Manifestation Exercise # 11 - Discovering the Hidden Positives Behind The Negatives

This is a good exercise to use when you want to discover what is really going on behind the scenes of your negative experiences. There is something positive beyond them - you just need to discover what it is.

You see, your higher self sees beyond time and current circumstances. It knows your “true intentions“, even if you are unaware of them consciously, and it will do everything in its power to match you vibrationally to that thing you are “truly” wanting.

For instance, if your higher intention is safety and security and something comes up that will jeopardize that safety and security (even if you are unaware that it will jeopardize it at the time) it is not at all surprising that obstacles will suddenly appear to prevent you from making a mistake.

Quite often we can misinterpret this obstacles as negative things happening to us or it is just us “not getting what we want when we want it” but there is a little more to it than that.

The following story is an example:

My husband and I were living in a house we bought in Staten Island when we first got married. At the time we bought it, we were both working full time in Manhattan, and while we were making just enough to afford it, there was no extra money.

After a couple of years we decided we wanted to have a baby, but realized that there was no way we could continue to pay for the house if I quit working to stay home to take care of the baby (which I really wanted to do) nor could we afford a full time sitter under the circumstances.

So we decided the only logical solution was to sell our house in New York and have a house built in Southern New Jersey about an hour and a half away. The houses there were much cheaper and we could afford to live there on one salary. We were leaving friends and family behind, but we couldn’t see any other choice.

This was when we ended up making one of the most ridiculous mistakes we could have ever made (or so we thought). Instead of taking the money from the sale of our Staten Island home and putting it into an escrow account to be used for the down payment on the new house we were having built, we made the mistake of giving the money directly to the builder. This builder then proceeded to skip town with it; leaving us with no house, no money to buy another one and no way to find him. By the time this all occurred I was already six months pregnant. Now to say I was despondent was putting it mildly!

We had no choice but to get ourselves an apartment in Staten Island and pray that we would hit some kind of lottery, because with only my husband working it would take years to save up enough money for another down payment. On top of that, the housing boom hit which put $200,000 homes into the half million dollar category! Talk about watching your dream get further and further away from you!

Now you see, I truly do believe that everything happens for a reason, but at the time, I truly couldn’t figure this one out. We were both good and honest people; we had worked hard and had saved every penny we could and now it was all gone in one fell swoop.

Even though I had already starting learning about the law of attraction, this was a really tough one for me to overcome. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to get past the resentment I felt towards the whole situation. Which of coarse kept me in the situation even longer.

Eventually I started getting back into studying, meditating and looking forward instead of back. It was no easy climb, I assure you. But I started my own online business and put all my energy into focusing on bringing more money in as opposed to staying focused on what we had lost.

Now this is when things got interesting. During the time this was all happening, my mother met a really great guy she was getting serious with. He had his own house in Pennsylvania and she eventually found herself spending more time there then she was in her own house in Staten Island. She didn’t want to sell her house because she still wanted a place to be able to come back to when she visited us or my brother.

So she made us a deal. If my husband and I would take over all the expenses of the house (the mortgage was paid off years ago, so it was just taxes, insurance and the utilities), we could live there as long as we wanted. We only needed to leave the guest room open for her anytime she wanted to visit. Talk about a no-brainer!

The part that strikes me funny though (and what inspired this article, by the way) is that I just came across my old law of attraction journals and read what I had written years ago right before I had sold my own Staten Island home.

It is the list of intentions I wrote to Universe about what I was choosing to create for my future. This is what it said:

I choose to live in a beautiful house I can easily afford
I choose it to be in a great neighborhood
I choose to be surrounded by good friends and neighbors
I choose it to be located in a great school zone

There were some other minor things, but that was the gist of it. What amazes me looking at it now is realizing that I never stated that I had to own the house, or that I was going to have the perfect house built, or even stated that it was going to be a beautiful house in New Jersey; though I know at the time that I wrote the list that that was the direction we were headed because we were already in the process.

All I know is, I am glad that Universe took me at my word and I am very happy that in this case I wasn‘t more specific, because I couldn’t have foreseen how much better this situation would work out for me.

You see, in the time that it took for all these things to occur, the property taxes in the area of New Jersey that I was going to move to has since tripled! If I was living there now it would be costing me more than I was originally paying for my first Staten Island house that I couldn’t afford. It would have been a constant financial struggle, even if I had found another full time job out of the house.

Not to mention how easily the other things on my list fell into place. I am living in a great neighborhood, I am already surrounded by good friends and neighbors because I have known them most of my life growing up here and my son is in the same excellent school zone I was in!

The point is, quite often we don’t realize when we are right in the thick of what we perceive to be a negative situation, that there is something for our greater good beyond it.

We get so focused on cursing the darkness in the tunnel that we forget to look for the light at the end of it.

So here is the exercise for you. It comes in two parts with a bonus at the end if you really want to get into it..

Part One

Think back and write down all the times when what you thought was a negative situation turned into a positive one.

For instance:

When you had to cancel vacation plans due to work or lack of money and found out later they had a hurricane that week.
When you missed your flight due to bad weather and then found out the plane you were supposed to be on got stuck on the tarmac for 7 hours and you were at least in a comfortable airport with a bar and a bathroom!
When you didn’t get a job you thought you wanted and ended up being available for a better one.
When the person you wanted to call you never did, and you ended up meeting the “one” because you were single.
When you missed making the perfect investment, only to find out the company tanked and you would have lost a ton of money.

You get the idea. These things happen all the time. Writing them down helps reaffirm to you that Universe (or your higher self, if you prefer) does in fact have your best interests at heart. If you have a hard time coming up with anything, think about every good thing in your life right now and backtrack. Believe me, you will start to see many ways these things couldn’t have come to you if you had indeed gotten what you originally asked for.

Part Two

Start looking for the light at the end of your tunnel by asking What If? What If The Reason I Haven’t Gotten What I Want Yet Is Because….? Start stretching your mind with ideas of what your higher self might have in store for you that you just haven’t realized yet.

For example:

What if (I didn’t get this position) because a better one is waiting for me.
What if (the reason the deal on buying the house fell through) was because the roof is about to collapse this winter and it would have cost me a fortune I wouldn’t have.
What if (the reason he/she hasn’t called me for another date) was because they are total psychos and my higher self knows better than for me to get involved with them.
What if (the reason the car broke down today when I had somewhere really important to be) was because I would have been involved in a major accident if I had been on the highway today.
What if (the reason I can’t afford the ski trip right now) is because I would have broken my leg on the slopes.
What if (the reason I am stuck on the absolutely slowest line in the store) is because if I left earlier I would run into someone I really don’t want to see right now.

Really stretch your imagination. The fun part of this exercise is that it can help soothe you through disappointment. But the most important part happens later when you prove yourself to be right and you indeed confirm that your higher self has your best interests at heart. That’s when you begin to trust that everything is happening in exactly the right order.

Now for the Bonus Part if you really want to get into it.

Step Three

Try to find your true “hidden intention” as opposed to what you think that you want.

For instance, with my Jersey house. I originally thought my intention was to have this beautifully built house in New Jersey. But in truth my “hidden intention” was just to live in a beautiful house I could afford. This was obvious by how I wrote my intention on my list. After struggling financially in our first house, security was really all I was looking for and just hadn’t realized it. It wasn’t until after I received it that I noticed the blessing it really was.

Maybe in your case, your “hidden intention” was to find someone who really cared about you and was interested in the same things you are. You might have originally thought you were going to find this with a person of the opposite sex but instead you found it in the new best friend you made six months ago and you just haven‘t realized it yet.

So start enjoying and appreciating that friend that Universe sent you in answer to your request and watch how that higher vibration will automatically attract the opposite sex person you are also wanting. Heck! It might even be through that friend.

We are happily such complicated creatures. So much lies below the surface we aren‘t even aware of. But the daily discovery of these things is what makes life so fun and interesting.

Just the fact that you are reading these types of articles means you are already on your way to discovery.

So start looking for the positives that await you in your future. If something you are going through appears negative at the moment, it simply means you haven’t yet discovered the place your higher self is leading you to.

Don’t get discouraged, don’t give up and don’t curse the darkness. Start taking the first steps now to finding the light at the end of your tunnel.

Happy Creating!