‘Money, for example, responds surprisingly quickly once clear goals have been set

Can we really create the ideal life? Is it ever possible to recapture the original spark and uncomplicated zest for life that most of us felt as very young children? Absolutely.

And the answer lies in going back to our childhood to uncover our ‘uniqueness’, which yearns to express itself but which can become frustrated very early on in life.

This early enthusiasm and happiness becomes submerged under a consistent barrage from other people, from our parents, our teachers, our peers, all telling us how the world is and what we should do.

Gradually, we learn to dismiss our true desires and take on their world views. Our thoughts begin to change.

"So if you feel dissatisfaction with any area of your life, you can change it."

STEP ONE

• Uncovering your early dreams:

1. Choose a time and place where you will be undisturbed. Have a piece of paper and pen at hand and sit down quietly and relax. Take some deep breaths and stretch your body if it feels tense.

2. Cast your mind back to your child ideally between the ages of three and five. It may help to close your eyes.

3. How did you see your world then? What particularly fascinated you? Did you love colour, shapes, sounds?

4. What fantasies and daydreams did you have then? What games did you play? What secrets did you keep?

5. Write down the essence of those special dreams. Dredge up those deepseated dreams from your early life. Keep writing until you feel you have done enough.

6. How do you feel now? Are these dreams alive in your life or have you moved far away from them? Do you feel a sense of loss or general frustration?

7. Make a note of anything you would like to develop, anything you feel is relevant to you now. Highlight it or circle it.

STEP TWO

• The way you would like to live:

1. Take another piece of paper and write at the top: The way I would like to live.

2. Write out in as much detail as possible what your life would be like in your ideal world. Be as fantastic and over the top as you like. It’s OK to be greedy.

3. When your account feels complete, consider it carefully. Is anything in it part of your life now? If not, either circle it or highlight it. These are unfulfilled dreams. Also, circle things you want to develop more, even if they play a part in your life now.

4. Ponder these highlighted or circled sections (in both parts). Do any insights emerge about yourself?

STEP THREE

• The blueprint:

1. List the highlighted sections of both lists together with any new ideas about yourself and your life that may have emerged in doing these exercises. Is there anything you could do to bring some of these de sires into your life, in however small a way?

2. Did you love fitting things together? Try buying a model set or kit.

3. Did you love helping mother in the kitchen, try making a cake.

4. Did you long to do grown-up writing but didn’t know how, so filled pages with loops and squiggles? Get a pad of paper and start writing down the first thing that comes into your head and keep writing until you run out of steam.

This may all seem pointless and rather childish. The point is that you are connecting with your earliest dreams once more. It doesn’t matter if you feel silly or irritated. Something new may well come out of doing such an unfamiliar activity.

STEP FOUR

• Using both sides of the brain:

The right hand is controlled by the logical, practical left brain and the left hand is controlled by the intuitive, imaginative right brain, yet we limit ourselves to using just one hand through our lives.

By using both hands and hence both sides of the brain, we can reconnect with the primal, unique self which was in balance before we learned to write.

1. Look at your blueprint and begin to frame some questions which would help you to achieve certain things on it, ie ‘How can I double my income? or ‘How can improve myself at my workplace? Using the hand you normally write with, write down your first question.

2. Now take the pen in your other hand and write down the first answer that comes into your head.

3. Keep doing this with all your questions. The results will probably surprise you. our non-writing hand is the one that has the childhood belief that most things are possible, and the answers you get, although probably virtually illegible, will contain much more of your original innate force before it became diverted by education and other people’s beliefs.

4. Once the insights come, try to put them into practice in your life. You can use this process for all areas of your life. Want to bring more wealth into your life? Look at your earliest thoughts and feelings about money. Discover how your family viewed it. Then look at what sum of money you want in your ideal world and use your nondominant hand to come up with answers about how to get it.

Do you want a different kind of relationship? Follow the same procedure. More creativity? More success? Better communication? All will respond to this process of going within and asking for the answers. But how long will it take before you see results?

‘As a general rule, as soon as you embark on any exercise some change is immediate.’

‘Money, for example, responds surprisingly quickly once clear goals have been set, and I have known people to achieve a turnaround in as little as three to four weeks. More normally however, considerable improvements take six months to a year.

‘Relationships can take longer because we usually have so much emotion invested in them. But, even so, once you start to work on them you will see immediate improvements.’
Nirosha Weerasuriya