Put a little Magic in Your Everyday Life

5 Ways to Invoke Magic Now!

I believe in magic! For a long time now, I have had this little hand-crafted sign over my desk that says exactly that. It keeps me on the path, it keeps me feeling positive and uplifted, it’s a ray of sunshine even on the dreariest of days and it reminds me to have heart even in the midst of life’s most difficult challenges. Without magic, life would get pretty dull and tedious. Without a bit of magic to our days, we might find ourselves wondering if the whole thing is worth it. But magic is available to all of us and I have five ideas to help put some magic in your life and your days. I just finished a walk in the gorgeous Colorado outdoors and saw much to make me smile. The fall colors, the sun and blue skies - this is indeed a day to celebrate the magic of life because magic is everywhere we look. It’s also inside us when we think positive and uplifting thoughts and then take action based on those thoughts. Magic also comes when we reach out to others and give a helping hand or simply act as a change agent by expressing and modeling optimism and faith.

By the way, I am not talking about the magic of a Las Vegas type magic show, although that can be fun and exciting to watch. Nor am I referring to magical thinking that relies on fantasy to keep it going. That kind of thinking is based on denial of reality, not the changing of reality by your thoughts, deeds and beliefs. That kind of magic may work in the short run, for a while, but is rarely, if ever a lasting and successful way to engage with life. The kind of magic I speak of is made out of the ordinary by seeing magic in who you are, what you see outside your window, what you do with your time and energy and what you choose to believe about life. In that regard, I have developed five simple ways to help you to invoke some magic into your every day life.

1. The magic of self worth – Self worth is an inside job. If I believe/think I am worth something, then I am. That is the magic of it. One way to get to this magical place, if you are not there already, is to think about the idea that we are all born worthy – it is our birthright. What I know is we are all worthy of love, happiness and life success. If you are not successful, whether this is financial or relationship success, then simply begin with the idea; the magical idea; that you too are worthy and go from there.

2. The magic of taking action – Life rewards action – that’s another little sign I have in my writing studio. If I want magic in my life, then I have to do something to make it happen. Magic can come from others of course, but if I want a change in my life then it’s going to be up to me to do something. Waiting and expecting others to do it for us has a low success rate – it happens but I would not count on it. Let’s say you have had trouble in the past with the idea of being worthy. In spite of the fact that we are all born worthy, if you truly want to feel that on a daily basis, then you need to do something of value and contribute it to the world. We are born worthy, that’s for sure, but it will be hard to maintain that thought about ourselves if we sit on our butts all day waiting for the world to pronounce us so. The less we do, the less we will feel worthy, that is a psychological fact of life. Therefore, if you want to increase your sense of self worth then take action to increase it. That’s all there is to it, except now give yourself credit for what action you took and then tomorrow take some more action. See what magic shows up in your life.

3. The magic of doing what you love – When we do what we love, life feels magical – it just does. I love to write, and when I do, I feel the magic of the right words simply flowing out of me. I know people who love to edit other people’s words, and when they find a little mistake, or misplaced comma or other grammatical problem, they fix it with glee. I know people who love to sing, to dance, to sew, to cook, to play a musical instrument, to organize things, to do analysis, to keep things in order, to do bookkeeping, to teach a child or an adult something, to help people with problems, to garden, design things, to use a computer – you name it and there is someone who loves to do that very thing. So find the thing you love to do and begin doing it today, even if you have to do it after work, or when all your other obligations are finished for the day, but just find the time to do what you love and watch the magic flow into your life.

4. The magic of setting your own price – This is an interesting one as it is related to self worth but is further along the way. You may feel like you have lots of self worth, but still be selling yourself short in lots of different ways. When I say set your own price, I mean that you need to decide how you will use your time and energy. Let’s begin with your work. I read one time that the marketplace will not set your price higher than you set it for yourself. Before I got my master's I worked for a big corporation where my job was to supervise a department. On the other side of the hall was another department. This was a bigger department than mine, but the work was simpler. The manager of the other department and I would often go to lunch together. One day he happened to mention his salary in an off hand way. My mouth fell open. He was making a good 20% more than I was. In spite of the fact that my department did more complex work, I was ten years older and had years more experience, I was making less money than him. I asked him how this happened and he said, “That’s what I asked for.” He set his price higher than I did and he got it! I accepted what they offered me. Big lesson – now I figure out in advance what my price is and I ask for it. But you can also sell yourself short in relationships as well by doing more and accommodating more – this, then, is the price you set for your participation in a relationship. If you want to bring some magic in your work life and in your relationships, then set a higher price and ask for it! If the job or the relationship won’t pay your price, then look around, and you will find those who will – Ask and ye shall receive, as the Bible says. Ask for what you want and don’t accept less – that in itself will bring some magic into your life.

5. The magic of savoring and appreciation – Savoring is when we take in the world around us in a focused and appreciative way, and just let it sink in and flow around us. The beauty of a colorful fall day, like today, reminds me to pause in appreciation and savor what is readily available to me right outside my window. When you have dinner tonight, savor the delicious morsels of food and don’t rush through it. If you decide to have a little dish of ice cream, then let each bite linger just a little on your tongue and in your mouth. Savoring has a bit of Zen in it because it’s about the simplicity of everyday things but it's also about the awe and wonder of it all. By being mindful and in tune with the small as well as big things around you, life will take on a magical quality for you and what could be more magical then that?

Send Me Your Magical Ideas

These are just a few ideas I had while contemplating the wonder of my own life and work, but of course there are many other ways of invoking magic in your life – what about you? Do you have ideas or things you have tried that felt like magic to you - one’s that have changed either the circumstances of your life or your felt experience of it? Let me know. I will publish the best ones here on my blog. Email your ideas to me at lorrainebanfield@msn.com .

Blessings, Lorraine

Money and Your Soul’s Call

At midlife and beyond we get a chance for a second act, but some of us don’t recognize this possibility and instead decide, so to speak, to go into syndication and re-run our first act over and over again. We may get all kinds of monetary residuals from this, but on a psychological and soul level this is like watching the same Seinfeld episode every night for the rest of your life. Or maybe what you decide is that it’s okay to be in re-runs for the time being as your real goal in life is to take all that money you've been putting in those IRAs, 401K’s and other investments in your retirement account and retire and go on a perpetual vacation. But even Jerry Seinfeld is not satisfied with that even though he made a killing on his show and continues to rake in the cash with all the re-runs that can be seen almost every day of the year. He just won’t go off into the sunset, but instead keeps showing up on Letterman or Oprah or even, Lord help us, on some show called The Marriage Ref where he and a panel of other celebrities act as marriage counselors to some poor couple they attempt to help but in truth only do it for the laughs.

But Jerry Seinfeld is really listening to and answering his soul’s call, which is to make people laugh. It’s what he does, it’s who he is and the money is simply what he gets when he does his soul’s bidding. What Seinfeld’s life proves is that our soul’s don’t call us to make money. Our soul’s call us to do our thing, our unique and particular thing. Now, in many cases we will actually make some money at using the talents and gifts that come from our souls call, but there is no guarantee of this. Depending on the type of soul call and your individual drive and circumstances you may or may not be able to make a living with your soul's call, in some cases, like Seinfeld, a really good living, but making money, in and of itself, is not a soul call. But this is a bill of goods we have been sold by our culture and the media in particular.

Now a hundred years ago when many people in this country struggled just to make ends meet and even now in third world countries and other places across the globe, where people are so poverty stricken and so held back by repressive and corrupt governments and political systems that they really don’t have the luxury of thinking about what their soul might call them to do. In those cases their soul is calling them to survive and that’s about it, but for those of us in the western world this is not the case.

We have been given, by virtue of where we live, the opportunity to listen to our soul and act on its call. This is particularly true in our second act as this is a time when we have most likely met our family obligations or are getting close to it. In addition, we in the west have been granted through technology and science and our own actions toward living healthy lives, another twenty or thirty years longer, on average, than our parents' generation. We have the time, we have the health and we have the money to do more than just go off on a perpetual vacation. Oh, vacations are nice, but just as Seinfeld has shown by his continuing to show up doing comedy, a continuous vacation gets old after awhile.

As it turns out, if we are listening, our soul has more in mind for us than that. But, let's talk a little more about money since so much of what we see and are told by the media, this should be our goal, to be as rich as Seinfeld and then we could retire and never be heard from again, except maybe by post card from some exotic place. But money is indeed no soul call. If it were, then all the celebrities, socialites and other wealthy people in this country would be really, really happy, satisfied just spending their money and having a good old time of it and people would respect them for it. But no one wins the Nobel Prize for being rich or given the Medal of Honor for having a large bank account. These things are reserved for people who make a contribution to something beyond their own personal desires and good times. Of course, you don't have to win any prizes to be answering your soul's call, but neither will you win one if you die with the most toys, to use an idea that I have seen as model for the good life.

The idea of money as motivator and life goal is so pervasive in our culture that it's hard to go a day without being bombarded with this idea everywhere we look. The message being presented to us is that money equals the good life, the best life, the one we should aspire to live. Of course, this is the idea the media is trying to sell us. Look at all the reality shows based on looking in on the life of wealthy people. But if you look closely at these shows you will find that the real draw is the drama, not the lavish living they do. If the show Keeping Up With the Kardashians didn’t have conflict, arguments, disagreements and just plain family dysfunction, no one would watch it. Who wants to watch people play and have a good time. It’s fun for us to actually play and have a good time ourselves, but watching other people do it on the television would be boring. It would also be boring to watch people work or create something, regardless of how meaningful or how soulful that thing might be, unless the show also presents drama and cat fighting. Also to have a show where people are doing their soul's call, would in most cases not translate as good TV. But actually doing work and creating something meaningful, that is, in service to the greater good, is what our soul’s call us to do and it is what makes us feel good about ourselves.

Shows like KUWTK do not portray this at all. Oh, they show the girls and the mom talking about their various money-making enterprises but these are all based on selling their celebrity status in one form or another. There is never any talk on that show about making a contribution to anything other than their own bank accounts. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not condemning them, it’s their life, they have the right to do as they please and the networks have a right to produce whatever shows the public will watch – it is as they say, a free country and this one of the things that makes living in America great, but, when we as the audience not only accept this form fntertainment but actually make it successful by watching it, we are contributing, not to the greater good but to something insidious and detrimental to our lives, particularly if we aspire to or long for the money and lifestyle of the Kardashians as our main goal in life.

When we as a culture admire, look up to and revere the rich and famous, particularly the ones who do it for the money, we are pandering to something that is not in the best interests of our own lives. When we treat money and wealth as some kind of God to worship and use as a milestone for the good life, we are missing the profound message of our own souls. This is especially true at midlife and beyond, when we are given the opportunity to stop and regroup and think about what we will do with the second half of our lives. It's at this time that we need to move away from this idea and move toward a more soulful way of living. The first step in doing this is to turn off the television, the Internet, your iPod and all the other electronic devices that keep you plugged in but disconnected from your own soul and the second is to see what your soul might be trying to tell you. Isn’t it time you stopped and got quiet and listened? I think you’ll be surprised and gratified by what you hear.

Nest Week I will write about some of the challenges money presents to us in answering our soul's call and in life in general. Stayed tuned.

Blessings, Lorraine