I have a secret weapon. It's one I've known about for a long time but never really believed in. Something I always thought was good in theory, but a little cheesy in practice. Something I might think about on my own, but would feel uncomfortable or embarrassed talking to people about.

But hey, it's working, so I'd be doing a disservice to the people that I love (THAT'S YOU!) if I didn't speak up! Positive thinking, manifestation, metaphysical practice, call it what you want, I'm telling you this sh*t works.

Almost a year ago my sister gave me a book that has literally changed my life. It's called "The Game of Life and How to Play it" and it was written by Florence Scovel Shinn. (If you're gonna buy it I actually recommend just going ahead and getting the complete works, it's so worth it. Also worth mentioning, if you're female, get this one, for women.)

Florence Scovel Shinn wrote this book in 1925, which I think is so cool. It's amazing how totally relevant it still is today.  I also love that it's biblically based. Growing up as the daughter of a hippy, I can very much get down with a self help love fest, but as I became a Christian late in high school, I also love seeing where these self help practices align with what Jesus taught. 

The book basically shows you to change all of your negative thoughts into positive ones. Simple sounding but challenging to try to put into practice. That's why this book is so great. It's full of real life examples of how people have turned their entire lives around doing just that, and also full of statements of faith to try out yourself. 

So my new routine is that every morning I sit down first thing with my coffee and I read one chapter of the book. I've read it many times over now, but I re read these chapters just to get my head in the right space first thing every morning. I love starting my day this way, it trains my subconscious to expect the great things that are coming to me every day. And guess what? It's working.

A few months ago I started a journey to read and listen to everything I could on creative entrepreneurs. I was about to start this blog, something I have no experience in, and I wanted to get inspired by learning about other people's stories. And as I was listening to these podcasts featuring wildly successful (we're talking millionaires and billionaires) business men and women, so many of them had this one thing in common.

They were all talking about journaling... (Record Player Scratch) Ok... stay with me, I know this seems like it's going off track. But so many of them were saying that they started every morning writing in their journal, all the things that they were trying to achieve, but as if they already had them and were full of gratitude. (This sort of thinking goes back to books like "The Secret") And these things were happening to them, they were coming true.

Well, being in a career where I feel like I'm waiting on so many other people and so much of my music career feels out of my control or at times pretty damn unfair, I thought this would be a great thing for me to try out. So the entire month of April I committed to this practice.

Every morning I sit down, read one chapter of "The Complete Writings of Florence Scovell Shinn for Women", and then I write in my journal all the things I want to achieve as if I already had them. Some examples some of the business people were writing were things like: 

"I only fly first class." or "I thankfully accept $20,000 a month into my personal bank account." Lofty huh!!!??? I thought so too. But the book teaches that there is an endless supply for all of us and also basically says most of us aren't dreaming big enough. She says a lot of us are "building a bungalow in our minds when we should be building a castle." Ha. I love that!

I couldn't recommend this book and this practice enough. I'll wait to share more with you guys, but just know it is really working for me. In just a month and a half of doing this, I've made some business deals that seem like a literal miracle. I've been more successful in the last month than I was in the entire last year, so you can bet I will be keeping it up.

I would love to know what you guys think of positive thinking and manifesting? Are there any books or podcasts I should check out? I'm SO thankful I started to put these beliefs into practice and would love to know how you guys are doing it too!

All my 💖,

Ruthie