Have you ever experienced a mani-flood? A mani-flood is my term for a manifestation pile up where suddenly everything you’ve wanted for a while comes gushing into your life. Let me tell you about my super, amazing 40th year in the jungle of time and space. What a ride!
I could sense things were coming. I had been experiencing feelings of excitement and anticipation shortly after I started to prioritize practices like taking action, showing up, and finding joy each day. And then, “click” just like a switch it all started to flow in! After only living deliberately for a short while this stuff happened and I couldn’t have made it up, I swear.
On my 40 th birthday my partner planned a surprise party for me. A surprise party – for me! My two brothers flew in from out of town and joined us and some special friends for shenanigans. I felt drenched in love. It couldn’t have been a better birthday bash or start to the year!
About a week later, that same partner, the stellar guy who broke my 7-years-since-I’ve-had-a-decent-relationship dry spell from Colorado (I live in Canada – we met a couple of years prior on a Costa Rican Sunset Cruise which is another ridiculously awesome story) proposed. Secretly wearing that phony engagement ring around the house paid off!
A few months later, while I was still 40, (but no longer a single, lonely, cat lady) we eloped in the countryside and had the most romantic weekend of our lives. Our anniversary will be easy to remember because two weeks after we got married, we found out that we were pregnant! The baby clothes I had purchased were going to be worn!
We were so thrilled that we took a honeymoon adventure to a tropical island in Nicaragua where we celebrated under palm trees with faux champagne and caviar! Upon our return, and still in my 40th year, my new life partner hustled to get his Canadian permanent residency card so that he could live and work in Canada without any issues. Holy moly that process isn’t at all straight forward but we got it done and life was (and totally *is*) freaking awesome.
And then we decided that since we had eloped, we wanted to make special trips to celebrate our marriage with our families, but we wanted to make it easy for them. So that same year we managed to go to Minnesota to celebrate with my partner’s family, and then we went to the east coast of Canada, Nova Scotia, to celebrate with mine. We made some beautiful memories!
Next, and still at 40 with a bun in the oven, we figured that our 1000 square foot home might be a bit snug with our new creation coming along so… we got a dog! Molly, a lovely Portuguese Water Dog landed in our laps as a gift so we welcomed her with open arms. She’s the best dog ever of course (she was envisioned)!
Then, we seriously addressed our space concerns with a real-estate juggling act, eventually selling our little house just in time to buy a beautiful home on a gorgeous lake surrounded by nature and unbeknownst to us at the time of purchase, new and amazing friends to boot!
Before moving into our dream home, still that same year, we compiled our extremely generous financial gifts in celebration of our marriage. Given the new house is up in the hills and with Canadian winters being what they may, we decided to use our gifts to buy a safe, new car (mega upgrade from the little hatchback!) to take us up and down the hills without a hitch!
And finally, with the best man on earth at my side, and our new dog and car in the driveway, at nine months pregnant and 40 years old, we moved into our lakefront home! It was quite the year (understatement), and wouldn’t you know, the best was yet to come…
A month after moving in I turned 41 and some days later our healthy, smart, beautiful baby boy was born. Any question I had about my power, any uncertainty whatsoever, vanished.
How on earth could it not?!
Before I turned 40, life looked nothing like what it does today. The evidence of my ability to lead my life to greatness is everywhere. It flows in bucketloads some days, some weeks, and some years like my 40th, and other times it comes in gentle droplets meeting me wherever, or with whatever I’m ready to accept and welcome into my life. And therein lies the key to the mani-flood. Once you’ve got everything else down (meditating, gratituding, visualizing, thinking intentionally, believing and acting) replace all and any resistance with appreciative acceptance, and… Voila!
I’ll see ya on the rapids. Woohoo!
