When I lost it all, I felt powerless. During my darkest hours, I wrote letters to God asking why? I received answers in writing.

If you have either lost it all, or you are not passionately thrilled with your life, here is how you can turn it all around. It is easy!

If you stop to consider whats on your mind most of the time, I think youll find that your thoughts focus on those areas of your life that you are not happy about.

People who have achieved self-love and who are fulfilling their lifes passion in their work reached joy only by going through a process that was fraught with self-doubt, fear, insecurity, rejection, low self-worth, pain, and hard life lessons.

I compared myself to others who were successful and wondered, What is wrong with me? I wondered, Why is my life like that of a person with a Ph.D. driving a cab? I would look at women I admired and ask myself, Why are they successful, fulfilling their dreams in joyful, prosperous careers, while I am struggling? I questioned myself. I searched within. I wrote letters to God pleading for answers. And I received those answers in writing.

In our universe there is little physical proof about how to achieve the manifestation of our dream life. We have been so conditioned to live trusting just our five senses that we ignore the strongest sense of all. That sense I will refer to as instinct.

You instinctively know your potential. You feel frustrated because you sense there must be a better way. Your feelings and senses are right.

On the other hand, you are scared to death of the unlimited power and potential you have within. Your past is your comfort zone because it is the only way you know. Your unconscious negative thoughts - your complaints, worries, doubts, anxieties, fears, and insecurities - are part of that comfort zone.

But your soul, or instinct, knows all you are capable of. Your instinct trusts that you deserve and will receive what your heart truly desires.

So you have a little battle going on inside: self vs. instinct or soul. Your heart, soul, and instinct say: Go for it! You can do it. You were born to succeed. You deserve the best. If you want to travel to the other side of the world, you can! So you then feel inspired or excited.

But your self steps in and says, Are you crazy? How can you travel to the other side of the world when you dont have enough money to buy food? Be realistic. Youre a dreamer. This is impossible. Stop fantasizing. Get back to reality.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? Does your heart tell you one thing and your head another?

Do you feel deep within that you are in this life for a specific purpose, and then does your logic tell you otherwise?

Do you truly believe that one person has the ability to fulfill his or her dreams, and you do not?

Do you have a talent, gift, or inborn ability in a certain area? I would venture to say the answer is yes. Are you using it? Developing it? Exploring the possibilities or experiences you can create in your life because of it? Or, do you avoid that area all together because it is scary to go there?

If you avoid fulfilling your inborn potential, then you avoid your life purpose. You avoid what your heart wants the most: your ideal life. This is the reason for your frustration, fear, doubt, anxiety, illness, worry, and pain.

I will give you a major indicator as to what is winning in your life: self or soul. If it feels good and right, it is right, and that is your heart and soul winning. That is your true essence coming to the surface. When your head jumps in and tells you every reason why what feels so right is logically so wrong, then your self has won and has pulled you back into your old comfort zone. Then you stagnate and, as a result, you feel some form of pain.

The answer to how you create your ideal life is to do what you feel excited about doing.

You follow your heart, soul, conscience, and that still small voice within that guides you, which is your instinct. You form a picture in your mind of your ideal life, and when you feel excited, you keep reinforcing that excitement with the assurance that you can be, do, and have all you picture.

As soon as you feel out of your comfort zone, expect that your head will jump in with every doubt, disbelief, criticism, negative view, impossibility, and impracticality to pull you right back into the old version of yourself and your life that you are now striving to outgrow.

As you think, so you shall have. That saying is true. But another saying, Seeing is believing, is not - as least not when it comes to creating the life you want. For that purpose, you must turn the saying around: Believing is seeing.

You have to picture it - whatever it is - mentally. Only then will you receive it. When you picture your ideal life, day in and day out, somehow your subconscious mind cannot distinguish between past and future. It focuses on the exact picture you hold in mind, the one you have the most feeling for.

Now, I actually did this in the form of a treasure map. This is an empowering and powerful tool you can use to create and manifest all that you desire in your life. The process is actually quite simple, and its fun, too.

Take a pile of old magazines and cut out pictures of everything you want to be, do, and have. I mean, get down to business. How do you really want to look, feel, and be? What exactly do you want to own? Where precisely do you want to travel? How do you really want to spend your leisure time? What does your ideal mate look like? How do you want to contribute to the lives of others? From the magazines, cut out the pictures and words that will form a large, detailed picture of your life. Your ideal life, your dream life. And dont hold back. Go all the way!

When I did this, I was a student in school, broke and struggling, but very excited about creating a brand-new life for myself. One of the pictures I cut out was of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. I had always wanted to go to the Middle East. I thought it would take many years for me to get there. Six weeks after creating my treasure map, I was standing in front of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

That was the picture that I had the most feeling for, so that was what I manifested first. The treasure map works! The universe is not void. Our thoughts do have power. That which we focus on, we draw directly to us.

You cant simply will it, like some sort of forced mind control. That wont work. You have to genuinely believe in what you want to bring about in your life. The most important factor in the process is your feeling of excitement about what you want to see come into your life. Once you have true inner belief, conviction, and natural excitement, the key to receiving what you wish for is to let go. Let go and trust that you will receive all you desire, simply because you deserve to receive every joy you can conceive.

I do understand that letting go is the hardest part. But when you look at this treasure map, day in and day out, and you see in those pictures the ideal life you want, somehow, bit by bit, the pictures become your reality.

In my case, perhaps because so many of the pictures seemed to be out of the realm of logical possibility at the time, I did not expect to achieve my desires quickly; I was not too attached to having them become manifest right away. Each picture represented a genuine want, but how could I be emotionally attached or feel desperate about something like a trip to the other side of the world when I barely had money to buy groceries? Perhaps my lack of attachment kept me out of my own way.

When we hold on too tightly, we instill fear instead of the faith or belief or self-worth that needs to preside. Every one of us deserves to have it all in our lives. Why should someone else have it all and not you?

In a nutshell, DECIDE to create every thing and experience you want. Picture it. Know when it feels right, and exciting, it is on its way to you. Expect it!

Copyright by Barbara Rose. All Rights Reserved.

The above article is an excerpt from the book Individual Power: Reclaiming Your Core, Your Truth and Your Life, by Barbara Rose. Published by The Rose Group.