Wish Big

I sat on a mountain track above our village last week intending to read my wise friends letter once again, but a choir of at least twenty birds, bees and insects interrupted this intention. Nightingales, cuckoos, doves, blackbirds and many other tiny birds were right in the middle of their early evening-song, their vespers. It was one of those moments of pure surprise and delight. Split second bliss. I had anticipated being on my own in quiet contemplative silence. These joyful sounds of early summer surrounded me and with a smile on my face I offered them my full attention. Right in front of me was a clump of wild purple lavender, and beside it tufts of pale green sage and willowy wild fennel. The evening scent was heady. Many hundreds of feet below on an outcrop of rock nestled our magical village, the flat- roofed whitewashed houses strewn in the shape of a half moon . Behind the village, the snow capped Sierra Nevada Mountains were in full view. Large families of slim white clouds were racing each other home before sunset.
I'd come to think about the contents of my friend’s letter. I need guidance, and I need help to promote my book.

‘Imagine that you are not affected by flattery or criticism.
Imagine that in your presence all hostility is overcome by a profound peace’.
(Deepak Chopra)

I’ve been reading Deepak Chopra again recently. One of these two lines above has been gnawing away at me. Criticism. There’s this stealthy little fear creature lurking in my head which is feeding and encouraging the dread of being damned and rejected because I talk about things in my book that some people may find uncomfortable, embarrassing, or taboo. But also, I realise I am embarrassingly susceptible to encouragement. It’s nice. I am a magnet for uncomfortable thoughts right now.
Promoting your own book is extraordinarily challenging if you’re not a naturally extroverted kind of a person. The horror of being misunderstood by those on a different path is proving to be paralyzing.
So, after a lot of un necessary agonizing about how to start publicizing the book, and after re reading my wise friends letter many times, I decided to spring into action and take a young American friends’ advice. Send it to Oprah she said. I checked her website. Oprah is approachable and Oprah loves snail mail. I have a plan.
Deepak says all we need is clarity of intent. Then, if we can get the ego out of the way, the intentions fulfil themselves...we don’t need to become involved in the details- in fact, trying too hard may backfire, he concludes.

Apart from Deepak Chopra’s Synchro Destiny (harnessing the infinite power of coincidence to create miracles) I’ve been re-reading my Danish dentist wife’s book on the Law of Attraction. It’s one of those books that mysteriously comes your way exactly when you need it. At the back of her book, Else suggests 26 affirmations to kick start the laws of attraction into action. Affirmations are those punchy little lines you write for yourself that are guaranteed to change negative beliefs and bring good things into our lives, but frequently get forgotten after a few days. Ten years ago I created and remembered a brand new one. I mouthed it, silently chanted it, and said it out loud on and off all day for months. It worked.
'All that I seek now finds me.'
And that’s how I found my tumble down house in Spain, and my new life in the magical village.
One of my dentist’s wife affirmations is:

'I think BIG!' (She goes on to elaborate...)
I think big. I wish big. My imagination is limitless. I will accomplish my wildest dreams. I will focus on what I most want to manifest. I see only possibilities. I don’t have to know how my dreams will come true. The how is the domain of the Universe.
(Jeremiah 29.11. My addition.)

I like this enormously.
And why not think big?
Why think small?

My last (Good Grief) retreat guest left yesterday. His week went well. We had some wonderful moments, many shared laughs and some lovely walks. One day he remarked after a walk around the village that nobody was very friendly. I resisted telling him the reason. My last male guest four years ago came for two weeks, stayed for four, and did a runner without paying me !The villagers were horrified. But there’s more. He disappeared saying he was going to Granada to withdraw the money he owed me, and well, went on a bender for five days leaving his precious manuscript and all his clothes in my house. I left for a pre-planned short trip to Morocco and returned to find him living like a wild animal on the mountain behind my house. The women and children in the barrio were terrified. The men took him water and sandwiches. My neighbours were very worried about me and made me promise not to have any more male guests. Just think what could have happened Margarita they said.
During the last four years a few male friends have stayed a couple of nights, and I thought it was time to trust the Universe to send somebody honest who would benefit from the peace, the beauty, and the magic of our village. John left yesterday, and emailed the same evening:
I have returned with the best of souvenirs - a self awareness and an action plan to move forwards with my life.
I think that is priceless. Thank you.


One of the ideas John and I discussed was what we are, and what would we like to be a magnet for in our lives. Annie, my last retreat guest who got caught in the ash could drama and ended up in Madrid, says she’s a magnet for fulfilling moments. John decided he’d like to be a magnet for goodness. I think I’m a magnet for people with amazing stories. Last post, I didn’t get round to telling you the story about Annie’s heroic fiancé 20 hour drive from London to scoop her up in Madrid. And when they returned to London, the next day, he was back at work. That evening he was mugged and horribly attacked by four youths on his way home.

A composer friend on hearing this story told me about his would- be attackers. Twenty years ago, he sensed he was about to be robbed, possibly beaten up and dumped, by some youths who’d given him a lift. He was hitching home after a weekend’s ‘camping’ near Stonehenge. As the car lurched along, they asked him what he’d been doing at Stonehenge. When he started to tell them about the prayers he offered, the rituals he’d made, sleeping out under the stars, they feel into a state of awkward silence. Weren’t you terrified they asked? Stonehenge!! All those ghosts, and all that stuff? No, he said, and went on to elaborate. The energy changed between them. Suddenly he was interesting, no longer their victim.
Had Annie’s fiancés attackers known what intrepid adventures he’d had in Patagonia, what his dreams are, how he is a wilderness survival guide who can live for a week or is it a month with only a piece of sting and a knife, anywhere, well, how might their lives have been changed?

So Annie is a magnet for meaningful moments. John is a magnet for goodness. I am a magnet for amazing storytellers worldwide, and would love Oprah to be magnetically attracted to read my book !

What are you a magnet for?

Wish Big!