Usually around the new year I take a moment to be grateful for the past year and hope for all things amazing for the next. A couple years ago I took it a step further and filled a big glass jar with small items that reminded me of events, goals, and dreams I wished would manifest that year.

As you can see my vision jar included some fairy magic, tiny scissors for making more of my own up cycled clothing, cone and moss for some nature groundedness, a page from a Sanskrit book and a picture of Krishna for spiritual connection, meditation beads for consistent practice, musical notes for playing more piano, and so on and so on. Lots of aspirations which all did get more or less fulfilled during that year.

My husband Daniel filled his dream jar as well by the way. More yoga and music. Bam. To the point.

Last year, around New Year 2014, I made my most concentrated contemplation and envisioning effort yet. I actually counted the exact number of money I made with my web design and Etsy businesses. I listed new skills I had acquired. I itemized the moments I had felt most myself and in the flow and just in the pocket as far as me navigating this universe goes. I looked back at personal triumphs and challenges and evaluated how well I had handled situations. I wrote down the names of new people in my life I was grateful for. I pulled tarot cards for each month of the coming year.

I acknowledged all the goodness and accepted and took the time to learn from or resolve any negativity from the past year. I printed out calendars for each coming month with business goals on each of them. I gave myself permission to go nuts and buy flowers every week to remind me of the soft, beautiful magic I was setting up for the new year with transcendental trust, no fear and no holding back. A big part of all this introspection and goal-setting was Leonie Dawson’s workbooks for Creating Your Shining Year, both the personal and business versions that I filled up with colorful thin sharpies pretty much the day I received them.

I also listened to and got pretty excited by the audio book The Desire Map by Danielle Laporte. Her writing is thoughtful, hilarious, and so real that you can’t help but relate and be influenced by what she says. To summarize the message of the book: instead of making to-do lists with long or short term life goals, introspect and find out what are your core desired feelings. Then consciously implement small or bigger things that make you feel those core desired feelings throughout your year, even on a daily basis. This way you can actually satisfy your desires rather than keep knocking off items from your to-do list only to find out that these accomplishments didn’t really do anything for you on a deeper level.

Danielle Laporte with The Desire Map ~ Photo from Annapurna Living’s interview with her.

For example, I might think that I want to be rich. So I put on my vision board a picture of a Chanel dress and a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills. I write with the most prestigious script handwriting on my long-term life goals to-do list: Get Rich. If I leave it at this, I might find out that I never feel like I accomplished ‘getting rich’. Who is rich anyway? When does getting rich stop and you’re finally it? What do I really want when I say that I want to be rich? These are the questions where Desire Mapping begins. How do you want to feel? What does ‘rich’ make you feel? What can you do to feel those things, even now, instantly? Continuously?

Speaking of Chanel, I never wear pants but this suit I would gladly put on my visionboard, and make an exception for!

So I actually want to be rich. To me rich means that I don’t have to worry about money. And that I have good quality, special things around and on me that were made with love and they make me feel like a princess with soul and unique taste. So it’s not really that I want to be rich per say. I want to feel care-free, free, not controlled by money, abundant, and generous. I want to feel a little glamorous, luxurious, affluent even. Admitting this was a pretty cool experience by the way. Yeah, me, who used to live in a van and be a nomadic volunteer for spirituality, yoga, and meditation causes and gave away all the money I made, now deep down wants to feel Affluent. Wow! Ok!

Thanks to The Desire Map, this was not a shocking revelation but a joyous one that made me smile. I realized that this is a feeling inside me that’s not just a passing emotion but a desire that will stay there and motivate me into action some way or other. Or I might suppress it and have it pop out in weird ways. So I decided to totally Desire Map it. I created a list of things that make me feel Affluent, including:

– fresh flowers at home

– shopping in luxurious shops for items made with impeccable, interesting design (shopping doesn’t always mean buying – I can have the experience by just browsing, trying on a $5,000 Marc Jacobs dress, or having a surprisingly friendly, deep and personal conversation with the artist or a person working in the boutique)

– luxurious every day items instead of cheap, made in China ones that just don’t feel right (cue in gold-dipped tableware from Anthropologie or investing in a nice glass desk instead of a wobbly scratched table I got for free)

– putting on vegan lipstick

– giving in charity and crowdfunding projects

– open a savings account towards future love dream home and make monthly deposits to it, no matter how big or small

So affluent was/is one of my core desired feelings for 2014 and having mapped this desire out, I totally have felt increasingly affluent all year long. The more I expressed my affluent feelings to the world, the more the world reciprocated. It’s pretty amazing actually. It’s become a reality. You get what you give. No matter how much or little money I have, I feel affluent. Once you start living in that manner, with money in the backseat, affluence first, hey wow, that’s how “the super affluent” live! And you’re doing it.

I gave a similar effort to my other core desired feelings: Connected. Light. etc.. and looking within I can tell that I’m pretty fulfilled now in all those desires. I’ve already started to investigate and filter out my 4-5 core desired feelings for 2015. Because of this I can say with confidence that The Desire Map process works wonderfully for manifesting your dreams. I’m now expanding upon the growth and dream-realization of the past year by finding my even deeper desired feelings, now that the other ones are kind of taken care of to a certain extent. What else do I desire? This is exciting self-work!!

I’ll write a post when I have finalized my core desired feelings for 2015 but so far I have something along the lines of:

– Creating in abundance

– Intensely led and devoted

– Kind, jubilant blessing

Have you worked on your core desired feelings, visions, goals or plans yet? Have you read The Desire Map or filled Leonie’s workbooks? Would love to hear your experiences and thoughts on how the exercises worked for you, my friends.

Much love,
Bhakti

PS. I obviously whole-heartedly recommend both Leonie Dawnson’s books as well as Danielle Laporte’s The Desire Map. If you purchase them through the links in my post, I’ll get a small portion of the sale (I think, lol). This is not of course why I recommend these books. They both genuinely helped to rock my 2014 to new heights and sweetness that took me by surprise. I mean, man, I even got married in 2014! And in those tarot cards I pulled at the beginning of the year, ‘sacred union’ and ‘marriage’ cards actually came out for the end of the year. So that happened. These books will for sure increase magic in your life. They have the Bhakti stamp of SuperRecommendation all over them!