The Only Mindset Exercise You'll Ever Need to Manifest Your Dream Life

I am not too proud to admit I’ve been struggling lately. Since I hurt my knee in the stupidest accident ever I have not been as mobile as I like. I am feeling bored and restless just sitting around all the time. I see so many things that need to be done and I can’t do most of them. Plus I’m gaining weight. I’m off the crutches but still in a knee brace and I get tired and sore if I stand up too much. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you can read about it here (just promise not to judge me)!

I also caught a miserable cold, probably because I haven’t slept through the night since before the election. I keep waking up from nightmares at 3am, worrying about all Trump’s campaign promises and their results. Getting rid of the Department of Education, for example. Our daughter is going to a state university on a scholarship. Will she be able to keep her scholarship? What about our son’s promising cross country running career? Getting rid of the Affordable Healthcare Act and its protection of insurance for people with pre-existing conditions. All our children are special needs so they all have pre-existing conditions. 

Our adopted children. The last Trump administration was combing through adoption paperwork trying to find mistakes so they could deport adoptees. The deported some poor man who was adopted as a child from Vietnam and raised here by white people. Our friend’s daughter needed one of her documents to go to college but when her parents called to get they were told to just wait and “not draw attention to her during this administration”. Our children are US Citizens! It’s just chilling to know the government who allowed us to adopt them would now turn against our families after our kids grew up as Americans.

Besides the damage to our immigrants and their families, the deportation policy is particularly disastrous financially. Immigrants working here illegally pay into Social Security and Medicare but they don’t get those services. The money is taken from their paychecks automatically and then distributed to US Citizens. So deporting them means there will be quite a bit less money for beneficiaries. Then there’s the cost of food and construction. Those are the main industries in which immigrants work. Expect prices to skyrocket when employers can no longer find workers. 

And the proposal to end tax on Social Security benefits. Right now you are only taxed on your benefits if you make $25000 to $32000 in provisional income (and then only the income above that level is taxed). So people who are living on Social Security aren’t paying taxes on benefits anyway! This is just an enormous tax break for the rich in disguise and it’s projected to bankrupt Social Security within 2-3 years.

I’m already seeing a huge drop in income in reaction to the election. People just aren’t shopping and this is fourth quarter. Before the election I was making $100 on average for every Instagram Reel I posted and now it’s plummeted to like $5. Stocks are soaring, so if you’re rich you’re making bank but everyone else is screwed.

Why do I know all this stuff? Why do I read so much? Why can’t I just be a happy idiot? 

Yesterday I read a very disturbing article about Google trends. On November 13th, more than a week after the election, the search for “Can I change my vote” was up like 1000% or something. “What are tariffs” and other tariff related searches were up around 400%. So obviously a lot of people who voted did so without knowing very basic facts about our election process and financial system. 

For the record, no, you can’t change your vote after it’s cast. It’s a permanent choice at that point. That’s why it’s important to get your news from reliable sources. If you’re watching Fox News please remember they testified under oath during their defamation trial that they are not factual news and should be viewed as merely “entertainment”. Why do we allow them to call themselves “news” in that case? That should definitely be against the law. 

If you want to learn about tariffs watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Ben Stein, the economics teacher, summarizes it perfectly! If you want to learn about life in America before freedom of religion and civil rights during our colonial days, I recommend the Anya Seton novel The Winthrop Woman. These are entertaining ways to find out about our country and how and why our democracy is structured as it is. 

I have to get myself in hand, so today I went back my favorite meditation technique. This is also a manifestation technique I’ve been using before I even knew what I was doing. I started this practice in the 90s after my husband became disabled in a work accident right when we had just bought our first house and were expecting our first son. 

Even after the initial desperation, after our son was born and my husband was back at work, I was so traumatized I was having panic attacks. I came upon this by accident but it really works. I was just trying to calm myself down but I found out this is a really powerful manifestation tool.

First, find a quiet place and get comfortable. I would do this back then while I breastfed our son. Nowadays if it’s cold or rainy I get really warm and cozy. I wrap up in a blanket by the fire or curl up in bed. If it’s nice weather I walk to the lake and sit on our dock or lie in the sun on our deck. If you’re at work get a hot drink and hold it at your desk. If your work environment is stressful or too populated go to the bathroom for a few minutes.

Once you are comfortable, close your eyes and breathe deeply. Try to think of nothing except the comfort you feel. Focus only on physical sensations: the cup in your hand, the warmth of the sun, the softness of the blanket, etc. Keep your focus on only those sensations and your breath and empty your mind of all other thoughts. If thoughts intrude, try counting down from a certain number, like 30 or 100. Picture yourself in an elevator going down and see the numbers counting down like floors in a building. Or imagine yourself walking down stairs and see the numbers on each stair as you count down. 

This sounds ridiculous I know, but I often picture myself in the long line to get on The Pirates of The Caribbean ride at Disney World. I don’t know why; I’m not like a rabid Disney fan or anything (I prefer Harry Potter World at Universal). For some reason that corridor pops into my head and I can see it and smell it and feel it and it keeps me from thinking about other stuff. After you do this a few times you will have your own place come into your mind.

Now, once you have counted down and “arrived” at the bottom of your staircase or the Pirates ride or whatever, start envisioning your perfect life. Just picture it, without wanting it or feeling bad or jealous because you don’t have it. Just see yourself opening a door and walking into your perfect world as your ideal self, if you could look any way you want and live anywhere you want and do anything you want. See yourself looking and living and acting that way. If any negative thoughts intrude or you feel any tension or negativity in your body go back to feeling your physical comfort or counting down your numbers. 

Sometimes it can help to write down your ideal life ahead of time. Just make a list like you used to make a Christmas list when you were a kid and try to feel that pleasant anticipation you felt back then. You might not get every single thing on your list but you’ll probably get a lot of it. Feel that. Just feel the enjoyment of thinking about things you’d love.

If you know me you know I love the new Jumanji movies. I love the idea of creating your avatar and living as that person. I have a secret Pinterest vision board called Avatar where I just pin anything that I would like in my life, from clothes to hair to houses.

Third, as you’re enjoying your perfect world you may start to have thoughts distract you from your meditation, but these are positive thoughts. Allow these positive thoughts to come in. They will point you in the direction you need to go. Basically they will give you a road map to get to your perfect world in real life. They will provide solutions to the problems you’ve been facing. 

This morning during this phase of my meditation I came up with several new course and book ideas I can sell as digital products, so I can go anywhere and make money. I remembered a school in Rome has been trying to recruit our son for their cross country team. Medical care is free in Italy even if you aren’t a citizen. While on vacation my step-dad had a medical emergency and was life-flighted from Capri to Naples and had a pacemaker put in and stayed in the hospital for two weeks and it was all 100% free. Perhaps our daughter could transition to online classes and we could all go to Italy on tourist visas for 6 months at a time. I could still make money from the internet.

I thought about the offer we got for our house the other day (we live in a very desirable neighborhood and have realtors calling us and mailing us offers all the time). We could live off that money for several years. Our stocks are way up too. Maybe my husband could retire early. We also have our cabin that’s fully capable of being entirely off-grid. We built it that way. Jerry calls it our SHTF place because we can live off the land and the river there when the sh*t hits the fan.

So anyway, I am now feeling quite a bit calmer and have several action steps to take. I will renew our passports. We can apply to the Italian school for our son. I will step up my digital product creation and marketing and send my physical inventory to a fulfillment center so they can ship those items for me. 

Fourth, feel gratitude for everything you already have. This can be literally anything. Feel grateful for the warmth of your coffee mug. Feel grateful for the pretty sunset you saw last night. Feel grateful for the quarter you found in the parking lot.

When I started this practice my “perfect world” was just inside my head, but it’s the world I live in now! I would imagine staying home with my baby and running my own business. I would think about a cabin in the mountains and having my own beach. I would imagine having a big fancy house at the lake. I would see myself with lots of children. I would picture myself going shopping and buying things without having to balance my checkbook first to make sure I had the money. I have all those things now. They are my everyday life. I dwell on that daily and try to recall exactly how I would feel if I were taken from 1999 and dropped into 2024 all of a sudden. I would literally have everything I wanted in that instant! I am so grateful we’ve been able to create this dream world.

Try to do this practice for at least 10 minutes every day. If you don’t have time for a long block of meditation break it into several sessions of a few minutes at a time. Just shorten each phase. It’s all right if you’re inconsistent. Some days I only have five minutes for meditation and other days I meditate for an hour. If I wake up in the night I do this practice until I either fall back to sleep or my alarm goes off.

Now the challenge for me is to start envisioning my new perfect world. What do I want now that I achieved all my other goals? I’ve been in my comfort zone and it’s being threatened and that’s why I feel stuck and helpless. To manifest your perfect world you have to step outside your comfort zone. The difference is now I know I can and will create it. I’d love to hear how this works for you. Drop me a line and let me know what you manifest.