Back in the dark ages of high school, we were a tight group of friends that met and hung out at church. Although that might imply a pious group, we spent as much time pushing boundaries as we did praying. We played poker in the church office before services (of course for money – what would be the point if no money were involved??), smuggled vodka into overnight retreats, played charades in the choir loft during sermons, and explored our sexuality in the basement classrooms. We believed in God and knew Jesus – we just also believed in ourselves and the joys of exploring the physical world. We loved to laugh.
At some point a new young woman joined our church and became one of our youth counselors, as we called them. The youth counselors watched over us (haha) on retreats, work camps, and canoe trips. They helped us organize bake sales and car washes. They were ostensibly the Youth Pastor’s assistants, although they just as often acted as our allies – buying our liquor, listening to our secrets, kissing us, leading us into temptation …
This new member of our group, whom I’ll call Martha, brought with her a child-like enthusiasm for life. She was passionate and intense. Somewhere along the line she’d learned and experimented with affirmations, and immediately set out to teach us what she knew.
We first learned a rote set of affirmations:
God loves me, therefore I love myself.
I see God in everyone, therefore … hm. I’ll remember these in the middle of the night tonight, I’m sure …
We decided that if this worked, we should be able to manifest things in the physical world, not just in our hearts and minds. We set out to prove the premise. Three of us got together one day and batted around ideas: what should we manifest? We decided that it should be a simple thing, common but not happening often. It should be something that would be obvious to us when it happened.
On Sunday afternoons we all met at a field next to the church to play soccer – the youth counselors, friends of their age, and most of the members of our group. We decided that we would affirm that someone would offer a pack of gum around the group during or after the soccer game. This had never happened, and in fact we didn’t really remember anyone in the soccer gang ever chewing gum at all.
We crafted our affirmation carefully, suspecting that vague words or a fuzzy idea would create a vague or fuzzy outcome. I don’t remember the affirmation as we stated it – thirty five years and a hard knock to the head, who would remember? But I’ll recreate a similar affirmation:
“A person will offer sticks of gum to each person present at the soccer game at (location) on (date).”
We began the affirmation on a Monday or Tuesday, as I remember. Once a day we each spent five minutes with eyes closed, repeating the affirmation silently to ourselves, and imagining someone handing out sticks of gum.
Sunday rolled around and the soccer game got underway after lunch. Frankly, I was so involved with the game, I had forgotten all about our experiment. The other two affirmers admitted the same thing: none of us were looking for an outcome.
Then Andy pulled a pack of gum out of his pocket and started wandering around offering everyone a piece out of the pack.
I think the three of us probably looked like landed fish, mouths hanging open and blank looks on our faces.
It worked. Our affirmation was affirmed. Which set off further explorations. We played with manifestation and creation, forever changing our expectations and assumptions about reality.
Some of our experiments didn’t work, some worked beautifully, some manifested with unexpected results as we’d left out details or forgot to include repercussions of the manifestation. At the time, I couldn’t figure out why some things worked and others didn’t. I even became wary of creating, as the creations could seem to manifest unexpected consequences.
Over the years I’ve discovered and remembered some reasons for some of those glitches. Probably not all of them, but I’ll pass along what I know:
1. Wording is critical. The energy is literal.
2. Instill the words and intent with emotion. The energy responds to passion.
3. Examine your beliefs: if you affirm money yet believe money is evil or corrupts people, you won’t get the money.
4. Admit your reservations: if you think this won’t work, say “I don’t think this will work, but I’m willing to learn that it does.”
5. The more people affirming it, the more likely it is to manifest. When energy focus is joined with others, the power of the energy is exponential.
6. Let go of the outcome. I’ll say that again: Let go of the outcome.
Try it for yourself … give yourself permission to create miracles.
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Ouch, Natalie. This is the first time I’ve ever been disturbed by a piece of your writing. NOT your fault, I should add. I’m afraid bringing back memories of growing up is not good (for me). It was far too painful. Much, much too painful. Even the words “high school” and “teen years” have me blocking them out. I was shy and withdrawn, much like now, only I hadn’t learned to deal with it, though I did enjoy solitude, being made to feel I ought to go out more at the same time. So I suffered silently as my hormones raged and my body changed. There was no one to talk to about it (certainly not my parents). I never dated till I was 19, I was far too scared. Never went to a single dance, didn’t party, didn’t attend the grad ceremony. I didn’t really care for the friends I had, and the church I had wandered into was really into the fear and control thing. First drinks, awakening sexuality, first girl friend; all the normal stuff is something I really hated going through. Hated. Blather, blather, yada yada etc etc…
I better go make a cup of tea. 🙂
Might be gifts in there … most people have their dark ages. Put them to good use, I say 🙂
Gifts? In there? It was a trash heap long since burnt and buried. lol
I will say this, though. The life I’ve lived is the life I chose. The pain and turmoil was something my Whole Self obviously wanted to know; something not previously experienced. Regarding that period of adolescence, I imagine a chat with myself that went something like this-
Me; “We’re going to put you in a large family, one of the younger ones. You won’t get the attention the elders got so you may be left on your own at times, emotionally. You’ll grow up insecure and uncertain. Because of this lack of confidence you won’t make friends easily, nor will you want to. There’ll be no violence in your life this time but you’ll be very vulnerable in other ways. You’ll be gifted athletically and academically but you won’t succeed in either one because of doubt. You will choose very high sexual morals but this will come at a price. You’ll find yourself deeply wounded by some who do not share your views. It’s going to hurt for a long time.
You won’t remember that all these things are what we want to know about so will be frustrated and will turn your attention to larger, more important questions. These answers you will be given over a period of time.”
Other Me; “Big deal, I can handle it. Let’s get this show on the road”
CW’s self analysis. 🙂
But as for the “gifts in there” you mention, please explain when you have a moment.