Rather than staying hung up on step one forever, I decided to push forward and get started on step two: sending my desires out into the universe. My aspiration wasn’t clearly defined, but I could still put together a vision board based on the Instagram feed in my mind. The instructions were outlined in the following chapter.
Now it’s time to get those visualizations out of your brain and into the atmosphere, providing a beacon toward which the universe can guide its energy.
Your vision board will be a physical representation of everything you want to manifest into your life. Include photos of anything you wish to acquire: money, cars, homes, opportunities for luxury travel. You can also incorporate words and phrases that describe your new life and affirm how worthy you are of the abundance you’re about to receive.
Use vivid, clear imagery. Let there be no room for ambiguity in your quest for greatness.
And don’t limit yourself, either. Remember: no dream is too big for you, sweetie.
To create a vision board, Demi suggested lighting a candle, turning on some soft music, and sitting down with a stack of old magazines to search for pictures that inspired you. For me, that wasn’t very practical. I may have had a lot of garbage hanging around this apartment, but old magazines were in short supply. I could search the internet for photos, but I didn’t have a printer. Or scissors or glue, for that matter.
So I decided to assemble a virtual vision board. And what better platform for an Instagram-inspired vision board than Instagram itself?
I fired up the app and looked at my long-neglected profile. My bio was empty, my photo was taken who-knows-how-many years ago, and my feed hadn’t been updated since before I’d dropped out of school. There were still pictures of my old dorm room in there, for crying out loud. Talk about negative energy.
If this was going to be a representation of everything extraordinary I wanted my future to hold, I couldn’t allow my mediocre past anywhere near it.
With a few quick taps, I deleted my old profile and created a brand-new one, @breebythesea. And this time I filled in the bio.
Bree
25 | San Diego, CA |
I manifest my dreams and dominate my desires.
#noexcuses #choosehappy #aspirationalactionplan
I took a quick selfie, applied the most flattering filter I could find, and uploaded it as my profile photo. Then I started searching for my dreams.
Hashtags made it easy. #instaglam led me to photos of women posed with perfect outfits, perfect haircuts, perfect makeup. #luxurylifestyle delivered gorgeous interior design and scenic travel destinations. #goals turned up graphics with inspirational quotes like, “Remain open to possibility,” and “You are stronger than your fears.” I reposted them all to my feed, only using hashtags in the captions: #noexcuses and #choosehappy. No need to muddy the manifesting waters with descriptive text. Surely, photographs alone were enough to convey my message to the universe.
I even threw in a photo of an orange tabby I found on #catstagram, simply because I loved cats, and I thought it was cute. My landlord had a strict no-pets policy, but according to Demi, no dream was too big for me!
While browsing the hashtag #goodvibesonly, I paused on a photo of a woman in a bright red bikini wading into the waves on an empty beach. She turned away from the camera, so her face wasn’t visible. All you could see was her long dark hair cascading down the center of her tanned, toned back. Her fingertips grazed the surface of the water as she stared out on an epic orange sunset.
No doubt the photo was aspirational content at its very finest, but I was hesitant to repost it to my feed. This dream definitely seemed too big for me. Frankly, I’d be more likely to harbor an illegal cat in my illegal apartment than to wander out into the ocean.
Ever since that horrible experience in the fifth grade, that surf lesson gone awry, I’d been too afraid to go back in. The waves were unpredictable, they could eat me alive. And with the water churning, you couldn’t see very far beneath the surface. Who knew what dangerous creatures lurked in the darkness below? There could be sharks or jellyfish or swarms of pinchy crabs.
It looked so fun, though. Especially on hot summer days, when the beaches reached maximum capacity, and there were throngs of people swimming and splashing around. While everyone else cooled off in the ocean, I’d cower onshore in a full sweat, trying and failing to work up the courage to charge into the waves.
Rob had always teased me mercilessly about my fear. Whenever we went to the beach, he’d point out little children bodysurfing with confidence, and my cheeks would burn with shame. It’s not like I enjoyed being a scaredy-cat. There’s nothing more I would’ve loved than to dive in without a care. I just couldn’t.
I knew what Demi DiPalma would say to this line of thinking, though. She’d tell me I was allowing my past to weigh me down and my negative thoughts to hold me back. That I was making excuses for my failures. That the power to change was in my hands.
And though I wasn’t sure I believed her, I was struck by the sudden urge to post the photo of the woman in the water to my virtual vision board. It looked so perfect positioned right next to the assertion that I was stronger than my fears. In fact, seeing those two images beside each other made me wonder: If I could conquer my fear of the ocean, what other hurdles in life could I clear?
Sunset was fast approaching. If I hustled, I could make it to Law Street Beach with plenty of time to catch it—and re-create this photo in real life.
As I wriggled into my bikini, I told myself there was no pressure. Maybe once I got there, I’d be too scared to get my feet wet. Or maybe I’d be brave enough to wade all the way in. Either way, I pledged to remain open to possibility.
After throwing on a maxidress, I grabbed my phone and headed out the door. The beach was four blocks west, which meant I had to pass by the blue bungalow. Inside, the lights were off, with no sign of Trey. I thought of all the times I’d stood beside that picket fence, daydreaming about what it would be like to live there. Demi DiPalma would probably call this fantasizing habit of mine “creative visualization,” a way to home in on my deepest desires.
Which meant this house probably belonged on my vision board.
So I snapped a photo, uploaded it to Instagram, and continued on my way.
By the time I arrived at the beach, the sun was hanging low over the water. Crowds gathered to watch the big event; sunsets were a nightly celebration on the San Diego coastline. Lovers held hands, children ran in circles, friends toasted with a contraband bottle of wine. Dozens of phones were aimed toward the sky. I wondered how many of these photos would end up on Instagram in a matter of minutes.
I pulled my dress over my head and set it on a boulder, hiding my phone in the folds of the fabric, then walked unsteadily toward the shoreline, where I let my toes sink into the cool, wet sand. This was as far out as I usually ventured; the boundary of my comfort zone ended here.