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So much more than the Law of Attraction, I wrote over 73 traits of what I wanted in a parter in a very special  journal, walked away and simply forgot all about it. It was more of an exercise in healing a bad relationship than anything else… or so I thought. A few years later, I was dragged kicking and screaming across the country from where I wanted to be, where a surprise awaited.

 

Miracles Want What I Want (Usually)

 

Every near miss relationship seems to have at one thing in common, and that is the proverbial ‘but’.

“At first he was there all the time but….” “He told me he wanted children but….”

Mine happened to start with, ‘We had so much chemistry, but…’ and I couldn’t seem to find a good enough reason to walk away, though I was well aware I had to. I was dating a man that in many ways had the qualities of a potentially fantastic partner. Except it wasn’t serious… for him. Leisurely long weekends at his idyllic beach house overlooking the ocean were filled with laughter and meditation. Our before-sunrise quiet strolls along the private beach exploded into the most brilliant-hued light from the rising sun in a new breathtaking kaleidoscope of clouds and color every single day. We would spend hours on the porch deep in discourse about all aspects of our spiritual paths and how to bring that deeper into our lives. He treated me exceptionally well, and on paper it was all so very good. He was far more mature and respectful than most of my past boyfriends and serious partners had been. He was generous, gentle, and kind, and he had gotten involved with a woman overseas a few months before we met. She was French. (I don’t think I really need to elaborate on this any further…do I?)

Had I understood the depth of complexity of their interaction, I would never have gotten involved in the first place when I was pursued, but there was something that kept drawing me back even after I finally comprehended the intensity between them – which actually, didn’t take all that long to figure out. Any other guy I would have instantly deleted from my life without a glance backwards as I blocked his number from my cell, but there was something else happening that I couldn’t quite figure out. Very quickly we built a strong friendship, and I suppose I needed a gentle reprieve after the recent end of my lengthy, intense, and often disruptive past relationship that had dragged on for way too long. I was healing, but this lighthearted exchange needed to end before my heart decided to get serious in a very wrong direction.

Even though my head kept saying run (often!) and of course because I ‘knew better’, we continued to date a few months more. What happened over time was that in this not serious relationship of nurture, I allowed some new things into my life. Always the caretaker, I was finally learning how to receive and be nurtured. It was so incredibly sweet, and so starkly awkward. His most natural ways to interact with women were almost foreign to me, and I soon wondered why I had never attracted such a gentleman before who considered my feelings alongside his own. A new lesson in receptivity was also a step towards something else that I had struggled on and off with during certain periods of my life. Receptivity is critical to allow abundance to enter our lives.

A couple more months went by and I grew incredibly mad at myself because it didn’t matter how unattached I tried to stay and how strongly I wanted to walk away, I never permanently left. No matter how sweet the daily interactions seemed, his heart was still ultimately elsewhere, and while I was well aware of this, she wasn’t around and I was. Yet she had made an indelible impression on him, and they would have to work it out one-way or the other. One day before I was completely able to move on, in a fit of dissatisfaction and chagrin, I did something that provided the biggest and most exact manifestation miracle I had ever experienced! Thanks to my hotheaded moment, I was able to produce the partner perfect for me.

For years I had heard of people making visualization boards, used for manifesting dreams by cutting up pictures of desired items and and life-long wishes. Images of the items and situations someone desires to draw into their lives are pasted on a piece of cardboard. It’s hung on the wall and stared at often as they see themselves in real time, living their new life. And somehow, magically, it works for a lot of people. This simple act of co-creation and visualization has allowed many who have participated, to live their life exactly as they saw it, but it was never for me. In fact, my response was more like “Just no – NEVER”, and sometimes a kinder, “Ummm… not in the mood for that right now….” when my friends showed up with stacks of magazines and glue during some much needed girlfriend gathering time.

Certainly, the entire process of thinking about planning out all of the details of what a perfect life would look like, then sourcing, perusing, and cutting up magazines to hunt down my dreams would give me hives. And then I would have to commit to that thing? Uh-uh. The entire process would leave nothing to chance or surprise. I did not want to be controlled and in turn, I chose not to control too many of my life’s details except when it came to my role at work (where my detail oriented nature was much more fanatical), though I had some basic, broad sweeping wishes. I constantly sought adventure as much as having something that was a bit more stable to come home to. Really, I could barely commit to plans for the forthcoming weekend, so how was I to do it for something like my whole life?

Yet, it was exactly this process of deciding and defining specifically what I required in my life, to form a true understanding of the power of creation we have access to. I learned how this power will guide and steer us to provide our wishes, not only through its delivery of miracles, but to also manifest almost anything we can co-create. Surrender is the other half of the equation.

A few months before I began dating this man, while visiting my favorite bookstore in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I came across a double latched, rich and gorgeous, gold embossed notebook. The five-year-old child in me that still intermingles with princesses, castles, and magical wizards, couldn’t leave the store without it. It was clearly an enchanted blank book brimming with magic. I took the cherished item home, held it in my hands, running my fingers over the swirls of its emboss, and wondered how I was going to make magic happen with it – or what magic I would describe on its glistening blank pages. It was an exercise that came from my inner child, its imagination in the realm of fantasy, and just a bit of intention, and soon I found myself with a pen in hand, diligently scrawling on the first page, Sarah’s Manifestation Magic. I turned the page and then wrote a few lines of text, starting a new page for each of the things I wanted to create in my life, including a list called the Perfect Partner. Remember, no commitments here; I kept it broad. My very brief list for this exercise was based upon all of the things that went wrong with my last long-term relationship.

While dating this gentleman I came across the book, which (of course!) somehow now seems to disappear and reappear when I need it most in my life. I opened the book and read. I realized that while my friend was a massive step in the right direction, he did not match my short list of descriptions. And right now, right this very moment, I wanted that perfect guy who was perfectly committed to me. Me. Me only. Next time I was not going to settle for anything less, and certainly not someone who was emotionally involved with an impossible to compete French woman!

With all my frustration and likely some purposeful intent on not selling myself short the next time I found a partner, I grabbed my magical book and started scribbling away, adding another page and a half of items based on my recent, lovely experiences as well as the unsettling part. I could not have even imagined some of these positive things when I wrote my first list, since I had never experienced them before dating this man. As I wrote, I got super picky, because I realized I was no longer willing to change my habits or traits or desires, to mold myself to match someone else’s wishes. I would be exactly as I am, all of the time. I added line item after of line item of traits that I wanted in The Perfect Partner. My list was complete at two and a half pages. I was intensely specific, and the entire exercise was cathartic. Not only was my list done, so was my frustration, and that was the last thing I ever thought about it. Maybe it was a big fat call to the universe that I was not going to settle next time, or maybe I was scolding myself for letting my lovely tryst go on longer than I thought it should. My mood changed to satisfaction and I put the book away and never looked at it or thought about it again. I simply went on with my life.

Soon shortly it was time for a huge shift as I left work and changed cities, moving forward to fulfill a dream of mine in the red rock high desert. When I arrived in Arizona, I was greeted with so many synchronicities and amazing new friends that I instantly recognized the force of miracles as an integral part of my daily existence. Yet it was brief compared to what I imagined would happen. The force of miracles used its huge hand to bring me to Santa Fe to be with my dad for his last year on Earth, and then propelled me again as he was passing, much more ferociously catapulting me across the country to be close to my 82-year-old mother even though I wasn’t quite ready to move so quickly. This is where a possible case of PTSD, my first ever, along with many torrents of tears on the Schuylkill Expressway came in.

Absolutely nothing was easy after landing on the East Coast, and I was seriously wondering about the decision I thought I had somehow contributed to, though I could see something bigger drove me here. I tried so very hard to stay open, but it was difficult, and my surrender certainly did not come easily.

In addition to all of my survival challenges, I was also without a community of local friends for support, so I very hesitantly dipped my toes into an online dating site, even though I dreaded it. I did it only because it has never been part of my nature to simply wilt way and not try to fix whatever in my life needed a reboot. Weeding through so many emails from people that didn’t even read my simple description of who I was looking to meet for friendship or a partner, that I shared absolutely nothing in common with was so discouraging, and I was about to give it up after two months of nonsense and one awkward date.

Yet because I missed my previous life so much while trying to get settled on the East Coast and the universe was not at all sourcing the like-minded friends that every other move I ever had provided, I thought perhaps I could use the dating site as a last ditch effort to simply to meet people that I had something in common with.

One afternoon, and minutes away from hitting the permanent Delete Profile option, I hesitantly clicked on a new message from a random guy simply because he looked so different than the others that had contacted me. His photo was darkly lit, and he certainly didn’t look like my ideal partner or even someone I would date, but I was curious. At least he looked creative. I had vowed off dating musicians a couple of boyfriends ago and there was no question he was one. Yet quite surprisingly, this man had actually read and responded to what I had written on my profile and had thoughtfully addressed my words. I returned his note, thinking we could possibly or even likely be friends. Perhaps too, I first imagined, he would have a cute friend that I may like to date. Oops….

After a couple of messages back and forth we spoke, and after flying past my immediate impression built around his thick Jersey accent, we found ourselves laughing at all of our quirky similarities and sharing our adventures, as well as settling in to the very telling energetic resonance that as an empath, I could feel strongly while on the phone. We decided to meet a few days later at a coffeehouse, New Year’s Day, in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

Most of the parking spots on the quaintly lit and garland-decorated main street of Chestnut Hill were empty, except within the two blocks surrounding the destination he selected for us to meet, so I had to pull my car around the corner and park on a side street. Thick ice hugged the ground, and after managing not to fall as I slid my way down the quiet block to the coffee house, I open the door to a room that is warmly lit and pouring out people.

“It’s New Years Day,” I think, “how are all of you here!”

Masking behind the crowd to provide cover, I safely slide in queue to order my drink and grab an opportunity to look around the shop. I didn’t see anyone that was a match for the guy in the photo but I soon spot a tall, skinny, attractive gentleman staring across the room at me. He was wearing a floppy winter hat, and was the only fellow in the place that could possibly be the person I had been conversing with.

“You look just like your picture,” were the first words he spoke after I grabbed my drink and headed in his direction, still not 100% sure he was actually my date.

“You certainly don’t!” I quipped in return. “Is that a good thing, about my picture?” I added.

“Yes! Is that a good thing – that I don’t?” he bantered back.

“Yes,” I replied with a smirk.

I was amazed at the light in his eyes and around him, almost the exact opposite of whatever had happened when he took the dark picture he had posted online. For the next twelve hours we immersed into an energetic bubble of communication and connection. In fact, the energy was so thick and magnetic that the man who had been heads down immersed in his computer at the next table felt it too, and his quick glances at us turned to stares. Finally he interrupted to tell us that we had something incredibly special going on, and that we should cherish it because it comes along only once in a very rare while.

I told him we were brand new friends, and he kept saying, “… Man, that is something! You take care of each other, you hang on to that!”

After a while he finally stopped trying to engage us and went back to his work, but he never stopped glancing over with a huge smile, every few minutes.

At 8 o’clock, after six hours of time that had simply melted as we were still glued to our chairs in the coffee house, my new companion was starving so we continued our talk elsewhere until at 2 AM, when we finally said our bleary-eyed goodbyes, just for a couple of days. He remained in my life for months, as I cried on the main artery commuting to Philadelphia in horrible city traffic daily, underemployed and under paid in what turned out to be a dead end job.

He was still there a few months later when I finally found employment back in marketing and was so relieved I was going to make enough money to pay my bills, I wasn’t paying attention to where the job actually was located. I had done a location search for ‘Greater Philadelphia Area.” It turned out that I was hired to work in a little arts town an hour north of Philly that I had never heard of before, which, oh, by the way, just happened to be his favorite place to go, for its bike paths and quality of living.

He had been obsessed with the Delaware River town for 25 years, and had previously looked for ways to move there. He hadn’t brought me there yet because the weather was too torrid, and I knew nothing of his history and slight obsession with its trails and cafes. I moved solely to be close to my new job that only lasted a short while before a better one came along – further away but still commutable – yet we would remain in that home, eight miles from his favorite town in the region and he got a miracle out of this whole thing too, so he couldn’t be happier.

Some time after I moved into this house, I finally got around to unpack all of my belongings. My previous living space had been so small, half of everything had to remain in storage. My new place had ample attic and basement space to sort and clear out everything I had collected and sometimes duplicated along my journeys the past few years. One day alongside some of my favorite poetry and spirituality books, my magical journal turned up. I hadn’t seen it for a few years so of course I curiously opened it to take a look.

Not remembering that I had written down all of the virtues I wanted in a perfect partner or even writing anything about a partner at all, I soon reached the pages. I began to read my list, and subsequently started comparing my new boyfriend to everything that was there.

Yes, I did. Of course I did! How could I not? You would too!

“Check, check, check…”

I went down the list line item by line item, for two and a half pages, filled with over 70+ line items of very specific requests. As I read, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“Check. Yep, he did pursue me and was clear about his intention. Oh my gosh YES! Check. He does have a dedicated spiritual path. He loves to travel. Check. He… that one too? I wasn’t even serious about that! Oh SHIT. I did say he should play an instrument. What was I thinking? Haven’t I learned yet?”

There was only one item my boyfriend did not match in two and a half pages of descriptions I had written years ago, and it was the element of his zodiac sign. It was so irrelevant and frivolous anyway, that of course it didn’t matter.

I closed the book and held it in my hands for a few moments, running my fingers gently over the gold emboss, trying to stay calm. Every single line item I had written down years ago had been met except one, and when I opened the book again to keep looking, I found my boyfriend also matched something else, a description of wanting to meet a true Renaissance Man, spoken in his own words, to which I had also scribbled in the nether regions of my book not ever remembering I wrote it or what I was imagining when I did.

When he first said the words while standing in the middle of the dining room. I cringed thinking, “Who uses that term any more?”

Yet there it was in my book. What were the odds that I could simply manifest a person who matched exactly to a very lengthy and super specific list, and an extra demand of Renaissance Man hidden somewhere else? He was so much like me, we had all of these silly likes and dislikes that were exactly the same, and he met all of my demands in my beautiful ‘book of magic’. AND he was someone I supposedly randomly met online where I barely participated, and I was only there because the universe didn’t serve up a bunch of new friends the same way it always did, every other time I moved.

My mind was blown. And then it got even better. After three years together, I pulled his birth chart in an online app to check our supposed compatibility (I was ready for a laugh) and we uncovered that his rising sign matched my zodiac request. So there it was. He matched ALL of my descriptions, over 70+ very detailed, some odd, very specific things.

A massive miracle of manifestation had happened! This wasn’t just another one of my little every-day gifts or synchronicities where the things I needed showed up at will. I had been steered across the country into misery, some incredibly tough times, and circumstances in my life I mostly hated, and it was all because it was the perfect time to meet my perfect partner, because he happened to be online, looking for the same.

If only I had known! Why didn’t someone tell me? My misery was all self inflicted! There was something grand and totally worth it on the other side!

My next thought of course was to my boyfriend. “You’re my perfect partner? Why’d you make me work so hard? Why didn’t you just move west too, like you should have, so I wouldn’t have gone through all of this?”

He wasn’t ready to budge, so I had to. He hadn’t requested the absolute perfect partner, just the right one with some major attributes that maybe could have been fulfilled by others as well as by me, but once we met, it became clear why we were together. We would draw out and celebrate each other’s best parts while we challenge each other to go deeper into our spiritual paths of self-awareness, not to mention all the silliness and child-like fun that is always, constantly in play.

The force of miracles heaved me across the country to a place I didn’t like, with a pretense to be close to my aging mother who ended up in the hospital twice when I was in India, yet she seemed perfectly fine now, and I was still questioning why I was here, even though (of course) it was good to be near her and my sister. It happened because I was under pressure to heed my father’s dying wishes to give him peace of mind that I was secure with a job, near loved ones. It happened because employment fell away from me as soon as jobs were offered, multiple times when I lived in his town, where I would have loved to stay. It was because I met a person randomly, who showed up and became a temporary friend in my life so I wouldn’t think that moving to my mother’s state of residence would be so horribly bad, and then he disappeared from my life after his purpose was fulfilled. It was because of so many other contributing reasons that did not align to where I preferred to live, or what I thought should do next in my life.

“Hey! Universe! You could have given me a clue!”

You could have told me to bear with all of the things I hated, and warned me that I would become almost homeless and bankrupt but you would help me get by, only so you could ultimately deliver my single, major, demand of co-creation and you would meet it so wholly!

“I would have gone along… I think, perhaps…. Maybe…Well, maybe not the bankrupt part…or the part where I almost had to live in my car….”

You see where this is going. Clearly, we don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to experience the fear of the unknown, and we certainly don’t want to hear we are going to be bankrupt and almost homeless, but don’t worry, it will all work out just fine. Surrender is not always easy, for very good reason, no matter what is on the other end of it!

Our survival is built in to our genetics, so our tendencies (along with our fear responses) are deeply rooted. If we feel we are not surviving, or surviving well, we will do whatever we can to make ourselves secure. Surrender to the unknown is sometimes exactly opposite of our natural instincts. We would not willingly put ourselves through what may appear to be some tough times even if something grand is waiting for us, and the ultimate plan was always that we were going to be taken care of along the way. Surrender works, but we must let go of our ideas about what it should look like, as it takes root and works its magic in our lives. Or it’s not surrender at all.

 

Our Co-creative Powers

I examined my part in conjuring this unequivocal gift. The delivery of my perfect partner manifestation was as big and exact and precise as my first life saving miracle was, though this time it was orchestrated through a highly defined request. To produce my manifestation, the force of our consciousness that delivers miracles used the same means and attributes that my other miracles did to obtain an outcome. It was intelligent, multi-tasking, benevolent, exact in details and timing, and drove multiple actions and synchronicities. The big difference between the two was my level of personal involvement. One was enacted for me, and the other was because of my actions. One happened because it needed to; the other I co-created.

“Hey, Wake Up! You want this thing you were serious about from way back when? Guess what! The time is NOW! You’re going to meet that guy! Let’s go! Move it! Hurry. HURRY!”

The universe was ready to deliver, even if I wasn’t. To manifest my partner, the universe saw the perfect timing, an opportunity I couldn’t see, to deliver my demands from a couple of years earlier, all exactly when and how it was supposed to happen. Though I tried, I didn’t block it. I couldn’t. It was much too powerful, and so strong in its motion, that a lot of the time I was simply hanging on for the ride.

This miracle was so precise to toss me across the country just when my perfect partner was looking for his, right as my last year with my dad was coming to a close and he would pass within in weeks. Were miracles always this accurate? I opened my book again and perused the other pages. I saw that the other things I had also written 4 years earlier were much more vague, and they too also had more or less come to pass, though not as I had imagined they could. But then again, I hadn’t been specific. I had just put a few generalizations down about each and called it a day, therefore the universe’s co-creative powers matched mine.