The Power of Thought: Manifesting Your Dreams

Of Donkeys and Trailer Parks

I was out with a friend last night, enjoying a real manhattan in a real bar (at night no less, and mid-week! The stars must be in some rare alignment) and in the course of conversation, my friend said in a rather Eeyorish way—combining wit, humor, and severe cynicism—that he could see his future, and what he saw looked a lot like a trailer park.

Now, this is a smart, talented, creative, and good-looking man who loves to give me a hard time about not seeing the glass half-full. (I always knew he was a closeted Eeyore, and I say this with a degree of celebratory pleasure and the greatest of affection.)

Now, disregarding the fact that he would probably be very happy in a little trailer somewhere poking away at his computer, coffee in hand, and regardless of the fact that he’d had a rotten day, I felt the opportunity for a little blog post, to wit: Be careful what you envision, Eeyore. 

Creation begins with visioning, and even when we think we’re kidding around, that little vision pops out of our imagining and into the universal soup and there it is, just hanging out there waiting for us to manifest it. Remember that famous Henry Ford quote, “If you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right”? Well, if you envision the trailer, or you envision the Playboy Mansion (I don’t, mind you, but I’m offering that as a plausible alternative for a male mind), you’re right.

My grandmother liked to say that it’s just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor one, from which I will extrapolate to say that from a metaphysical point of view, it’s just as easy to envision something big and wonderful as something small and depressing. I mean, my vision for my friend looks like a smallish stone villa in a vineyard somewhere in the south of France. Why not? I rather like that one myself. Hmmm……

Okay, I’m back.

We dream our world into being with every thought, every wish, every desire and—here’s the big one—every fear. This is because where attention goes energy flows, and energy, my friends, is everything. It’s vitally important to be conscious of what we think and what we envision for ourselves because we tend to create what we imagine, and then when we find ourselves sitting in a lawn chair by the trailer door sipping Jim Beam from a paper cup we say, “See, I knew this was how it was going to end up,” because we created it. (Not there’s anything wrong with this, mind you. If this is your dream, by all means, go for the gusto.) Carl Jung said that what is not made conscious is externalized as “Fate.” We create our fate. (Destiny is very different force that factors in here, but that’s another discussion for another day.)

Now, I know that my Eeyore knows all this and he’s probably going to send me to his B-list, or C, or D—we’re not sure yet—for turning his quip back on him, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to say that we’re all a bit casual with what we toss into the ethers, playing fast and loose with hopes and dreams, thoughts and wishes. These things are real. Thoughts are things; they have life and shape and power. It behooves us to be conscious of our vision and our power, ’cause what you see, Donkey Dear, is what you get.