The Billboard Manifestation Technique

I attended an amazing woman's retreat over the weekend. I had been looking forward to it all week but as Sunday neared, I found myself starting to make excuses. "I don't have time. My house is a disaster. I need to sleep in." My excuses began to pile up on top of each other. I began to wonder if I should reschedule it. But as I packed my bag to leave after my second cup of coffee, I remembered the famous Zen proverb that says, "You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day unless you are too busy- then you should sit for an hour." Clearly if I could not gift myself one day for self-care, then I needed two...or maybe twenty.

I am a single mom who often becomes lost in the shuffle of day to day life. I feel like I am being directed only by the kids' sports schedule and my To-Do List. But as I sat around a table in a breezy shelter house listening to a violin on a Sunday morning- I felt like I could breathe again.

One of gems that I discovered during the retreat is what I call the Billboard Technique (the real name is Future Pacing) created by Michele and Lauren Leach (www.wideopenheartproject.com). Michele is the founder of the Wide Open Heart Project, which is the retreat I was attending. She said that she and her daughter developed a fun twist on manifestation. They will call or text each other and say they are experiencing the completion of the other's goal. For example, Lauren will text Michele and say, "I am looking at the billboard of your Wide Open Heart Project and I feel so happy and proud knowing that you accomplished your goal." Then Michele will respond at a random time in the future and tell her daughter about the goal/dream that she saw come to fruition and how it made her feel.

I think this is genius for it applies all the rules about Manifesting.

1. They are seeing the completion vs saying "when this happens-" which pushes the intention further away.

2. They are feeling the emotion of the experiencing the end goal.

3. The intention is seeded in Love which is the vital ingredient to all manifestation.

I also love the playfulness of this technique because this is what opens the heart. I would add one more step for myself:

4. Say outloud or to myself, "I ask for this or something even better -beyond what I can think of."

It reminds me why I have a Magic Journal to note synchronicities, signs, and magic. What I have loved seeing is how they happen at the times I least expect them. It is not always when I am sitting cross legged on a meditation pillow at 5am. It happens when I'm sweaty and running to old dance music. It happens in chance meeting at fundraising event. I met my boyfriend a few years ago when he reached out to offer condolences to a woman he had never met. We later found out that we had actually lived next door to each other during my senior year of high school.

This is the magic of life. I wouldn't trade it for the world. So for this new technique... I'm excited to give it a try. After all, who knows where it might go.

© 2021 Regina Kitzmiller

photo above: Almos Bechtold / unsplash.com

photo below: Wide Open Heart Project Retreat August 2021