Yes, You can Create the Love you Want

As promised, here's an excerpt from the book:

Create the love you want

Have you ever resolved to start a new life only to find the same situation following you?

Same impossible boss. Same scheming co-workers. Same unhappy relationship. Same uncaring, insensitive boyfriend. Can the same people be following you?

There is an old story of a gatekeeper of a town who was approached by a traveler looking for a new place to settle in. The traveler said to the gatekeeper, “I am thinking of moving to your town”. The gatekeeper replied, “How was your old town?” The traveler said, “Oh, it's disgusting. The people are rude and unfriendly”. The gatekeeper said, “ It is amazing but those are the exact words I would use to describe the people here. It would be better to look for another place”. So the traveler went on.

A second traveler approached the gatekeeper. He also wanted to move to a new town. The gatekeeper asked, “How was your old town?” “Oh, the people are great. They are kind, generous and friendly”, replied the traveler. The gatekeeper said, “That is amazing. Those are the same words I would use to describe the people here. Please come in and stay with us for a while”.


Wherever you go, you take yourself with you

The gatekeeper knew, “ Wherever you go, you take yourself with you”

If certain scenarios keep showing up in your life it may be time to examine yourself. Remember, in all of these scenarios, there is one common ingredient: you. So you are not stuck in the scenarios, you are stuck with you!

If you think your life is not the kind of life you deserve, if you think the relationship that you have is not the kind that you want to have, if you think that the man you are with now is not the person you should be with, it may be time to examine yourself. Examine closely the role that you play in your life and your relationships that cause these scenes to be repeatedly played out.

The ancient Greeks advocated, “Know thyself”. Truly, this adage is as useful now as it was in those times.

Can you imagine how truly different your life would be if you take time out as often as you can to examine yourself. At the end of the day, ask yourself some simple questions.

How did I spend my time today?
Was I a positive person today?
Did I bring cheer to the people I encountered today?
Did I treat the people around me fairly?
Did I show love to my man today?

The answers that you give will give you a deeper awareness of yourself and of others.

Most of us spend a lot of time examining other people’s lives and situations – but rarely pause to ponder our own. If we find ourselves in a bad relationship, we rarely stop and say, “What role have I played to make this happen?” Instead, we spend a great deal of our time, and our friends’ time figuring the other person’s role.

A long time ago, I read an article that said the world is your mirror; your life is a reflection of yourself. If you want the mirror to reflect the kind of life and love that you feel you deserve, you have to work on yourself.

And as you do that, it is important to remember that wherever you go, you take yourself with you. Whichever relationship you get yourself into, you take yourself with you.


The road to good love

I have heard not a few women say that they have given up on love. They have no luck in love and that the only men they seem to encounter are insensitive, lying, cheating bastards. And to worsen things, the chances of them meeting another insensitive, lying, cheating bastard is 99%.

Do you share these thoughts?

Have you ever wondered why other women (whom you think are not as attractive, smart and interesting as you) are blessed with wonderful relationships and you have been denied?

Do you have this fear that your next relationship will turn out to be as bad as the last and it will just be a cycle of one bad love after another.

If someone tells you that you have denied good love to yourself, that you yourself created this cycle of bad love yourself, what would you say?

I think you would say, “ Of course not. Why would I want to be in a bad relationship? I want to be with a good man in a good relationship.”

Do you, really?


Your thoughts can create a new reality

A guru once said, “Man is what he thinks about all day long”.

How true. When you constantly think that your life is a struggle, you experience more struggles. When you focus on how depressed you are, you feel even more depressed. When you think that your relationship is going nowhere the more it seems to lose direction.

Your thoughts are extremely powerful. Every thought is a biochemical impulse. It is energy. The strongest thoughts create the strongest impressions in our mental atmosphere. By having the same thoughts over and over, they produce a groove in our psyche. The energy of our thoughts design our attitudes and those same thoughts attract the conditions and situations that we have been constantly thinking about.

Your thoughts can create just as it can change things. Your conscious mind makes a decision on what it wants. You attach an emotion to it and if you keep focus on your thoughts, your subconscious mind molds the Energy around you into the shape that you want.

So if your thoughts are full of negativity, that’s exactly what you will get. If you constantly think that your relationship never works, it will never work. Or if you desire for your relationship to work but you have this constant fear that it might not, you will get the same result. It will never work.

Fear is something that you have to constantly guard against. Fear is simply belief that what you want won’t happen. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you focus your mind on what you don’t want, you are impressing your mind with that very thing. Your subconscious mind sees what you are focused on, what you feel very strongly about and delivers it to you. Your inner mind cannot reason. It does not realize that it has given you what you do not want. It just created what you were envisioning with your conscious thoughts.

How do you make the power of your thoughts create the kind of love that you want?

First of all, it is important to have a child-like belief that the Universe wants you to have a happy, satisfying life. It gives you whatever you ask for. You just have to state to the Universe that you want it.

With your conscious mind, focus on what you want, your new decision, your new choice. If you have fears that it will not happen, do not worry. This is normal. With constant practice and perseverance, you can get the fear and negativity out of your mind.

You want a happy, loving, fulfilling relationship? Fill your mind with these thoughts. Feel yourself having it. Whenever you find yourself negating it, consciously substitute it with your new choice. Then trust your subconscious to mold the Energy to give you what you want. By giving your subconscious the direction and having enough faith to let go, you give it the power to manifest what you want.

This does not mean you just sit around in your home waiting for good love to come by. You have to do all you can to prepare for it. Go out. Circulate. See and be seen. The only difference now is that your negative thoughts and fears that you’ll never meet the right person is gone. It has been replaced with a positive thought that you will get only good love. And you believe that your creative mind is doing its own work.

Believe that you are worthy

To attract good love into your life, you must believe that you deserve it and nothing less will be acceptable to you. This is where your self-image and self-esteem come in. No matter how hard you try to have positive thoughts (example, attracting good love, health, prosperity, relationship), if deep inside you, you feel inadequate and undeserving, you will have difficulty attracting the good into your life. Beliefs such as, “I really don’t deserve this”, “I would not know how to handle it if I get it”, “This is what I deserve”, negate all your positive thoughts. And like all your negative thoughts, they also become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Psychologists say that our self-esteem is shaped at the age of five. At this age, you naturally become more assertive and active. Your family’s reactions to the choices you made were important in shaping your self-image. If they encouraged your efforts, applauding your successes, you learned that you could carry things out successfully. If they discouraged your efforts and you were often criticized and punished, you learned that taking the initiative isn’t the best thing to do. If you grew up in this kind of environment, you turn out to be indecisive, or you hide your talents, or you blame yourself when things go wrong. It isn’t just your family that determines how you look at yourself. Your friends, all the positive and the negative things, events that happen in your life all help shape your self-esteem.

Having a positive self-esteem should not be confused with being self-centered, being a braggart or acting superior. Far from being healthy, these are attempts to hide negative feelings of self.

What can you do to improve your self-esteem?

One way to improve your self-esteem is to take conscious control of your self-talk. These are the things that you constantly say to yourself, as well as the meanings you attach to the events that happen in your life.

“I look horrible.”
“I am so fat. I will never lose weight.”
“Nobody wants me.”

Thoughts and words like these are very destructive and self-defeating. Notice that people who constantly say these things to themselves live a life that is a reflection of their self-talk.

One excellent way to overcome negative self-talk is to use positive affirmations. Say things to yourself like:

“I like myself.”
“I am happy with myself.”
“I am a positive person and I live a positive life.”
“I am a wonderful person and I deserve to be loved.”
“I love myself and I accept love, peace, happiness into my life”


Repeat these words to yourself throughout the day. You can write then down and read them to yourself several times a day. Better still, say them out loud to yourself. Say them with enthusiasm, feeling the positive emotions surging through your body.

You can even go one step forward and record yourself speaking, with some soothing music in the background. Then play this tape when you sleep or whenever there is opportunity. You will be amazed at how this simple exercise can dramatically change the way you feel about yourself.

Appreciate to create more

When you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning, what is it that you like the most about yourself? Surely, there must be something. Do you like your skin? Your eyes? Your mouth? Your built? Your feet?

Try appreciating and praising it everyday and see what happens. I have tried doing this with my hair. I liked its thickness, its length, its sheen. Everyday, when I look at myself in the mirror, I admire and appreciate how my hair frames my face and how it makes me look and feel better. Over the few weeks, I noticed that my hair has responded very favorably to my appreciation. It has more bounce and it has remained healthy even if I subject it to styling and coloring aids.

Whatever you appreciate in your life expands. By appreciating something means you recognize its high value and the benefits that you receive. And the more you appreciate the more its worth multiply. You can easily see this happening in your daily life. When your man praises your cooking, don’t you want to do more of it? Don’t you start buying or reading cookbooks to try out new recipes? Now think of how you reacted when he criticized your new hairstyle, your new dress, your new make-up? Didn’t it make you angry, unhappy, unappreciated? Didn’t it make you lose confidence in trying out new hairstyles and new looks?
Criticism contracts energy while appreciation allows it to expand. To create more of what you want, appreciate what you already have. The principle applies no matter what you desire in your life. If you want better health, find something good about your health. If you want a better job, appreciate whatever makes you happy in your present job. If you want a good relationship to come your way, appreciate your relationship with yourself, with your family, with your friends. Rejoice in their company; appreciate that you are not alone. In a relationship now, but you want to see some improvement? Find something that makes you happy now. Fun together? Security? Freedom? Companionship? You may not like everything about the relationship now but your task is simply to pick one or two that you can give thanks to. Of course, if after careful thought and consideration, you couldn’t find anything worth appreciating, you may be in the wrong relationship in the first place. You may be better off just moving on to find a new one.

What about criticizing what you don’t want in your life? If criticizing contracts the Energy to create, would criticizing the things we don’t want make them go away? For example, if you constantly complain about not having enough money, why don’t you experience the opposite and have more money? Or if you constantly moan about your luck in meeting undesirable, lying, cheating bastards, why don’t you meet nice, sensitive, good looking, faithful, successful, knight in shining armor (ok, that’s too much!).

Remember, energy flows where attention goes. By constantly pouring negative emotion on what you want, you are making your lack grow. You are contracting the energy of money; you are contracting the energy of good men. Don’t waste your valuable energy on being critical of areas in your life that you don’t want.

Next time you look in the mirror, don’t focus on the new wrinkle that just appeared in your forehead. Concentrate on how your eyes sparkle when you give your killer signature smile. Next time, when you go out and all you meet are men with “loser” stamped in their foreheads, don’t despair. Give thanks that you get so many opportunities to meet men of different varieties, that when you finally meet the “right” one, you will appreciate him better.

Take time to do nothing

One of the best, but often forgotten, things that you can do in life is simply to find time for yourself. Consider yourself important enough to take time out to do nothing – just being with yourself, with no goals, no expectations. In this age where being stressed out is the norm, spending quiet time with yourself is a luxury. And it is a luxury that we sometimes don’t wish to indulge in. Because we are used to being with people at work and at play, we feel a certain panic when we suddenly find ourselves alone. Instead of delighting in our own company, we interpret being alone as lonely and miserable. When we find ourselves out with no booked activity on a Friday or a weekend, we feel a certain fear that we might be losing out on something by being out of touch with the outside world.

Spending time with yourself can and should be a very enriching experience. Allow yourself some private moments when you can just lie down, wonder and ponder about life. There is no agenda, no conclusions needed-let your thoughts freely wander. This will give you great insights to your life, your worries, your concerns, your dreams. Many people have turned to meditation to achieve balance in their life. But if you feel you are not ready for this exercise yet, you can simply give yourself some “stops” any time of the day or before you retire to bed. Try closing your eyes and take a deep breath. Focus your attention on your breathing. Think of your concerns and worries and imagine them melting away as you breathe out. You can do this every time you feel stressed out.

You can also try meditation. When done properly, meditation allows you to center yourself spiritually and will provide you with a positive flow of energy. There are a lot of books and resources on meditation. But if you are keen to start soon, you will find the Meditation 101 useful.

The end result of all these exercises is a calm and balanced mind. When you are balanced, you are more focused and you are able to deal with your life’s issues on a more positive level. To be able to manifest the things in your life through affirmation and visualization (more on this later), a clear and balanced mind is essential.


You can have the love you want:
The power of affirmation and visualization

If you have been reading self-empowerment or self-development books, chances are you have heard about affirmations and visualization. In sales and marketing, these principles are widely taught to help the revenue producers achieve their goals. But even if you are not even remotely connected to sales, you can still use the power of affirmation and visualization manifest the things that you desire in your life- including the kind of love that you feel you deserve.

Say “I am beautiful” and believe it

Look at yourself in the mirror and say out loud “I am beautiful!”

How did you feel?

Did you feel natural doing it? Did you feel a positive urge of energy running through you? Most of all, did you believe what you said?

Or did you feel a lump in your throat form as if an inner voice is saying, “Get real!!” Did you feel vain, narcissistic or you can’t simply figure out how you feel, but you know it did not feel right?

If you are uncomfortable saying, “I am beautiful” to yourself, you are not alone. A lot of us have trouble with this. Most societies and cultures do not advocate praising yourself; if you do this, you will be regarded as vain, proud and full of yourself. If a little girl stares at herself in the mirror and say “I am beautiful”, chances are, her mother (unless she is an advocate of positive thoughts herself) would censure her. Growing up, the child learns that she shouldn’t say this. If she tries when she’s older, she is fighting with all the negative thoughts in her mind. It is like trying to get rid of old chewing gum stuck under your shoe. If you are in this state, you would do well to go back to that section on “believe you are worthy”. Starting with positive affirmations like “I like myself” every morning can ease your graduation to “I am beautiful”.

The beauty that I am talking about here is not the beauty of “supermodel” and “cover girl types. Of course, if you are blessed with such physical gifts, you are lucky. After all, being gorgeous never hurts. What I am talking about here is the beauty that emanates from you. No matter how you look like there is beauty inside you that is waiting to be released. Believe me, I am not just trying to be kind to the less endowed.

Have you ever wondered why some women whom you considered as “borderline” cases (short for almost ugly, and you were being kind) manage to get their fair share of attention from men? How often have you seen an “unattractive woman” in your standards being showered with so much love and attention by a man who wouldn’t even give you a second look?

I have often wondered about the mystique of these women myself. But now I think I have found the reason for their “attraction”. They are not beautiful (by the usual standards) but they radiate beauty! They believe they are beautiful beings that deserve the best in life. They are happy with themselves. Their looks aren’t perfect but their confidence and “no hang-up” approach to life attracts men. The positive energy that this self-confidence brings is infections. Remember that the world is your mirror. It simply reflects the way you feel about yourself.

You can radiate the same kind of beauty by building it up within yourself. Try saying “I am beautiful” while smiling to yourself in the mirror and before you retire to bed. Do this while appreciating the features that you like in your face, in your body.

I shared this “I am beautiful” exercise with a friend who has been overweight for some time. After a few weeks of doing affirmations, she was pleasantly surprised when her friends and colleagues started saying she was glowing and she looked younger. Some even said she was sexy, despite her weight.

After you have become comfortable with telling yourself you are beautiful, you can gradually ease into using affirmations as part of your daily life. You can add other things to say apart from “ I am beautiful”. You can start saying, “I am fit and healthy” if you want to lose weight. A good friend who believes in the power of affirmations swears by saying, “I look 10 years younger than my age” as the secret to her very youthful looks.

Make affirmations work for you

There is nothing complex about affirmations.

Affirmations are simply what we say or think. They are your statements about you and your outlook in life. It can be a means to skillfully transform the Energy in this Universe to manifest what we want in life.

The root word of affirmation is affirm, which means to validate, confirm, state positively.
Unfortunately, and maybe unconsciously, we use negative affirmations all the time. Are these familiar?

I hate myself
I look horrible
I hate my job
How can I do that? I am so stupid?
I am so unlucky. I meet all the horrible men all the time.
I will never lose weight.
Something bad always happens to me at this time of the year.

If you have read the previous section, you already know that these negative thoughts create your feelings, beliefs and experiences. If you examine your life now and find that you are experiencing all the things that you do not desire in your life, take time out to check out what you have been affirming.


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