I Love Mondays #17: Cast Your Spell With This Printable Altar

Welcome to I Love Mondays, where peace and joy are just a shift in perspective away! This week we’re working with our magickal minds to get what we want, and see how we’re still getting what we want even when we don’t! We can feel good and love life regardless of our circumstances, so let’s play with our powerful minds and manifest some miracles!

Physical

1. Cast a spell.
Lately I’ve been really successful at casting spells. It starts when I notice something start going the opposite way of what I want. For example, Kelly suggests we stay out later to smoke with a friend. Even though I didn’t really want to stay out later, I said yes because I know saying yes ultimately leads to gifts from the flow of life.

So I say yes. But I really mean no. Instead of just saying no and feeling like a party pooper, I work my magick. I start convincing myself that I DO want to go. I start looking for reasons why it would be fun to stay out later. I look for the other side of the wave—I’m usually so glad I said yes and end up having fun.

I start feeling curious about the thing I do not want, not even excited, just interested. And then without fail, the plan falls through, and we end up going home earlier than we expected.

This roundabout way of getting what I want might seem like I’m just not saying no when I should, but I prefer to use my magick instead of resisting gifts from the universe. Then I end up getting the gift I was eyeing in the first place!

What do you want to happen?
How can you prepare for the opposite—what you DON’T want to happen—to the point that you DO want it to happen?

Mental

2. Practice thinking a mantra.
In Be Here Now by Ram Dass, he talks about the importance of mantras. Mantras are a thought or sound you think over and over to dominate over your drunk-monkey-mind-torture thoughts. Mantras don’t get rid of all your other thoughts, but they give you something to focus on so that eventually the thought you choose becomes your dominant thought pattern.

Dass describes the mantra process like waves on a lake. What you’re seeking—peace, love, joy—are at the bottom of a lake. Your thoughts are like waves on the surface of the lake, obscuring what you want from view with their choppy chaos. You choose a thought you want to be the main wave. Imagine that thought creating a steady, soothing rhythm to focus on instead of the wild mess of random thought waves.

Eventually, you will have singular focus on that mantra, at which point you can drop even that thought and merge with the peace of oneness. But you can’t get to that merger until you have singular focus. You must learn to focus on one thing before you can learn to drop that one thing to focus on nothing—the void. The mantra trains your attention to focus so that eventually you can look beyond the veil and see the truth beneath the lake.

Dass says that the mind becomes the shape of whatever it focuses on. Whatever mantra you choose, imagine your mind becomes that shape. You will stretch your mind to new dimensions, and reality will begin to reflect that shape formed in your mind.

What mantra do you want to dominate over all other thoughts?

Emotional

3. Turn annoyance into gratitude.
Our friend Rynold told us a story about how he transformed his annoyance into gratitude. He was running late and needed to get to a meeting in a campus building. He discovered that the handicapped ramp was the only open entryway, making it take even longer to get to where he was going. He started feeling pissed at the situation, but quickly shifted his attitude to gratitude. He started thinking, “I am so grateful I have the ability to walk up this ramp!” Instantly, his energy shifted from pain to joy. How fortunate he felt when he zoomed out to see the bigger picture!

What are you annoyed by? What’s something related you can feel grateful about instead?

Spiritual

4. Surrender!
I’m re-reading The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. In the book, Singer decides that he will no longer make choices based on his likes and dislikes, but instead say yes to whatever the flow of life brings him. Over time he comes to realize that when he says yes to life, instead of resisting because of his preferences, life ends up weaving a much more magickal, beautiful situation than he could even imagine. Just by surrendering and saying yes to things his mind was annoyed by, he ends up with a huge temple on his land, a Fortune500 software company, a wife and child, and a resolved relationship with his father.

This book always inspires me to go beyond my petty likes and dislikes and say yes to life. When I say yes to an invitation, opportunity or new situation, I end up seeing how it is actually a gift from life bringing me exactly what I want. For example, our friend came to visit for a couple weeks. At first I was very nervous, because my selfish mind doesn’t want to share! I don’t want things to change! I want to stay in my comfort zone. But I surrendered to the situation and it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me.

I got more work done. I worked out more. I saw more places. We took a trip to Chicago which was so fun. I got new ideas. I got out of my tv watching rut. I started eating better. All the things in my life that were dragging me down started falling away, and the things I wanted started falling into place. Thanks universe!

What is something you’re resisting that you can say YES to?

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