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[art-of-slither]

Day 6: I recieved some gifts today

Well, today I followed the instructions of Rhonda Byrne's practice to feel grateful for the money you had. Barely 15 minutes later, I was gifted with a small chocolate.

Ok, I feel grateful. Something little but equally marvelous. Rhonda Byrne wrote that I could be expecting that to happen. Well, 30 minutes passed and someone gifted me two snicker bars O_o

That... that was... Oh, my Gosh, I don't wanna get my hopes up for randomness (hello, resistance, I thought you were leaving) but... could it be that something has indeed shifted?

[art-of-slither]

Gratitude Practice #5: Legeremancy

In looking for things to appreciate and feeling gratitide for I have experienced moments where I am blocked from achieving those feelings. Sometimes it feels unnatural to be in gratefulness and other high-energy feelings. They feel like they are alien to me.

One morning I woke up and tried to get into looking for things to feel grateful for. The room was quiet. I laid there thinking hard, my husband sound asleep by my side.

"I am grateful for him being with me" I told myself silently, but it felt weak.

It wasn't that I am not grateful for him to be there with me. It's that the constant reminder of his illness poisons the feeling and makes me feel scared. Scared of losing him.

Still, I laid there quite quiet.

Maybe if I talked to God, the Universe, the Everything, and told him or her everything that worried me I would feel better. Maybe I needed to get things off my chest. So I began my feeble prayer: "God, listen, I want to speak to you..."

And suddenly I was cut down short by a strange feeling. That still voice within myself, that every now and again I get to hear, that is way more chill than me and makes me thinking that it always knows better, was at it again.

I really can't explain why these words occured to me, but in my mind (or soul?) I could understand them: "No. We have done that already. Now it's your turn to listen".

And I laid there, motionless, because it occured to me to just continue to be quiet. It was as if I was waiting for some sort of signal. All that could be heard were my husband's deep breaths and the machine to which he was connected to for his daily dyalisis treatment.

I was waiting for something to happen. What was suppossed to be that? I didn't know. Everything continued to be just as quiet, except my husband breathing, sound asleep, and the machine and suddenly I thought... I thought his breath was what I was supposed to listen to: it was a precious gift for me to wake up to, hear him breath, because it meant that he was still alive, he was still there with me.

It wasn't until I heared again the dyalisis machine that it occured to me that God was speaking through the noises of the machine. Not words. He was the machine to give him life, and he was the lungs of my husband, and his beating heart as well. My husband was blessed and I was as well.

All things were Him. He was the walls that kept us safe. He was also the ceiling that gave us shelter. He is the food in the fridge and he was the bed that kept us lovingly in place until we were well-rested.

He was the car that drove me to my job and brought me back home. He was the money and the bills, the music and the images. He was my husband and then He also was me when life wanted to show my husband that he was loved: I gave him the message every time I smiled at him and held him close to me. And my husband gave me that message when he did the same for me.

God or the Universe or whatever you want to call It, talks daily through everything that surrounds us. He is the chair and the stove, the fire and the gas, the electricity and the windows. He was the door as much as he was the key.

And I powerfully realized, my face stricken with joyful and painful tears, that I always had things to be grateful for and will always have them as long as I were alive, and even after. The powerful feeling that dawned on me at that moment came from catching a glimpse of this mind-shattering, ego-busting, beyond-rationality, neverending, ppwerful and magnificent love that is there, in plain sight and deep within everyday life. I smiled knowing that All-That-Is is always speaking to us, in different languages and sounds and even in silnece, but conveying still the same message time and time again:

I love you.

How to do Legeremancy:

Just realize that everything surrounding you is there to love you. Everything, big, small, mundane, magical, man-made, natural, mind stuff, the smile from others, a token from a friend and the good that comes from you to give, all that you are now and all that others are.

So, whenever you are practicing Gratitude and struggle to find things to feel grateful for, use Legeremancy and read and know the truth: All-That-Is loves you. It always does.

[art-of-slither]

Day 4: a realization

I review all of my notes and re-read passages of my favorite books frequently. As I have commented before, practicing Gratitude is difficult up to a point. A daily reminded is necesary for me to keep the ball rolling.

I know perfectly well that I have been quite negative for years. It's a habit that became quite ingrained. Sometimes I don't feel like it to Accio Blessings, let alone declare I'll had a wonderful day.

I keep getting tempted to fall behind my old habits and call it a day. Temptation does make me think that maybe I can start over again tomorrow. But that really isn't an option because my life is now.

Critizicing, holding grudges, getting angry at other (however justified, which BTW is a pathetic excuse in the gran scheme of things), have never brought me happiness, they have caused me pain, depleted me of love which then I am at odds trying to conjure up to give to others.

How can I give something I don't have?

So, yeah, it feels forced and fake and alien, but that is exactly why I have to keep doing this. That resistance is showing me that I have indeed a need for feeling gratitude and it being my predominant energy. That I have to be very conscious of not engaging negatively with life makes me think about what would happen if I wasn't being careful and watch my step. My days would be tiring.

They had been like that for a long time.

[art-of-slither]

The Felix Felicis Factor Pt. 4

We are about to analyze Dr Wiseman's Fourth Luck Principle through the lenses of the Practice of Gratitude.

I have shared my insights thus far and I intend to wrap up this series of posts with this one. So, without further ado let us brew us some luck.

Dr Richard Wiseman's Fourth Luck Principle states that "Lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune."

My experiences with seeing the positive side of anything

If it didn't killed me then it was fortunate. That was for many years during my late teens a thought I had. Sure, I was still single and the boy I had a crush on did not loved me back, but I was still alive. If I was alive then I had more opportunities for good stuff later on.

That was my line of thinking.

Reading that as an adult, with my sets of paranoia, pessimism and anxiety for the future, I know that my worries from those years were simple, childish and look foolish now. Now I come to think that I have real-world adult problems, and my cynism is in an all time high, I feel weary and worried constantly. Does thinking that if this hasn't killed me yet then I am actively fortunate? Somedays I want a piano to drop over my head to put me out of my misery, why would I think I am fortunate?

For starters, positive expectations are everything as discussed previously. Second of all, the first step to ever accomplish anything on this material plane is being alive. So, yeah! I am fortunate, even though some days I can't see it. But with gratitude I get to see it as I did once when I was younger and maybe even wiser.

Which brings me to...

Lucky People:

The see the positive side of their bad luck. Dr Wiseman calls this "counter-factual thinking". Suprisingly, as Dr Wiseman shared with us, this can be illustrated with people that won silver medal vs those that won a bronze medal. Those that won the bronze medal are happier than those that won a silver medal. Why? Silver medal winners feel bad because they were close ontaining a gold medal and they failed, whereas those that won a bronze one are happy they didn't perform any worse or they couldn't have won anything at all! This type of thinking applies when you compare yourself to someone that is truly unlucky. By comparing yourself you see yourself as luckier and feel better because of it. This is seeing the good in every situation. Gratitude: This habit is all about well-placed gratitude, unabashed gratefulness in spite of everything, truly allowing life to fall where it may and coming up on top regardless every single time. This is amazing! Not many people can say they can do that. Many are proud to declare themselves as smarter because they do not give thought to any namby-pamby optimism at all. But at the end of the day, how are you being namby-pamby at all? You are not denying the bad, you are declaring your victory over it and in spite of it and that is why you feel grateful.

Convince themselves that any ill-fortune in their life will, in the long run, work out for the best. We all know what happens when we engage in the mental exercise of dreaming up scenarios about how our life could have turned out for the worst if we had not accepted that job, had turned left instead of right, spoke to the right person, arrived on time, arrived late, etc. Lucky people, according to Dr Wiseman, engage in this mental exercise for the better, thinking about how things, as bad as they may seem right now, could actually be necessary for them to ultimately suceed and win in the end. Same as when we discussed postive expectations last time, lucky people based their assumption on what happened to them once, feeling grateful and happy because the good stuff they have now was possible because of someone else, a decision they made before, a fortuitous accident that gave them what they love nowadays. Expecting goodness in the face of badness does not sound that farfetchd. Gratitude: mood affects memory, a good mood affects it in a good way, a grateful one clearly affects it in a grateful way. Indeed, this is a simple principle. Gratitude helps you recognizing the good in the past and expecting the good in the future.

Do not dwell on their ill fortune. Why would they? Everthing tends to work out in their favor every time. They quickly change the subject, look for the positive aspects of stuff, listen to their intuition and become happy. Sure, they are not positive all the time, but they are postive most of the time. We are talking about tendencies here. Also, please remember, that all Four Luck Principles work in harmony. They enhance one another. Gratitude: coming to feeling grateful time and time again becomes your new identity. You come to believe, as Pam Grout (author of bestselling book E-squared and Thank & Grow Rich) puts it, that the universe is an accomodating place. You just need to decide to look for evidence that it is. Surely, I understand you might fear that you become this delusional dingbat... but filling your head with anxiety and worries makes you miss opportunities and not develop important lucky skills and not tending to relationships and not enjoying your life. What are you willing to lose?

Take constructive steps to prevent more bad luck in the future. Fortunately, it turns out that Lucky people are not delusional. Dr Wiseman describes Lucky People as proactive in their good fortune. An optimistic can-do attitude is a must for them. You come to understand that noticing good things and noticing positive aspects in the bad stuff puts you in a place of actually doing stuff to prevent more bad things from happening to you and your loved ones. Gratitude: again, practicing gratefulness gives you the necessary optimistic can-do attitude needed to becomr proactive in your life, instead of dwelling on your anxieties and worries. And this is nice to know, because Gratitude does not make you a passive spectator of your day, it engages you as well, it gives self-confidence to live life to the hilt.

With that, we are finished with this theory. I did mutliple post on it because I know I had to introduce several concepts at once as oppossed to the theory about the vibrational universe from before.

Even if you suscribe to one theory or the other, I think both make compelling arguments and both benefit each other. They can indeed co-exists. Dr Wiseman makes you adopt new thught patterns, and the Universe responds to the new vibes generated by those new beliefs in turn.

Thank you for reading!

[art-of-slither]

The Felix Felicis Factor Pt. 3

In this day's installment we are going to dive straight into Dr Richard Wiseman's Third Luck Principle from his famous book The Luck Factor.

Dr Wiseman's Third Luck Principle states that "Lucky people's expectations about the future help them fulfill their dreams and ambitions."

Right off the bat you can see sort of how Gratitude can foster someone to live by this luck principle. But we will dive deeply into this topic nevertheless. Again, I do not intend to be exhaustive here about Dr Wiseman's findings, I encourage anyone that is interested in the topic of what makes a person lucky read his book. It's that good and thought-provoking.

What I am doing here is merely comparing notes and share my thoughts and theories about how Gratitude fosters lucky habits.

The Power of Positive Expectations as lived by me

Obviously, it is far easier to expect good things when good things are happening. I am now in a place in my life where a lot of things are scary, sad and gloomy. Changing my perspective from such a place feels difficult. There you have it! Right now I am expecting hardship and difficulties. My Practiced Vibe, Practiced Thought-Pattern, Practiced Karma, Practiced What-Have-You is at play right now.

So I want to briefly turn my gaze into a time in my life when expecting good things came naturally. Even though I don't come from a rich family or have a high profile status (which was true then as it is true now while I am typing this) I was genuinely happy. Every day I jumped out of bed eager to find out how life was going to play out for me.

So, life played out beautifully. My perspective and willingness to enjoy life always won in the end and ensured I was happy 99.9999% of my days.

Having said that...

Lucky People:

Expect good luck to continue in the future. Hands down, Gratitude clearly applies here. A recognition of the good stuff, the nice stuff, the excellent stuff is indeed necessary to create positive expectations. But do notice this is not a passive habit, it is an active one. A lucky person expects the good to continue, they look forward to it. They acknowledge the good and keep tabs on the good stuff that continues to come. Dr Wiseman also found out that lucky people were into the habit of expecting that the unpredictable and uncontrollable to work out in their favor. How? By remembering and acknowledging when it did in the past. As Dr Wiseman puts it, most people tend to base their expectations about the future on what happened in the past. So then, Lucky people shrug off the bad as it was and will be short-lived. Gratitude: Needless to say, Gratitude is all about recognizing the good stuff, celebrating it and feeling daily happiness for it. Over time, a new thought-pattern is created and new expectations, positive expectations, are born. When bad stuff happens, you tend to not dwell on it (unless you actively do) and you become more resilient as a result (and happier!). As Dr Wiseman says, expectation changes the way we feel, think and act, even how fast we react to things, creating self-fulfilling prophecies that work in our favor. Gratitude gives you, for a change, good self-fulfilling prophecies that joyously come to pass.

Attempt to achieve their goals, even if their chances of success seem slim, and persevere in the face of failure. This takes optimism, which only happens if in your past things have worked out in your favor. Again, expectations play a big part here. Optimism it is therefore a learned impulse that results from things working out for you constantly or frequently enough. Gratitude: Constantly feeling grateful makes you come to expect the good, the gentle, the magic, the wonder of life and recognizing it wherever you are. It makes you more optimistic.

Expect interactions with others to be lucky and successful. Lucky people's body language is more open, they smile more, they establish eye contact more. They come across as genuine, agreeble, warm, happy, peaceful. They are a nice presence to have around. So, positive expectations in this sense elicit the best in others. I think we all can pinpoint glowing people as them and the way we feel good by helping them. Gratitude: In and of itself thanking others generates good-will, makes relationships grow healthy, strong, and ever-lasting. Recognizing actively the good in others makes us such a wonderful person to have around. Positive responses from others become a nice bonus and great side-effect. And the, Gratitude relaxes us enough to actually enjoy being there, to show tjat with our body language and reap the benefits from doing so.

We are almost finished with this analysis of Dr Wiseman's conclusions of his research project through the lenses of gratitude. I hope you are enjoying this ride.

Thank you for dropping by!

[art-of-slither]

The Felix Felicis Factor Pt. 2

When we last left our examination of Dr. Richard Wiseman's fabulous book The Luck Factor, we talked about how Lucky Poeple have a knack for Maximising their Chance Opportunities.

Today we'll have a look into Dr. Wiseman's second luck principle which states that "Lucky People listen to their lucky hunches".

Do you remember when Harry took a sip of Felix Felicis and suddenly he knew, he just happened to know what to do, where to go, what to say, how to act, and such and such that he ended up achieving the mission Dumbledore gave him?

Well! Turns out that Rowling was right on the money, that I was not crazy and delusional, and that there might be something deeper inside what we call Intuition.

Dr. Wiseman explains Intuition

Apparently, what we call Intuition is just our brains picking out stuff and patterns we are familiar with. Things that remind us of something else calls us, we feel pushed to them, we picked them up unconsciously. So pur brain keeps making connections until it offers us clues. This is but an interpretation of it. It doesn't explain how sometimes you just know something happened that occured far away, for example. But it does explain why you feel a pull towards an option that tend to be the correct answer or choice: your brain caught whiff of the subtle hints and you feel the pull towards what's right.

Again, I think Gratitude helps you enhance your Intuition. It did for me once!

Lucky People:

They listen to their gut feeling and hunches. Dr Wiseman present cases of people that suffer "chronic bad luck". Every single time, said person would confess that they had a hunch about something, but decided to ignore it every time and ended up in terrible situations. Dr Wiseman tells us that "Without realising it, we all prefer things that we have seen before". This is the basis of our hunches, we all have them, but Lucky people follow them and act upon them with conviction every time. Gratitude: I think gratitude relaxes you enough to listen to your truest hunches. After the magic I experienced during my late teens went out with a whimper, I tried unsuccessfuly following my intuition. That led me into bad decisions until I just stopped trusting my intuition altogether. But now I think that gratitude helps with relaxing you, gives you confidence, writes a new script for your brain to follow like a hound dog no matter where your are to reach for all good stuff: things you brain now knowd tjey will bring you happiness and give you a reason to keep feeling grateful. This leads me to the second lucky habit that Dr Wiseman writes about...

They take steps to boost intuition. Dr Wiseman swears by meditation, which is a well-known good practice for anyone, regardless of their objectives. It is also not for every one. Nevertheless, what meditation ultimately does is reigning in your monkey brain, to sooth it and stop it from jumping all over the place. In time, your brain stops being filled to the brim with worries and useless thoughts and helps you notice opportunities and act on your hunches. Gratitude: I did not meditated during High School, I just walked from home to school and viceversa feeling Gratitude and appreciation all the time. I stand by what I said earlier: that gratitude calms you down enough, brakes the spell of anxiety that traps you inside your own mind and finally (sometimes literally) lets you smell the roses, take in the good stuff that is right in front of you, the good that happened and the good that is waiting for you at your destination. Once in your destination you just don't have time for petty problems, negative chatter, negative gossip, you are just there savoring the good that present to you all day. So when it comes down to listening to that helpful voice inside you, there is no interference and the connection is made.

Thanks for reading my stuff! There are still two more luck principles to discuss and I will get to them pretty soon.

Til next time!

[art-of-slither]

The Felix Felicis Factor (Pt. 1)

I long for a generous dose of Felix Felicis.

That is what I couldn't stop thinking one afternoon a couple of months ago.

As a practicing witchling I looked into everything I could find on the subject: luck practices, luck spells, luck potions, lucky habits, etc. Part of me just sort of refused the idea of luck being something other than a fluke of probability for some, let alone something that could be improved.

But then I stumbled upon a curious book entitled The Luck Factor.

Could luck be improved? Is there a tangible reason some people are luckier than others? What does this have anything to do with Gratitude?

This series of posts are about that other theory about why Gratitude works at all. We discussed about how stuff responds to our Predominant Vibe, our Practiced Vibe, and how vibrating Gratefulness attracts more things to be grateful for.

As stated before, I don't see these two theories canceling each other out. I think they enhance one another as you soon will see.

So, meet Dr. Richard Wiseman, a Psychologist that conducted a reasearch project to look into the matter and who claims that Lucky People engage in unconscious practices to enhance that which we call Luck.

Now, I don't intend to be too detailed here. I do recommend the book, it is thought-provoking indeed and an amazing window into Lucky People's habits, but I want to chew on the bottom line for a bit to show you why Gratitude might enhance Luck as well.

Dr Wiseman boils down all discoveries made into a series of practices that enhance Luck. He calls it Luck School. He presented people suffering "chronic bad luck" who, after practicing the exercies, found themselves luckier than they have ever been.

Now, as far as I know, Dr. Wiseman is not a proponent of the law of attraction, Gratitude practices and such, but I have spent many weeks pondering if Gratitude emulates the exercises and the intended effects he tries to achieve via the Luck School.

I think it does and I think that, barring the explanation of Quantum Physics, Universal Laws, Magic and Mystical Energies, his discoveries actually give us insight into why Gratitude is such a powerful practice.

I will share my theories and observations as I continue to put this information into practice.

Maximise your chance opportunities

Dr. Wiseman writes that "Lucky People create, notice and act upon the chance opportunities in their life." This is the first principle of luck, which I will develope more in the following paragraphs.

He found out that Lucky People were Extroverts, had low Neuroticism and where more Open to new experiences. But the thing is that Extroversion was not a required factor to increase luck. Low Neuroticism and Openess were.

So I will give you an overview about the observations Dr. Wiseman wrote and give you an explanation on why I think Gratitude achieves the same.

Lucky People:

Build and maintain a strong network of luck. They were considered Social Magnets. What this means is that lucky people are nurturing in their relationships, they bond with others and do their hardest to develop those relationships. This makes it more likely that they build an ever-growing network of helpful and influential contacts that can help them achieve their goals. That's it, really. Lucky People are all secretly Horace Slughorn, and it does make sense. It's all about improving your odds at achieving your dreams. Gratitude: Obviously, when you are Grateful you appreciate your relationships, tend to them, let them know what they mean to you, you act nurturing toward them, and others take notice of this as well, and suddenly you have a glowing reputation for being caring. Bonding with others becomes second nature and you end up developing the Luck Network Dr. Wiseman talks about.

Have a Relaxed Attitude towards life. This works in a twofold way: Neurotic people tend to be so inside their heads with worries thay they just fail to notice the opportunities around them; also, when going out to achive their objectives (finding a soulmate, trying to make a person follow a specific agenda; etc.) they fixate on what they wish was there as opposed to showing up to what is actually there and noticing the opportunities to which they have access in that hot minute. Lucky People might want to find a significant other that very same night but they don't mind making great new friends instead. Gratitude: Once again gratitude fits the bill to a T. Gratitude calms you down so your neuroticism goes down over time. Gratitude also enables you to enjoy what is there instead of ruminating of what you wish was there instead.

Are Open to new experiences in their lives (to introduce more chances). Luck has everything to do with going against routine and trying new things: talking to new people, going to new places, changing your usual routes, etc. Doing the same always nets you more of the same, you see. Mind blowing, right? Doing different things introduce more chance meetings and more variables, which makes it more likely something fortunate happens to you. It's not magical happenstance, is the introduction of more chance variables that do the trick. Gratitude: Falling in love with life is a potent side-effect of Gratitude that I can attest to. When you are in love with life you just cannot get enough out of life and you engage with life in many new and different ways, which does net you new and different positive experiences on the whole. Gratitude is a fast track for falling in love with life.

I will touch upon this subject pretty soon again. Maybe Gratitude is the generous dose of Felix Felicis I was longing for.

What do you think?

[art-of-slither]

Gratitude Practice #4: The Disarming Charm

This spell is to be used to negate anxiety for the future, disempower fears and, thusly, make room for Gratitude. 

As I explained extensively here on why True Allowing is one of the more important things we can do day to day, I have come up with a spell that puts the theory into practice and gives you the power to get out of your head, let things flow, make room for Gratefulness, Love and Appreciation, and give you dominion over your life. In short, it´s a spell that gives you the magic of True Allowing.

Remember, neither Devil´s Snare nor the Boggart hold any power over you if you don´t give it to them. You are free of witholding that power from them any time you like. You are the one running this show. You are the protagonist of your story. 

Practice: the Disarming Charm!

It´s easy, though it will require that you remember what you need to do and be as quick as you can to disarm your opponents. 

Imagine that inside your head a lot of nasty, deranged, dangerous and toxic Dark Wizards and Witches (even Death Eaters) hide within your mind. Those negative thoughts you have are, indeed, one of those villains suddenly jumping at you out of nowhere, brandishing a wand to attempt to jinx, hex or curse you and ruin your day, and ultimately, your life. 

What to do? Grab your wand and shot back, of course! 

You stop the thought in its tracks by thinking quickly “Expelliarmus!”, then you inhale deeply and, as you exhale, allow the anxiety and fear to just be, even embrace it, even go as far as to call it good and bless it. Remember Pam Grout´s words:

“Rather than take steps to flee or change it, you have to first allow it. You have to bless it. You have to go so far as to call it good. Freedom and power come in choosing to bless with gratitude every single thing that shows up. Anything you refuse to embrace and fully bless imprisons you. It puts up a fence between you and your highest good.”

You disarm those thoughts by being quicker than them, just like Harry taught Neville to do in their fifth year. Once you are at peace, those thoughts cannot hurt you for they no longer have power over you. And once you have dealt with them, then you can reclaim your mental peace, then you are free to fill your day with light, gratitude and actually have fun. 

[art-of-slither]

The Magic of “It´s Okay”: True Allowing

Somewhere along the line I decided that I was going to be happy regardless of how my life was playing out at the moment. As I have recently told you (making myself vulnerable in the process to every one who reads my posts), the day I met my now-husband was the day I decided to let go of my fear of being single, because I so wanted relief from the anxiety and frustration that were eating me up from within that surrendering felt wonderfully. 

And magically, that did the trick. My now-husband entered my life the very same morning I let go and surrendered. 

That event is important because it made me realize (finally!) that letting go of my need of control was what changed my life once before. I am referring, of course, to that year before entering High School that I told here in detail. 

I believe Gratitude, Love and Appreciation can and will change your life. But if you are anything like me, you have spent so many years being predominantly negative that going the opposite way feels forced, unnatural, alien, and even scary. 

Oh, sure! You might have learned about the many benefits  associated with those high level energies and vibrations. If the Law of Attraction holds water, your life might even change into something amazing before your eyes. When I was told that, two things entered my mind: greed and anxiety. 

Visualize, visualize, visualize! Keep a dream board! Live in the end result and it shall manifest! If you can feel it, you can attract it! 

As much as it enticed me, in the end the anxiety for the manifestation always gets the best of me. I cannot visualize and not get anxious about my dream not showing up immediately. Dream boards? More like Anxiety boards! Living in the end? I am so firmly living in the now, not having what I want! And I only feel anxiety now, so... more anxiety incoming?

So after years of reading, I think I finally know what the problem is. The problem is me not doing what I did all those years ago: feeling happy just because, feeling satisfied just because, feeling complete just because. 

Two times I let go of anxiety and the frustrating wanting, and those two times I ended up getting what I wanted in the end and even more! Want to win? Get happy now! But that is ridiculous, our brain says! You can only be happy if you get what you want. This magic stuff is bullshit!

And that´s the trap, and that is where Gratitude enters. Indeed, why do you want more stuff if you are not even grateful for the stuff you already have?

So, I have learned that there are two ways of letting go of the anxiety to make room for Gratitude:

Look for the positive aspect of the abscence of your dreams and sincerely be happy about that.

Or embrace those fears and be ok with losing like a loser that loses all the time and keeps smiling. 

But an even easier way of doing this is inhaling deeply and exhaling thinking and feelin “It´s Okay”. 

It´s called True Allowing!

Pam Grout brilliantly defines True Allowing in her book Thank & Grow Rich:

“Most people think the art of allowing means being open to your Maserati coming, being ready for your perfect partner to show. And they´re partly right. When you´re on the joy frequency, you´re open; you´re present; you´re working with life, not against it. Manifestation occurs instantly in an energy field without conflict.

True allowing, the kind you´re encouraged to practice, means recognizing that whatever is in fron of you (even if it´s a broken-down car, a feisty two-year-old, or a giant tax bill) is something you have called fort, acknowledging that something within you vibrates in tune with this “other”.

Rather thank take steps to flee or change it, you have to first allow it. You have to bless it. You have to go so far as to call it good. Freedom and power come in choosing to bless with gratitude every single thing that shows up. Anything you refuse to embrace and fully bless imprisons you. It puts up a fence between you and your highest good.

Practicing on simple things strengthens your allowing muscle. Once you´ve mastered that, you can pass Go, collect your $200, and begin allowing circumstances that, up until now, you believe wield power over you. 

Cultivate a childlike attitude toward your creations. Ponder them, wonder about them but most of all love them. That´s how you claim dominion over your life. 

Behold, I have created this and I call it good. 

With that, it´s time for a new magical Self-Help Spell for the Spellbook. And it also comes in Wizarding World flavour: the Dissarming Charm!

[art-of-slither]

Day 3: the need for stubborness

It´s easy for me to slip back to my old habits. 

I drove my boyfriend to a job interview. He got out of the car while I looked for a place to park. The building´s security guard forbided me to park in front of the building. I didn´t liked her tone and that got the best of me. I berated her and we had a nasty time. 

Minutes later I was feeling a little shaken by what had just happened and I had the urge to begin a mental tirade against her, but decided to not do it. 

Gratitude, please remember gratitude. 

So, I stopped myself from firing up and begain focusing on pleasant things that I could be grateful for. It was interesting. I still had the anger throbbing inside myself, but I decided to ignore it for a change. 

Now, I didn´t burst with positivity and love. I wanted that, but that didn´t happen. It just came down to getting relief from the negativity and I knew that had to be enough. That was enough. That is enough, for now.

I did noticed that the day at my job went smoothly again and I gave my patients more explanations than usual. I was even... glad I was explaining things to them in a way they understood. I felt a sense of accomplishment even. Not that I never had that before. I chalked it up to me returning from my vacational period... still, something did felt different this time around and I don´t know exactly wjat it was.

Still, I know stubborness for the good stuff is the key here. 

Accio Blessing!

[art-of-slither]

Touched by Magic: The day I surrendered and won (Pt. 4 and final)

Have you read what Abraham-Hicks says about meditation? They compared it to a cork floating on water. When negativity is dominant, it´s like grabbing the cork and keeping it underwater. When you meditate, even if you aren´t actively looking for positive aspects to feel grateful for or appreciate while awake, you release that cork and it floats right up, up to the places where higher vibrations abound. 

Letting go and surrendering do that as well as I am about to illustrate.

The first thing I wanted to do was finding love. But that wasn´t happening. I meditated and felt better. Still, I didn´t have the light re-ignited, but I knew I had the information I needed to get the life of my dreams. I wanted a romantic partner, first and foremost. 

Honestly, I couldn´t help missing choir boy. As much as I tried, I was still very hung up on him. I knew he and her girlfriend were being quite happy. I was forced to leave church because the pain of seeing them together was unbearable.

Still, meditation wasn´t bringing me a boyfriend. I got into it as a job. I worked hard at it. I knew that I had to keep at it and squeeze a boyfriend out of life, but it wasn´t happening and my discontent and frustration were intensifying. 

Februrary 6th 2011 was a Sunday I remember powerfully. The night before I meditated but meditation did not made me feel good anymore. I was still alone. When I woke up I noticed how my brain was consumed by feeling lonely and desperately wanting a romance. And I was so sick of it. The frustration I felt was unbearable. This was not life, I was so caught up in a stupid drama when there were more important things out there. 

I suddenly only knew one thing: I wanted this horrible pain to stop, whatever it took. I jumped out of bed, dressed and went out for a walk in the park. The thoughts kept torturing me: you are going to be alone, you won´t get a relationship for like five years, you are going to finish your education and come home to just a dog waiting for you while your friends will have their families to tend to and you are to sleep alone like a goddamn loser.  

But I started jogging and I did the unthinkable: I wholeheartedly accepted that fate. 

You see, horrible thoughts cannot harm you if you decide they don´t hold power over you and stop running away from them. I embraced them in spite of how they hurt me: yes, I was going to be alone and that was ok; yes, I was getting a boyfriend in five years... 10 years even, and I am fine with that!; yes, I was going to come home from work and yes I was going to have just a dog and yes I was going to be a loser, and I am ok with that!

Oh, my mind was vicious. For example, this thought occured assaulted me: you know, it´s Sunday morning, so choir boy must be singing at church right now, right beside his girlfriend, neither one of them caring how you are feeling right now. 

That´s ok. That´s ok. That´s ok. That´s ok. I inhaled deeply and exhaled accepting it and really feeling calm and ok with those outcomes. This was a boggart attacking me and I decided to diminish the power it held over me by embracing my fears head on. I didn´t care for those fears, the anxiety was destroying me from the inside out. That was the real pain! 

And then something miraculous happened: my anxiety lifted, I felt lighter, and... happy! I was even eager live my life as single. I was going to do whatever stuff I wanted on my own, taking me out to have fun on my terms and that was fine! And yes, I was about to face a decade alone. It didn´t mattered. It stopped mattering! I returned home elated, hopeful! I decided to win on my own terms, I chose to be with myself...

And then, just as I passed my computer I had the weird urge to turn it on and log into my messenger account. I can´t explain why... I tried to ignore it! But it was one of those times when my intuition had to insist on me ignoring my rationality and do the thing. And I did the thing, so I encountered once more the guy I met the day when I declared I was about to find my husband online. That day several years before, when I was in my late teens. He began chatting with me.

Suddenly, he asked me out on a date the very next day and I was annoyed. Why now? Why it had to happen this on the damn day I was gloriously embracing my life as single? So now, if I accepted, the guy would meet up with me and run the other way as fast as he could after looking at me. Well, you know what? Bring it on! Yes, let´s get this over with! I know how this story ends and it ends with me being left alone. Go right ahead! Ok, I´ll go out on a date with you so you can return to ignoring my existance pronto. 

I married this guy this year. After 8 years of being boyfriends, we officially married. We became a couple on February 10th 2011, we married on August 10th 2019. He is ill right now... polycistic kidneys... he is on peritoneal dyalisis and soon enough I am going to be his kidney donor...

During those first few months of our relationship, that period called honeymoon, light returned and things began working out so well. But I returned to my negative ways of thinking and feeling... Oh, no! Nothing about him. He is an angel. I hated his family: the way they would witheld food from him, the nasty hole in the wall were they made him sleep, how they berated him, and how they finally threw him out the hose and how I found myself looking for ways to sustain him while he found a job, how I struggled to pay the lease. I resented their family and mine as well because help was not coming from anywhere.

For him I came out to my parents. They had a really hard time accepting me. My dad still does and my husband is forbidden to come inside their house whenever we need to stop by.

In 2012 I began my medical internship, right in the middle of all the cahos. I had to be at the hospital from 7 am to 8 pm, and if I had a night shift I would stay the whole night only to continue working the next day til 6 pm or longer if I wasn´t finished yet with my assignments. Every fourth night we would spend more than 34 hours in the hospital. There was no food at my boyfriend´s... he couldn´t eat anything until I returned. We were living on a measly salary and a small allowance my father not-so-happily gave me.

Things were stuck in a weird mode all these 8 years: something good, something bad, something good, something bad. We both are very negative, very vocal about how bad we feel, we criticize strongly our families. I know that some of you may think that we were/are justified. I believed that as well. But our negativity is literally killing us now. So all this long tale brings me to this, my last hope:

I need to fill myself with light. I want to love this life in spite of every horrible thing that is staring at us. I want to love life again. I want to be happy regardless of all the things that tell me to feel otherwise. I want gratitude and love and appreciation bless our life.

I want Light to win.

[art-of-slither]

Touched by Magic: the day the magic spark re-ignited (Pt. 3)

Four years passed and my life settled into a flat line. Boredom settled in, with bouts of negativity every week. Grades were again average, friends were just ok, I gained a lot of weight, things in my home were uneventful but meh... Old friends noticed something had shifted in me, but as me they accepted that life was hard, things are easier when you are younger, it's a cruel world out there, you can't trust anyone, we have come to this earth to suffer and we are to be rewared in the next life after our deaths.

See, it's hard not arriving at those conclusions when your negativity and that from others takes a toll on you. It's hard not thinking all that when you just don't know any better. The evidence is there, for starters. Or at least what it appears to be the evidence, regardless of actual correlation with causation.

But life has a way of moving things back to where they belonged. I was desperate for answers, I missed the days when stuff was easier and exciting. I missed High School...

I had a small period of summer vacations and I spoke about how I felt with a family friend. I viewed her as a positive and wise presence in my life and thougth “what the heck, I need to try something, anything!”

She told me that I was putting so much attention on the external circumstances. She wanted me to go to church, yes, not because of my homosexuality (which she agreed to keep a secret from my father; until now, my brother was the only one that knew, as I wrote previously) but because I forgot to "fill myself with light".

Now, I knew she was refering to God's presence inside my heart, but something was removed... a feeling, or a faint memory... I was once filled with light, but not because God filled me with it like an external agent, but because that was... that was who I was once.

Filled with light.

Something shifted a little inside me. I needed to fill myself with light. I knew I needed to re-learn how it was done. I was more negative than when I was 13 years old.

So I retraced my steps and thought maybe it was writing stories that helped me achieve that, you know, having an artistic avenue to empower my soul, which I stopped doing as it became next to impossible to find inspiration. I developed chronic writer's block, you see.

I soon found out that was not it. Well, maybe listening to upbeat music would help, and it did a little but I kept accentuating how bad my life got relative to all the happy lyrics.

This I now understand is what happens when you have negative momentum going on. I had trained myself into negativity. I complained about stuff daily, I reviewed the horrible things that happened to me daily, I begrudged the things I thought were stolen frome me somehow, I made myself cry frequently. I was depressed. I took antidepressants for some time but they made me feel zombie-like.

No, I once tasted life, real life. Those pills weren't it. You won't get an argument from me, if you need them, you need them, no shame in that. But I decided to suspend them. There had to be something more to life.

I took therapy right during my first semester at med school, but that didn't worked for me. Oh, sure, we talked about good studying habits and how my dad made me feel, and how lonely I felt and some vague strategies, but that was it. It quickly turned into new avenue for me to complain even more.

But after hearing this family friend, that bit about light, something within me became agitated. I began reading self-help books, as one does. Rhonda Byrne's The Secret did catched my eye, but I read it a year later.

I decided to go to church and maybe find the light there. And there I met and made positive friends. With them, having moments of peace, of just being in the moment, were more frequent. I must have changed frequencies because suddenly I began making new friends inside med school that proved to be a more positive presence for me. Still, no light, at least not how I remembered it. I had fun in church, laying low about my homosexuality and just coming out to someone if I felt safe doing so.

Keep in mind that I never correlated loving life with that magic that permeated it those years back. Now I can see it, but I never understood it back then.

Enter Lynn Grabhorn's book Excuse me, you life is waiting. I don't remember how I found it but I did and suddenly my life made total sense. It didn't change, but it made sense.

And I panicked! Now I knew the light was inside myself, but that was the problem: the light was inside myself, waiting to be rekindled but that was a problem because I was so negative.

Thinks changed for the better, but just enough. I developed a crush on a guy in the church choir. That crush was doomed to fail. He was everything I wanted in a guy: tender, educated, a good listener, nice, smart, he worked hard, and had a good sense of humour. He became a close friend, I knew all about how he was in love with a girl from the church choir. I did what every one does upon learning about the law of attraction and vibrations: I tried attracting a relationship with him. Next day, I found them kissing in a street and I crumbled. I was a mess.

I spiraled downward again, but tried desperately to climb back quickly. So every chance I got I bought new books about the Law of Attraction. The answer is going to be in this new book, or the next one, or the next after that, I told myself, desperately looking for a way to rekindle my light.

Still, in spite of knowing what to do, I continued with my recurrent bouts of whining, self-pity, criticism, sadness, righteous anger, etc, instead of filling myself with what I needed.

I began doing all kinds of meditations. I tried casting spells. I looked into witchcraft. I was desperate. But nothing gave me back my light. I know I was looking in the wrong places, but I was convinced that something had to give me back my magic.

Meditation certainly helped. Abraham-Hicks's Getting Into the Vortex Guided Meditation helped me meditate correctly for the first time in all of my life. It felt amazing, but I was still an anxious mess.

I entered into relationship after relationship, but I couldn't find true love. I ended those relationships instead of wasting someone else´s time. I still felt lonely and hurt. I wanted the choir guy to fall in love with me. I had this arguments with him inside my head. I felt so anxious and desperate.

I decided to change my perspective. Up until now I thought that no one liked me as a potential romantic partner. I repeated patterns: if the guy was gay, I did not felt attracted to them; if they were straight, my hopes were doomed. 

Once again, though, I had to stop myself in my tracks and tell myself the truth. It wasn't bad luck, guys did noticed me, they just weren't the guys that I wanted to notice me. So, I relaxed and decided to be open minded and went out to meet some of those guys. I didn't liked them, but tried. I lowered my expectations. I tried having fun. None of them lasted enough and I told myself that was fine. I was just meeting people, nothing more.

Now, you might remember how I mentioned that I met online my future husband in my late teens, the day I declared I was going to meet him, but turned him down because he was two year younger than. Well, he is about to enter this story. Meeting has a lot to do with what I am trying to convey through all the posts in this blog.

[art-of-slither]

Touched by Magic: Dementors Unleashed! (Pt. 2)

Last time I talked about how Gratitude seemed to bless me in many weird ways, all awesome. I wrote as extensively as I could about all I remember from those years.

Now, I want to talk about what happens when you stop doing all that you were doing right: the metaphorical Dementors descend upon you until you almost lose your soul to negativity. I turned into a shell of my former self.

For me it happened at the end of High Scool. Right before the end, I got accepted into med school, but not my friends (many would later suceed doing so, but not that year).

I started to panick.

Several things happened during that time, one after the other:

My dad and I started arguing more and more. Must have been his streak of homophobia bubbling up. I never brought a girlfriend to the house, you see? I think my reaction was the catalyst of the bad that kept poruing in, because I began continuously thinking how much I was angry and mad at him. Certainly I had still wonderful days, but I constantly ruminated about how I angry he made me feel.

I had problems with my then-boyfriend, he suddenly began ignoring me and days went by without me knowing nothing about him. Now I realized that I would have been ok if I had just stopped resisiting it, let it be, keep calm and accept the stuff that was happening and have fun. I know that is hard, a very tall order, and it's easier to in hindsight, but it is called True Allowing, it A-Thing, Pam Grout's talks about it in one of her books, Abraham-Hicks does also. I did the opposite of that, constantly thinking and talking about it. The times where I was just content with watching the breeze soothing the trees were mostly gone.

The guy I was dating decided to suddenly return to his ex, and I spiraled into anger and sadness. I was a mess. Watching trees? How about I listen to sad music in melodramatic fashion? I did that. I made myself cry every day, as if a part of my brain were convinced that was going to make him return.

High School ended and gone were the days when I could daily see my friends. I know this happens to every one, I knew it was part of life. I tried feeling happy that I got into med school, but all the other stuff just kept vying for my attention, and I was angrier and sadder each day. Having them would had helped, I concluded, but I now know I was kidding myself: having them wouldn't have distracted me enough, I would have still spent many hours a week talking about how hurt I felt. It would not have made a difference, I was the one that needed to make a difference in my day-to-day.

I jumped into a new relationship stupidly and immediately, because I didn't wanted to feel alone. The guy ended up being expelled from school for stealing a laptop from another student. Before that I lost my virginity to him and I regreted it for many years. But seeing my Practiced Vine from those years, there was nothing more I could attract. I take full responsability for it.

Dad and I fought horribly one night. After thay, my brother outright told that I needed to become straight because neither of tjem never were going to accept me. That hurt a lot.

Among everything, my usual optimism dissapeared, long were the days where my number one priority each day was loving my life just because it was my fucking life. I tried to take solace in my new classmates, but I was so negative I could only see frequently the negative in them. I hated them, but now I want to take full responsability too: I failed to appreciate what I had in them.

The good stuff that did happened to me I took for granted. Those years are now punctuated by my failure to being grateful for the good, however small and however different it was from what I wanted. Now they are gone and I find myself in a scary mess. But this time I am sure about what I have to do.

My point is not throwing myself a pity party but to share thoe recollections to anyone that wants to know what I did wrong and the price I paid: I stopped loving my life unabashedly, just because, in spite of whatever. I stopped celebrating the good, however small. I spent hours thinking how bad I felt, talking about it, writing about it. And my beautiful life was still there, by my side, waiting for me, I just didn't wanted to see it and love it. I felt justified in my stubborness, and I got what I summoned.

Med School is hard, but I know it could have been easier if only I had changed my attitude fast enough. I don't feel angry, sad or ashamed of arriving at that conclusion this late, but I feel liberated by it and that's even better. It was on me all along and it continues to be on me.

Devil's Snare, Boggarts and Dementors are all defeated by changing our attitude, conjuring up calmness, happiness, light and laughter in spite of them. I view them as apt metaphors for what now I know deep in my soul that needs to be done, what I require from me right now.

Do you agree?

[art-of-slither]

Gratitude Practice #3: I solemnly swear

This one is adapted from Pam Grout´s brilliant book Thank & Grow Rich. According to Mrs. Grout, this is the only gratitude practice you really need. 

She poses the question: what if life actually works better when we stop trying to control everything? Quit thinking; start thanking, she says. 

She admits that she used to look down her nose at Gratitude, and that was because it seemed way too simplistic. Getting “happy” can´t be that easy. Right?

Then one day, she decided to actively look around at all her blessings. It dawned on her that everything is exactly perfect the way it is. I´m exactly perfect just the way I am, she thought. 

She calls it being in the frequency of joy and gratitude, turning in to the Dvine Buzz (her words). She then offers a very concrete practice for connecting to it. 

“It´s so simple that, if I know you, you will be tempted to discount it”, she wrote. “Please do not do that”. “D-Buzz is atually your natural state. It´s the frequency where miracles happen”. 

As I shared before, I know what Pam Grout refers to when she ponders on what happens when you focus on what could go right instead of the usual negative self-talk. When she did that (I did that once), she found out that problems had a way of fixing themselves. The less she did, the better her life worked. 

Her idea has two steps, which I am repurposing for Potter-esque fun: 

Practice: Summoning the Marauder´s Map

First thing in the morning, right after you woke up, proclaim: I solemnly swear that something Amazingly (or Wickedly) Awesome is hedead your way today. I would to so holding one of my wand replicas, even! You know, just for fun.

The second step asks for you to come to believe in blessings and miracles. You must then go about your day obssesively looking for the beauty of the world, to actively be on the lookout for blessings. 

She suggests that your write your your friends first thing in the morning thre blessings (without repeating them between days). Or write them down. And do so after your proclaimed that something Amazingly Awesome your way comes.

Eventually, this becomes you new way of looking at things. And if Gratitude really opens door, the the good stuff must follow. 

[art-of-slither]

Day 2: Let go of petty things

I am still using Gratitude every time I got. I am using the Summoning Charm to make myself think about every day blessings. This day I spent less than an hour in the mall, and I took time to appreciate the Halloween displays. 

I love Halloween, so I am grateful for not being the only one. 

Then, when riding my car to work I had a close call. A bus closed in too much it almost hit me. My initial reaction was beginning a mental tirade about stupid people, but for once I had to stop myself. 

Better be Grateful that I am ok, because it could have been worse. And cut it right then and there to get on with my life. Now that I think about it, I forgot soon about it. 

So maybe I cannot say that fabulous things happened to me, but people were nice. During my work hours my husband called me and sent several messages. That annoyed me because those were unimportant stuff, but something inside me told me let it be, let go of the need to feel in control. 

I am about to use the Grateful Pensieve before turning in. I think that most wonderful thing that happened to me was that my job went smoothly and a patient gave me cookies. 

[art-of-slither]

Touched by Magic: My Life on Gratitude Once Upon a Time (Part 1)

Back when I was 13 years old, I was frustrated and sad about my life. I had few friends who were mean, demeaning and toxic. I longed having good friends just like Harry had Ron and Hermione. I did not excelled at school. My grades were avarage at best. I knew I was dumb. It wasn't depression, just a perpetual fog of unhapiness at worst and boredom at best.

I don't know exactly what happened and when exactly happened, but during my last year at school (a Catholic School) somewhere, somehow I received this piece of advice: Why do you want new friends, things and events when you don't even appreciate what you do have already?

Well, color me schocked! It was true! I thought about it and decided that I was going to be happy and content and grateful with all I did have already. Sure, it wasn´t a good life, it was quite nasty at the moment, but it was my not-good nasty life, dammit!

And little by little, progressively, cumulatively, my view of my life began shifting. Yeah, my friends were mean, but that wasn't necessarily the whole truth either. We celebrated each other's birthdays, we cooperated with homework, we made us laugh out loud several times. Those things were there, it's just that I was so critical about them, about our friendship that I took those good things for something meaningless.

Yes, my grades weren't good. But they were mine! I got them fair and square. I did learned things. I had the capacity of remembering things.

Yeah, I wished to be in another school, but this one was an imperfect home, but a home nonetheless. I could appreciate its green areas, the food they offered us, how they cared for us and had our best interests at hear. How many people would like having what I had?!

And suddenly I felt happier. My grades improved. I appreciated what my teachers tried to convey me. I appreciated my classmates enough that lowering my walls and actually engaging them in a friendly way came naturally. I even won two prizes, one in 1st place and the other in 2nd, helping our class gain a reputation for winning the most prizes in the year. Teachers loved us!

I was happy and content! Not even the school year ending and every one moving to different High Schools made me feel sad.

But everything was just getting started. Life was just getting started. What happened the next three years was uncanny and wonderful.

For starters, the provisional classroom I was in was full of uncannily nice people. I was used to having a certain level of toxicity around me, but it was not there anymore. It surprised me, but what's one thing, right? C'mon! I was a little bit of luck.

My definitive classroom was even better. Funny and kind people all around! And I began making friends like crazy, and through those friends I found the 9 friends I still hang out with even to this day, four of them joined me in the medical profession even!

My grades were good, above avarage. I began having this insane wish of going to the library daily and studying. It began coming natural to me. I enjoyed it. That never happened before with such intensity.

Each day I returned home thinking and feeling wonderful about all the good things that happened to me. I counted them with my fingers every night. I cherished each thing, big and small.

Everywhere I went in school there was always someone that treated me good. People were interesting. Not just my classmates, but my teachers and other adults.

I had a crush on a boy, which was the thing that freaked me out. I feared for my life with my family. I was gay! But, feared couldn't sabotage me completely. The right ideas were with me... It was like I was being told from the inside out that everything was fine, that I was fine just as I was. The moments I spent thinking about it were always surrounded with calmness and peace. Whoever loves you truly will never leave you or hate you... And then I would spend several minutes watching the breeze soothing gently an old tree. I remember that I often spent minutes marveling at trees and nature. My High School had that in spades. I loved my new school.

Things finally took a detour for bad by the end of my first year. Gorgeous dude found out I had a crush on him and gave me the cold shoulder. We were no longer even friends. I cried a lot and spent weeks feeling sad. My family, not knowing what I was going through, took me on vacation and I had time to heal. Little did I knew that all of that was for the better as you soon will see.

I had a lot of wonderful things to think about during that vacation, so many places to visit and see. So spending time in sadness never took over me entirely. I wrote stories and wanted to be a novelist. I let myself be inspied by every thing I say those weeks. I was satisfied and happy with my hobby and passion. When I returned for my second year, I came back thinner and healthier. Everyone was amazed!

I decided that if there was ever an opportunity for me to become that guy's boyfriend (I was allowed to dream, right? Ambition comes naturally to Slytherins) then I wanted him to have a smart boyfriend. That guy was Smart, very intelligent. In my opinion, he was a keeper.

So I began feeling inspired to play with my homework, play with my notes, make school something fun instead of a chore. When studying a little bit of laws (my school had that) I studied for our exams transforming each law into Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I aced every exam I had, including that one.

To add to the fun of everything, my intuition began developing in ways I couldn't believe were possible. All kinds of freaky stuff began happening to me.

Here is a sample:

When reviewing my notes for an exam, the very answers to the exam’s questions would catch my eye. Even if I tried to ignore them, something inside would tell me to memorize them. I studied very little, but at the end I always felt a sense of peace, and sure enough I would ace my exam. 

When doing an exam, if there was a multiple choice question, I always picked up the correct answer. Again, a mysterious voice would tell me which was the correct answer when I didn´t know it myself. 

I would know if I could get away with not doing my homework and play video games instead. Once, two weeks passed by and the teacher did not asked us to turn in our homework. A weekend before he did, I knew inside my heart that it was time to do so. Sure enough, he asked for it.

I would always feel guided around school. Once, something told me to go to this place. There I found one of our teachers, I chatted a little with him and out of nowhere he suspended the class. Everyone was rejoiced. 

I would know if someone was looking for me or if I needed to go to a certain place in order recieve something. Somehow, I was always guided to be in the right place at the right time frequently, several times a week. 

School was never a chore. It was something fun. Plus, I always got to hang out with cool friends. I felt blessed, touched by a magic wand. 

I could sense if someone was inside the school or not. It didn’t matter who: friends, teachers, classmates, my crush, etc. I would close my eys, sort of scan the school, and sure enough I would know. It didn´t freaked me out, but it was... weird... I was always right

When I got a chance at love was when I decided to calm down about the subject. Sure enough, I met someone that very same week. It didn´t last long, but it was something incredible. I knew what to do, say and how to act. He was my first kiss.

The guy I had a crush on never talked to me again, but I happened to catch him watching me in a most curious way many times. Regardless, one day I decided I had enough, and I logged in to my messenger account. I told myself that was the day I was going to meet my future husband. This was when I was 16 years old. I met this guy online. I decided he was not him at all, so I didn´t pursue a relationship with him. Well, he is now my actual husband having wedded thus very same year, but this is a story I will get into at another time.

Some of that reads funny, like I was a brat that only wanted to have fun and things always lined up for me to do just that and still getting very good grades. Indeed, I was top of my class. But that is my point: good feelings, love, appreciation, gratitude in particular, were the stuff that I always kept returning to, even when I was feeling bad or sad or angry. I still felt negativelym yeah, but it was so short-lived. Something inside me always told me to just let those things go, get on with my life, enjoy it, not allowing me to be petty. 

Years later I would be introduced to several authors about this topic, and every thing that had to do with the Law of Attraction. I read Lynn Grabhorn´s wonderful book Excuse me, your life is waiting, and I instantly knew that was it. That was what happened to me. That was the answer to the question I had once back during my late teens. I wanted to know what was that I did, or was doing. Why God chose me? I wanted to know because my friends struggled, were quite anxious, dissappointed, and always I felt bad for them, and dirty and guilty. How could I been having so much fun when they were struggling? But I never knew what to say to them to... make things happen for them. I would listen to them, I would soothe them, I would crack a joke just to make them feel better, but it never occured to me that my chronic gratitude, joy and appreciation for life was what did the trick. 

Now that I feel I know more about those year, I really want to go back. Because one day, the magic was gone. Or so I thought. I thought it left me... I pushed it away. 

[art-of-slither]

The Magical Energy Factor

Why Gratitude is a powerful practice? I mean, a Gratitude Practice sounds at worst as something you should be doing, you ungrateful muggle, and at best something that makes you the ultimate polite person and nothing more.

I subscribe to two theories about why this stuff works. For some, they cancel each other out, but for me they actually enhance each other.

On the one hand, Gratitude fosters the kind of attitude that enhances good stuff happening often and enables you to accept life and enjoy it as it is. This sounds like a mundnae, muggle-based explanation. A psychological one. The magic version of it deals in energies and how stuff surrounding you respond to your vibes and how you are way more powerful than you think you are.

Let's talk about the Magical One: We live in an energy-based universe.

You will see in this blog that I often talk about our Practiced Vibe. What I mean by that is the usual vibrations we put out.

As Pam Grout, Lynn Grabhorn, Rhonda Byrne and Abraham-Hicks tell the world through their books, our thoughts change the world, but they do so by changing our energetic patterns or vibes. To that end they often cite quantum physics, normal physics and scientific experiments and observations to hint at the nature and truth of what they teach us.

Indeed, the quantum realm acts in a frightening way that is contrary to everything we have thought about the universe. We may seem solid, but we are energy first and foremost, vibrating at various levels. Consciousness vibrates as well, our thoughts vibrate so our feelings vibrate.

It's precisely what our dominant thoughts are what colors our Practiced Vibes. Our Expectations, our Beliefs, our Personal Karma, etc, are colored by our predominant thoughts. We then mingle with stuff that matches up with our Practiced Vibe. The good with the good, the bad with the bad. So, in short, there is Law that states that that which is like unto itself is drawn. The Law of Attraction.

I find this an intriguing notion, one that in my opinion explains why certain things happensto us in a certain way daily and, at the same time, it seems it doesn't explain everything. We all know even bad stuff happens to good people, right? Well, yes and no. Yes because life can be unpredictable, and no because it's not about morality but about predominant energy-patterns. We all know bad people that seem to be touched by a magic wand. They expect that to continue happening, so they have a predominant practiced thought-pattern, thus they vibrate success, so that is what it shows up for them.

The best explanation I have found about why bad stuff happens regardless of actual vibe is because we, as spirits having a physical experience, have decided to exist in a material plane where contrast abounds. It is inevitable bumping into things that we don't like, but we need that contrast to form our personal preferences, which become our dreams and goals, which makes us experience happiness. After all, we all know that the Lumos Charm loses its appeal as a spell when there is no darkness to iluminate, right? We cannot experience joy without sadness.

It is a universe of contrast. You cannot experience something without its opposite. And I challenge anyone to think about a situation where you win something without losing something else at the same time in order to win that something. Having a significant other makes you lose some freedom. Having a child does that. Entering a new school makes you lose the old one. Even winning a game requires you to lose time and energy in order to achieve it.

The problem is, then, that we vibrate in response to the bad stuff (as expected) but then we stay stuck in those vibes. Our Practiced Vibe, in short.

So how we change outcomes and attract better stuff?

You can do it by focusing upon your objectives until you begin attracting them. If you read Napoleon Hill, you will learn about this. I even suspect rhis is the reason why witchcraft work in the first place.

Many people jump up at the opportunity for material things, which is not bad per se, but it hints at a deeper problem. You see, each and every one of the people that focus first on material things do so because they expect those material things bring them a happiness they really crave. No one wants things of they will make them feel miserable, right?

Again, nothing wrong with wanting material things, but when applying these magical principles many fall in a trap: we fill ourselves with anxiety. The sudden feel of dread and doubt debilitates anyone that attempts to attract good stuff, and ultimately defeats them. The problem are not the principles, but the general vibe we initially offer then. If we are not happy now, joyous now, and we will only feel positive when we get the stuff we want, then we shoot ourselves wirh our personal wand. Focusing on the abscence of something and focusing on the anxiety we feel because of the process defeats the purpose, that ensures we keep stuck. Is backwards thinking. We feel bad now, we feel bad about the abscence of something, so we will keep feeling bad and we will keep getting the same out of life as a result.

A Gratitude Attitude (A Grattitude?) colors our Practiced Vibe in a way that allow us to match easily with the things we want. The universe knows how to elicit more gratefulness from us: by giving us stuff that naturally elicits gratitude from us (aka, your dreams, wishes, objectives, etc).

Pam Grout, in her marvelous books E-squared and Thank & Grow Rich, vouches for a universe that is way more accomodating and generous and benign than what many have thought (myself included) if you know where to look, how to look and how to vibrate.

If all of those assertions hold water, and the only thing stopping the Universe/God/All-That-Is/Nature from giving us wonderful things is us creating meddlesome static with our worries and negativity, then a Gra-ttitude surely will clear the air for us and open the door to better days, even amazing days.

So, all the spells you will find in this blog are intended to help you and me achieve a better Practiced Vibe. This Magic Universe theory (or stated fact) explains why Gratitude give us our dreams (at least, an improved life).

The funny part is that I know I have lived once by these universal principles. I did so years before I ever read any of these books on that topic. While doing so, I always knew something deeper was going on, but I never understood what it was.

I will share my story in a series of posts entitled: Touched By Magic. Those post are going to be accompanied by new Gratitude Spells to add to our Self-Help Spellbook. After those posts I will share the other worldview about why Gratitude works, the mundane muggle-based one (Those post will be called the Felix Felicis Factor).

Thanks for reading!