Here’s something you may not know about me.
I’m a big believer in the Law of Attraction and manifestation.
I won’t hold it against you if you leave now. I get it. The Law of Attraction and manifestation can be considered some pretty New Age stuff. It’s a bit too “woo woo” for some folks.
But if you’re sticking around, let me explain.
In 2007, I spent the last $20 I had to buy a copy of The Secret. That tiny book was everywhere then. I saw segments about it on The Today Show. Oprah was all in on it and if OPRAH bought into it, there had to be something there, right?
It may help if I explain a bit more about where I was at the time.
2006 started off very similar to 2005 – with a breakup (sort of). Happy Freaking New Year. Boyfriend Circa 2005 at least had the decency to give me a reason to end our relationship and move on. Boyfriend Circa 2006 blindsided me.
I was in LOVE with that guy. In hindsight, we were absolutely wrong for one another, but 2006 Sarah didn’t know that. Things went from “We’re so in love! We’re going to get married!” to “I need some time to think about this.” And so began a few months of “let’s start over” only to break up again, rinse and repeat. I finally found a bit of a backbone, informed him that he needed to decide what he wanted, and mandated that we wouldn’t speak for however long I thought of at the time.
He ended things via email a month later.
Please, don’t do that. Do NOT end a relationship with an email.
But he did and my mental health spiral that had been gaining momentum for months began in earnest. Panic attacks, anxiety, depression, I had it all, or so it felt. I withdrew from nursing school after a meltdown during a stats class and the realization that I just did not want to be a nurse. I took a medical leave of absence from work because I couldn’t make it through the day without feeling like the world was caving in. During medical leave, I started taking long walks and coming to grips with the fact that maybe, just maybe, it was everything about my current situation that I needed to leave, including my hometown.
I started to own my shit.
The train slowly found itself back on the tracks. I went back to work, eased back into classes by taking an online psychology class (fitting) that summer. By the fall of 2006, I was “back,” juggling a full-time class schedule that combined online and evening classes with working a full-time job in medical records at the local hospital during the day. It was a lot, and I didn’t sleep much, but it gave me something to do, something to aim for. That’s the time my plans to transfer to the University of Tennessee and work in the music business in Nashville took shape.
Still, things weren’t great. I was busy, stressed, and even though I was living at home, my financial situation wasn’t great. I knew I would need to rectify a few things and save a bit of money before I could quite literally quit my life in Virginia and move to Knoxville. I kept seeing The Secret and so, I invested.
Within a few days, I finished the book and started practicing gratitude. I would list all the things I was grateful for while I showered in the mornings, repeat affirmations throughout the day. I wrote out a gratitude list to reference when I needed a mood booster. I made a list of goals, created a vision board.
I also let go. I didn’t obsess. I truly believed things would work out however they were meant to.
And they did.
The things I put on my vision board came true. The college degree from Tennessee. The means to pay for school. The job in Nashville. I even had a photo of Jake Owen on there as he was my celebrity crush at the time and he was one ultimately of the first artists I interviewed when I started my internship at GAC.
Years later, tucked into a random box I found while digging through my closet in Nashville, I found a list of things I wanted out of my time at Tennessee. It spanned two pages, front and back, and honest to goodness, nearly every.single.thing. on it had happened, from making lifelong friends to graduating with honors to having an internship that turned into a job after graduation.
I couldn’t believe it, but I had proof that if you put something out there, worked hard, and believed in it, good things would ultimately happen, even if there were some bumps along the way.
I repeated the list making process when I decided to move from Nashville back to Charlottesville. This time, my list was around my ideal job. A few months later, I started that job – even had a desk with a window view, just like I wrote on my list.
I could give several more examples, but you get the idea. I believe in the Law of Attraction. I won’t get into how it works – there is a TON of information out there, but may I recommend Gabrielle Bernstein and Abraham Hicks? And of course, The Secret – but I do know it works, when you yourself put in the work.
Which leads me to where I am now.
I’m pretty in tune with my intuition. I trust what I feel. When that little voice starts whispering, I sit up and pay attention. Sometimes right away, other times, like now, a bit slower. That’s how The Balanced Company came about – whispered inspiration, right down to the name. Lately, that voice has told me to stop and take stock of where I am, where I’m going, and where I want to go from here. Essentially, I needed to make some decisions. You can only go but so far if you don’t know where you’re going.
The outcome?
I’ll hold onto that right now, but something else that came out of it was the realization – which happened to follow me finishing up Designing Your Life which encourages you to take stock of where you are and start from there – that I need to “own my shit” once more (I didn’t realize until now that this was what I was doing on my long walks). I needed to sit down and get honest with myself about where I’m thriving, where I’m failing, where I want to grow, and what I want to change.
There is nothing quite as humbling as sitting down with your journal and owning your shit, which is exactly what I did this weekend. I sat in my living room floor on a floor pillow at the coffee table and wrote approximately six pages in my journal of just real honest to goodness accountability of the current State of Sarah. Some of it was good. Some of it was not. Which is really just life – at any given time, we’re thriving in some areas, merely trying to survive in others.
After owning my shit though, I have a pretty clear idea of where I stand – the State of Sarah as I’ve taken to calling it – and where I want to go. And so, I cut some photos out of magazines and printed a few more from the internet to make a new vision board. I wrote down some goals. And you bet I made another gratitude list.
While I believe in the Law of Attraction and manifestation, I don’t believe things just “happen” once you put your intention out there. Do you know how many celebrities I’ve put the intention out there to marry? A lot, friends. Why do you think Jake was on my vision board way back when? Maybe should have been clearer… You have to take action to make the things you want happen. Aligned action. Inspired action. Call it what you want. But action all the same.
Confession?
I haven’t been taking a lot of action these days.
There’s something I learned when I owned my shit. I’ve been coming up with excuses, putting things off, leaning on circumstances, anything I can do to avoid taking action towards goals.
Like I said, owning your shit can be humbling.
That’s all I wanted today – to put it out there that yes, I’m a bit of a “woo woo” girl and tell you about the power of owning your shit. A bit random? Probably. But I write what I know, and this is what the blank page told me to write late last night.
Don’t worry – this space won’t turn into space preaching manifestation techniques and telling you that you, too, can change your life if you ask, believe, and receive. But I may mention it from time to time and I’m always open to discussing it if someone has thoughts or questions.
What do you think about the Law of Attraction? Have you ever used it? Let me know in the comments!
