You probably have a fairly decent list of things you need and want, ranging from the specific (that new car) to the abstract (being more creative), and from the basic (work) to the miraculous (love).  From your list of wants, choose one goal and form a mental picture of it.  Maybe you choose that new car.  Picture the exact make, model, year, and color of the car you want.  Be sure to see yourself in the driver’s seat, so that your Inner Manifestor knows that this goal’s for you.

After you’ve formed a mental picture of your new car, viz it in front of you, about the size of a postage stamp  Forms and colors are visible, but not details.  Then, as if enlarging a photograph, picture it as a 5” X 7” picture.  Details are coming into focus.  If you want to add or modify anything in the picture, now’s the time to do it.  Then enlarge the picture to an 8” X 10” color glossy.  The colors become rich and details leap out.  You see yourself behind the wheel of your new car, grinning broadly.

Now enlarge the picture to poster size.  Add an affirmation caption to the top of the poster, “I’m Driving My New Car.”  See your signature in gold at the bottom.  The poster-sized picture reveals details about the clothes you’re wearing and the car.  Suddenly you realize that you’re seeing the car from all angles; you can read the gauges on the dashboard and see that the license plate has been issued by the state in which you live.

You’re really seeing the big picture now and you like what you see.  Filled with the energy you’ve focused on it, the mental picture pops into being three-dimensional and life-sized and you pop into yourself in the driver’s seat.  You can feel your hands gripping the steering wheel and the car accelerating forward.  What music do you have playing?  Breathe in that new-car smell.  Honk for happiness.  You’re really in the picture now.

Whenever you want something, start with a small picture of it, then think big.  You’ll get the picture.

Condensed from Chapter 2 of “The Joy of Visualization: 75 Creative Ways to Enhance Your Life” by Valerie Wells, published by Chronicle Books.

When you were a child your parents might have reprimanded you for stamping your feet, telling you it was rude, or to settle down.  You may feel vindicated to learn that instinctively you were onto something good, because stamping your feet releases stress and centers your energy.

You can stamp your feet anywhere, but the best place is outdoors on the ground, preferably in bare feet.  Stamping your feet on the ground connects you with the calm energy of the earth and literally grounds you, but stamping your feet on the floor works to good effect, too.  Stamp gently and mindfully, and be sure to stamp both feet.  Stamping only one foot affects the energy on one side of your body, but not the other, causing imbalances.  Stamp your feet in alternation, left-right-left-right, ending the stamp with the opposite foot with which you began.  You’ll be able to sense how many times to do it by how centered you feel.

When you’re feeling confused, or overwhelmed, stamp your feet.  When you feel frightened, or insecure, stamp your feet.  After you meditate, undergo a healing, or have had a massage, and need to focus so you can drive or otherwise function, stamp your feet.  The waves of energy of each gentle stamp travel from your feet up to your head and back down to your feet, focusing your energy and bringing you back to earth so you can take constructive action.

Condensed from Chapter 35 of “Naturally Powerful: 200 Simple Actions to Energize Body, Mind, Heart, & Spirit” by Valerie Wells, published by Perigee/Putnam

You can put this phenomenon to good use whenever you have an important goal you want to achieve.  Create a clear mental picture of you having achieved your goal, then contact three people whom you know care about you and want the best for you.  Describe the image of your goal to each person and ask them to reinforce the image of you succeeding whenever they think of you.  Ask them to really put their hearts into it.  Receiving their positive thoughts and energy will strengthen your willingness and ability to succeed.

Think about forming a “Mind Bank” group whose members invest positive thoughts in one another, with each person wholeheartedly picturing each person in the group achieving the success they desire.  Already established groups of people who share common goals—families, business departments, sports teams—can also unify their energy by mentally focusing on the same goal. The combined energy of the heartfelt images will create big success dividends.

Condensed from Chapter 172 of “Naturally Powerful: 200 Simple Actions to Energize Body, Mind, Heart, & Spirit” by Valerie Wells, published by Perigee/Putnam

Everyone has a negative, ornery, destructive self.  Even genuinely enlightened people have a negative self or ego, but they are able to transcend its influence.  Many of us, however, are not yet so aware and resolute, and are susceptible to the negative ego’s siren call.

The goal of your negative ego is to separate you from love, the source of true power.  It seeks your downfall, but cleverly hides its true intent.  It entices you with visions of physical, financial, and intellectual dominance.  Or it lures you down the path of excessive drugs, alcohol, sex, and food.  Or it convinces you that you are powerless, then uses your fear to paralyze you so you are unable to take positive action.  Whenever fear, unhealthy pleasure, or thoughts of superiority are part of a decision, consider them red flags, warning you that your negative ego is at work.  Decisions made by your negative ego are doomed to fail sooner or later, because the negative ego operates by first giving you the world, then blowing it up.

Choose love, because the goal of love is always to create more love.  Love wants you to be the most joyful, vital, fulfilled, wise, loving, prosperous, and powerful being you can be.  When love motivates your decisions, the results are uplifting, healthy, and successful.

Condensed from Chapter 149 of “Naturally Powerful: 200 Simple Actions to Energize Body, Mind, Heart, & Spirit” by Valerie Wells, published by Perigee/Putnam

You, too, can take advantage of the moon’s increasing energy to successfully grow new ideas, skills, patterns of behavior, and business projects.  (Diets are the exception to this, and are best begun when the moon is waning after a full moon, so that appetite and weight decrease rather than increase.)  To learn when a new moon is going to occur, search ‘lunar phases’ online, or consult an astrological calendar.

A day or two before the new moon, gather the goals you want to grow, as if they were seeds.  Write each goal on a small piece of paper–any color or shape–in a single, positive present tense sentence, as if the goal were happening now.  “I’m in charge of the ____ account.”  “I clearly communicate what I want.”  “I am loving.”

On the evening of the new moon, tuck each goal paper into the earth around a plant, to symbolize the planting of it.  To help the goal germinate, take appropriate physical action.  You might begin piano lessons, implement a stress-reduction program, read a book on hydroponics, or initiate a business project by contacting those who will be involved.  Combining physical and mental action also creates synergy, producing greater outcomes than either one alone.

The goals you plant when the moon is new will grow as the energy of the moon waxes.  Shine the light of intention on them, and water every day with attention.  New moon goals will blossom and bear fruit by the next full moon.

Condensed from Chapter 40 of “Naturally Powerful: 200 Simple Actions to Energize Body, Mind, Heart, & Spirit” by Valerie Wells, published by Perigee/Putnam

Full Moon Healing

With a gravitational pull so powerful it causes all the water on the Earth to rise twice a day, the moon is a force to be respected. In addition to affecting the tides of our planetary body, the moon affects the tides of our human bodies which are 75% water, including our brains.

The culmination of the full moon is followed by a time of waning energy, which makes it an ideal time to heal unloving thoughts, habits, and people.  The energy of whatever you let go of will decrease as the moon decreases.

Here are two highly effective ways to heal unloving energy:

1.  Fill a large bowl with water and set it where it will catch the light of the full moon.  Cut unlined white paper into small 2″ x 2″ squares, then using water soluble ink write the name of a limitation, or limiting person, on each square.  Place the squares of paper facedown in the bowl of water.  As the water dissolves the ink it dissolves the limitations, and the energy disappears into the light of the full moon, freeing you.

2.  Find a quiet spot for looking at the moon, outdoors or indoors.  In your mind, picture a river of moonlight flowing between the moon and you.  Visualize a boat floating on the river, its bow toward the moon.  Load whatever you no longer want in your life into the boat: problems, illness, pain, fear, anger, excess weight, adversaries, etc.  Make the boat as large as needed to accommodate everything and everyone you want to release.  Send the boat with its cargo, sailing up the river to the full moon.  As the moon wanes the unloving energy you have released will diminish and disappear.

Condensed from Chapter 41 of “Naturally Powerful: 200 Simple Actions to Energize Body, Mind, Heart, & Spirit” by Valerie Wells, published by Perigee/Putnam

We were given both a mind and a heart so they could work synergistically, producing greater effects together than either one by itself.  Use your head to get a handle on your heart by drawing pictures of your emotions.  Giving a feeling shape, color, and relative size makes taking charge of it much easier, otherwise it can be like trying to pour the wind into a glass.

Gather a few large sheets of plain paper and colored crayons, or markers.  Pick your favorite color and draw about a three inch diameter circle in the middle of the paper to represent you.  Breathe deeply, becoming aware of where in your body you feel the emotion.  Chest?  Stomach?  Solar Plexus?  Other?  Focus on the feeling.  How does it feel physically?  Tight?  Open?  Warm?  Cool?

Observe your emotion without judging it.  What color is it?  Choose that color marker.  What shape is your emotion?  Round?  Angular?  Swirly?  Square like a block?  Blobby?  Draw the emotion and color in any other details.

Is it bigger or smaller than you?  If it is an unpleasant emotion, and bigger than you, draw a second picture making the emotion smaller than you, or non-existent, to give yourself the message that you are in charge of it and can heal it.  Reinforce positive emotions by posting the pictures you draw of them where you can see them.

Your emotional life shapes up when you give emotions shape.

Condensed from Chapter 92 of “Naturally Powerful: 200 Simple Actions to Energize Body, Mind, Heart, & Spirit” by Valerie Wells, published by Perigee/Putnam

Earth Is Healthy

Earth is Sick

Every day is Earth Day for the earth.  If our planetary body were a human body, it would be considered seriously ill.  Much of the water in its river veins and arteries, and in its oceans, is contaminated. Harmful surgery is performed daily on its rain-forest lungs, and the air it needs to breathe is polluted.  It’s having a heart attack and its internal organs are convulsing.  A mineral deficiency is developing and there are holes in the skin of its atmosphere.  Earth is becoming so toxic with poisons, that it’ is racked by chills and fever.  It sheds acid tears of rain.  The earth needs intensive care and fast.

Viz prep: 1. Read the viz. 2. Sit straight and take two deep belly breaths. 3. Close your beautiful eyes. 4. Viz the viz.

Imagine that you’re a doctor who specializes in earth medicine and you make house calls.  Whether an Earth General Practitioner, or specialist, you care deeply about the patient.  After all, you’ve known her since you were born and you owe her your life.  Put on your doctor’s coat.  Is it white, or green and blue like the earth?  The insignia embroidered on the breast pocket is the earth with a caduceus over it.  Whatever you can visualize, you can make possible, so let your imagination fly and do what you can to help heal our spectacular earth.

Talk to the earth as you would to a friend who was ill.  Greet her by name.  Ask her where it hurts the most.  Ask her what she would like you to do to help alleviate her pain.  Do what the Earth suggests, caring for her, comforting her, and healing her as best you can.

• Perhaps you perform reconstructive surgery on the rain forests, implanting new trees.

• Or tenderly spread nutrient-rich healing salve on Earth’s wounds.

• Drop giant cleansing pills into rivers, lakes, and oceans.  As the pills dissolve, they absorb oil clots and break down contaminates.

• Then drop giant vitamins into the waters to revitalize the water and sea life.

• Cover areas that are in need with a healing poultice that draws out toxins.  When the poultice turns black with toxins, remove it and lay down another one.  Change poultices until they stop turning black.

• Graft a layer of healthy atmosphere-skin over the holes in the atmosphere.  See it take hold and heal until the holes becomes whole.

• Fly at the speed of thought to fertile places, then carry the green essence of growth to infertile areas, reminding them how to grow.

• Sow gratitude everywhere.

• Shower the planet with love.

• Give the earth permission to grow through love instead of pain so it can be vibrantly healthy.

Fly to the moon and look at the planet Earth.  Picture her glowing with health.  Her blue seas sparkle with clarity and life.  She is green with growth, rich in vitality.  Maybe you even see a halo around the earth.

The earth’s bounty sustains our bodies and her majesty nourishes our spirits.  Without a healthy earth, we cannot be healthy, so let’s make it a healthy life for every body—both human and planetary!

Condensed from Chapter 75 of “The Joy of Visualization: 75 Creative Ways to Enhance Your Life” by Valerie Wells, published by Chronicle Books.

You may not have been given much as a child, and so didn’t get to practice receiving.  Or you might be more comfortable when you’re in charge of what to give, whom to give it to, and how and when to give it.  When you’re receiving, you feel vulnerable because the other person is in control.  And, of course, in order to receive, you have to be open; that gift from Santa can’t get down the chimney with a closed flue.  Being open can be unsettling.  And sometimes you resist receiving because you don’t want to feel obligated to the giver.

Following, is a visualization to help you practice receiving so you become better at it—it’s a talent worth developing:

Viz prep: 1. Read the viz. 2. Sit straight and take two deep belly breaths. 3. Close your beautiful eyes. 4. Viz the viz.

Picture yourself sitting in your living room in your favorite chair.  You hear a knock on your door.  A friendly voice says, “Gift for (your name).”  It isn’t your birthday or a holiday, and you haven’t ordered anything, so you wonder what it could be.

How do you react?  Are you suspicious or expectant?  Do you feel like telling the delivery person to go away or do you want to open the door?  Be aware of whatever resistance you have to receiving the gift, but don’t act on it.  Instead, see yourself opening your front door.  A smiling delivery person is holding a beautifully gift-wrapped package.  If you believe that big things come in small packages, see the package as small.  If you believe that big things come in big packages, see it as large.  Sign for the gift and thank the delivery person.

Take your gift inside and open the attached card.  It says: Given freely from the universe, with brightest love. Eagerly you untie the ribbon and tear off the paper.  Opening the box, you see the very thing you’ve been wanting or needing.  You lift it out of the box and are thrilled to have received this gift.  You know you are under no obligation to reciprocate and your heart fills with gratitude.

Hey, that was pretty easy.  You opened the door, received a gift, and felt thankful.  With a little practice you just might get the hang of this receiving business.  You can even create more people arriving to give you gifts, until your living room is festooned with ribbons and wrapping paper.  You sit in your favorite chair surrounded by piles of gifts, lovingly given and lovingly received.  Feel the warm inner glow that comes from allowing yourself to receive.

When you see yourself as a person who receives easily and plentifully, you’ll be a person who receives easily—and plenty happily.  Consider yourself truly gifted.

Condensed from Chapter 29 of “The Joy of Visualization: 75 Creative Ways to Enhance Your Life” by Valerie Wells, published by Chronicle Books.

To connect with your guardian angel, begin by connecting with your breath.  Sit quietly, close your eyes, and follow your breathing.  It will attune you to your true self, the life force, the Creator, and your angel.  Ask your angel to lovingly make themselves known to you.  Asking is key, because your angel completely respects your free will and waits for you to invite them into your life.

Angelic energy has no gender, but your guardian angel could show you a mental image of themselves in male or female form, with or without wings and halo.  You may experience a profound sense of peace and joy.  Once you have connected consciously with your guardian angel, ask them for help.  You are an angel in training and your guardian angel is there to support and nurture any step you take toward love and light.  Then be alert for events of serendipity and synchronicity which herald, “Angel at work!”

Condensed from Chapter 116 of “Naturally Powerful: 200 Simple Actions to Energize Body, Mind, Heart, & Spirit” by Valerie Wells, published by Perigee/Putnam