Living the dream, but how?

Manifestation reflections of a life lived in alignment.

New online space “Healing Through Writing” launched on Monday and this is the first piece I wrote within its circle of support. It’s left me feeling vulnerable about sharing this piece ever since and brought up a few fears as well as the feeling of not sharing “enough” which only made my fears grow. Do you ever feel this way in your own writing?

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2 years ago this week I moved into a static caravan so that I could live mortgage/rent free.

Living mortgage free was an intention I’d set myself 2 years prior to this, which just so happened to be in the weeks running up to us seeing the end of the world as we knew it back in good old 2020.

3 months before I moved to where I am, I was starting to come out of the other side of my 2^nd health relapse when I dreamt of a house move. A sign post that said one location in one direction and an unknown location in the other.

“I’m moving soon” I announced to family and friends.

“I don’t know where I am moving, but I am moving soon”.

I’d sold my city centre apartment over a year before and moved into a rented room in someone else’s house. To give me some breathing space amidst all the crazy and in and amongst all the uncertainty.

When I sold my home in the pandemic, I knew that I wouldn’t get another mortgage. I was 2 years into not generating enough income to cover my outgoings by this point and just as things were looking up for me on that front, bam! The pandemic. Seeing the loss of my income for a 2nd time in 2 years. Then bam! A massive health relapse. Just as well I was choosing to rent a room in someone else’s house to give me that breathing space. It gave me enough space to fall apart again and find myself in the throes of what felt like the end of the world.

In some ways it could be argued (and it was) that I didn’t know what I was doing. But then in sitting with it more deeply, in zooming out the lens and in looking at the bigger picture, its clear to me that I did know.

I learned that house prices in the region I was looking to buy had increased (in the 6 months prior to me moving) more in value than I had (in total) to buy somewhere outright.

Opening up to receive

One thing that I don’t see talked about much is that to bring in all that you desire, you have to have the space and capacity to receive it. It’s a bit like the ability to open up your arms wide, showing that you’re ready to welcome something in and giving what you’ve made manifest a big hug (but in the energetic sense).

We’ve just about got our heads round the fact that you have to sit with what it is you really want/intend on having to begin with. Yet, how many of us really take the time to do that or even believe we can really have all that we truly want, need and desire? Passed all the limitations and blocks and barriers, sigh.

Never mind having the connection with and understanding your manifestation when you do bring it in. What if its not what you thought it would look like? How do you know what it will feel like?

Back when I sold my house in 2020, the first thing I did (several months after setting the intention to live mortgage free and then forgetting about what I had sat with and written) was realise that if I didn’t open up to the possibility of being able to buy a home outright with the money I had left, then I definitely wasn’t going to be able to find that which I was looking for.

I’d come far enough in my health journey to realise that beliefs are powerful. More often than not, they become self-fulfilling prophecies. In any case, one thing was for sure – if I didn’t believe that I could buy a home with the money I had left then I was reducing my chances of being able to do just that.

It was a tall order and a bit of a gamble some might say. But it was a gamble I was willing to take.

You’ve got to take the light where you can in the darkness.

How living in a holiday home came about

I went to pick up my niece from her grandparents on her mum’s side. It was February half term and our big day out ice-skating, eating and trip to the cinema.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her Gran.

“Rubbish. I’m just getting over covid, am surrounding by boxes. We’ve sold our home but we haven’t found another to move in to so we’re having to move to our van.”

Van? What van?

“Where’s that?” I piped up.

“7 Lakes in Crowle near Donny. We’ve had it since September and now we’re moving in. I’m not looking forward to it”.

“Mind me asking how much you paid for it? Only I’m seriously considering buying one to live in” I blurted out, never having had heard of the place.

I went home from our epic day out and wasn’t well the next day. The following day, I made an appointment to visit that weekend.

As I drove there, I past a raw milk farm and fresh free range egg place. 2 things I’d flung out* to the universe that I’d wanted the next time I moved.

As I was shown into the meeting space at the back of the office I shouted out

“oh my god, that’s amazing!” really loudly. Not realising an office full of staff were behind me.

A lake. With 2 swans on it in front of me.

A “knowing” from 18months prior surfaced: “I’m going to end up living by water with swans on it”.

A bit flatter here but every bit as serene. Come visit?

Now I don’t mind sharing with you, dear reader, that my logical mind had grand visions of a mansion with great big lawns leading down to some kind of stream or river with swans at the bottom. Never in a million years had I envisaged a static caravan with no central heating! This is a good example of not necessarily knowing what you’ve manifest will look like when it comes in.

Sales dude, Brad showed me one of the homes. Light. Bright. Airy. An 80’s style fridge with one of those tiny freezer spaces at the top – remember those?! No washing machine, never mind dishwasher. I loved it. I didn’t think too much about the no central heating bit.

When it came down to it though, it wasn’t so much about the aesthetics to the space, it was the feelings. In my sacral chakra/womb space area.

I was in recovery from attack and I was starving. So I decided to visit the local market town about half a mile along the road. I went for breakfast in the café. There was a butchers, a hairdressers, a Coop and not too much else. This place has everything I need!

As I sat eating breakfast, I thought about how I could buy the home immediately and move in straight away. I discovered its not like buying a house with a mortgage or renting a house with tenants to vacate. You buy it. Take ownership more or less straight away. It devalues like a tow caravan or a car. Not an investment in the financial sense. But an investment in ME. An investment in MY life. In MY health.

I drove back to let Brad know I was thinking of buying it there and then. No sleeping on it. I hadn’t even been beyond the sales office or into the country park to have a look round.

“Let me drive you to a plot I have in mind for you” this sales guy knew what he was doing.

As we took the first step onto the balcony, there was a welcome sign on the gate “our happy place” **.

Those feelings in my womb space/sacral chakra again.

My creativity is going to go through the roof – another knowing.

“I’ll take it” my mouth running away with me before I could think about what I was doing. The words spoken and action I was taking were in full alignment with

• Vision

• Dreams

• Signs

• Messages

• Insights

• Knowings

• Feelings

• Synchronicities

• Intentions

This was the start of living my life in alignment. In full alignment with my true self.

An alignment of menhirs close to the village of Saint-Just in Brittainy (so I read). Sometimes we have to see a visual in real life or real life example to show us what’s possible before we believe it to be true ourselves.

Two weeks later on Friday 11^th March 2022, I moved in.

I shared and declared on socials that I was going to start running retreats from here. Even though I had NO IDEA what a retreat day would look like, how I would set it out nor the life-changing impact these were going to bring when I got up and running with them some months later. Life-changing transformation for both the clients who visit, as well me.

Creative ideas for writing kept on coming. Before I launched this platform in the summer that year, I had 12 blogs written and typed.

At one point I started to worry that I might run out of creative ideas on what to write about. To counteract it, I set an intention and wrote down that ideas would always be abundant, they would be infinite, I would have a never-ending supply of topics to write about. 2 years on, I have stacks of blogs written, yet to type and share. The ideas continue to flow.

Moving here the other spring immediately opened up a dream way of living. I wondered “why are we not all living this way?”. Life here has come to be what I describe as an extra layer of healing. A space I’ve found myself in where

“I do what I want.

I love what I do.

And I live every day like I’m on holiday”.

This, being a mantra I’d started with the summer previous, voicing it to friends and family any opportunity I got.

Now here I was living in a holiday home on a country park with 200 acres of land where I quite literally do what I want, love what I do and live everyday like I’m on holiday.

I’d already lived in such gratitude for the life that I had created and the spaces that I’d carved out to be ill for a long while before moving here. Pledging to work around illness as I prioritised health like never before and allowing my body to lead the way, the whole way (as dark and as unknown and as disagreed with as that was).

Now here I was living in wellness 75% of the time. Something which increased to 90% within a year.

It was said to me by another chronic illness warrior back in 2018 that “a lot can change in a year” and boy was she right.

*When I manifest I sometimes see it that I am “flinging it out” to the universe. So when I can’t bear to think about something because I know it will cause me worry and stress, I “fling it out” to the universe instead. I pretty much ask the universe to take care of it for me and in some cases, send me signs so I know what to do and what action to take next. It has occurred to me since I’ve been living here that I’ve always been able to manifest in this way (I believe we all can). But the question for me has been why haven’t I been doing it? As a regular and frequent practice? Why do I do it only sometimes and not more often - or even better all the time?

**Happy Place turned out to be a photo I had printed, taken the month I found myself disabled by illness back in 2018. I’d stuck it on my wardrobe door like something (unbeknown to me at the time) that I’d longed for. It later became a sign I saw reflect back to me as if to represent a like for like match, as if it were to give me a nudge in the direction it is that I wanted to go.

If you’d be interested to know how I get on living without any central heating you might like this article Frozen Pipe Dream.

Oh, and there’s this one - creating a dream life in the modern world.