I was never called to summon things with a flick of my wand or straddle a broomstick and take off for the dark side of the moon, but I was certainly interested in magic. Real magic. The kind of magic that transforms ordinary lives as they are lived here on earth.
Since I was a child I’ve been fascinated by stories about personal mastery
and the transformations that are possible when we apply powerful
principles. Being a writer, I was always particularly interested in the
power of the word.
But all sacred teachings worth their salt
come wrapped in mystery and symbology, and sometimes we’re so
impatiently ripping off the wrapping that we miss the essential
teaching.
You see, I thought that all I had to do was dream up
some great goal and then write it down and visualise it a few times and
presto! Changed life: money rolls in through the door; kids behave
themselves; people give me tickets for overseas trips…
So it
made sense that if I did the ABC and didn’t receive the goodies, then
either the laws didn’t work or I was a failure at applying them. Neither
conclusion was particularly attractive.
When I realised that
my most gorgeous goals were lying latent for years on end, I kind of
gave up… but I couldn’t totally give up on the idea of being the
deliberate, conscious co-creator of my life. That sort of teaching
haunted me for years, so naturally I wanted to give my kids the same
message. I’d have to do it with smoke and mirrors, of course. “Hey kids,
look at these great ideas! They work!!!!” (“But don’t look at me
applying them – hopeless…”)
In my passion I wrote a fabulous
inspired book for adolescents called The Mastery Club – See the
Invisible, Hear the Silent, Do the Impossible. (I know it was inspired
because of how it evolved and has been received, and I know it’s
fabulous because people tell me so!) In this book I showed kids how to
create the lives of their dreams using the simple principles that I felt
I hadn’t used successfully myself. Hm.
But so much magic
happened in the process of writing and marketing my book, that I had to
have another look at my so-called failures, and I realised I was
actually succeeding at my goals after all. I was succeeding at my most
highly valued goals.
It’s increasingly common knowledge now that,
yes, we are all successful manifestors. We are manifesting all the time.
The thing is, we’re not always successful at deliberately manifesting
what we want – we also often manifest things we don’t want.
Well, that’s the message that’s emerging in the aftermath of the furor
around The Secret (when many people have become frustrated that their
goals aren’t manifesting as quickly as they’d like).
But
actually it goes deeper than that. We are each resoundingly successful
at manifesting what is genuinely most important to us. When we sit down
and get clear on the hierarchy of our values, it becomes patently
obvious that our successes lie in the arenas to which we commit our
time, energy, money and love. This is the wisdom that Dr John Demartini
conveys so powerfully in his books and programs.
So while I’d
be rapt to have a truck back up to my front door and unload crates of
money, and while I’d be utterly delighted if someone were to hand me
free tickets for overseas travel, neither of those goals has been top of
my list. Instead, I’ve focused on relationships, personal development,
creative expression… And in those arenas I enjoy great success.
Which brings me to my next point: the purpose of setting goals is not
to achieve them so much as it is to grow. As motivator, Ralph Marston
says: “The value of an ambitious goal is not measured by what it will
bring to you. The worth of a goal is measured by what it will make of
you in the process of following and attaining it… What matters is not
how realistic or practical your objective may be, but how much it
compels you to push beyond your limitations.”
The modern wizard
is a ‘wandless wizard’ who creates magic through applying the
principles of personal mastery. All over the world, through the ages of
human history, there have been people who have studied these principles
and applied them in their lives. Today this information is becoming
common knowledge but not many people understand that personal mastery is
a journey, an apprenticeship.
Those fantasy characters who
ride dragons and battle evil lords don’t do it in a blink – they work up
to their big goal. It’s a quest. They have to develop their character
by learning skills, facing challenges, dealing with obstacles. They’re
also doing what they genuinely love and value.
And it’s exactly
the same in our real ‘ordinary’ lives. Achieving mastery in one’s life
is not a snap-your-fingers affair; it calls for introspection,
self-awareness, clarity, focused action, commitment, persistence – a
whole swag of skills that are developed over time as one deals with the
challenge-fraught ‘road to mastery’. But the reward of living your
dreams is utterly worth the journey.
We might not wear the
outer symbols of wizardry, but if we are dedicating ourselves to
realising our potential, we are indeed wizards and dragon-riders, and
our business is that of real magic.