Category Archives: New Universe

Wielding money as an artist wields paint

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National Currencies

Money is such a big topic, I’ve been looking around for a metaphor that can free us, shift our understanding so that we can relate more powerfully to this vital resource.

As I look around me, I see many people who believe that money limits or enables the things they do with their lives. My view is different. I see money as a symptom, rather than a cause.

If we are afraid to step out and do what we are called to do, money steps in to protect us, usually by its scarcity – we can’t do what we “want” to do, it seems, because we haven’t got the money.

If we step out boldly, confident in making those dreams happen, money falls into line, either working well, or proving not to be necessary.

Money is always a symptom, never a cause.

I’ve been playing with the metaphor of money as being like air – we certainly need air to be creative: a lack of it stunts our creativity rapidly. What if we thought of money as we think of air, something we trust so much that we cease to think about it, breathing it in as we need it, breathing it out as we’re done with it, ready to take the next breath when it comes, knowing it will be there?

This goes some way towards freeing us of the “money as a limiting resource” idea, but I feel it misses something, relegates money to being a one-dimensional thing, a “have or have not” commodity, when the possibilities are so much more exciting.

What if we thought about money as an artist thinks about paint, and wielded it just as consciously? What if we saw that money has infinite facets and nuances and aspects to it, as paint has endless variety of colour and shade and texture?

Think of how an artist selects paint, going to an art supply store – shrines of sacred creativity, hushed and full of awe and vibrant life – and looks through all the varieties on offer. It is a creative act in itself, perhaps testing samples on paper, between fingers, revelling in the colours and the gloss of the fresh wetness, the jewel-like shine of light and highlight reflecting back the point-sources from the light fittings in the store, or the natural light filtering in the windows.

Imagine how artists explore fellow-artists’ supplies, the excited discussions when a new variety is found, poring over palette and canvas and tube.

Artists care very much about this raw material, and are very conscious of the quality they bring into their creations.

Then once the paint is selected, look at how they wield it. Art is not just about the paint, but about the subtleties of where and how it is placed on the canvas, how the colours interact, how the shapes form into what we perceive as images.

Think of how the artist feels as they work, and how that feeling translates intangibly into the result; the work of art holds the energy of the artist and the moment of creation, translated through atoms and molecules and shapes and textures, and the miraculous play of light on it all. In inspired works of art, the artist connects with their deep self, and the deeper consciousness of the universe, and transfers that energy into their work.

What if we consciously transferred our creative energy into our lives as we spend?

My point is that life could be magnificently enhanced if we poured this level of conscious awareness and connectedness into how we draw money into our lives, and how we spend it, thinking of it as an artist thinks about their art, as a creative act, a means of creating our lives and our world. What are we doing to earn it, and how conscious are we as we do those things; where are we looking for it, who holds the supply we tap into; and how do we spend it, what sort of activity are we supporting with our life-giving supply?

What if we considered that money holds and carries energy, of the hands it has passed through, the things it has paid for, the creations or destructions it has enabled, the intentions of the people it has supported?

Another thing: an artist trusts the supply of paint. The foremost question in creating the work of art is not: “Do I have enough?” but “How am I going to use it to express myself, my heart, my joy, my sorrow, my deeply felt sense of the world?”

If we saw money as the artist sees paint, what would alter, how would the world change?

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Sustained extreme happiness

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Here’s another excerpt from Easy – Deconstructing the Art of Effortless Creation. It comes after all the stuff about making the practical aspects of life easy: projects, time, possessions, etc, and encapsulates my vision and hope for the deeper side of life…

First edit is complete. Thinking about publication early July.

Chapter 45 Sustained Extreme Happiness

There’s one more chapter I want to add before the end. It doesn’t quite come into the category of making life easy, but it is certainly important for making life worthwhile.

The last few months have been rough ones for me. That thing I alluded to about adding unnecessary complexity to my relationships and emotions has been playing out on a massive scale.

Now, I know that I create whatever I want in life; I choose how I feel, how I respond to the things that happen around me, the circumstances of my life. So for a long time I asked myself: why would I choose grief? Why would I choose pain when I could choose happiness and peace. I know they exist; I know I could create them. So why not?

But somehow, the idea of “happiness” just didn’t attract me. After the intensity of the everyday experience I was creating with my grief, how could mere happiness compare?

In common human experience, there are two experiences we associate with vivid happiness: new love and new babies. All other forms, as far as I could remember, tended to deliver a much milder form. Nothing special. Nothing wildly exciting. And that’s what I craved.

Then I stopped myself. I recognised a semantic pattern, a resignation to something just because it was common in the status quo. I was assuming that just because sustained extreme happiness was not common in the world, I could not create it. But of course I could.

So here I am, having formed the idea of sustained extreme happiness. People I tell about it respond sceptically at best. There’s the caution of someone confronted with mania, fearing the depression which traditionally follows.

But why shouldn’t I create this? We see prolonged grief all the time. I myself have lived it, brilliantly, for months on end. Why not flip the coin, live the other side. The intensity is possible, we all know that; it’s just the flavour that would be different.

Having seen the vision, I’m certain it’s possible. Having chosen it for myself, and, by contagion, for the people around me, I am sure it’s on its way. There are clear moments of it already, glimpses of how it looks in reality, how it feels, how it is.

I’m eager to see the form it takes longer term, the circumstances of life that form around the central emotional experience. Life is already pretty good here: close relationships, physical expression, beautiful environment, work I love, plenty of time and money, and vibrant good health.

What more is possible? Watch this space.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Dream Project Challenge

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What if the thing you thought would take your whole life could be done in ten months, in half an hour a day? What would you do then?

Consider the possibility that everything is much, much, much easier than it seems. I have this theory that everything is easy. It’s just our way of looking at things that makes them seem as they seem.

I’ll get into the history and origins in a minute; first, here are the guidelines of the Challenge itself:

Dream Project Challenge Guidelines

1. Be a busy, successful person, with lots of great stuff happening in your life
2. Think of or recall a Dream Project, one you’ve had shelved for a long time, or never really thought you would be able to do, or perhaps never thought you would have time for
3. Commit half an hour a day to that project – think where you could find half an hour a day, if you really wanted to, if that meant this Dream Project could become reality
4. Do half an hour each day, each day thinking what is the best use of that half hour to move the project forward
5. At the end of the half hour, stop! Experience the magic of what can be achieved in a tiny amount of time, once you allow it

Then rinse and repeat. You can miss one day if you need to, but never two in a row – the magic is in reconnecting with the project daily, even if that’s just talking about it to a friend, a colleague or a stranger…

And then, would you do me a favour?

There are a couple of extra things I’d love you to do, once you get into the challenge itself: first, let me know what you’re up to – I’m collecting stories for a book, and I’d love to hear yours. Email me with your project, and update me with your progress. If you like I’ll add you to the Facebook group, so you can share what you are doing with others.

And second, issue the challenge yourself, personally, to the people you know who have bigger dreams, bigger capacity than they are currently living, people who could do more, love more, change the world faster than perhaps even they know is possible. They might already be doing huge, amazing things, and you know they would love the challenge to do more, in a different way. Send them to this page, and tell them to get going!

So how did it all start?

I was on the train back from the airport yesterday. My husband, daughter and I had spent a few days in Florence looking at art.

Paul was asking me about my New Universe, how it works, and I was describing the idea of projects in the new paradigm, not problem-based, but creating without historic constraints. In the New Universe, as I see it, we create whatever we can dream of, according to positive constraints we set ourselves.

So here’s what I said.

“You need to get people’s minds to shift, to see how things can be easy. If you put people in the same office, working the same hours, they’ll continue to work the same way – you can give them a new job title but nothing fundamental will change. You have to change something fundamental – like tell them they’ve only got half an hour a day to work on a project. Then they’ll do something different.”

“And you’ve tried this, you’ve tried it out on people?”

At this point I got grumpy. “I’ve done it myself, with my books. And I’ve suggested it to people. But no, I haven’t conducted any kind of systematic experiment.” I stared out the train window, feeling inadequate.

And then I thought, why not? Why not conduct a systematic experiment? There are plenty of people I could ask who would rise to the challenge. I’m looking for the examples that push the envelope – what’s possible, not what’s guaranteed. It’s easy, like everything – issue the challenge, let people be inspired by what they themselves can achieve.

So here I am, issuing the challenge. What could you achieve in half a hour a day? Why not try it, see for yourself, and then let the whole world know about it?

Let me know about your Dream Project by email, or message me via Facebook and if you’d like information on how to get personal support, see the Dream Projects page.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…