Main Dish

This is the second of three articles featuring highlights of my recent interview with Anita Moorjani, best-selling author of Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer to Near Death to True Healing. Anita was healed of stage 4 terminal cancer through a consciousness-expanding near death experience that opened her to the realization of who she is, and who we all are: magnificent beings whose very essence is love. Not only did that profound realization heal the cancer, it awakened her to a deep knowing of the joy-filled purpose of our lives, which is to express our unique magnificence. In this article I’ll share Anita’s perspective on manifesting our desires.

How many times have you said to yourself, or been told by others, that you have to go after what you want, to pursue success and “make things happen” if you want a fulfilling life? This is a commonly held perspective in our goal-oriented culture that still prizes rugged individualism and a “pick-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps” mentality. But what if there is a more elegant and harmonious way to manifests our desires and create lives we truly love? What if the whole idea of “making things happen” runs counter to the way our universe actually works? What if our lives are supposed to be filled with joy rather than struggle?
Anita Moorjani believes we are meant to live joyful lives, an understanding she gained through her near death experience (NDE) which she expanded on with great wisdom and eloquence in our recent conversation. The fact that so many of us are not living in joy does not prove it isn’t possible or realistic; it simply reflects the all-too-common circumstance of our forgetting who we are – forgetting that we are magnificent beings who are deserving of good things coming to us.

I can remember being exposed to that radical idea when I was a student at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. To me it made immediate, intuitive sense and I’ve devoted my life and work to learning how to live from that truth. Talking with Anita was profoundly moving for me because she IS living from that truth, and it’s as if I could feel the vibration of it resonating within me through our connection. As I ponder the “right” words and phrases with which to communicate my understanding of what she shared, my hope is that you, too, will resonate with the energy of the message and begin to feel the truth of your own worthiness to live a joy-filled life.

And that is where it all begins, according to Anita: with a feeling – or at least a willingness to cultivate the feeling – of being worthy and deserving. As I shared in last month’s column, Anita suggests that the simplest way to honor yourself and your inherent worth is to be mindful of your true feelings, to be willing to ask why you do what you, whether you are considering something as mundane as going to a cocktail party or contemplating one of life’s bigger decisions, such as whether to change careers: are your choices being made out of love, or out of fear? Since our very core – our essence – is love, the only way to live a truly authentic life is to live from love. And as Anita says, that translates into being ourselves in every moment, honoring and coming into alignment with our inner truth.
This is where it gets really interesting. Because we are living in an energy-based, interconnected universe, coming into inner alignment creates shifts in the fabric of consciousness that generate reflective shifts in our outer world. (Did you get that?) Here is a perfect example of what I mean, which Anita told me about during our interview: Some time after her NDE, when she was fully healed from cancer and beginning to share her story with the world via her blog, a group of skeptics began harshly criticizing her. They believed she was instilling false hope in people with cancer and wasn’t offering anything useful, since her experience wasn’t immediately replicable in a scientifically-controlled-experiment kind of way. At first she began defending her position, but quickly recognized that as a fear-based response pulling her into an old attack/defense dynamic that was leading nowhere. So she stepped back.

She stopped blogging for several months and used that time to go deeply within herself, to center again in her truth. And she came to the realization that, not only had her NDE been authentic to her and very real, her desire to share her story with others was just as real, and just as authentic: being the message - embodying the message - was being her authentic self.
She referred to that realization as an awakening, and it arose from her intention to come into alignment with her inner truth. And it was just after the awakening that she was contacted by Hay House about the possibility of publishing her story as a book. On her birthday, no less!

Prior to that time, she had begun writing a book and had been told by many people that there was already a glut of books in that genre, that she would need to find an agent and face an uphill climb to even be considered by a publisher. Anita had no idea how to do any of that. She told me she didn’t even try the struggling, fear-based way of “making that happen.” She trusted that if the world was ready for her message, the message would be delivered to the world.
And through the process of going inward to resolve the doubt that was triggered by the skeptics, she gained newfound clarity that she had to do her part in order for the universe to respond. Her message could not be delivered to the world until she came into complete alignment with the truth that sharing the message was an embodiment of her authentic self. It was hers to do, because it flowed from who she was.

In her book she describes the intricate, synchronistic details that led to Wayne Dyer finding her story and deciding it needed to be published. She said in our conversation that all of those synchronicities were happening as she was resolving her inner doubt. She stated emphatically that the outer experience of being contacted to publish her story was “truly, totally, 100%” a reflection of her inner work.
Anita understands now that all of us have the same job: to align ourselves with our own truth. She spoke for each one of us when she told me, “When I realize who I am, then what is mine comes to me.” She explained that when we “go after” things, we’re hammering into our minds the false belief that we are not already worthy, that we have to work hard to get what we want because it’s “out there” and in pursuing it we can prove our worthiness to have it. Yet our worth is a given; it does not need to be proven. It simply is. And in this interconnected, vibrational universe, when our awareness is tuned into the vibration of “who I really am,” we’re already connected with “what I desire.” It isn’t separate from who we are, it’s an extension or expression of who we are.

So the real art of manifesting our authentic desires, as Anita says so clearly in the book, is not to go after them, but instead to expand our consciousness to allow them into our experience. That expansion is a natural outgrowth of, first, centering in our truth, and then allowing ourselves to feel our connection with nature and All-That-Is, to sense ourselves as part of a much larger Whole that is continually unfolding and expanding. She told me that she takes time each day to get quiet, to go within and find that centered connection. In her words, “I feel I’m part of something much bigger, and my part in it counts, it matters.” (my emphasis)

Although Anita did not use the term Law of Attraction, I felt she was describing its effects as she spoke about allowing what is truly ours to come to us. As she says in the book, “We always attract the perfect results, and like calls to like.” (p. 160) I believe she offers a nuanced perspective on this powerful dynamic of a vibrational universe with her emphasis on simply being your authentic self, and allowing that state of being to call to you that which is truly yours. She also reminds us that we deprive the universe of the essence we would otherwise bring to it when we’re not being authentic.

This is what I love about Anita’s message. It so deeply affirms what I have believed in my heart of heart for years, which has been the foundation of my coaching and teaching: that who we are matters, that what we love or long for is a natural extension of who we are in this physical realm, and that not only does honoring our authentic longings bring us fulfillment, it is our perfect way of serving the Whole. I could not imagine a more elegantly and beautifully designed system. When we love and honor our true selves, we love and serve others in a genuine and joyful way.

So how do we translate all of this into something that can help us, right now, to manifest that which brings us genuine fulfillment? As a coach I’ve developed ways to support people in recognizing and honoring the truth of who they are, giving themselves permission to want what they really want, and untangling themselves from the fear-based beliefs and habits that hold them out of alignment with their deepest truth. I have found these various practices and techniques incredibly useful; without them it is easy to slip back into old habits of thought and action.

Yet I always remind clients that intention is more powerful than any particular practice or technique, and I feel that is central to Anita’s message, as well. She is careful not to prescribe particular ways of going about this, because it’s so often true that what works for one person doesn’t work as well, or not at all, for another; and when that happens, it’s all too easy to fall into self-judgment. Which is hardly conducive to loving and honoring yourself.

So let’s follow Anita’s lead and keep this simple. Set an intention to be true to your authentic self, and be open to exploring what that means…to you. Give yourself some quality time and space in which to center within yourself and feel your connection with the larger Whole. Be mindful of your feelings and what they reveal to you about what you truly like, and what you’re genuinely willing to do - or not do. Look for ways to honor and express your unique magnificence.

Remember that you matter.

And remember Anita’s experience. She literally healed herself of cancer in being aware of who she really is, and in continuing to go deeply within herself to find and live her truth, she transformed an experience of self-doubt into one of magnificent self-expression. In daring to honor herself, she has helped countless others through her book, her continuing generosity in sharing her message through multiple media, and indeed her very presence.

Your presence is every bit as transformative. Just…be yourself.

Listen to the complete audio recording of Suzanne’s interview with Anita at www.anitamoorjani.com or www.mysolidground.com.