How do we consciously create our own reality?

Authors do it all the time while they're writing short stories and novels. But then reality often gets out of control when the story heads off to "Glimmer Train Magazine" or when a query letter for the novel goes to the 99th agent on the list.

There's a deluge of books being written these days about abundance, the law of attraction, and manifesting everything from million dollar houses to Bentley convertibles. I don't care about those things, but like all writers, I can use a wonderful agent and a publisher with a box of money for promotion.

Like prayer, most of these books tell us that in order to consciously create (manifest or attract), we must believe at the beginning that we'll receive the object or condition of our desires.

Now there's the rub. If one doesn't have "it" already, pretending that one does is somewhat difficult. If one has a headache, it's not easy walking around pretending that one doesn't have it while waiting not to have it. Same goes for rent money, a new job, or a publishing contract.

The Huna--the mystics of Hawaii--were very practical when it came to manifesting what they didn't have. They knew better than to pretend they already had a new house when it was plain to see they were still living in a shack with a leaky roof. 

Rather than trying to create certainty about their requests in the face of physical evidence to the contrary, they didn't pretend their wishes/prayers/affirmations had already been granted.  Instead, they said that the object or the condition of their desires was in the process of coming about.

Many writers these days tell us to visualize the end-result of our prayer. An apartment dweller can easily see in his/her mind's eye what the house of their dreams might look like, just as a hopeful novelist can "see" what a Barnes and Noble window display of their books might look like. This is good; it adds passion to the creation of that reality.

But sweating the ways and means is where we often kill the dream. Sure, there are physical steps to take like saving money for the house and sending out query letters for the novel. But when unexpected car bills take away some of the house money and when rejection slips mean having to find another prospective agent, it's easy for one to become discouraged, and that pretty much derails what one is seeking.

When it comes to the book contract I'm looking for, I do what I can and learn what I can, but worrying whether agent ABC is better than XYZ or whether a print on demand company is better than a mainstream publisher really isn't proactively helpful. I have to presume that God or The Cosmic or the Universe knows more than I do about the nitty gritty ways my dream is going to unfold.

So, I think this: "I am in the process of selling a bestselling, critically acclaimed novel." This takes care of the endless labyrinth of "WHAT IFs" that might otherwise cause me to worry. Heck, then I can assume that it's good that agent ABC rejected the manuscript because, quite possibly, they really weren't the best one to handle the book after all.

We can, I think, always be in the process of reaching our dreams no matter what the nay-sayers tell us and no matter what things look like at the moment.

Copyright (c) 2008 by Malcolm R. Campbell