Left: Shannon in a joyous moment in Grandma’s pear tree; photo copyright by Aislinn Bailey; Below: Aislinn happily cutting a chocolate fudge birthday cake with Mom serenely arranging roses in the background; photo copyright by Shannon Bailey.
In Esther and Jerry Hicks’ The Teachings of Abraham DVD IX of the Law of Attraction in Action series, Telling a New Story!, Abraham says that the best way we can teach our children to become “aligned” is by the example of our own alignment. That may be true, but with my own kids, I seem to learn quite a bit about myself and my own alignment by watching them.
Shannon, now 20, was first aggressively exposed to the Law of Attractionwhen she was 16. For her, there was already a lot of resistance in play.
She’d certainly seen enough in my life! Early on, a lot of my own practice took the route of bringing to me exactly what I didn’t want, and I wasn’t quite as good at it then. I wasn’t as serene or positive as I am now. Still, I’ve been amazed over the past year at watching her manifest. She’s gotten the hang of it far more than she gives herself credit for.
The most fun I’ve had watching her manifest was when she wanted a different place to live and made a list of 30+ rather unusual things she
wanted–tile downstairs with carpet upstairs, a screened patio, a big kitchen, a front porch, vaulted ceilings, two bedrooms, three bathrooms, a townhome/house, a safe area, close to work/grocery/shopping/gym, some utilities included, pets okay, washer/dryer included, a peaceful atmosphere conducive to study, close to campus–oh, the list went on and on, and all cheaper than her current, noisy, small, 3-roommate apartment with negligent managers and elephants for upstairs neighbors and drug dealers across the hall. That was a slightly rocky time, when the perfect place–or even a dingy imperfect place– was not turning up. Just when it seemed she might be tenting somewhere while her current lease ran out and her third roommate bowed out of plans to room together for another year, she discovered that her lease erroneously included another month and she had another month’s time to find…home. She knew it when she saw it from the outside–absolutely the perfect spot, even before she saw the inside and all of the features she’d put on her wish list. She’s been happily ever since. And to me, it reminds me a lot of the little house she lived in when she was three.
I’ve watched her manifest all sorts of things in the past year that have me awed, even though she sometimes forgets how well she does this. I’ve seen her fret over getting research projects and opportunities that just seemed to fall into her lap and provide a delicious landmark on her career path. I’ve seen her bring incredible internship and symposium opportunities to her where she was pursued when, logically, such opportunities shouldn’t have been there for her at so young an age. It’s fun to watch, though I recognize she still has some resistance at times, and I recognize it because I’ve so often been in that same spot and I feel she mirrors my own methods of manifesting (or not) at times.
With Aislinn, I’m mostly just amazed at her manifesting skills. She’s really, really gotten the hang of it. At barely 17, things manifest very quickly for her.
She was first exposed to the Law of Attraction at 13, and I honestly regretted it. No sooner had she watched The Secret for the first time, than she did what many did when they first jumped on the Law of Attraction bandwagon (and soon after fell off). She rushed to her bedroom and taped a dollar bill to her ceiling, over her bed, so she could focus on…MONEY! I really disliked where she took her focus, which was all about money, shopping, stuff. Not that stuff is necessarily bad, but she was at a materialistic stage in life and bought into the get-rick-quick hype that later made the Law of Attraction the focus of the general public in the 2007 time frame. She wasn’t old enough yet to understand all the other things she can attract to her.
When she was 16, I began to see big changes in her, and she began to listen in discreetly while I played audiobooks at home, putting what she heard into play. Many of these audiobooks and downloads were Abraham-Hicks offerings, which gave a more spiritual, self-improvement bent to the Law of Attraction than so much of the money-money-money-themed products out there. She began to change the way she handled herself, finding alignment more quickly, not focusing on the past as I have often done. She began actively listening to the Abraham-Hicks workshops on her iPod on 12-hour bus trips to forensics competitions. She started actively setting her intentions and then checking them off as they happened, with seemingly little to no effort at all.
I’ve seen this with her change in schools 15 months ago to a place where she has blossomed and is appreciated for who she is. I’ve seen it with her grades and classes and career plans. I’ve seen it most of all with her photography business. I’m am still blown away that she is a junior in high school with 7 weddings to shoot in the next year and more appointments than she can comfortably handle.
In many ways, it seems easier for them than for me to let go and manifest their dreams. They don’t have the years…the decades…of ingrained resistance that I have. It makes me so excited as a mom to see them catching on so early in life. And, it’s a great reminder to reach back to my early childhood, to the times when I could play freely and play creatively before I succumbed to the resistance and structure of the world around me. That’s not a bad thing, though. My life leading up to now has given me a lot of “contrast” and because of so much of it, so young, I’m now very sure of who I am and what I want.
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