Haunted supermarket trolley, or sign from the Universe?

Does the Universe give signs?  I know it’s supposed to be impartial, but do you think it sends out signs from time to time to let you know that it’s working on your side?  I only ask because lately I’ve been receiving a lot of things that look, and feel, like signs.

I mentioned that I put a cut out of my daily horoscope from early January on my vision board.  It said “2011 is barely a week old and already there are so many shifting dynamics that it’s clear that this is going to be one very interesting year.”  My horoscopes since this day have repeatedly mentioned things about changes in my career, and about how things are being aligned for me.  Could this be a coincidence, or is the Universe trying to tell me something?

I feel like the Universe is trying to remind me that it’s here.  On Saturday I was driving through a car park.  I turned a corner and found a supermarket trolley placed right in the middle of where I needed to drive.  As I drove towards it, the trolley slowly rolled out of my way.  I laughed because it just felt like so much more than a coincidence. 

Tomorrow I start focussing on The Secret to Money.  This means I’ll be adding some extra Things to Achieve to my list.  To make my list look less daunting, I decided that today I’m going to work on a few of the smaller things, including:

- Ask myself “how am I feeling?”

- Begin right now to shout to the universe, ‘Life is so easy! Life is so good! All good things come to me!’”

- Make a list of things to be grateful for.

       

The universe has a sense of humour

On Wednesdays I work as a volunteer in a shop which sells fair-trade goods.  I usually just work the mornings, but because the store manager was away yesterday, I worked the whole day.  Towards the end of the day I went out the back to get something and I noticed I had a missed call on my phone.  I didn’t recognise the number so I called my voice mail to listen to the message.

Remember that at this point in time my Secret project had only been going for three days.

The voice mail was from a lady who works for a place where I applied for a job last week.  She wanted me to call her to discuss my application.  I dialled her number, was transferred to her office, and was told that I have been short-listed for the interview process.

After I’d hung up the phone I was in hysterical laughter.  It’s just so RIDICULOUS!  It’s been almost three months since I had my last job interview.  Not for lack of trying, either.  And then just THREE DAYS into my secret project I get a call about an interview.  This is too funny.

I’ll be honest; this job isn’t exactly what I want to do.  But it’s a good job, for a good company, and it will provide me with more opportunities to move into the area that I want to be in.  Everybody has to start somewhere.  Plus the starting pay rate is a very beautiful sequence of numbers.

So, the Thing to Achieve which I have chosen to work on today is: “The moment a thought of doubt comes, release it immediately.  Send that thought on its way.  Replace it with ‘I know I am receiving now.’ And feel it.”

This shouldn’t be too hard.  The universe proved itself to me yesterday.  I don’t think I’ll be doubting its power any time soon.

Ask, Believe, Receive!

Creating a vision board is fun!  This is the one I made yesterday.  I thought I’d keep it simple to start with; I don’t want the universe to think I’m being greedy.

I’ve got three things on here which symbolise my three major goals for this year.  The first is a job advertisement for a pretty awesome sounding job.  Beneath that is a picture of a house (yes, that is a swimming pool in the backyard), and up the top is a picture of a kitten. 

The other items include a cheque from the universe for $50,000 (I printed this off the official Secret website), and photos from my trip to Italy and Greece last year.  From the minute I arrived home, I’ve wanted to go back there.

I’ve also gone a little crazy on Photoshop, and tweaked the summaries for my two hobbies – freelance writing for suite101.com, and being a Nutrimetics consultant.  I edited these to see myself earning some real money from these.

Finally, I’ve added my horoscope which I cut out of the paper near the very beginning of January.  It says “2011 is barely a week old and already there are so many shifting dynamics that it’s clear that this is going to be one very interesting year.”  I’m choosing to take this as a sign from the universe that things are going to work out for me this year.

For the final touches on my vision board, I added some particularly girly ribbons.  I did this so that when it is hanging on my wall, there is absolutely no way I can avoid looking at it.  I’ve also written “Ask, Believe, Receive” as a reminder of how The Secret works, and the power of the imagination.

So that’s one thing I can cross off my list.  Today I’ve decided to add two Things to Achieve to my routine.  These are fairly similar so it makes sense to me to do them both at the same time.  The first is “Make your last thoughts before going to sleep good thoughts”, and the second is: think through the events of your day before you go to sleep.  In your mind re-create any events that did not go the way you wanted by re-playing them “in a way that thrills you”.   

Oh, I should probably also mention that I got out of bed at 7.40 this morning.  I’ll be honest, I did hit the snooze button once, but realistically that’s probably what I’d do if I really was waking up to go to work.

The first day of the rest of my life

And so the project begins!  For the next six months and one week I will be working on changing my life, starting with achieving goal number one: find myself a job.  And not just any job, a job I actually enjoy, that lets me use my brain and my skills, and which ideally pays well.

I’ve just been going over my list of Things to Achieve and I’m finding it a little bit over-whelming how many things I need to start incorporating into my daily routine.  I need to learn to meditate, to quiet my mind, to think only good thoughts and to send those negative thoughts on their way.  I need to think good thoughts before I go to sleep, and re-play my day in my mind and re-create events to go the way I would have liked them to.

I’ve decided not to tackle all these tasks at once, out of fear that my mind may implode under the pressure.  Instead, I’m going to try and incorporate one new task into my routine each day.  I’ll mark these off my list as I go, with the date in which I achieved it.  If it’s an ongoing project - as most of them are - I’ll note the date I started.

Today I have a few things which I can mark off on my list.  The first being:  “Decide what you want to be, do, and have, think the thoughts of it, emit the frequency, and your vision will become your life.”  This is an ongoing task, and I believe I started it when I first decided my goals for this year.

The second task is “You must act, speak, and think, as though you are receiving it now.”  Because I am currently aiming for a new job, I’ve realised I’m going to have to start acting and thinking like I already have that job.  Sadly, I’ve realised that this means NO MORE SLEEP-INS. 

Since I left my job at the end of October I’ve been enjoying waking up between 9 and 9.30 most mornings.  This now has to stop.  It pains me just having to write it.  From now on I’ll be getting out of bed at 7.30, getting ready to go to ‘work’, and between the hours of 9 and 5, I’ll be doing work.

Unfortunately, this plan didn’t get off to the best start this morning.  I had every intention of getting up at 7.30AM when I set my alarm last night.  I remember my alarm going off, and I remember knowing that I had to get up, but somewhere along the line I fell back asleep.  I haven’t entirely broken my resolution though, excluding the time I took to have a shower and get dressed, I have been working since 9, and I will keep working through to 5.  Tomorrow morning I promise to get up at 7.30.

I thought, seeing as this is the first day of this project, today would be the ideal day to make my vision board.  This is my plan for this afternoon.  I’m actually quite excited about this idea; I’ll post photos of it tomorrow.

The beginning of something wonderful?

22 years old, unemployed, living with my parents.  What have I got to lose?

In one week’s time I will embark on a quest to find my ideal life.  I’m going to hand my destiny over to the universe, and live life according to The Secret.  In case you’ve been living on another planet for the past few years, The Secret is a book and movie which focuses on the law of attraction and teaches us how we can create our ideal life through our thoughts. 

You’re probably wondering why on earth I would want to leave my fate entirely in the hands of the universe for a whole six months.  Firstly, I want to know whether The Secret truly can change people’s lives the way it suggests it can.  According to the book, I can have millions of dollars, be impervious to disease, live in my dream home, drive an expensive car, be successful, and even fix my dodgy eyesight.  The Secret tells us we can do and have anything we want.  If we can think it we can do it, be it, and have it.  I’m curious as to whether it really is possible to have this kind of control over our lives simply by controlling our thoughts.

My second reason (and, I’ll be honest, main reason) for conducting this experiment is because I am literally out of other options.  2010 was such an utter failure of a year for me.  I completed my degree at the end of 2009, and 2010 was supposed to be the year that I began my career.  When I think back to this time last year I was so excited about finally going out into the real world, earning some money, and having a job that I enjoyed going to.  I was not at all prepared for what the year had instore for me.

A series of unfortunate events saw me lose all my possessions in a burglary, crash my car, receive a rejection letter for every job I applied for, and be stuck in a job that made me want to cry every morning when my alarm went off.  By the end of September I’d decided that happiness was more important to me than an income, and so I gave my employers a month’s notice of my resignation.

I must have been somewhat delusional because I really did believe that a month would be enough time for me to find a new job.  But you’ve already guessed what comes next, right?  Fast-forward to November and I’m sitting at home with no job.  When the contract expired on our flat in December it was inevitable that I would have to move back in with my parents.

So here we are in 2011, 22 years old, unemployed, living with my parents, and about to start a six month project which involves thinking my way to a better life.  It might sound like a crazy idea, but really, what have I got to lose?