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Turn Your Dreams into Reality Every Day, by Gini Graham Scot, PhD

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Turn Your Dreams Into Reality is all about knowing what you want, making sure it is a realistic goal, and then imagining what you need to make those dreams real. I have also called this the GWYW—the "get what you want" approach to life. It's a way to think about coming up with realistic goals and deciding what you need to do to make them happen, while being ready to revise those goals and create new ones in response to changing conditions. While you can work out the steps to achievement using just your reason, you can be even more effective if you draw on your intuition, so you imagine possibilities, decide on priorities, and then imagine what you need to do to achieve them.

I was inspired to write Turn Your Dreams because I have been employing this approach to life since my early 20s, after I went to a workshop that involved learning about visualization. It was led by a woman who was an artist and teacher, and she stressed the need for us to tap into our power of intuition to see what we wanted to do. This workshop was the first time I had tried to use my imagination in this way, and I found this ability to be a very powerful tool that continued to guide me throughout the rest of my life—and led me to write a series of books on using these techniques.

In the first exercise, which opened the door to using the intuition and visualization, she asked us to visualize and experience the energy of the earth rising up into our bodies, while the energy of the air came down into us through our heads. Then, we visualized that this energy would meet in our heart, stomach, or torso (I forget which now), and we could direct this energy out to achieve a goal.

In my case, I had just started to write, so I decide to direct this energy out through my hands to whatever I was writing, which was then on a typewriter, and I imagined being able to use that energy to being able to write quickly and effectively. Later, when I went to the typewriter to write, I used that visualization, and I found I could write my assignment much more quickly and confidently than usual. Though I don't remember now what I was writing, I do remember very clearly that after that day I began to use this approach for all sorts of things I wanted to do, from doing homework and writing for clients to imagining applying for and getting hired for a job I wanted.

Around this time, a friend working with hypnosis "hypnotized" me by taking me down to the basement of Macy's toy department, where I could see all kinds of new games and toys that were still prototypes and had not yet been produced in reality. But they seemed very real, like one could buy them off the shelf and play them. I found the experience very much like my use of visualization and the imagination. Though my friend called the journey to Macy's toy department "hypnosis," for me it was experientially the same thing as what I had already been doing—getting very relaxed so I could readily access my powers of visualization and intuition, though perhaps what I saw in my imagination was a little more vivid. After that, I began designing games by using this visualization of going to Macy's. I also began attending all sorts of workshops on visualization, hypnosis, and shamanism; soon, I no longer needed to go to Macy's toy department or anywhere else for my imagination to work. I didn't even need to close my eyes, though getting relaxed in a quiet place and closing my eyes certainly helped me focus on what I was seeing. Rather, I just began to be able to access my imagination and intuition and apply what I saw in my mind immediately to anything I wanted to do.

Since I am a writer, I started putting this approach into my first book on the subject, Mind Power: Picture Your Way to Success in Business, which was published in 1987. Today, when New Age teachings are everywhere, these notions about using the intuition and imagination seem quite ordinary. But in 1987, the book was initially rejected as being too weird. Eventually, one editor decided to champion it and the book was published, which led to a follow-up book in 1994, The Empowered Mind: How to Harness the Creative Force within You. Years later, after the rights for these books were returned to me, about two-thirds of the combined content was republished in 2009 as Want It, See It, Get It! Visualize Your Way to Success. However, the emphasis in these earlier books was on using these techniques in business, so Turn Your Dreams Into Reality is designed to apply these time-tested techniques to everyday life. Besides work and business, you can use them in your personal life, such as in having better relationships, losing weight, improving your skills in sports, whatever you want to do. You can use them to help you decide what to do next after you experience any kind of negative situation, so you turn that negative into a positive.

Meanwhile, I've been applying these techniques in my own life for all sorts of things. For example, I used them to find and get the house I wanted again and again. When I moved to San Francisco in the 1980s, I imagined living in Presidio Heights, and soon found a place on the main commercial street there, Sacramento. After the landlord decided to do some renovations, I imagined my next place nearby, since I planned to go to law school at San Francisco State. After that, while I was deciding between staying in San Francisco and Santa Monica, I went to a workshop where we were to visualize where we wanted to be next, and I imagined myself living in a house by the water, and within a few days, I found a house near the ocean in San Francisco. At first it seemed it was already rented and I was all set to move to LA. But then the prospective renter dropped out, the property manager called, and I got the house. So I felt strongly I should stay in San Francisco, and I did. Later, about 20 years ago, I used this approach to get my house in Oakland, and after I had to move due to the mortgage meltdown; my visualizations led me to a flat in San Francisco near the ocean. Then, a year ago, after I felt ready to move again (due to rent increases in the crazy San Francisco market) I used visualization to target exactly where I wanted to be—near downtown in a small house in Lafayette, a city about half-way between Oakland and Walnut Creek, about 25 minutes from San Francisco. Within a week, I found the house and rented it—the only house I looked at because I clearly saw where I wanted to go.

Likewise, I have used these techniques to write over fifty books, write about fifteen scripts, connect with the director and co-producer of my first feature script to be filmed, and find a major distributor. These techniques have also helped me in making choices about who to work with or not work with, and how to turn any bad experience into a success story. One good example is a recent client interaction I had; he seemed, by all appearances, to be a wealthy businessman in a private practice, but in reality was struggling to pay his mortgage to keep up the facade. So for me, as a writer, the positive transformation was to use this experience to come up with ideas for a series of new books on workshops on how appearances can be deceiving, dealing with impossible clients, and how to turn negative experiences into gold.

In short, for over 40 years, I have made these GWYW techniques a part of my life, because they have worked so well again and again. And now for the first time, Turn Your Dreams Into Reality is designed to help others apply these techniques on a daily basis in both their personal and work life. All you have to do is imagine what you want, assess that it is a realistic goal that is possible to achieve, and imagine what you need to do that is realistically possible to make it happen for you. Finally, go get it. Make it happen, and it will.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2015. All rights reserved.

I think that my house is harboring negative energy. I have lived here for nearly a year, and on numerous occasions, I have felt intense negativity. It wasn't like a ghost, but similar. When we moved in, there was already a halogen torch lamp in the second bedroom, which we moved to the hallway; interestingly, I have only felt the negativity in this hallway and bedroom. This house has been a home to drug abusers, including an abusive couple who had an autistic child. (This child actually screwed in a number of light switch plates in strange places around the house.) I have lost two roommates since I moved in last February, and under bad but strange terms. I am wondering if the lamp itself could be harboring negative energy, if it is attracting negative energy, or if it's something else in the house itself. Also, what should I do?

- Pink Sapphire

Dreamchaser:

Houses can and do hold energy, as can the land itself. It doesn't have to be the energy of someone who lived there. I once lived in an apartment that had very negative energy. Everyone who lived there started to act very strangely, and had very bad dreams. I lived there for about a year, and it was truly one of the worst years I can remember, so I can relate to what you're going through.

Find a local New Age shop and buy a sage bundle. If there isn't a store nearby, you can find one on the Internet. (Simply type "sage bundle" into a search engine.)

Once you have the sage, say a prayer for protection. You can use the following prayer or choose your own words. "Dear Mother/Father God, I ask that you protect me and everyone living in this house from anything negative. Wrap me in Love and Light. Please remove whatever is NOT of Love and Light in this house. Thank you."

Light the sage and then blow out the flame so the bundle is still smoldering. Then start in one corner of the house and work your way through the ENTIRE house. Do not forget closets, window sills, built-in hutches, etc. You need to simply wave the sage bundle through every room and every wall and every nook and cranny. As you are walking with the sage, you will feel the energy shift numerous times. You may at any time say out loud, "Whatever is not from Love and Light must in God's name leave this place immediately."

If a negative force is present, it HAS to leave if you tell it to in God's name. That is a universal law. Continue through the whole house with the sage. When you are done, put it out in a bowl filled with sand or dirt. Just stick the burning end into the bowl and leave it there. If you desire, you may then take regular table salt and pour it around the outside foundation of the house. If you follow these instructions, your house will be clear of negative energy.

I do not feel that the lamp is harboring any negative energy, but I feel that YOU think it does. Why not just throw that lamp away? New torch lamps aren't expensive, and are easy to find. If you put it out on your curb, someone will come along and take it away. I feel if you get rid of the lamp, you'll fee more comfortable in your house.

I wish you a peaceful, happy home!

*****

Astrea:

The negative energy in your house is not from a lamp; it's from the low vibration the drug addicts brought into it while they lived there. Druggie energy is like anger, resentment and bitterness; it's very draining.

There is a very simple spell for dispelling negative energy in a hallway. On a small table place a basket of skeins of yarn. They don't HAVE to be handspun, but if you can, spin a bit yourself. Spinning is a magical activity, and if we were women living a hundred years ago, we would NOT be sitting at the computer. We would be SPINNING, because every spare moment was spent spinning to clothe ourselves and our families.

It's easy to make a drop spindle from an inexpensive three-inch wooden "wheel." They usually come four to a package for about a dollar at hobby stores. In the hole in the wheel, place a three inch dowel rod and glue it into place. The dowel should stick out an inch from the bottom and two inches from the top of the wheel. Cut a notch into the top of the dowel, and at the bottom, place a small open cup hook into that end.

If there isn't a spinner in your neighborhood, you can still buy loose cleaned lambs' wool at the dance shop in your town. Instructions for spinning yarn are all over the 'net and easy to follow. You will notice while spinning that it is a powerful meditation for "visioning."

It's also easy to spin WITHOUT a spindle or spinning wheel. This is called finger spinning, and if you have a long haired cat, you don't have to leave the house for materials. Place some of the fur together and spin it in one direction with your fingers, adding to it to make a thread. It probably will be knobby and not very attractive, so place this handspun yarn at the bottom of your basket of other yarns. If you don't have time to make a drop spindle (or if you don't have a cooperative cat) you can put a PICTURE of a spinning wheel in your basket and get the same results.

As you spin or place your yarn and picture, repeat three times, "Spindle fly, negativity spin outward and away."

You should feel the release of that negative energy that those druggies left behind in your house dissipate within a few hours as it spins outward into the Void where it can't harm anyone or affect you any longer!