. They overcame their fear and actually spoke to an agent. They took action to help manifest their desires.

So, as I stood in that Speed Dating for Agents room looking at all the nervous writers waiting their turn to speak with a literary agent, I could almost see their dreams and desires hovering above their heads like extra entities in the room. The room was filled not only with people but with dreams and desires manifesting slowly but surely as the dreamers took another step closer to the fulfillment of their desires.

I encourage you to ask yourself this one question: What one step are you going to take today to help bring your dream or desire into the room with you?

[The comments field on this blog is now working without requiring any type of log in to WordPress! Please feel free to leave comments. I'd love to hear from you...]

This summer my son suffered from an undiagnosed illness. For six weeks I had to juggle not only my work, which required meeting a variety of deadlines, but his needs and the other household duties I have, such as paying bills, cooking, etc. When my daughter was home, I also had to try not to neglect her and to address her needs. And I had to try to support my husband, when possible, who was trying to help while also dealing with enormous stress from his job adn the need to work very long hours.

As my son’s illness, including two hospital stays, came to an end, and we finally received a diagnosis – after the fact, I turned my attention to keeping him healthy enough to pursue a goal that would affect the coming 12 months. He needed to make it through a full week of dancing. By completing this dance intensive and an audition at the end of the week, he would set the course for his whole year of dance. And he had to do this after being sick for six weeks and not dancing for eight weeks. I also turned my attention to getting my daughter to art lessons and myself to a writer’s conference.

All this to say, in the midst of this I realized there are many ways to live your life fully. During this six- or eight-week period in my life, I couldn’t exercise, visit with friends, have new experiences, or try exercises that would allow me to live my life fully in a variety of ways. I could only be in the moment as fully as possible. I could handle a deadline that loomed over me. I could be present in a hospital room or at a doctor’s appointment or with my feverish child. I could put aside my stress over work to talk with my son while driving to yet one more visit to the lab to draw blood. I could handle paperwork and bills at 1 a.m., because this was the only time to do so. I could put aside my own stress and fear about the future and talk to my son about his current upset over missing camp, not being able to stand, feeling his illness was unfair, and generally being stressed about being sick and wanting to be healthy so he could have a normal life and pursue his dreams.

Living fully meant being totally present for my son and for myself during his illness. It meant putting other things on the back burner – including the next assignment for the Living Fully Challenge I run and author each month. It meant prioritizing, and realizing that nothing was more important than being in the moment – each moment – with my family. I meant reminding myself that now – this moment – is all that really matters, and the rest can wait. It meant putting aside my fears about the future, my anger about what had happened, my mullings over the causes or reasons. It meant making choices now, now, and, again, now. And choosing now, not then – whether then meant a time to come or a time that had passed.

Know that when you can’t do it all, when you can’t live fully in the way you think you should or desire, you can live fully simply by being in the now. Knowing I can do this – and continue to do this – brings great peace into my life. I hope sharing this with you will help you find that same peace.

I had the most phenomenal conversation this morning with a Kabbalist in Safed, Israel, that gave me a much clearer understanding of how the Law of Attraction works from a Kabbalistic spiritual perspective. Given the fact that I do, in fact, believe that our thoughts are creative and that what we focus upon expands, and that I hear the criticism being heaped upon the author of The Secret for her book and DVD’s materialistic bent, I wanted to share a little of what I’ve learned.

As Avraham Loewenthal, a Kabbalist and artist who’ve I’ve mentioned before, explains it, the fact that we want something for ourselves is natural. Desire is part of our inherent nature. Of course we want to get “things” or to receive them; therefore, we want to discover how to get what we want.

Along the way, we realize that we receive most easily when we are in the process of giving. Giving makes us happy. When we are giving, we are open and able to receive. We become a vessel to hold God’s ever flowing abundance and goodness. That’s why when we are giving we feel happy. And when w are happy, we find that the things we want are easier to obtain. Sometimes they even just come to us.

That leads us to a consciousness of giving to get something in return. It’s a step in the right direction, but we aren’t yet there. Next, we must learn to receive for the sake of giving. At this stage, what we want cannot be found in anything physical for our desire is for a new consciousness, a consciousness that wants to receive for the sake of giving. This represents giving in the truest sense.

God gives, and we receive, but as long as we only receive – or we try to get “things” for our own purposes — God remains the giver and we remain the receiver. We remain separate from the Divine. When we receive in order to give – by giving purely out of a desire to give, we remove the separation between the ultimate giver – God – and the receiver – all of creation. We become one with God, who’s only known characteristic is Its ability to give goodness to creation. When we begin giving for the sake of giving, we we are expressing that part of us that is created in God’s image, and the separation between Giver and receiver disappears.

That said, it isn’t easy to accomplish this feat. Yet, Avraham taught me, it is in the effort of trying that we find that we are truly doing the work we were put her to do. And part of that work involves being grateful for what we do have, being happy where we are now, having faith that what we desire will come to us, and cheerfully accepting that if we don’t receive what we want or need right now, something better will come to us in just the right time. I learned something similar from another Abraham, the one channeled by Esther Hicks. Abraham teaches that we must learn to be happy where we are, because if we are constantly wishing to be somewhere else, we will always be in a place of lack. And from a place of lack, we receive only more lack. But if we are happy and grateful in the moment, we open ourselves to receiving something else – something that resonates with the vibration of happiness and gratitude rather than with the vibration of lack.

That’s if for now…I’m off to try and practice this. Easier said than done, I know. Thanks for letting me try and explain these difficult concepts here in my blog first. They’ll be put into by Abracadabra! booklet next. If you have any comments or thoughts, please e-mail me. I’d loe to discuss these concepts.

I was reading a book recommended to me by Avraham Loewenthal, a wonderful Kabbalistic artist in Tzfat, Israel, as well as a Kabbalist in his own right, when I was struck by two particular pieces of information. In Chapter 3 of “In the Shadow of the Ladder” by Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag, the author explains that the Kabbalists believed that God created the world to give pleasure to His creatures. Thus, the purpose behind creation necessitated the creation in the soul of God’s creatures of the will to receive. My own focus on how the Kabbalistic creation story can be used to teach us how to create what we want in our lives made this Kabbalistic teaching of great interest to me.

When we have a desire, inherent in that desire lies the will to receive it. Most people would argue that, of course, we must want to receive what we desire. Yet, so often our desires go unfilled. Why don’t we always receive what we desire? I believe we create mental scenarios where we see ourselves as not good enough to receive what we want. In addition, I believe that our habitual negative thoughts, which tell us we won’t or can’t receive what we want – and offer proof of why this is so, stop us from allowing in what we want. The Kabbalists would agree that what we think is what we create as would such sages as Rebbe Nachman of Bratslov. He taught, “You are where your thoughts are. Be sure your thoughts are where you want to be.”

Esther Hicks, channeling “Abraham,” teaches the “Law of Allowing.” She says many of us don’t “allow in” what we desire. When we think negative thoughts that generate bad feelings, feel negative emotions in general or pine for what we want rather than enjoying the wanting of it, we disallow the fulfillment of our desire. However, when we feel good, we allow what we want to manifest into our lives.

So, how does this relate to the will to receive? The Kabbalists are telling us that it is in our nature not only to desire but to receive that which we desire. God created the world so that we could experience pleasure, so that we could receive those things that make us feel good. And He created within us a huge desire to receive all of those things and the inherent ability to receive them.

In other words, we should want, and we should receive. We are given total permission to receive. What a freeing thought! I have long believed that desire represents a good thing, not a trait that must be shunned within us. I’ve heard the teaching often that one of the primary reasons for our existence lies in creating desires – and fulfilling them. Yet, these teachers say the desire itself remains more important than the fulfillment of that desire.

Now, I see that the most important thing is the actual fulfillment of our desires, the receiving of that which we want. Not only has God given us permission to have what we want, this receiving represents the purpose of our soul.

This begs the question: If we aren’t receiving all the good God’s world has to offer us, if we aren’t manifesting our desires, if we aren’t getting what we want, are we somehow not doing what God wants us to do, what we were created to do? There’s a scary thought…For so many of us, we’ve been taught that we shouldn’t want so much, shouldn’t expect so much. We tell our kids at the store that they can’t have this and that, and they shouldn’t be so greedy or materialistic, when in fact, it is in their nature to be just that. Their souls – our souls – are simply trying to express their nature, which is to receive all the goodness God’s world has to offer. Suddenly we have the freedom to want and to receive whatever our heart desires – a new car, a trip to Europe, financial security, a loving mate, a more fulfilling job, a piece of chocolate cake, a nap, peace, happiness…

Now, I’m not saying to rack up a huge credit card bill while justifying the debt by saying, “God wants me to have all the goodness in the world.” What I am saying is that we have to give ourselves permission to receive all this goodness. We have to be okay with receiving. And that is, for some of us, a tall order, a difficult task.

We have to learn to put aside the old lessons that desire is evil and the negative beliefs about not being good enough to have what we want. We have to stop the self-defeating thoughts that we don’t deserve to have all that we desire and the guilt at having more than others. We have to fulfill our destiny to not be without and to experience good.

Jesus taught this same lesson: He said, “Ask and ye shall receive,” “Ask and it is given,” “Knock and the door will be opened.” Simply ask, in other words, and you will receive, you will be allowed into the realm of answered prayers, manifested desires.

What would that look like, to really be able to receive all that we want, all the goodness the world has to offer? It’s an overwhelming picture…yet a phenomenally appealing one.

I’m left feeling, first, a sense of awe…that this is our “job” – to receive so much good…and, second, a sense of overwhelm…that I must find a way to allow all this good into my life. I must figure out how I block myself from receiving my desires so that I can fulfill God’s purpose in creating the world and his creatures – me, you, all of humanity.

Imagine a world where we had all removed the blocks we have against receiving the goodness of the world! We would be living in heaven on Earth!