Manifesting Your Desires
It is easy to lose oneself in the cacophony of our busy lives and the demands of others. The days blur into one another, yet dreams seem to be standing still and a vague sense of discontentment settles in. What if we could take just an hour or so to step outside the chaos and look at our lives with gentle eyes and make sure that, fast as it is going, it is still heading in the right direction?
Intention determines our direction. Buddha said, “What you are now is what you have been. But what you will be is what you do now.” In other words, all the choices that you have made in the past have culminated in who you are and where you are now – but what you do now is already forming the future you. It is never too late to sculpt the life you were meant to live and that is empowering. To shape this future in the present moment, one must live with the intention of manifesting that future. Intention distills our energy, clarifies our vision, and brings us the fruit of our goals even as we are sowing the seeds.
Stop waiting for somebody to elevate your game. You are already equipped with everything you need to manifest your own greatness. ~Germany Kent
Manifesting Your Desires Meditation
How does one articulate their intention?
This exercise might help. Find six small pieces of paper or post-it notes and line them up in front of you along with a pen or pencil.
Now, open yourself up to this present moment. Your future is simmering. Close your eyes. Relax your face—feel your jaw grow heavy and your forehead loosen.
Then feel that heaviness slide down your neck, relaxing the tense muscles and puddling on the shoulders, making them drop and melt. Feel it run down your back, bringing that weighty sense of relaxation down your spine, through your stomach and down your legs.
Focus on your breath. Breathe in deeply, feeling it coming up from your spine and filling your lungs. Then exhale, feeling the back melt even more. If thoughts intrude, don’t worry—that is the job of the mind and is completely normal. Acknowledge the thoughts without judgment and return to the breath.
After a few deep, lovely breaths, bring to mind someone who you admire. It could be a relative, a religious figure, someone famous or renowned, someone living or dead, fictional like a superhero, it doesn’t really matter. It should just be someone that you really resonate with.
Do not read the rest of this page until this first part is completed.
Now, open your eyes. Write on each post-it note one of the qualities you admire most about this person. Once that is done, take the one that inspires you the most and place it in the center of a circle. Then place the others around the candle like petals on a flower. All of these qualities are within you ready to blossom, otherwise you would not recognize and resonate with them so powerfully. So, in front of each of the words, write “I am.” As the retreat progresses, place these affirmations in prominent spots to remind you that you are already everything that you admire.
The one that you chose to place in the middle is your intention. Intention is not a concrete goal. It is the attribute that you hope your goals will amplify. It is what you want to bring to the world and how you want to be defined in this life. Whereas goals may be your resume, intention is your eulogy. It guides your everyday actions whether they are directly related to your goals or not and ensures that, whatever the future has in store, it is in line with your deepest desires.
Throughout this retreat, think about how you can intertwine your future desires with your current intention so that each day is molding the beautiful person you are becoming. Then, every day for the next five days, taken a few minutes and meditate on your future desires. Try to capture the feeling of actively doing this goal and make it as vivid as possible. Know that you have great powers of manifestation.
Reflective Walk
Solitary walks express the independence that literally takes [a person] out of the social sphere of the houses and their inhabitants, into a larger, lonelier world where they are free to think: walking articulates both physical and mental freedom. ~Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking
Think about somewhere you can walk where you can think within the embrace of nature and have a nice turn-around spot to sit and journal. In the case of inclement or cold weather, think of a nice, warm indoor spot where you can stop and spend some quality time reflecting.
You might want to plan your walk where you can stop at a coffee shop and sip on a hot latte while you write or perhaps a restaurant where you can enjoy a drink and an indulgent snack while you contemplate. Remember this is your time to relax and indulge yourself as well as tasking yourself with the important questions of life. If you decide on stopping at a spot to journal, make sure that you have at least 15 minutes of walking outside before journaling and afterwards.
On your way to your halfway point of journaling, think about what it would be like if your dreams were already reached. Imagine that you are at a convention of inspirational people where you are scheduled to speak. You are going to talk about achieving your dream in a manner that will inspire others to seek theirs as well. Make this event vivid in your mind. What do they say to introduce you? What do you look like? What are you wearing? As you take your spot in the podium, what do you say? How do you describe your background? How do you talk about the obstacles that you encountered along the way? What three key actions did you take to achieve your dream? What is the one piece of advice you want to give them?
Rehearse your speech. Make it real. Make it a talk that will reach out to others and inspire them to make changes in their lives also. When you reach the halfway point, take out your journal and write down your speech. It doesn’t have to be long, just hit the salient points. Relax. Have fun. This is your moment in the spotlight, the culmination of all you have worked for.
On the way back, the focus takes a different turn. Now that you have your goal burning in your brain and you have a glimpse about how it feels to have it realized, ponder what is standing in your way from making this a reality. What are the obstacles you are facing? What do you need to get rid of?
Do this without a sense of judgment if you can. Step back and look at your life from a safe distance. Just as your heart knows instinctively what steps you need to take to realize what you want, it also knows what is holding you back, but it protects you from this knowledge. So, approach yourself with a sense of self-compassion and the answers will come to you.
Torri’s book is available for purchase here.
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