I’m not going to mince words, I’m a bit woo-woo. I’d stake my life on reincarnation, and I practice manifestation on the regular. I believe that, in the words of Neale Donald Walsch, via God (stay with me here), “our thoughts are creative.”

I started reading The Secret years ago and never finished it, but I engulfed every page of The Law of Attraction by Jerry and Esther Hicks, from the first cover to the last. It resonated so hard that I would’ve swallowed that book if I could’ve. It’s far from my first read on spirituality, acting as the icing on the cake, the final stitches that brought the tapestry together, creating a comprehensible masterpiece.

I’ve written about this before, but I want to delve in a bit further, because it’s the most empowering concept of humanity, in my humble opinion. Owning your shit. I'm sprinkling in a little manifestation talk, too. Check out these basic principles of attraction, borrowed from http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/teachings_brief, and my elaboration upon each.

1. YOU ARE A PHYSICAL EXTENSION OF THAT WHICH IS NON-PHYSICAL.

Whoa, people. Just whoa. It’s all the same fabric, and we’re all cut from it, but still of it. That’s a miraculous, beautiful concept to ponder. All of our individual and group energies are continuous and congruent, tailor-made to commingle and contribute to that fabric.

2. YOU ARE HERE IN THIS BODY BECAUSE YOU CHOSE TO BE HERE.

Own it. Own your life choices. Once you do this, once you take responsibility for the challenges, the joys, the relationships, you empower yourself to change them as needed. As long as you’re blaming the elusive “other” or are pissed off at the “World at Large”, you’re no longer in the driver’s seat of your life. We can't change the "other" or the "world," only our interactions and responses to them. When we sever our capacity to do that, via anger and blame, life is happening to us instead of for us.

You want to be here. You chose to be here. Your soul has a plan. Quiet the fear and the chatter so you can hear it.

3. THE BASIS OF YOUR LIFE IS FREEDOM; THE PURPOSE OF YOUR LIFE IS JOY.

That’s right. Life isn’t about sucking. It’s about joy, finding and pursuing passion and service to others. Free yourself from a lot of emotional strife by choosing empowerment. Choose empowerment by choosing personal responsibility and gratitude. Be the driver. Own your shit. Love your shit. That one bears repeating: Love your shit. Gratitude is the gift that keeps on giving. Finding thanks for the good, the bad, and the ugly is the path to freedom from struggle, anxiety, depression, and anger. When we allow these experiences to own us, our lives no longer belong to us.

4. YOU ARE A CREATOR; YOU CREATE WITH YOUR EVERY THOUGHT.

This is tough to swallow because we’ve all been through devastating circumstances. Believing that you’ve created those things via your thoughts is where people say adios. I’d like to reframe that to instead express that you’ve created the lesson born from the tragedy or the pain. We’re here to learn. Our souls know what we still need to integrate to become more whole. The ultimate Growth generally is accompanied by discord and discomfort. There is beauty to be found in pain, but you may have to look really hard for it, and that involves making a very powerful and conscious choice to do so.

Your love for this fabric of souls, your universal kin, has influenced your willingness to contribute to that loving energy, to expand it via your human existence. Only in human form can we experience the type of limitations that contribute to such amazing growth. Ego- the struggle is real.

On a smaller scale, I’m sure everyone reading this has had several defining moments when you got sick of your own bullshit and finally pulled the plug, vowing to have a mental shift, and what happened? It changed, didn’t it? You changed. If thoughts are the muscle behind change, positive thoughts are the steroids.

5. ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN IMAGINE IS YOURS TO BE OR DO OR HAVE.

Yeah, I know. It doesn’t feel possible, but that mindset is the problem. Many of us (read all of us) have abundance blocks. Know that you deserve to have what you desire. It’s okay to want a fat bank account, success, or a lovely house, but if you carry subconscious guilt or associations with money, those need to be worked through. A lot of this comes from the attitude surrounding money that you were raised with. If wealth was “bad,” or “greedy,” at the expense of doing what you loved, or only came with “back-breaking” work, that’s a block. If your family belief was that “we just don’t have financial luck," you may still be operating from that headspace. What do you tell yourself about abundance? Think about it. Explore those ingrained, irrational notions.

6. AS YOU ARE CHOOSING YOUR THOUGHTS, YOUR EMOTIONS ARE GUIDING YOU.

This is so important. Fear and love are the dominant emotions. If Fear is the underlying feeling, you can imagine what kind of thoughts you’ll be creating. When we create from Love, for ourselves and others, we’re back at the wheel. Our intentions become pure and our paths cleared. Fear is a self-imposed limitation, a brick wall to progress. We're pretty adept at dressing it up with pragmatism, so it may take some deep examination to uncover camouflaged Fears, like "I'm too old to go back to school," or "We don't have enough money to risk a career change," or "I don't know what I'm passionate about"... You most certainly do, be still, and dig deeper.

7. THE UNIVERSE ADORES YOU FOR IT KNOWS YOUR BROADEST INTENTIONS.

Remember, we are the cloth, and we are cut from the cloth. Of course the Universe adores you. The Universe is you and you are the Universe. No, I’m not high on pot brownies right now. Choose your intentions, shape your life. I set my intentions regularly. This could be as simple as telling myself that we’re going to have a “safe, uneventful, barf-free, tantrum-free car ride,” or "this morning, my kids are going to get ready for school peacefully and quietly, while enjoying one another's company." The key is to say it, believe it, and feel joy while doing so. If you exude anxiety, not gonna work. I close my eyes, do some deep breathing, put a lil’ smile on my face, then tell myself how I want things to go. Be detailed and specific. On my end, it has about a hundred percent success rate and is how I survived 40 hours of travel from Bali with three small children. You can do this several times throughout the day. I find it most effective performed in small increments, relegated to each activity.

8. RELAX INTO YOUR NATURAL WELL-BEING. ALL IS WELL. (REALLY IT IS!)

It doesn’t always feel this way, but the light is there, even when you can’t see it. Trust that you were born to be alright, that things will invariably work out. Just keep moving and believing. The Universe wants what you want. That’s a pretty intense notion, but you wield A LOT of power. What you think you want and what you're putting out, via your thoughts and (often negative) self-talk, can be two vastly different things, so don't take that statement at face value. Listen to the words you tell yourself each day. Be the observer of your own thoughts. You'll learn a lot about what you "want."

9. YOU CAN NOT DIE; YOU ARE EVERLASTING LIFE.

Our souls live on after our bodies are no longer needed. There is purpose to this madness we call Life, to every joy and sorrow. Your soul is constantly integrating the lessons thereof, ever expanding in light and love, continually reincorporating within the fabric.

For the Love of Self, and the Love of Life, go forth and take your power back. You were always meant to drive.

-Angi