With all the hype about the law of attraction and The Secret, some people are left wondering, “if the law of attraction works, where is my money?”  In my previous posts, I have mentioned that limiting beliefs buried deep in our subconscious minds are often the culprits of what prevent us from manifesting whatever we want.  I asked my readers to ask yourselves the following questions:

1. What comes to mind when you hear the word money?
2. What does your father think of money? How much money does he have?
3. What does your mother think about money? How much money does she have?

I would like to take this opportunity to share a reader’s response and analyze why money has not been manifested so far:

Question: What comes to mind when you hear the word money?

• U.S. currency, many $100 bills
• My lack of money
• What I should have
• What money I have borrowed, and have not been able to repay.
• My desires in their physical form
• The way my life should be
• Reminds me to manifest my desires
• Reminds me that I should meditate
• Good/evil potential of money
• Other’s situations with money
• The abundance of money
• The amount of people that live prosperous lifestyles

First of all, I wanted to share that I am deeply touched by this reader’s honesty and the willingness to play along with me and my questions.  What this reader wrote is not unlike what many people would write.  I remember when I thought I had no money and I kept worrying about not having money, this is the natural human condition, it is what our ego does to us to make us feel insecure about the lack of money that we have.

Here is what I realize is one of the most fundamental step to manifesting greatness:

Accept whatever you have right now~

Notice that this perspective is a bit different from thinking about what is missing in our lives.  The universe gives us whatever we think and feel:

Thoughts + Feelings = Manifestation

So if whenever I think of money, I just keep thinking about how my life *should* be, then I am in fact, thinking about all the things that are lacking in my life.  If we apply this to the equation for manifestation, then it will look very much like this:

I don’t have enough money + disappointment = No Money

If you have watched the movie The Secret, or have read about the law of attraction, you probably have heard of people talking about gratitude.  I think sometimes when things are not going so well, it is hard to think about gratitude.  Perhaps before we go to gratitude, we can think about the following question:

So what *DO* I have?

Let me give you an example of how this works:

Question: What do I have?

I have….

• A full head of hair, lots of gray ones but I can dye them if I wish 🙂
• A pair of glasses allowing me to see clearly
• A straight nose
• Kissable lips
• All my teeth in tact so far…

See how easy it is to think about what you already have?  Now let’s get to business:

I have…

• 3 meals a day plus a snack or two
• great coffee
• a roof over my head
• a jacket to wear when it is cold outside
• stove to cook my food on
• a fridge to keep left overs
• a computer to use to write this post
• high speed internet…

Wow, life is getting luxurious…

• a warm body to cuddle with when it is cold (thanks to my husband)
• two beautiful healthy kids laughing all the time (they cry too but that comes with the package)
• a nanny to cook my meals and giving me time to write
• my own en suite bathroom in my master bedroom
• a Honda Accord to drive around in
• recently manifested an iPad, someone just decided to give one to my husband and I consider it an iPad for me 😀

Life just keeps getting better!

I am sure if I wanted to, I can list a lot of things I don’t have.  Last week I was one iPad short, but I put it on my list of things to manifest for the week and it showed up.  I didn’t sit there feeling bad that I was one iPad short or that I should have had an iPad already.  I just thought to myself, wouldn’t it be nice to have an iPad to read my ebooks with?  Then I recall imagining myself holding one.  I spent an hour looking on the internet at pictures of an iPad.  I ordered an Apple Fanboy a birthday cake that looked like an iPad:

As you can see, I called it the iKake 🙂  The iKake I designed was made with real fruit and the piece at the top of the cake was a piece of chocolate to resemble the back of an actual iPad.  This iKake cost me $55 to custom order it.  Coincidentally, 2 weeks after I ordered the iKake, the person whom I gave the iKake to gave us an iPad that costs approximately $550.  Very interesting…

In this case, I didn’t manifest any money but I thought I manifested as approximately $500 of value 🙂 Maybe I should have titled this post: “How I manifested an iPad.”

I think the most important thing to take away from this edition of Manifestation Stories is this:

Think of what you already have instead of what you should have.

Once you have accepted life as the way it is (after all, we manifest everything in our lives), then you can start envisioning yourself having some other things.

So the exercise for today is:

Start a word document or take a piece of paper (or your iPad :P), write down what you already have and feel good about it!

As for the things you think you *should* have, pick something you want to practice with and envisioning yourself already having it before you go to sleep and immediately after you wake up in the morning.  So for example, if you really want an iPad, find a picture of it online / in a magazine, hold it in your hand as if you already have one, close your eyes and envision what you would be doing with it like you already have one. When you do this, make sure you are in a good space (like in a good mood), don’t try this if you are in a foul mood, or you might not like the results 😛 Don’t try to think of too many things at once first, start with something simple.  For example, one week I wrote down that I want to manifest a free hot drink.  When my husband went to Starbucks to get me a drink, the person at the counter said to him, “would you like to fill in a free online survey to get a free drink the next time you visit Starbucks?” To which my husband said, “Why wait until next time?” So he whipped out his smart phone and completed the survey right there and got us a free hot chocolate! Yuummy!

So if you are new to this, start with something small you want to manifest and let the game begin!