I severed my relationship with cigarettes on Christmas Day a little over six years ago.

I didn’t tell a soul about it for two months—except for a friend who also opted to sever hers and joined me in my house for three days.

I decided that I didn’t want the “quitting” energy—which already carries a certain level of density—to be even more inflated with time and energy spent talking about it, thinking about it, obsessing about it. I just wanted to be free. So, I decided to focus on that and not tell anyone.

Some things in life are only as big as we make them out to be. The energy something carries is only as strong as the energy and time we put into it.

And the effect our thoughts and words have on a situation is grossly underrated. As is the power of our emotions.

This is because everything is energy. Our bodies, our thoughts, our environment. You don’t have to be a “spiritual” or “metaphysical” person to pick up on the subtle energies carried by people, places or things. As a Reiki practitioner, I see it often with people who feel the overwhelming and unconscious desire to get rid of certain things and avoid certain places, or find themselves feeling the emotions of others.

Any goal shared accumulates a collective consciousness consisting of all the thoughts, fears, love and energy of everyone privy to its actualization. Who we choose to share our dreams with is vitally important to its success and intended manifestation.

People may wish us well and want only the best for us, but if they are harboring fears about our potential failure or believe our new venture will be an extremely difficult one, it will build the energy of adversity.

Energy is an intelligent and delicate thing. It moves swiftly and is directed by our thoughts and emotions.

If I think, “I don’t want to be late for work. I can’t be late for work again. I’m not going to go be late,” I can expect to be late again. The reason being that my thoughts are still focused on “being late.” The emotion behind these statements is fear and guilt because of frequent tardiness.

Reading that right now as I sit here typing, my stomach feels tense and my breathing shallow. If I take a deep breath and think about getting to work on time, arriving early and having a few extra moments to gather my thoughts and things, I instantly feel lighter. My fight or flight response is not engaged and I am emanating an energy of fluidity, calm, peace, confidence—an overall higher vibration.

It goes beyond negative and positive. Those terms are frivolously and poorly used as a superficial description to an emotion or situation. There is no black and white, good or bad. It is a spectrum we are constantly moving along, to and fro.

A new idea or goal when in its infancy is delicate and requires a level of nurturing sometimes only ourselves and the universal creative energies can provide. It is important to be mindful of who we bring into the growth process and when.   Those first few people we open up to help lay the foundation on which we will move forward. I usually choose those I know will share my enthusiasm and have exhibited an unswerving love and support for me time and time again. People I know, without a doubt, will wish me only the very best and let it go.

I make a point to not disclose my new divinely-inspired ideas to anyone right away, ever. I first spend time in meditation and prayer. I “sit with it” a bit and feel it out intuitively. Manifesting is about bringing a thought or idea from the ethers of the unseen into the physical world. It’s all about the energy and how we direct it and being ever so mindful of the subtle emotions we are carrying around it.

In the simplest of terms, first we must know what we want and think of that when we find other things crossing our mind. Second, keep those desires to ourselves for a bit, nurturing them with love and faith, being mindful if there is any underlying fear lurking. Third, if we find ourselves unable to stop thinking about what we desire, we need to divert our energy and focus to something else entirely—preferably something productive, as it is a great way to loosen our grip on the situation and allow the universe to work its magic. If we are anxiously awaiting a phone call about an exciting opportunity and find ourselves frequently consumed with thoughts and worry, we can redirect that energy into cooking, painting, or looking for a new class to get involved in.

That is the art of letting go.

We are powerful, each and every one of us, and our individual and collective thoughts and emotions are constantly shaping our inner and outer world. We give a little bit of our creative power away to each person we include in our goals and dreams—choosing mindfully makes all the difference.

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Author: Dottie Hollingsworth

Editor: Nicole Cameron

Image: Nick Fisher/Flickr