5 x 55

“Oh come on Meg, you don’t really believe in all that New Age bullshit do you? All that crystal healing and hippie crap?”, Simon said laughing, as he slugged the last drops of his pale ale from the glass in his right hand. He had a goofy grin on his face as he looked around the table waiting for my response. I didn’t know Simon all that well yet. He was a guy my roommate Lorna was seeing but from what I could gather of his personality so far, he was a bit too cocky and arrogant for my liking. I looked around the table at Lorna and Jake, our other room mate, then back at Simon before answering.

“I don’t think it’s bullshit at all actually. If you look into it properly with an open mind there’s lots of teachings and courses you can do that can actually help a lot of people in everyday life”, I replied, as I gathered up the tarot cards from the spread I had laid out on the table. Half embarrassed, half annoyed, I could feel that my cheeks had reddened at the judgement by a stranger of one of my hobbies. Lorna shuffled in her chair next to me and I could tell she felt uncomfortable at the tension between Simon and I. She had told me the night before that she really liked Simon and she wanted us all to get along well in case one day he was to become her actual official boyfriend and our 4th roommate.

“Oh you don’t have to pack it away Megs, Si was just joking”, Lorna said, putting her hand on my wrist to stop me from putting the cards back in their box. I looked at her and smiled and insisted it was fine before excusing myself from their company and retreating to the safety of my bedroom. It had taken me years to come out of the ‘spiritual closet’ and I felt this interaction, although small, had me feeling like retreating back into my shell. I knelt on the ground by my bed and pulled out a large storage tub from underneath it. I opened the lid to reveal at least another ten angel card and tarot card decks and put the one I had been using at the table back in its place with the others. I put the lid back on the tub and slid it under my bed. At that moment there was a knock at my door, I got up, walked across the room and opened it to see Jake standing there holding something in his hand. Jake was a surfer type guy who Lorna and I met while we were on holiday in Sydney about 5 years ago. He told us he had always wanted to move to the west coast of Australia and within 3 months of Lorna and I returning to Perth, Jake had booked his one-way ticket and became our 3rd roommate. He was a cool, kind and laid back guy, a good friend and a support you could always rely on. Sometimes these days, I found myself feeling closer to him than I did to Lorna.

“Hey Megs, don’t worry about Simon, he’s a bit of a drongo mate. Don’t let it bother you, he’s had one too many and showing off in front of Lorns, he’s just teasing”, Jake said, with a gentle pat to one of my shoulders. I smiled and nodded silently. I knew he was right and to be honest I was more upset that this would put a block on me developing a friendship with Simon more than anything else. I had the kind of personality trait that if my pride was dented in any way, I would find it hard not to push you into irrelevance and forget about building any kind of future relationship with you. Childish, I know. I’m working on it.

“Thanks mate”, I said to Jake smiling, as I went to shut my door. Before I could, he pushed the thing he was holding in his hand into mine. I looked down and saw it was a small, black leather journal with gold lettering embossed across the front saying ‘Manifestations’. I looked from it, to him and saw he had a large smile on his face.

“What’s this?”, I asked curiously.

“It’s my mum’s little black book. She was like you. You remind me a lot of her Megs. When I was growing up she used to write in this almost everyday. When she ran out of pages she started writing things on the computer, but over the years she’d always refer back to this. I don’t know if it’ll be of any use to you but I thought it’s better you have it and use it than it never being looked at by me. Maybe you can do something big with it”, Jake explained, as I flicked through the small treasure that rested in my hands. It was exquisite, truly unique and magical. All of it’s pages filled with drawings, spells, quotes, rituals and affirmations to the Universe to manifest good things into your life. I felt a tingling in my arms as I held it and appreciated all the work that went into creating it. I looked at Jake and hugged him.

“Oh my word. Thank you, it's amazing! I will read it cover to cover”, I said as we squeezed tight. He walked away and closing my door I had the immediate inclination to go straight to my desk and open it from the beginning.

Written across the first page was a sort of prologue by Jake’s mum, it read:

‘Dear One,

You have the wish and desire to attract abundance to your life.

The Universe has many secrets to release and share but it takes a particular soul to access these treasures. You must believe beyond belief that you are worthy and entitled to whatever it is you can imagine in your mind's eye. Let me share some practices with you that reside in my little black book and watch the Universe deliver your wildest manifestations directly to your reality.

It’s not magic or ideology, this is your life and you are in control of it.

Your wish is your command!

Love and eternal blessings.

Lydia’.

I loved the book instantly and reading these words from Lydia truly resonated with me. I had thought about and read about abundance and manifestation before, but had never tried to do it myself. This little black book had suddenly awoken a curiosity and wonder in me and I decided right there and then that I would give it a go. I turned each page and read through the book cover to cover. There were lots of rituals I could do but I needed certain things like crystals or candles, particular leaves and herbs. Since I didn’t have some of those things on hand, I decided to try one of the money affirmations, I mean who couldn’t use a little extra money in their bank account? I had student loans I was still paying off and a dream to visit Malta and Greece in the near future, so I grabbed a piece of paper and my nicest pen and read page 55.

55 x 5

‘This manifestation technique is all about aligning your subconscious belief system with any amount of money you feel you deserve to manifest into your life.

Over 5 consecutive days you will write an affirmation down 55 times to retrain your subconscious mind into believing it is possible.

Your subconscious brain doesn't know time or reality. It doesn't know the difference between physically feeling something or just thinking about it.

This makes it very easy to retrain and align, as what you say to it or what you tell it, it will believe.

The only question is …..how much do you desire?’

I bit down on the tip of my pen as I racked my brain for a suitable, and most importantly, a believable amount to try and manifest. I still owed about $8,000 on my student loan and when I enquired at the travel agents about the Greece and Malta tour I wanted to take next year they said I would need around $10,000 to have a comfortable trip and cover any insurance I needed. I wasn’t a greedy person so I decided that a sum of $20,000, if this actually worked, would be very beneficial indeed. I looked at my desk calendar. It was the 5th of May. In 5 days it would be the 10th of May. I looked at the plain white sheet of paper in front of me and started to write my affirmation 55 times one after the other all the way down the page.

‘I am truly grateful to have $20,000 in my bank account’

I kept it short and simple and stuck to writing the affirmation 55 times for 5 days in a row. I’m not going to lie, it felt like writing lines at first and almost a little bit silly, but over the days, as I wrote and rewrote it, I actually did start to believe this simple statement to be true. The 5 days passed quite quickly and uneventfully, in fact, the whole month did, as did the months after that too. The money hadn’t yet manifested making me think that perhaps I had done something wrong or maybe I had to repeat the process every month until it happened, even still, I could see in my mind’s eye the money sitting there in my bank account.

Over the months that had passed, Simon and Lorna had become official boyfriend and girlfriend and so he had moved in with us by the time my birthday came around on the 11th November. I hadn’t planned a party or anything but I wanted the four of us to have a nice meal and watch a movie. Simon and I weren’t besties but we managed to be friendly enough for Lorna’s sake, we just had 2 very different personalities and came to agree to disagree on a lot of things. Lorna had made a birthday cake for me and Jake made my favourite pasta recipe, and so it had fallen to Simon to wrap and give me my present from the three of them. He handed me a small package wrapped in white paper that had ‘Happy Birthday’ written all over it in fuchsia pink lettering.

“There you go Meg, Happy Birthday! It's not just from me, it’s from all of us but I did pick it out for you. Hope you like it”, Simon said as he smiled knowingly. He looked proud of himself and I instantly wondered what on Earth it could be! I smiled around the table and thanked them all as I began to open the present. To my surprise it was a small wooden box with a beautiful large citrine crystal inside. I picked it up in my hands and felt the weight and natural coolness of it on my palms.

“Oh wow guys it’s beautiful! A citrine, the crystal associated with money! It’s gorgeous, I love it. Thank you so much”, I said enthusiastically.

“There’s something else too, a little extra for good luck”, said Jake as he motioned to the wooden box. There was a folded up piece of paper on the bottom of the box which the citrine had been sitting on top of. I pulled it out and it was a Saturday Lotto ticket for that night. Draw number 550505. The three of them had picked the numbers for the lines randomly. As we watched the draw and ticked off the winning numbers, it felt amazing to know that somehow the Universe had responded to my subconscious and that I was in fact, truly grateful to have $20,000 in my bank account.