Answer ‘Yes!’ with the Miracle Question

’Of all the creative exercises I have tried, tested and embraced, my favorite is still Answer ‘Yes!’ with the Miracle Question to help me get to “Yes” with myself. Who amongst us has not had the experience of finding oneself in some kind of difficult situation and thinking: “If only a miracle could happen!”. You might even at some point so deeply wanted a resolution that you actually did wonder and hope: “What if a miracle can happen?” Maybe you’re feeling challenged by the reality of sustaining a new habit or lifestyle and having difficulty staying ahead of demons such as self-doubt that’s undermining your ability to get to what you must get to. I believe this is the creative exercise which can serve and support you manifest this Miracle that you need.

How might you use this tool in a more conscious and habitual way? You can do this in 7 simple steps.

1. Pick a Project: When you go to bed at night, bring to mind one of the habits of your MIRACLE Routine. You might, for example, bring to mind the ‘M’ of ‘MOVE’.
2. Prompt Yourself: Take a gentle yet deep breath and invite yourself to want to release worry and instead open up to a wonder with the prompt: “I wonder what ways I might try to move my body tomorrow”.
3. Prime Your Consciousness: Ask yourself: “What if a miracle were to happen while I was asleep, and when I awaken, I notice that things have changed…”
4. Picture It: Ask yourself: “What can I see myself doing, thinking and believing that tell me that a miracle has happened?”. Imagine where you are in your current project and what opportunities you can see yourself seizing to move your body more.
5. Prepare for it: Have a pen and paper beside your bed to jot down any ideas or inspiration that might come to you.
6. Play it forward: Commit to asking yourself the morning miracle question when you wake up. “What if a miracle has happened while I was asleep, and now that I am awake, I notice that things have changed and I am changing…What can I see myself doing, thinking and believing that tells me that a miracle has happened?”
7. Plan to receive it! Plan on manifesting the miracle. In the morning, do some more of the visualizing you already started the night before. By ‘seeing’ and ‘feeling’ the changes that can happen, approaching your MIRACLE MOVES in your mind’s eye last thing as you go to sleep and first thing when you wake up, you’ll feel better aligned to the work you want to get to. You will awaken with a clearer vision of victory – with a solid sense of what thoughts, beliefs and actions are congruent with your intentions to make regular MOVEMENT a concrete part of your daily MIRACLE Routine. Seal the Pact with a moment or two of self-celebration. Party in your mind, or get up and dance, make the victory sign and whatever else pumps up your celebration juices.

Adding this creative exercise to your morning and evening routines and rituals gives you the full and healthy benefits of bookending your day and night with miracles on your mind! I cannot think of a better way to reinforce one’s MIRACLE BOOKENDS, bookending every day with ‘Yes!’ To me this is a MIRACLE in itself!

Once you have tried the exercise this way, addressing the MOVE manifestation of your daily MIRACLE Routine, you can move through the other letters of your MIRACLE acronym: ‘I’ for Imagine, ‘R’ for Read and Reflect, ‘A’ for Affirm and Breathe, ‘C’ for Count Your Blessings, ‘L’ for Lists and Logs and finally ‘E’ for Embrace Change – taking them to your miracle questing one by one, in any order and in a frequency of your choosing. See it as creating your own  7 Day Miracle Challenge and for seven consecutive nights and mornings, engage in this activity of miracle questing. After the 7 days, you can do another round, and then another and/or you can do a 7 Day Reboot once a month – the possibilities are endless.

Your Miracle Journal

Creativity coaching clients of mine, have found it profoundly valuable to keep a Miracle Journal as part of the process. This is in addition to the pieces of paper they place at the side of the bed and any other scribblings they do as ideas come to them. The Miracle Journal is a more organised and methodical insight journal that you design to use as would best serve you and your needs. I suggest including what I call “Picking up the TAB”, and yes, there is an acronym in there. The ‘T’ represents thoughts, the ‘A’ is for actions and the ‘B’ is for beliefs. Here you notice news thoughts, actions and beliefs as well as making time to craft some new ones. You might ask yourself questions such as: “What would a healthy and athletic person think, do and believe?” Another useful question is: “How AM I DOING IT ALREADY?”. We do tend to work on the inaccurate and incongruent assumption that we have no thoughts, behaviour or beliefs that support the change. Often its a case of not doing it frequently or consistently. You might very well be very disciplined in some other area of your life, for example, and now need a miracle to bring that same kind of discipline to another area of your life. Perhaps you are quiet dedicated as a parent and now can learn from yourself and bring that same kind of dedication to your self-care project.

This exercise that is also a practice is designed to help you go the distance, embracing these fundamentals in your day to day life, for a lifetime. It’s also great for helping you meet challenges in other areas of your life, be it personal or professional. You can explore how to show up differently in a relationship for example, perhaps you need to become more assertive, better at setting boundaries, less accommodating, calmer, or whatever the case might be.