Aspire Magazine: Inspiration for a Woman's Soul.(TM) DEC 2016 / JAN 2017 Aspire Mag Full Issue A Miracl | Page 49

Guess what? All that wishing … it didn’t work. The more I wished for change, the more I found myself facing the same problems I’d always faced, and getting the same results I’d always gotten. The more I wished, the more frustrated I became, and the more I began to believe that creative visualization― and all the other tools of the metaphysical trade―simply wouldn’t work for me. Wishes―whether they take the form of creative visualization, prayers, magic spells, intentions, mantras, or something else― do not work without inspired action to back them up. WISDOM & SELF-GROWTH In particular, I wished that I could be a better writer. I wished for that “magic touch” that other writers seemed to have; that special something that makes words jump off the page and into readers’ hearts and minds. I prayed for inspirational lightning to strike me out of the blue, and transform the coarse sand of my mediocrity into the sculpted glass form of a divinely blessed creatrix. In fact, I almost gave up on writing because I couldn’t magically create the change I desired in my own creative process. “I guess I’m just not a good writer,” I told myself. “Maybe it’s time to give up and try something else.” And then, one day, the Universe did take pity on me. Lightning finally did strike― and what it illuminated was not my wildest dreams made real, but rather the giant flaw in my thinking process. You see, wishing didn’t help me learn. It didn’t acknowledge the change that needed to happen within me in order for my dreams to come true. In fact, my belief that wishing, praying, and visualizing were all that was necessary to create a brand new reality kept me locked in an unhealthy cycle of victimhood. “If I only pray hard enough,” I told myself, “the benevolent Universe will hear me and take pity on me.” Wishes―whether they take the form of creative visualization, prayers, magic spells, intentions, mantras, or something else―do not work without inspired action to back them up. Wishing without taking action is like sitting in your car with the engine off, or standing at the foot of a mountain trail waiting for an invisible ski lift to sweep you to the top: you can imagine where you’re going, but unless you actually do something, you’re never going to get there. It sounds silly, now. But for years, this struggle was real for me. In real life, of course, things are never that simple. The actions we must take if we are 49