Last August after I opened my practice, in between bursts of semi-frantic Marketing efforts and meltdowns of sheer panic wondering if I had done the right thing, I got the brilliant idea to put an inspiring screensaver shot on my phone.
I had found the image in one of the women's entrepreneurial groups I was a part of. She had made it as a gift for the group. It was a tranquil beach shot, with white sand and blue skies and crystal clear water and it made me happy when I looked at it. On the image itself were the words "The Money is Coming."
This should be great for manifesting abundance and for helping new clients to find me! I thought. Couldn't hurt. Classic Law of Attraction stuff, right?
Immediately, I grabbed the image and made it the lock screen on my phone. I texted it to my husband, so that he could do the same, and sent to several friends who I thought it would inspire. Surely, if I believed, the money was "coming" it would, right?
Surely if I repeated this like a mantra it would surely come to be.
Throughout the next several weeks, I would stare at the image, silently saying to myself "The money is coming!" It somehow gave me comfort in the midst of a whole lot of nothing happening with my business. Did I mention this was also during Mercury Retrograde? Sheesh. Let throw in a little insult to our injury, why don't we? I kept thinking if I simply "did" more, the money would "come."
The Universe had something else in mind.
Cue a prelude conversation with the Coach I was planning to hire to lead me out of this bleak, dark spell. We were speaking one day, working out some logistics for payment, which I had been busy "waiting" for, since, after all, "the money was coming."
"The money is coming!" I said to her enthusiastically that day. "I know it is. I can feel it!"
Again, it was made clear to me why the Universe had put this person in my path to be my Coach.
"Jess, listen to yourself. What did you just say?" She asked.
"I said the money is coming!" I answered, with the same level of enthusiasm.
"Alright Jess. Take a look at what you doing. You are putting "the money" so far out into the future energetically you are LITERALLY keeping it at arms length. The money is HERE.
I gulped, took a moment and allowed this to sink in.
"You are putting the money so far into the future, no wonder you don't have it" she continued. "it's already here. Go count how much money you have in your wallet. Go shake your son's piggy bank. Think about how much money is all around us, in abundant supply. It's not "coming." It's here."
"Well I suppose it might be helpful if I took that damn sentence off the lock screen on my phone!! I blurted out, feeling a tad ridiculous. My little manifesting strategy was clearly backfiring.
And take it off I did. Immediately. I re-phrased that little counter-productive affirmation to something that actually started serving me.
I got out of the energy of need.
I got out of the energy of waiting.
And I created the space to receive. And welcomed it in. In the NOW. And the shift happened.
I had to live it to understand it. I had to feel into it and LIVE it to believe it.
Then stretch out your hand, Babycakes!
Cuz I'm telling ya; it's already here.