Steven Aitchison – The Magic

For a while now I have been wanting to write a blog article on the subject of the Law of Attraction, but I am not comfortable with the term Law of Attraction, and don’t really believe in the whole concept with the way it is being taught and so wanted talk about it in another way with more detail, but couldn’t think of a name for it. Then, a few weeks ago when I was out walking my dog I figured it out: MAGIC

Magic is not quite the law of attraction, it’s not cosmic ordering, it’s not about praying or religious in any way and not about Wicca, although you may call it that. It’s simply about Magic: The kind of magic we all have inside of us, but we’ve forgotten how to use it. We had the magic as children, and then life got in the way and most of us lose it as we go into adolescence.

This article is probably one of my longest but I hope one of the most useful articles I have ever written.

I also have to say that whilst doing research on this I came across 3 books by Genevieve Davis called: Becoming Magic, Doing Magic, and Advanced Magic. When I found these books I promptly downloaded them and then thought about not publishing this article, as the ideas in Genevieve’s books were so close to the thoughts I had on this topic, it was like listening to (I bought the audio books) my own thoughts and writings on the subject.

However I have decided to publish it anyway, mainly because I didn’t want to waste 4 weeks of research and writing and I believe I can help open up the topic of magic to another audience and hopefully help Genevieve reach a new audience as well.

I also notice there is another book by Rhonda Byrne called ‘The Magic’, but since this is not a book, I don’t mind that so much.
What is The Magic

When we think of magic we think of the likes of Harry Potter, or witchcraft or possibly the druids. However, magic is not about making potions, casting spells, and using wands, all those things are just tools to focus the mind on the magic.
The MAGIC is you!

magic-womanYou are the magic, you have the power of magic inside of you right now, lying dormant, possibly unused ever in your life, or for some unused for a number of years. You are the vessel that holds the magic and your mind is the tool to help unleash it.

It is the power we have to bring about change in our lives by using the power of the subconscious mind. Now, before you stop reading and say, “˜Oh, I’ve heard it all before.’ hear me out, as I guarantee you this will be life changing for a lot of you reading this.
Magic is the powerful force that helps us gather the people and the objects we need and sometimes want in our lives. The mind is the key that unlocks it and in this article I want to show you how to unlock the magic.
How I came to learn of The Magic

Being honest I always knew there was something different about me, even as a young child and I believed, even back then, in the power of magic, only I didn’t know how to harness it.

It wasn’t until I was older that I really started learning about it and using it in my every day life, and learning a hell of a lot along the way. And Today I use it every day, I am literally magic, just like you, only i have learned a little more about it and can bring about change without really thinking about it.
Some examples from my own life:

Since the age of about 25 I had started to look for my ideal partner, as I was tired of “˜Playing the field’ and the single life. I looked, had a few girlfriends, but nobody came along that made me say “˜She’s the one’. Well, I looked for around 7 years and one day on the 19th July 2002 I let go. I let the thought go of finding my ideal partner and told myself it’s okay to be single and happy and I mentally let go as I walked along the street to work that morning.

Then on the way back from work at around 5pm I was persuaded to go out for a drink as Cathy, from another department (Thank you Cathy) was celebrating her 40th birthday, and even though I didn’t know Cathy that well, and didn’t want to go out, I went out for a drink and ended up staying longer than “˜Just the one’.

At 7.30pm someone walks into the bar to join our crowd and my jaw literally dropped and i blurted out “˜Who the fuck is that’ in a mesmerised state (sorry for swearing, but that’s what I said). It turned out it was the sister of someone who worked with me.steven-aitchison

13 years later we’re still madly in love and have two sons and a mental little dog.

That’s just one example of Magic, and one of the principles at work: Letting Go of the Outcome, which we will talk about later.
GuidedMind.com

In 2012 I truly wanted to give up my full-time job as an addiction worker and work full time online, but just didn’t see how it was going to be possible due to financial reasons. I worked out I would need around $3,000 per month to give up my full-time job. So again, I quickly seen in my imagination myself working from home and let the thought go and entrusted the magic to do it’s job.

A few months later I was chatting with a friend on Skype, who already ran some very successful websites, and told him my ideas about doing guided meditations and had already tested the market. He suggested we collaborate.  After a few months of talking  we agreed to start a new site and his company would pay me advanced royalties for every guided meditation I wrote and recorded until we got the site to go live a year later, the amount was around $3,000 per month, that’s when GuidedMind.com was born.

The magic had worked again. I gave up my full-time job in September 2012 and worked full time online, and have never looked back since.
Another example

Another example is a more recent one.

Last year I truly started getting into Facebook and growing my page, so much so that I was getting about 20 FB Messages per day asking how the hell I was doing so well with my Facebook page. I had grown it from 33,000 likes to 3.2 Million  at the time. I answered all the questions in the messages about FB Marketing and then decided to write a course on it, and get all the answers out of my head and on video and put up the website www.YourDigitalFormula.com, and that was going to be the end of it, no more telling people how to do it I would just direct them to my course.

Your Digital FormulaBut alas, the magic had other plans for me. I had hired a great business coach to move my business further on and she suggested that i should become a coach on Facebook marketing. I thought about it and let it marinate for a while and decided it would be a good idea.  Well, the very next day I received a message from someone asking if I did Facebook Coaching 1 – 1. Not one to ignore the magic, I immediately said yes and set the rates and took on my first coaching client.

Then, a week later, I received a phone call from Curly Martin (the Life Coaches trainer) who wondered if it would be okay to pass on my details to David Vox from Goaly.com who was interested in collaborating on some kind of Facebook marketing course, so I flew to Copenhagen to meet him and it looks like it is going to be very lucrative for me and help a lot of businesses out there who are struggling with their Facebook page.

That’s the kind of magic I am talking about.

Now, you might think it’s all just coincidence, and that’s your prerogative to think that, only I know different and want to teach you how to make it all happen for you, if you’re open to learning?
The first step on the magical path

Magical-path
YOUR BELIEFS

Have you ever wondered why some people can become a huge success and others can’t? Well, it’s all to do with their beliefs. Their beliefs about themselves, and their beliefs about the world around them.

They have created a reality of the world for themselves, and within that reality they have the belief that they are able to do anything they put their mind to.

You too have that power, you have the magic stirring within you right this very second, but you may not know how to tap into it.

I would love to share with you just how amazing you are and how to tap into this amazingness and finally become the person you were born to be.

Let me start with one of my favourite quotes:

Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Ghandi

I also have a video to show you about the power of beliefs which gives you an insight into how our beliefs are formed:

Okay, time to show you just how amazing you really are:
Reality is Based on Your Perception of the Truth

Your reality is based on your perception of the truth, meaning that what you believe to be true about yourself and the world around is true. However, someone else with different beliefs and a different view of the world also has a reality that is true and real to them. In effect we all have a different view of the world and it all starts with our beliefs.

Change your beliefs and you change your view of reality.

realitySo how does that work?

Okay, let me ask you if you’ve ever had this experience before:

You see someone in a bar, a club or at your local gym. You have noticed them before and don’t find them particularly physically attractive. So you believe they are not physically attractive, according to what you believe attractiveness is. However, when that person speaks to you, you find they have an amazing personality, they make you laugh, they are intelligent, and quick witted. Suddenly your view of them literally changes, you now find that you are physically attracted to them, their appearance seems to have changed somehow and your belief about what makes someone physically attractive suddenly changes. Have you ever had that experience?

That’s not to say that everyone with a great personality is going to look physically attractive, as there has to be some core elements of physical attractiveness, or what you believe constitutes attractiveness.

That’s only 1 example of how beliefs shape our world.
How Our Beliefs are Formed

Psychologists say that most of our beliefs have already been formed by the age of seven years old.

SEVEN YEARS OLD!

We are not cognitively able to comprehend what beliefs are at that age and have not fully formed an opinion of the world at that age, and yet most of our beliefs about the world have already been formed and carry on into adulthood.
Where our beliefs come from

Most of our beliefs comes from our parents, our teachers, our peers, our close family and the TV and media, predominantly from the person who raised us as children.

father-sonsYou’ve got to ask yourself: If your parents are the primary source of your beliefs, where did they get their beliefs from? Well, they got it from their parents, and their parents got it from their parents. So in effect some of your beliefs are literally hundreds of years old, being passed down from generation to generation.

That’s not to say that’s a bad thing as some beliefs stand us in good stead e.g. Believing that family is important, that you have to work hard to get somewhere in life, you believe in justice, that all people should be treated with respect and so on.

However, some of your beliefs are outdated and if you wish to change them then you need to acknowledge them first.
Why Change Our Beliefs to Walk the Magical Path

That’s a very good question we have to ask ourselves, why change our beliefs?

If we break beliefs down to their simplest state you have two different types of beliefs:

Disempowering beliefs – Beliefs that hold us back in life.

The disempowering beliefs are holding us back from truly living a life of fullness and wellness, and can even cause us physical and mental harm if we don’t recognize them and acknowledge them. Beliefs like: I am not good enough, I am not intelligent enough, I am no good at (insert subject here), I am too old, I’ll never have any money. All these beliefs and more hold us back, they stop us from growing as human beings, and our purpose in life is to grow as much as we can and to reach, what Abraham Maslow calls, Self Actualization.

Empowering beliefs – Beliefs that drive us forward and help us to grow.

The empowering beliefs are the ones we should nurture and aim to install in our minds in order to help us reach our true potential in life. These are the beliefs that drive us forward, that help us to grow and help us to achieve all of our goals in life. Nobody would have any goals in life if they didn’t have some empowering beliefs, so you see you already have some empowering beliefs already.

So to answer the questions why we need to change our beliefs to start our journey on the magical path, it’s to help us grow to reach our full potential.

Your beliefs just now reside within your comfort zone.
Your Beliefs Reside within Your Comfort Zone

Your personal beliefs you have about yourself reside within an area in your mind called your comfort zone. This is the place where nothing really challenges you and you are coasting along in life, minding your own business, and just getting on with life. And that’s okay if you are happy with that, but a lot of us aren’t happy, we want something more, something to challenge our mind, heart and body. Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.

the-magical-path

The thing is, we cannot grow if we are not challenged in life. That’s the reason we go to school to challenge our minds, that’s the reason we go to the gym to challenge our bodies, that’s the reason we start a business, write a book, network, speak in public, take a new job, it’s all to challenge ourselves. Sometimes it can be tough, but the challenging journey we take when we go outside our comfort zone is so much better than the stagnation of staying inside it.

By challenging every area of your life you will change your beliefs about yourself, about what you believe is possible and your reality will change, sometimes overnight, and sometimes over time.
How to Know What Beliefs You Have

It’s strange, if I were to ask you what you believe about yourself you might take a few minutes to even give me a few beliefs that you hold. That’s because we rarely think about the beliefs that we hold in our minds, we just believe something and that’s it, and they don’t really come to the fore unless a strong belief is challenged in some way. For example if I was to tell you that testing new drugs on animals is right (and I don’t believe that) you might suddenly find yourself vociferously arguing against that belief, because you believe it is not right to do that. You’ve now found a deep belief within you without necessarily knowing that belief existed.

So a more practical way to find out what beliefs you have is to set yourself outcomes in life.

challengesOutcomes are things you want to achieve in a certain time frame, for example, getting that book you’ve always wanted to write, finished by the end of the year.

Another outcome a lot of people have is to lose a certain amount of weight by the end of month.

You can write down your outcomes for every area of your life: relationships, money, career, family, health, personal development, recreation, and spirituality. You can even go a step further and use a life wheel to see exactly where you are in life just now.

So for each area of your life you write down your outcomes and that’s when you find out what your limiting beliefs are.

So, say you have an outcome to lose 10Ibs in 30 days, you write down what your limiting beliefs are about that particular outcome e.g.

· I don’t have the willpower to do it

· I can’t do it

· I’m too big to go to the gym, everyone will look at me

· My partner will feel threatened if I lose weight

These are all good to know, because without acknowledging our limiting beliefs we will never get over them.
How to Change Your Beliefs – The Beliefs Formula

I have come up with a belief formula, it’s not necessarily new or anything groundbreaking but it’s a formula you can use and easily store in your mind to help you.

Perception + Evidence + Repetition + Time = Belief

So let’s break each part of the formula down:

Perception – This is the current perception you have about yourself at any particular time. For example you might believe that you are not an intelligent person. That’s the perception you have of yourself at this particular time.

Evidence – The evidence you have gathered over the years to prove that perception might be: you failed your exams in the past, you feel stupid around other people, other people may have said that you weren’t particularly intelligent and so on. Your subconscious mind has gathered all this evidence to prove your perception.

Repetition – Over the months and years you’ve repeatedly reminded yourself of why you are not intelligent so your mind just assumes that you’re not intelligent and the deeper the belief will be entrenched.

Time – This is about the length of time you’ve held this belief. The longer you’ve held a belief the more you will believe it. So if you’ve told yourself for years that you’re not intelligent then guess what, you’re not that intelligent, or so you think!

That’s how a belief is formed. Similarly you have empowering beliefs that have been formed using the exact same formula. So if you believe you are intelligent and you have gathered evidence over the years to prove that and you’ve repeated that belief over the years, then you are intelligent, no question, you just are.
Question Your Beliefs

Once you’ve found out what your disempowering beliefs are by writing down the outcomes and disempowering beliefs in Big Idea number 5, you then start to question each belief.

Your beliefs are like an egg, hard on the outside but liquid on the inside, unless it’s hard boiled which is a deeper held belief. Once you start to crack the shell of the egg you can start to change it.

The way to start cracking the egg, or your beliefs, is to question them.

For example if you believe that you are not intelligent, you would question that belief. You would ask yourself ‘is that really true’ and then you would find examples to prove that you are intelligent: you passed that exam at school, you work in a position of authority and need intelligence to be organized and do your job well, you read lots of mentally stimulating books (by the way that’s the very best way of increasing your overall brain power, not just intelligence), and so on.

So you’ve cracked open the shell of that belief it’s now time to replace it with another new, empowering belief.
Installing a New Belief

This is a lot easier than you would imagine.

Once you’ve identified a new belief you would like to install, you essentially immerse yourself in the new belief until your subconscious accepts it as true and integrates it into your mental operating system. I love to use visualization with physical proof, but a lot of people use affirmations combined with strong emotion.

install-new-beliefsUsing evidence from your past you can install the new belief by reminding yourself on a daily basis the evidence you have to prove your new belief. You then go on to gather more evidence by going out and putting your new belief into practice, which means more evidence to prove your belief.

For example you want to have the belief that you can lose weight easily:

You would remind yourself a few years ago just how much weight you lost, which proves you can lose it, you then remind yourself you actually enjoyed going to the gym back then, you enjoyed being healthier, and you remind yourself about the great comments you received from other people telling you how great you looked and that you seemed to lose weight quite easily.

So you start going to the gym again and begin to enjoy it, you feel more healthy by going to the gym, so your mind tells you to eat more healthy, friends start to comment again about how great you look which motivates you more, you start to see the weight dropping off, your old clothes fit you again, pretty soon your mind tells you it is easy to lose weight and you have installed a new belief.

Remember the belief formula:

Perception + Evidence + Repetition + Time = Belief

But, what if you don’t have evidence from your past?

then you have to start gathering evidence from now on.  Every little thing that happens, no matter how small, take it as evidence that you new belief is taking shape.  This way you will amass evidence that will help you install the new belief that you want.  It might take a little time, but eventually the new belief will just be a part of who you are.
The Magic of Believing

The beliefs you hold about yourself are the source of magic, and not many people know how to control. You now have that power in your own hands, you’re the Harry Potter of your world, but there’s no need for a wand to channel your magical powers, it’s all held in your mind and your bodies energy.

To show you just how powerful beliefs are I want to share a story from a respected Physician named Bernie Siegel, who has written a lot of books. In Tony Robbins’ book he has a conversation with Bernie Siegel:

“I had the pleasure of interviewing Yale professor and best-selling author Bernie Siegel. .. Bernie shared with me some of the research he’d done on people with Multiple Personality Disorders. Incredibly, the potency of these people’s beliefs that they had become a different person resulted in an unquestioned command to their nervous system to make measurable changes in their biochemistry. The result? Their bodies would literally transform before the researchers’ eyes and begin to reflect a new identity at a moment’s notice. Studies document such remarkable occurrences as patients’ eye color changing or physical marks disappearing and reappearing! Even diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure come and go depending on the person’s belief as to which personality they’re manifesting.”

We’ve also all heard about the placebo effect, whereby a patient is given a drug for an illness. The patient does not know that the drug is actually a sugar pill, but still shows signs of recovery, because they believe that they have been given a real drug and that it’s going to help them.

There’s hundreds of documented cases about the power of the placebo, and that’s the magic of your mind and the power of belief.

That’s the power of belief and I want you to use those lessons on beliefs when you start your journey on the magical path, because you’re going to need it.
Believing in Magic

For magic to work you’ve got to believe in it.  Well, that’s not very scientific is it?

Think about it, we don’t do anything in life unless we believe we can do it and magic is no different.

believ-in-magicWe’ve got to believe with all our hearts that it will truly work for us.  I know about magic, it works for me and I know that anybody can practice magic, but this is not about me, this is about you, you’re the one who is going to practice it, you’re the one who is going to walk the magical path for, possibly, the first time.

So let’s get started with.

Now that you know about beliefs we need to start putting the magic into practice using the belief principles.

The first step on the magical path is asking for what you want.
THE ASKING

This is where I have an issue with the law of attraction teachers.  It is made out that all we have to do for our desires to manifest is just ask and they will come to us.  Well, that’s just not true.  In fact the asking part of the magic is probably the least important.
I want to share with you an amazing way to ask for your desires to manifest themselves.
Writing a letter to the universe.

letter-to-the-universe

About 18 months ago I wrote an article for GuidedMind called Writing a Letter to the Universe  which was an updated version of something I wrote about 6 years ago called ‘An Invoice to The universe’.  Here’s how it works:

Write a letter as if you’re writing to a friend, and describe the situation you are in just now e.g.

“Dear Universe, I am struggling financially just now and don’t have enough money to make the payments for my car, and I really need the car to get to work. I’ve tried everything I can think of and can’t seem to find a solution”
Your concerns

Normally with the Law of Attraction we don’t mention what we are fearing, instead we focus on the positive, but it’s important to rid ourselves of the fears we have.

So write down your concerns about what might happen. In the example above you might say, ‘I’m really concerned that I will lose my job if my car is repossessed, and that I will find it difficult to get another job if I don’t have a car…….’

Just keep going and let all your concerns be noted in your letter.

This does two things; it helps to dissipate your anxious feelings, it’s like talking to a friend ‘A problem shared is a problem halved’ and all that. Secondly, it builds up your positive emotions. You might think that writing a letter like this will increase your anxiety, but it actually sets your mind up to receive a positive outcome.
State your Desire

Okay, now you’ve got all your concerns out of the way it’s time to state exactly what you desire to happen. What do you need to happen? What do you want to happen? When do you want it to happen? this is where you become more positive and outcome focused again.

Using the example above you might say:

‘I would like to be able to make this month’s car payment in full before the (insert date here). I would also like a little more to be able to have next month’s car payment in my bank account to make sure I don’t get in this situation again.

I am so grateful for my car and really don’t know what I’d do without it, it gets me to work, helps me socially keep in touch with all my friends, and lets me see amazing places I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.’
Become emotionally involved in your desire

You have to send out the emotion of your desire as if you have already achieved it.  You do this by thinking what it will be like when you gain your desire.  really put yourself and visualise yourself as having achieved what you want.  Do this for a few minutes, and then go onto the next part.

Your emotions are what will give the magic even more power, it’s like throwing petrol over a fire, it will explode your ability to do the magic that is within you.
Gratitude

In your final paragraph thank the universe for delivering your desire, and write it as if it’s already happened. really get into this state of gratitude, as it will line up your vibrational energy to receive your desire. Tell the universe how amazing it is, and how you are in constant awe, no need to suck up, just appreciate the efforts it has made in helping you.
Let it go

Once you finished writing the letter, sign it, date it, fold the letter and put it in an envelope. Place the envelope in a drawer that’s only used for letters to the universe, or you can use a special box. If you’re writing it on the computer, make a folder named’ Letters to The Universe’ and put it on your desktop and place the file you have written in your folder.

Letting go of the outcome is extremely important.  You should not think or dwell on your desire again, as it’s now time for you to trust the magical process.  Believe that it is working and your desire is being processed, and then put it out of your mind.

This works as it gets you out of the way of the magical process.  Have you ever forgotten someone’s name and tried your hardest to remember it, only it is not forthcoming, and then you simply forgot about it. Then suddenly a few hours later their name comes to you as if by magic.  That is you getting out of the way, and so it is with letting go of the outcome.  Just get out of the way of the process and it will come to you quicker.

Expect it, believe it and trust that it will come.

That’s the asking part and it’s only one way to ask, but I have found this an amazing way over the years and seems to manifest what I need quicker than anything else.

I may update this post from time to time and will add a letter template for ‘Letter to the Universe’.

Now, onto the magical part of the process: Receiving
THE RECEIVING

Receiving is possibly the hardest part of the magical process as we have not really been taught how to receive what we want correctly.

receiving-magicAs I said earlier you’ve got to truly work on your beliefs that the magic can work for you, and you do this by starting to notice that things are changing for you.  Take a mental note or keep a journal (a small moleskin notebook is ideal for this) of every little thing that happens out of the ordinary.

Keeping a journal like this does two things:

1. It embeds the belief of magic

2. It provides documented evidence and strengthens your resolve to keep practicing magic, instead of dismissing it.

When something small happens e.g. you have asked for £500 in order to pay for your car’s MOT, you unexpectedly receive a bank refund of £100.  This is evidence that the magic is working.  Now, you might say to yourself ‘No’ it’s not, it was just a coincidence&