MANIFEST WITH ME: A REVIEW / EXPERIMENT FEATURING PAM GROUT'S BOOK E-SQUARED
Let me start by saying that I'm a highly practical, logical and concrete person. In the past I've proudly compared myself to Spock, the emotionless, there-is-a-right-way-to-do-this Vulcan, and although that's an extreme example, I do tend to function better in a world where I can touch, see and feel things.
It should come as no surprise, then, that when someone introduced me to the concept of "manifesting" recently, I immediately wrote them off as some kind of scam artist / loony toon who was seriously out of touch with reality.
What is manifesting, you ask? It's the concept that we, through the power of our thoughts, can create our own destinies; that literally, by thinking strongly enough about a certain outcome, we can turn that into reality. Want to be a best-selling author? Envision this circumstance clearly enough, set an intention to become a best-selling author, and in time, your wish will come true.
Sounds ridiculous right?
I thought so, too, only much as I tried to put this idea behind me, something continued to draw my curiosity forward. Perhaps it was the desire to understand how smart, put-together men and women could be so fooled by this cockamamie magic, but regardless, I continued to research the subject, and at the behest of some "believers," picked up a few related books.
One of these books is called E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality, and as you'd expect, it walks you through a series of exercises designed to help you experience first-hand the power of your own mind.
The book is written for someone exactly like me -- a logic-driven mind who doesn't quite believe these things are possible -- and yet, it asks that as you undertake each of the experiments you force your rational brain to suspend disbelief...just for 48 hours at a time.
As much as I'm not sure I believe I can make myself a millionaire just by thinking about being one, a part of me couldn't help but wonder if I was actually missing out on becoming my own fairy godmother. I decided to give it a shot.
It all starts with Experiment #1...
Experiment #1 is designed to "prove" to you that there is an invisible energy force all around you, and that you can tap into this force at any time to bring about positivity in your life. Since this is the "intro" experiment, the book talks about how you're supposed to set a verbal intention for receiving a blessing -- you can't specify what that blessing is or how big it will be (apparently that's supposed to come in a future chapter). Then you wait 48 hours, keeping your eyes open for this "unexpected good" to magically arrive in your life.
Picture this: Here I am sitting in my bed at 11pm on a Saturday night literally talking to the universe and asking for it/he/she to send me a blessing in the next 48 hours. I felt kind of like an idiot, but I did it anyway and promised myself I'd keep an open mind.
Day 1 went by and nothing extraordinary happened. At 11pm, I reprised my role of talking to myself and reminded the universe that it/he/she had just 24 hours left to send me my blessing.
On Day 2, something happened. I was going about my regular business when I got an email from a woman I had worked with last year to promote Beautycounter products on my other blog. This woman and I hadn't spoken in more than 3 months, and yet here she was reaching out and asking me to participate in a paid makeup artist gig at a festival in just a few days. It was already surprising for me to hear from this woman out of the blue, but considering that I'm not even a professional makeup artist, the outreach was that much more unexpected. On top of that, I had been feeling some financial pressure after dropping a ridiculous sum of money to meet my favorite celebrity at this summer's Wizard World Comic Con, and the fee I'd receive for the appearance would almost nearly pay me back for that outlay of funds.
Coincidence or universe sending me a blessing? I can't say I'm totally sure, but my ears certainly perked up.
On Monday night, I moved onto Experiment #2...
In Experiment #2, the idea is that you're supposed to set a specific intention to "see" something in your life. On the first day you pick one object (the book specifies green or "sunset beige" colored cars) and on the second day another object (the book recommends yellow butterflies or purple feathers). The idea is that when you shift your consciousness to focus on finding something, you usually do. It's not as though these things aren't there normally, but more that because you're not looking for them, your brain doesn't process their existence.
This one sounded fairly easy to me. I mean, we all know how the moment you buy a new car you start seeing it everywhere, even if you never noticed it on the streets before. Knowing this, I decided to make the experiment as challenging as I could and look for green cars over beige ones, because really, who drives a green car nowadays anyway?
I wasn't going to be spending much time on the road, but I did need to make a quick run to Target, so as I began the approximately 2-mile drive to the store, I started to keep my eyes peeled.
About 2 minutes into the drive, I squealed with glee when I saw a green car parked on the side of the road. "Yippee!" I thought, "mission complete."
But then it got kind of weird. About 10 seconds later, I saw a second green car, and then a third. All of a sudden there were literally green cars EVERYWHERE. I counted TWENTY FOUR green cars in the 10-minute drive to Target. When I got to the store, there were four more green cars in the parking lot, and I counted nearly 10 more in the first few minutes of my drive home. I finally stopped looking when I realized I had found nearly forty green cars.
FORTY GREEN CARS PEOPLE!?
Could that really still be coincidence?
Today is Day 2 of Experiment #2, so I'm on a mission to find yellow butterflies and/or purple feathers. Sounds pretty tough if you ask me, but given I exceeded my own expectations yesterday, I'm starting to think there may be more to this story than I initially thought.
Have you ever read E-Squared? Are you a manifesting master? I'll continue to chart my thoughts and experiences as I complete the experiments, but would love to hear your comments and questions below!
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