Impressed with her guest blog post on one of my favorite websites, I clicked over to author Jo Anna Rothman’s website. What I discovered there, The Receiving Project, immediately tugged hard at my current desire for nurturing. My mind said, “Come on, really? You’re so busy – can you commit to a 32-day focus on receiving?” But my intuition prevailed, and so I signed up.

It hasn’t even been a week yet, and already I’m feeling a shift. The gifts started showing up right away, and I’ve been noting them in my journal: a “hostess gift” bouquet of flowers in my favorite colors, an unexpected expression of love from my teenage son, meaningful connection with a new friend on a warm summer evening.

I found myself becoming a bit doubtful, though – aren’t these “gifts” I’m noticing all things that would have happened anyway? Isn’t this just a matter of changing focus, of noticing the daily gifts that I might otherwise take for granted?

Oh, wait. I get it.

Yes, it is a matter of paying attention in a new way, and perhaps that’s the point. Or maybe it’s just the first layer of this month-long lesson.

Okay, so if learning to receive the gifts of a loving universe is, at least in part, a matter of changing my focus, I can go with that. I’m moving from “fixing what is wrong” and “getting things done” to appreciating the small, delightful pleasures of life. This shift in focus, I suspect, is at the base of creating change, which really all comes from within, anyway.

We’re told, ad infinitum, that to effectively use the Law of Attraction to get what we most desire, we must live as if we already have it. As an abstract concept, I’ve often found the idea intriguing, but frustrating. Yet by practicing, in a very tangible way, seeing the blessings all around us, the vibration of love and gratitude will become pervasive, and, one can hope, attract that which we dream of creating. It’s a work in progress, for me. I’ll let you know how it goes.