Personal Development for Smart People^TM

In this article I’m going to share some recent personal lessons about creating intimacy abundance. So this is more of a sharing piece than an advice piece. Even so, I expect you’ll be able to gain some helpful insights that you can apply to your own relationships.

Society conditions us to attach certain labels to our relationships and then to assign meanings to those labels. For example, being single has a different meaning than being someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife.

At some point in the course of your relationships, you may be tempted to change the labels. Are we boyfriend and girlfriend now or just dating? Let’s be exclusive with each other. Let’s get engaged.

A label is an association, and labels come with their own attached associations. For example, what does the label wife mean to you? What can and can’t a wife do? For some people this can be a very restricting label with all sorts of rules about that particular role. For someone else it may not be nearly as restrictive.

Once you label a relationship (any kind of relationship between two or more entities — not just a human-to-human relationship), you give it form and structure by way of associating it with other labels and meanings.

Social conditioning

Social conditioning affects us in two ways. First, we may have a tendency to pre-judge others based on their associated labels. If you know someone is single vs. married, does that change how you relate to the person? I’ve definitely had that bias. For example, I’d probably be a lot less flirtatious with a woman who was married… unless she also had an associated label like polyamorous, open marriage, or separated.

The second way social conditioning affects us is through the labels others associate to us. For example, if I’m flirting with a woman that I just met at a party, and we’re having a great rapport going, and then I casually mention being married (such as while telling her a story), her energy will often shift noticeably, and the nature of our interaction changes. Why is that so? Why is it even necessary? Why give our power away to labels?

On the other hand, when I’m conversing with people that are very conscious and aware, I notice that labels have less impact on them. The more conscious and aware someone is, the more social conditioning they’ve shed, and the more power of choice they retain. So when a label is used, it doesn’t matter as much. A conscious person knows that in any moment we’re free to make new choices and that labels have no power over us. So they don’t give their power away to labels.

Highly conscious people have more relationship options. They take full responsibility for their choices, and they expect others to do the same. As a result they have much more flexibility in how they relate to people. They largely ignore labels and focus on their freedom to connect.

The more social conditioning you can release, particularly by letting go of labels, the more relationship opportunities you’ll have, and the more intimacy abundance you’ll be able to experience.

Living without labels

Labels can be useful tools at times, such as for the purposes of communication, but they can easily be abused. If a label unduly restricts your freedom of choice, you’re giving too much power away, and you’re crossing the border from conscious living to unconscious living.

This was a tough lesson for me to learn. When I announced at the beginning of this year that I was polyamorous, there was a backlash of all sorts of judgments from people I’ve never even met. Some of it was positive praise (which seemed undeserved), and some was harsh criticism (which seemed equally undeserved). After all, I hadn’t actually done anything yet. I merely switched the labels I used to define my relationship path. Other than blogging about it, no real action had been taken. So it was interesting to see how much power people gave to those particular labels.

And again when Erin and I separated last month, we dropped the label of marriage from our relationship path. And some people freaked out about it… people that never even met us. Now that we’re about a month into our separation, Erin and I can clearly see that this was the right choice for both of us. By shedding the marriage label, we’ve both restored our freedom to make conscious choices without being boxed in. And each of us is happily taking actions that most people would consider inappropriate for a married couple, yet they bring us much joy.

For example, if you haven’t already seen it, check out the video blog Erin posted of her firing a handgun. While we were married, I never would have thought that was something she’d ever want to do. My sweet Erie? No way! But as a newly independent woman, she’s making fresh choices. She no longer finds it necessary to ask permission or negotiate with me. If she wants to do something, she knows she’s free to up and do it. It’s quite refreshing to see her creating a new path for herself that is different from the path we were previously pursuing together. I’m really enjoying seeing her as a unique person instead of merely through the lens of the wife label.

Should I be worried that my ex-wife is suddenly getting into lethal weapons training? Yes, honey, of course you can have the car.

I’m not ready to publicly share the specifics of what I’ve been up to lately, but suffice it to say that I’m experiencing the opposite of loneliness. Much like Erin, I’m also enjoying experiences that lie outside the scope of our old marriage box, and I’m ridiculously happy about it.

In retrospect I think the decision to explore polyamory was part of the process of breaking out of the marriage box. But then there was a risk of moving into a new box called polyamory, so I found it best to dump that label as well. I find that I’m a lot happier and enjoy much richer experiences when I do my best to shun labels altogether. So I can’t really say whether I’m monogamous or polyamorous right now. Neither label seems to make sense at this point.

Perhaps the way to describe what’s going on in my relationship life at this point is to say that I’m riding a roller coaster in the dark. I can’t see where the track is going, but it’s quite a fun ride.

Stepping outside your comfort zone

Living without labels can feel very uncomfortable at first. Don’t expect it to be predictable and secure.

I’m gradually getting used to this, but it currently remains outside my comfort zone. Fortunately I’ve been getting a lot of help from some very conscious friends.

A while back I was talking to a very close female friend, and I was confused about where our connection was headed. The ways in which we connected were so deep, open-ended, and flowing that I had no way of predicting the path ahead, and I found that very unsettling. We had multiple conversations where I was trying to assess where we were (often by trying to assign labels) and where we expected to go next (more labels). Those conversations gave me some relief initially, but the assigned labels tended to stunt our interactions, and a week later I’d be forced to drop those labels anyway, only to reconsider them once again at a later date. Our connection seemed to take on a life of its own, and any attempts to define it appear foolish in retrospect.

Since this approach clearly wasn’t working, I eventually dropped it. That wasn’t remotely easy and felt like jumping out of an airplane. I had to learn to let go and trust instead of trying to control and direct.

What helped me was seeing how I already applied this pattern in my past. That’s how I created a situation of financial abundance. I used to be really tight with my finances, but a control strategy never gave me a sense of abundance. In most cases it only perpetuated more scarcity. When I switched to holding abundant intentions, shifting my vibration to a place of abundance, and welcoming what showed up (as explained in this video), that worked beautifully. It was very uncomfortable to step into that space at first, but now it feels so natural that I can’t imagine going back to a tight control strategy with respect to my finances. I just assume there will always be an abundant flow of money through my life, and there always is; however, I can’t predict specifically where it will come from or when and how it will arrive.

When I recognized that intimacy abundance must follow the same principles, I was able to use my finances as a reference experience that made it easier to let go and trust. There’s more to it than that of course (creating value for others is another key element, whether you’re dealing with relationships or finances), but it was a huge breakthrough for me to see that letting go and trusting were necessary in order to attract and enjoy intimacy abundance.

As I learned to let go of labels, I noticed that many of my relationships improved dramatically, practically overnight.

At first it was just like riding a roller coaster in the dark. I couldn’t see the track, so I had no idea where the coaster was heading. The twists, turns, loops, and plunges all surprised me. But I gradually got used to it and decided to simply enjoy the ride. Instead of seeing the surprises as a bad thing (unpredictability that could lead to a crash), I started seeing them as fun and exhilarating. This took a lot of getting used to, especially since I was emerging from a very stable, predictable marriage pattern.

A few of my relationships took unexpected turns. But I did my best to follow the flow of these connections instead of feeling like I should direct them to some particular aim or assign them clean labels and compartmentalize them.

Living in the flow

This is a messier way to live. In some ways I have less control over my life, but I can’t deny that I’m also much, much happier for it. My relationships give my life so much richness; they provide an endless supply of fun, joyful experiences and a sense of deep, soulful connectedness. Each day is an unfolding mystery where anything is possible. Labels only get in the way, so I do my best to avoid them when possible. Instead, I just let each relationship flow as it will.

These realizations have completely shifted how I live my life. For example, I’ve been using the Internet a lot less and spending much more time on the phone and hanging out with people face-to-face. That’s partly why I haven’t posted a new blog entry in more than a week — I’ve been too busy focusing on my social life. In the past month, I used up an entire year’s worth of accumulated rollover minutes on my cell phone. I also finally bought a Bluetooth headset so I can be hands-free during the hours I spend on the phone each day.

If I could lock down each relationship in my life with a tidy label, this volume of communication wouldn’t be necessary. The boxes would be well defined, and I could simply take them for granted (i.e. this person is a friend, this person is an intimate partner, this person is a playmate, etc). But now I see relationships as being all about flow. I’m doing my best to listen more, to sit back and enjoy the ride, and to relax into this new space of being.

Freedom

Freedom is an essential ingredient in a healthy relationship. When freedom is sacrificed, choices become more limited, and when choices are too restricted, unconscious behavior patterns replace conscious living, and true happiness becomes a distant fantasy.

I spent much of the past 15 years giving a lot of my power to labels, such as marriage, husband, wife, committed, monogamous, etc. Now I can see what a huge mistake that was and how it created far more scarcity than abundance.

I’m reminded of this quote from Helen Keller, one of my all-time favorites:

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits
in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.

The daring adventure is the path of freedom. The more you curtail your freedom, the more you shun the daring adventure and end up with nothing.

I remember when I first got married in March 1998. It was a very comfortable place to be. As a husband with a wife, my relationship life was now well defined — by myself, by my wife, by our friends and families, and by the rest of society. We had a clear sense of our roles. We had very few disagreements about where the boundaries were.

For a while I embraced life in that box. It was like sinking into a soft recliner chair. I had secured an amazing woman, and she had secured me. We were both deeply in love with each other. There was no doubt about that whatsoever. I could finally relax. My relationship life was now complete. It was a safe and snuggly place to be — and yet it was a total self-delusion.

For whatever reason, this untamable character called personal growth was living in that marriage box too. At first he was quite happy. The box was large and interesting and fun to explore. There were lots of rooms to visit, such as having children. But over time, this guy grew discontent with life inside the box, and he started feeling restless. He began to push against the walls. Eventually he realized that the box was entirely of his own creation, and he decided to step outside of it and reclaim his freedom.

I think that if you’re on a path of conscious growth, and you try to label any of your relationships, you’ll eventually outgrow those labels. So consider that it may be wisest not to bother with labels in the first place. Either the labels will betray you, or you’ll end up betraying the labels. You are too free and untamable to be labeled.

Instead of relating to people on the basis of labels, try relating to them on the basis of freedom and choice. We’re free to connect with each other however we see fit. Our decisions have consequences, some of which may be unpredictable to us. But if we surrender ourselves to all possible outcomes, then we can avoid giving our power away to our labels.

Broken hearts

What is a broken heart? A broken heart is a label failure. It is a crushed box. I thought we were X to each other, and now you’re telling me we’re Y?

A broken heart is the result of violated expectations. But in the area of human relationships, your expectations are vain attempts to predict and control the path of your heart. The heart has its own agenda, and it won’t always respect your logical choices. So in order to align yourself with truth in this area, you must accept and surrender to this unpredictability.

Enjoy your relationships in the present moment, but do your best not to get overly attached to their being a particular way. Otherwise you’re setting yourself up for a badly broken heart.

To avoid a broken heart, don’t close your heart to others. Instead, open your heart more than ever. Open your heart to all possible connections, and don’t get hung up on labels. If a connection feels good to you, invite it in and explore it. Allow it to flow wherever it wants to go, and enjoy the exhilaration of the ride.

You will still encounter some sorrow — sometimes the roller coaster takes an unexpected plunge — but if you keep your heart open, that sorrow will soon pass, and joy will reside in your heart once again. A traumatic roller coaster ride needn’t ruin your entire year. Simply switch to a different ride, and you’ll soon be having fun once again. A closed heart heals very slowly, but an open heart heals quickly.

Intimacy abundance

Intimacy abundance is about your connection to all that is. This abundance may manifest through a deep relationship with one other person, but most likely it will manifest as a path with many twists and turns involving relationships with different people. Since we are all one, it doesn’t really matter where these connections come from.

Don’t focus so much on trying to be deeply intimate with any one particular person. You run the risk of substituting attachment and addiction for unconditional love and connection. Instead, focus on being intimate with yourself and with life itself. Realize that you’re already intimately connected with everyone. There is no ice to be broken. We’re all part of the same whole.

If you maintain a deep, intimate connection with yourself and with all life, your human relationships will reflect that. You’ll attract new intimate partners with little or no effort because you won’t be resisting or labeling them. You will simply allow them. And it’s hard for people not to want to relate to those who fully and completely accept them as they are.

From this place of awareness, you may manifest an incredibly deep relationship with one particular person, or you may manifest multiple relationships. It could take the form of monogamy, serial monogamy, polyamory, or any mixture of these. It may even take the form of celibacy (not for me though!).

Locking yourself into fixed relationship patterns — i.e. Ahh… I have a girlfriend now — may seem like a good idea, but for highly conscious people, it becomes too much of a trap. Even a beautiful looking box is still a box. Conscious people don’t need boxes to define themselves and their relationships. Instead they bring fresh choices to each relationship in the present moment.

Avoid succumbing to the “grass is greener on the other side” pattern. Which label is better? Single or married? Monogamous or polyamorous? Friends or lovers? You can’t drink the wine in front of you, and you can’t drink the wine in front of someone else. Both glasses are poisoned. The only sensible choice is to drink straight from the bottle. The bottle is abundance.

This is a follow-up to my last video post on Creating Abundance. In this article I’ll share more detail on how to visualize your new reality so that you become a vibrational match for it. This is an area where people make some critical mistakes when trying to manifest their desires.

Slide Into Your New Reality

Did you ever see the TV show Sliders?

In that show a group of four people would “slide” through a portal between dimensions, spending each episode in an alternate version of earth. For example, they might enter a reality where the Nazis won WWII. Or in another reality one of them might be a famous performer.

Another TV show that can give you the right idea is Quantum Leap. In that show a man spent each episode in someone else’s body in an alternative time and place.

Imagine you’re a Slider or a Quantum Leaper, and you just slid through a portal into your new desired reality — into that new YOU as well. You’re already there living it. The whole reality already exists in some alternate dimension, and you’re now experiencing it as real.

Put yourself in the shoes of that new person. Witness through his/her eyes how s/he goes through a typical day. Imagine that you’re in an episode of Sliders or Quantum Leap.

What time do you get up in the morning? Who’s sleeping next to you? Where are you? How do you feel? What do you eat for breakfast? What do you do in the morning, afternoon, and evening?

You must imagine yourself as already being there. You want to reach the point where it feels natural and normal to be there. After all, this is your reality, isn’t it? So of course it will feel normal in a way. You’re already used to it.

Initially the Sliders/Leapers were freaked out when they entered the new reality. It took them a while to figure it out and understand it. Eventually they got used to it and were able to get things done within that reality.

This is what will happen when you visualize a new reality for yourself. At first it may seem like an alien environment. You’ll have to play around with it for a while before you get used to it and it starts to seem normal to you. It’s very important that you push beyond that freak-out phase. You must shift from thinking about your visions as FANTASY to seeing them as REAL.

A good movie to watch is Being John Malkovich. That will give you more insight into how to slip into an alternate reality and imagine life through the lens of your new character.

Ideally, visualizing your future should be very much the same as remembering your past. Just as you would recall and mentally review what you did yesterday, that’s how you want to imagine your new reality. What are the highlights of your typical day, and how do you feel about them?

Notice that emotional memories are much stronger than routine events. Such memories can draw the past back into your present, but they can also draw a powerful future into your present if you create powerful new memories of the future.

Partial Visualization

One of the most common mistakes people make is that they fall into the trap of doing partial visualizations. They only imagine one or two aspects of their new reality but not the entire big picture. Or they’ll imagine something that makes them feel a certain way, but it wouldn’t actually be a part of their desired reality.

For example, you may imagine seeing a pile of cash on your table and counting the bills. A lot of people suggest this exercise as a way of manifesting more money. I think it’s a lame idea though.

If you really had financial abundance, would you actually have a pile of cash currency in your home? That seems unlikely. If you were already living it, playing with your money or obsessing over it would be silly and immature. That’s the sort of thing someone would do only if they weren’t already living it.

Partial visualizations manifest partial results. You may attract part of what you want, but it will be unstable because you’ve only locked on to some, but not all, of the necessary frequencies required to shift into that new reality. You may be able to visit it briefly, but you won’t be able to stay long.

When I was around 24-25 years old, I read the book Think and Grow Rich, and I started doing partial visualization exercises to attract more money into my life. I imagined having about half a million dollars as a pile of cash on my bed. I felt the texture of the bills with my fingers. I saw it as very real and imagined what it would feel like to have that much cash all at once.

Sometime after that (I don’t recall how long — a few months maybe), I entered into a new game publishing deal with a total advance of $675,000. I soon received the first installment in the form of a check for $50,000, which was the biggest check I’d ever received at that point in my life. It appeared that my intention had manifested.

However, this situation was incredibly unstable. The publisher turned out to be extremely corrupt. First, they screwed up the deal with seemingly insane delays and nonsensical decisions. Then they unilaterally breached our contract. And finally they tried to sue me (unsuccessfully) to recoup the $50K advance. Looking back, it appears that their goal was to tie up my team’s project so that it wouldn’t hit the market… while they had another team developing a potentially competing game. The initial $50K I received was spent on early development for a game that was never released. In the end I was left with a busted project and more debt than when I started. If I could have afforded the legal fees (which I couldn’t at the time), I may have been able to successfully sue them for breach of contract, but that simply wasn’t how I wanted to do business. I wanted to spend my time making games, not giving depositions.

Years later this same publisher was publicly exposed for a massive accounting scandal, and the company and several officers were sued by the SEC. If I recall correctly, their CEO was fined $10 million and had to step down. That came as no surprise to me and many other developers who worked with them.

Not a good manifestation!

Although it seemed promising in the beginning, this attempt to manifest money completely imploded and left me worse off than when I started — aside from learning some very tough lessons, which in retrospect turned out to be quite valuable.

I hope you can learn from my mistakes here and not succumb to the trap of partial visualization. In order to manifest your desires, you need to lock on to the total package of frequencies and the full range of emotions that you’ll experience in your new reality. And one of the best ways to do that is to get really, really clear about what you want.

Complete Visualization

Don’t just visualize one small part of your new reality, such as having more money come to you. Visualize the entire alternate reality you wish to enter, in as much detail as possible.

It’s okay to focus on one area of your life at a time. I personally find it rather difficult to visualize a whole new life for myself that covers career, finances, health, relationships, my daily habits, spiritual development, personal development, etc. So I generally focus on one area at a time, but I do my best to make sure it’s congruent with my desires in other areas too.

A few years ago I focused on creating financial abundance. Then I worked on social abundance (having lots of friends). Now I’m working on intimacy abundance (creating deeper relationships). All of these parts of my life are working beautifully right now. This process definitely works. Sometimes it works so well it scares me a bit.

Career and finances are good areas to visualize together since most people generate income via their careers. Don’t just imagine yourself having more money. Put in some detail about what is sustaining that flow of money. How is it being maintained?

My initial attempts to manifest money flopped (or made things worse) because the big picture was incongruent. I was trying to pull money out of thin air, figuring it would come to me like magic. Well, this isn’t magic… not really.

Similarly, in the area of social abundance, I didn’t just manifest friends with magic. I had to see the big picture. This required thinking about what kind of friend I’d be. I thought about the kinds of friends I wanted to attract, and then I imagined what kind of friend I’d have to be in order to attract them to me — and to maintain good relationships with them. This made it clear that I had to work on myself too in order to step into that new reality. I had to become a better friend to others so I’d be worthy of those new relationships.

I know some people who are working really hard at manifesting new relationships. But all they do is imagine the other person coming to them and loving them. That’s a partial visualization, and it fails consistently. Honestly I don’t think I’ve seen this approach ever really work out. People do attract new partners this way, but the matches aren’t very compatible.

Suppose you’re trying to attract a new woman by visualizing her in your life. She’s everything you desire. She’s a perfect match for you and absolutely amazing as a human being. You can’t help but fall in love with that new reality.

But will she fall in love with you — realistically? A new reality is something you’re going to make REAL — it’s not a fantasy!

If you think your new reality is too good to be true, then well… it is too good to be true.

What do you have to offer this woman? She may be YOUR best possible match, but are you HER best match as well, or will she have better options than you? Will she have to compromise her values and settle for less than she’s worth to be with you? Will you really be able to maintain a relationship with someone like that? Are you worthy of her?

These questions can hit people like a ton of bricks because they reveal our inadequacies. But we still need to address them.

When you visualize your new reality, you must imagine yourself BEING the kind of person who can attract and hold on to all the good stuff you wish to manifest. That means you’re going to have to work on yourself and grow into that kind of person.

I know one woman who’s been trying to manifest the perfect relationship for years. She goes on a lot of dates, yet she remains perpetually alone. It’s obvious to me — and to many who know her — why that’s so. The simple reason is that the man she desires wouldn’t find her attractive at all. I can’t even see that being a remote possibility. She’s a kind-hearted person with a successful career, and she doesn’t have a problem getting dates, but her personality is a total mismatch for the kind of man she wants. She doesn’t fathom what such a man would find attractive in a relationship partner, so she lives in denial of the fact that he wouldn’t be attracted to her. So she’s always dating people where there’s no two-way chemistry. If she keeps doing what she’s been doing, she’ll either remain alone indefinitely, or she’ll eventually settle for an unstable connection with someone she doesn’t find attractive or who doesn’t find her attractive.

In the area of career and finances, what kind of person will you have to become in order to attract and hold on to the abundance you desire? What will it take to be worthy of that kind of flow?

When I was in my 20s, a $50K sum was too much for me to hold on to. I could attract such a sum on rare occasions, but I couldn’t retain it. It would slip through my fingers like water.

Eventually I stopped doing partial visualizations and began seeing the big picture. I realized I’d have to become a man who was worthy of abundance. This may mean something different to you, but to me it meant that I would need to be a kind and generous person who created a lot of value for others. That felt congruent to me. If I were a greedy bastard who was all about me-me-me, I’d feel I didn’t deserve that kind of flow. In my visualizations I felt really good about centering my career around service to others, and I could see that this would be consistent with attracting and perpetuating a constant flow of good stuff through my life — money, good health, low stress, loving relationships, fresh opportunities, etc. The total package just made sense to me.

I had to work a lot on myself to step into that new vision of me, but it definitely worked. In the past five years, I’ve put out enough free content to fill a couple dozen books. That feels really good to me. And resources flow to me so easily that I simply take it for granted that I can relax and enjoy whatever I want to experience in life. This works because it’s a congruent and stable situation. I use my creativity to put out a lot of value for others, so naturally I receive a lot of value in return. But in order to reach this place, I had to go through many internal shifts to step into this new reality.

In the area of social abundance, I do my best to be the kind of friend that’s worthy of having amazing friendships. I support and encourage my friends to pursue their dreams, but I also love to joke around and have fun. Consequently, I attract and maintain relationships with like-minded people. I’m really good at attracting people who are loving life, who enjoy helping people, and who are very encouraging and supportive of me too. And I naturally repel people who wouldn’t make good friends for me.

In order to manifest what you desire, the total package must be congruent. There must be harmony between what you’re attracting and what’s attracting you. Too often people fall into the trap of trying to attract something that would naturally repel them, such as trying to manifest a flow of money without creating any value, or trying to attract a loving relationship without becoming a loving and attractive person.

This is largely common sense, which many people seem to lose sight of when trying to apply the Law of Attraction.

Will a health nut be attracted to a lazy couch potato? Will honest, conscious business people want to do business with someone who creates little value and is in only in it for the money? Will an adventurous growth-seeker be attracted to someone who’s timid and security-minded? Even if these situations were to manifest, they’re unstable and usually won’t work out very well unless there’s a strong attraction in some other area to compensate.

Manifestations can occur very RAPIDLY and POWERFULLY once this harmony is achieved. But until that happens, results tend to be minimal or negative.

Write It Down

Imagining your new reality can be tricky if you try to do it all in your mind.

You may find it helpful to sit down and write out what it will be like to experience your new reality, in as much detail as possible.

For example, if you want to attract a certain type of person into your life, write out a detailed description of that person. Then you can use that as a guide when visualizing. Another option is to create a vision board by assembling a collection of photos or images (physical or digital) that helps you imagine the big picture.

I recently stumbled upon an old journal entry where I wrote out several pages describing in detail what I wanted to experience in life. My life at the time was nowhere close to that reality. I put an incredible amount of detail into it, even including personality descriptions and physical attributes of imagined people, such as how tall they were or that they wore contact lenses or were left- or right-handed.

What really freaked me out is that there is now a person in my reality who matches someone I described about 95% accurately. This person was not on my radar at all when I wrote this journal entry. I wrote it in February 2001. My life was in a completely different place back then.

Most of what I wrote about back then has already manifested. I’m now living it. Other parts of my reality have shifted so much that parts of my vision that seemed so far away are not nearly so distant now. I can actually see steps that would make more of them possible and realistic. The big picture is sliding towards me.

I was talking with Erin about this last week, and she asked me, “Why did you put that kind of detail into it? Why did it matter to you that an imaginary person was near-sighted?”

My best answer is that I found that a copious level of detail made it easier to see it as real. The vision became more believable. If the new reality is to become real, the people within it must be real too, not imaginary archetypes. Real people have height and weight. They may be near-sighted or left-handed. They may have pimples or unshaven faces. They wear certain types of clothes. They have unique personalities.

If you suddenly slid into your new reality, you would instantly observe all of that detail. It would be right in front of you. So put it in front of you now. Create it in your imagination. Clarity creates believability, which gives rise to stronger, crisper vibrations than fogginess.

It takes practice to get good at this, but the more you practice, the richer and more vivid your visualizations will become. That richness makes it easier to lock on to the new emotional states you’re aiming to create.