Know how you know you’re letting your soul-self drive? That divine truth part of you that knows how to steer the ship of your life better than your (magnificent) human self could ever figure out how to?

Life gets magical.

Not necessarily Hogwarts-with-a-wand style magic (although I wouldn’t dare to rule it out), but that synchronistic, miraculous, beautiful, serendipitous kind.

Sometimes it’s just little things, like seeing 11:11 on the clock, or thinking about a friend and then getting a text from them. Just little things that make you smile.

And sometimes it’s just serendipity. An unexpected thing showing up that’s so perfect you couldn’t have come up with it with your brain-self if you tried.

I remember camping with my best friend in high school up in Big Sur California. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s on the mid-California coast, and basically consists of a windy road next to a cliff that drops down to the beach. There are redwood forests and campgrounds and a couple of hotels/motels, a restaurant and bookstore that share the same parking lot, and not a whole lot more.

I was seventeen, and it was just the two of us and her giant Ford station wagon staying in a treeless, cliff top camping site several hours away from our hometown. Staying up late, cooking our own food, listening to our favorite music and just being ourselves without adult supervision. There was a trail down to the beach, with tiny yellow wildflowers poking out from the rocks, and perfect spots to sit and watch the waves under the shadow of the rocky walls on which our site was perched.

It was perfect.

Now my friend had another good friend that we ran with sometimes, and Bow mentioned not having talked to her for a while, which was really weird, as they were pretty close. She was starting to be a little concerned.

As we pulled into the parking lot to The Phoenix bookstore, in the space facing our car was this friend and her mother. They were passing through on their way somewhere else, I believe, and had stopped in the restaurant for lunch and were just headed out.

We chatted for a minute or two, then went on with our day. We didn’t talk about it much, because there wasn’t much to say, but we were utterly dumbstruck.

Magic.

Other times several events line up so that amazing wonderful things you’ve always dreamed of synchronize and align in just the right way to allow unbelievable things to just fall in your lap.

Like the time my sister had the notion of changing jobs way back in the back of her mind but really just wanted some cash in her bank account for once. She was excited about a fun meeting she was going into with a client one morning, then suddenly and unexpectedly got laid off. With six month’s severance. And within 4 hours of that, a client company she adored working with hired her to work for them with the same salary. She never even had a day off in between…

Magic. It really happens.

And yet I know my life can feel off track once in a while, and I get into the “struggle zone,” where I get caught in the illusion that I’ve done something wrong or I’m not enough or not worthy and the magic tap dries to a trickle.

Which is completely okay, it really is, but it isn’t as fun.

And yet sometimes I, too, can fall into the trap of beating myself up about it a bit, out of sheer habit. So I’ve learned to guide myself back out of the loop in various ways, and I’ll share some with you here:

I’ve started keeping a journal (not just a notebook, a fancy, shiny, bound book) of only the magical and miraculous moments in my life. Every time I have moments like the story I just recounted. Every synchronicity and shocking “coincidence.” Every time 3 of the same digits lines up. Every penny I find in the street. Every friend that calls or texts while I was thinking of them.
I read the Magical Moments Journal to remind myself just how miraculous my life really is.
I take a walk with an artist’s eye. I notice how the drops of water on the bare trees look like fairy lights, or how the several blocks in front of me are framed by trees like a tunnel. I notice colors, I touch the shrubs and grasses as I pass them. I feel into the world around me.
I put on music I can sing with. Something I know more than a line of. Something happy that suits my voice and that I enjoy singing. Then I sing it. (The cats hate this one.)

Life is supposed to be delightful, surprising, beautiful. Magic is what happens when we let go of trying to Make Stuff Happen and allow our dreams and wishes to be realized before we even know we were wishing or dreaming of it.

The more we’re able to allow ourselves to stay in this state of innocent wonder and appreciation, the more astonishing and bounteous it becomes.

And our human selves will always be able to come up with reasons why we can’t stay there. Reasons why we have to start using our heads instead of our hearts and souls to drive, reasons why we’ll only be safe if we let our human side run our lives.

But the more time we spend in our Magical, Sovereign, Truth of our Being place, the more the nervous system starts to accept that things feel safer, run more smoothly, are more enjoyable when we’re there, and we actually start building the neural pathways that let us go there more easily and stay there longer.

So it really is worth the effort. And by effort I really mean the inspired dedication to shifting our focus off of our struggle. To breathing, slowing down, and moving into the present moment where the magic lives when the stories and programming of times past want to take us over.

It isn’t always easy to do, but it does get easier the more you do it. In fact, it’s actually much easier to be in that state of alignment and presence that it is to resist it. We’re just used to all the effort and pushing against everything and we’ve just gotten used to it being hard.

We often just don’t even know how to let it go.

So it’s a practice. A practice of coming back to a place that’s fun, that’s easy and effortless. A practice of allowing the magic to unfold for us instead of needing to control every crease.

A practice that pays off in really big ways. Really big. Because you’re that powerful, that worthy, that magnificent. Truly. And when you can get there, can start knowing the truth of it and letting it in, the lack and limitation vanishes and all that good stuff rushes in.

And it’s okay if you find you’re not there some of the time. You’re building a muscle. That takes repetition. It takes rest in between.

But seriously, I recommend getting yourself a lovely little notebook and start writing down all the magic, the beauty, the serendipitous things that land in your life every day. And when they don’t seem to be landing, open it up and see the evidence that’s already presented itself.

You’ll be glad that you did.

Magical Living, Practically

Emerging in a New Way

Walking With the Moon