Brenda What kind of a life do you want to live? Luxurious, easy, everything done for you? That kind of life usually requires a lot of money, and for most people, it’s not a realistic goal. I’m not judging it. I just believe that life is about choosing what kind of struggle you’re willing to have, because every life has them.
But if what you want is a fulfilled life—not a life of constant ease, but one with meaning and depth—then it’s far more attainable than you might think.
Did you know that what your life becomes begins in your mind?
Yes, I know all the stuff about manifestation, that’s not what I’m talking about, or maybe not what you think it means. I’m talking about a different kind of manifestation. It’s one where you build the runway before the plane lands in full expectation of that landing. Let me explain.
I jumped on the manifestation train long before it became almost the norm. I watched The Secret and thought, “Is that all I have to do, imagine the life I want?” As a writer, I have a fabulous imagination, so I figured I had this nailed. And I even proved it to myself.
My now ex and I went on a trip to Leavenworth, Washington. We were actually planning to go to Seattle, but snow in the mountains had put paid to that plan, so we rolled with it and ended up in a Christmas story of a town that we’d never been to before. We didn’t have a lot of money, so we needed to find an economical hotel, but every place we drove by looked expensive. I laughed as I thought about my brave words earlier in the drive.
“Do you believe you can manifest things?” My husband asked me.
“Yes, of course, I do. I’ve been doing it my whole life, I just didn’t know what it was called.” We had just finished watching The Secret a few weeks before the trip, so it was on our mind. It was also on our minds because more than anything I wanted to manifest a life in the Mediterranean.
“Well, how about you manifest something on this trip,” he challenged me.
I took the bait with a flourish, determined and reckless. “Okay, I’m going to manifest a dream hotel room.”
He laughed knowing full well that we didn’t have a “dream hotel” budget, but he listened as I continued.
“Okay. I settled in and thought. “The hotel room will have a four-poster bed, a fireplace, a large jacuzzi tub, a balcony, and … a bidet!” I finished with a flash of insight.
“A bidet? You know we don’t have them here.”
“Yes. I know that. But it wouldn’t be much of a challenge if I didn’t pick something hard or even impossible to find, would it?”
He couldn’t disagree, but I could see the skepticism on his face. He was the one who first introduced manifestation to me, but even his faith was stretched too far on this one.
By the time we got to Leavenworth after the detour, we were tired and I’d pretty much forgotten about our conversation. We pulled up to the first hotel and I waited in the car while my husband went inside to enquire about a room. He came out with a huge grin on his face.
“What?” I asked him as he drove us into the parking area.
“Well, they just so happen to have a special on right now. Their honeymoon suite is regular room pricing.”
I grinned at him. “Well isn’t that funny. I wonder what it looks like.”
He shook his head at me. “I still don’t think it will have all that you named, but already I’ve got goosebumps. It’s only $100 per night. So, don’t get too excited. For that price, it can’t be that special.”
We took our bags in and made our way to the room. He unlocked the door and gasped as we entered. There in front of us was a huge four-poster bed. Not your average style of bed in a hotel anywhere. A fireplace sat opposite and to the left of the fireplace, a huge jacuzzi tub. On the other side of the bed were balcony doors opening up to a large balcony with a full view of the picturesque, snowy courtyard below. We stood in stunned silence a moment then my husband gave me the oddest look, like he might be slightly afraid of me.
I grinned at him, delighted, and said, “Okay, now the bathroom.”
“There’s no way …”
He rushed into the bathroom at my excited yelp. “It has a bidet!”
“No fucking way…” Now he really looked scared. “I don’t believe it, Brenda. How? It has everything you said it would and you’ve never been to this hotel or this town.”
“I didn’t even know this town existed.”
“Exactly.”
I shrugged. “Well, you’re the one who told me manifestation works.”
“Yeah,” he said, “But I wasn’t sure I believed it until now.”
Honestly, at this point, I think the universe was just showing off. It led me to the place I’m at now. I don’t always manifest things like this, but it was fun to realize I could. After this point, I couldn’t seem to manifest anything, or that’s what I thought. I spent the next 10+ years traveling Europe, getting divorced from my husband, dating a while, meeting the man who truly matched me, going back to Europe, struggling harder than I ever have, landing a book deal, to arrive where I am now.
All of it came with a ton of struggle, and I wouldn’t change a single day. I’m honest when I say that it included some of the biggest challenges I’ve ever faced. So why wouldn’t I change it? Because I’ve never been so content or fulfilled in my life. I said we have to choose the struggle, right?
My struggle has always been making a living. I’ve never wanted to be rich and I enjoy the physical labor of gardening, cleaning my own house, making bread, and all the domestic tasks that often seem to belong to the past. I don’t mind those struggles. What I’ve always wanted is a peaceful life. But to attain that peace, I had to deal with the chaos that was inside.
And that was the reason for all the struggles. I needed to build the runway before the plane could land. What was the runway? I needed to have peace inside before I could have peace without.
This is what I mean about building the runway. How can you have a peaceful life if you don’t have peace inside? Or how can you attract a wonderful partner if you’re not the type of person they would be attracted to? This was the real secret that the movie didn’t share. It’s not just about thinking your way to the manifestation, it’s aligning yourself to it.
It makes me think of that line from Field of Dreams: “Build it and they will come.” You can’t expect the dream to show up in an empty field fully formed. That’s just not realistic. But if you do the inner work, the outer dream can manifest.
Have I arrived at the dream? No. And I never will. Life isn’t about arriving, it’s about the journey. Because arriving only happens when you die.
Work on building that runway so the life you want to live, along with the struggles you choose, will be able to land. I’m living the life I want to live. There are struggles.
I don’t have running water inside my house because we are renovating a hundreds-of-years-old house! But I don’t mind that struggle because I get to live in peace in a beautiful Byzantine Greek village. I have my garden outside my kitchen doors and nature around me. I have a partner who has the same dreams and gets me like no one ever has, and loves me more than I could have dreamed. I have a sweet little cat who makes us laugh and brightens even the most gloomy day.
All those years ago when I dreamed of living in Europe and getting a book deal one day … that plane landed.
