Creating A Treasure Map To Achieve Your Desires

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Sages say, "A picture is worth a thousand words." This is true because images are the way the subconscious mind processes information.

A word or verbal phrase translates into images in the inner mind. Think of the difference between reading "Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets" vs. watching the movie. Which one was more powerful & evoked more emotions?

Most likely it was the movie. The words on the page had to be transformed into mental pictures, but the movie was in the very language of the subconscious, thus grabbed it more directly.

This is why so many goal setting techniques suggest using visualization & cutting out pictures of what you want to help to manifest your desires.

We co-create our world by the images we hold in our minds. Looking at pictures of our goals helps to keep our minds focused on what we want. There are lots of different terms for this technique. Master Mind designates it "image book pages," Joseph Murphy & Mary Katherine MacDougall call it "treasure mapping," & Catherine Ponder's phrase for it is a "wheel of fortune."

No matter what it's called the basic technique is the same. A person cuts out & collects pictures from magazines that represent what he/she wants. The action of finding the pictures, cutting them out, then pasting them onto paper helps to convince the subconscious that you really do want this goals.

The pictures may simply evoke the feeling of the desired result, such as a sunset for peace or a lit candle for enlightenment, or specific pictures of a cruise, car, income or job. The idea is to find pictures that speak to you.

For a job, you might find pictures of someone doing that specific job, or a picture that symbolizes it to you.

Underneath the pictures, you write an affirmation that directs the mind. The affirmation can be "I know that my Higher Mind wants this for me & my creative mind finds the best way for it to manifest" or "I now have a lavish income of X coming to me easily & freely."

Any statement that clarifies your goal & supports the belief that Spirit is manifesting it now will work. This helps keep you aware that the Universe wants this for you as much as you want it for yourself.

There are different ways to use the basic technique. For a single goal, such as a job, relationship, travel or new house or car, you can get a page of colored construction paper or large posterboard & paste the pictures on it.

I had a friend who created a treasure map & placed it on the inside of the door to her closet, where she saw it every day. You can also use a corkboard or styrofoam to pin the pictures & affirmations to & change them as you choose.

For several different goals, you can get a posterboard & divide it into the areas of your goals. You could segment it into 4 parts, such as:

• work
• play
• relationships
• health

Then paste the pictures & write the affirmations as you would with a single sheet in each area. At the center, you could have a picture & affirmation that recognizes that the Universe is the Source of your good.

One of my early metaphysical teachers used a notebook for his treasure map. He was a businessman & kept it in a drawer of his desk to look at several times a day & said that all of the desires he put into it came to pass.

You can take a folder with fasteners, like you used in school & put pictures & affirmations on sheets of unruled paper. Again, each goal should have its own separate sheet of paper.

With a treasure map, you need to have it where you can look at it several times a day, but where no one else can see it, such as a closet or drawer. This keeps it private, between you & your Higher Self.

If you have someone who'll be completely supportive of your goal, you can share it with them. Look at your map several times a day & each time give thanks that the Universe & your creative mind has already given you what the pictures represent.

By giving your mind a picture of your desire, keeping your attention focused on it, the Universe will find the perfect way to transport you to your destination.

Affirmation

Changing a Willingness to Make Love into a Desire to Make Love

click here to visit marriage builders website & read the article - check out all their resources while you're there!

Lustful men are little devils, but women are often tramps

Why female desire still makes society squirm

By Brian Alexander / Contributor - MSNBC Updated: 3:11 p.m. ET Oct. 18, 2004

I wonder what the Grand Inquisitor would think about the testosterone patch.

Testosterone, as you may have heard, is proving to be a valuable weapon in the effort to give women (& men, too, for that matter) better sex lives.

For a few years now, some women have been using testosterone gels & creams obtained from compounding pharmacies in an effort to boost a waning sex drive, often brought on by menopause.

And recently, Proctor & Gamble announced data from clinical trials of its Intrinsa patch for women. Seems the patch gave women a bit more octane in the old engine. Should the patch be approved for sale, making it the first drug treatment for female sexual dysfunction on the market, P&G & likely other companies to follow will reap huge economic rewards.

Why the wait?
All well & good, but here’s a question: Why did it take so long? Way back when, like about 30 years ago, doctors noticed that women given testosterone-related steroids for treatment of medical conditions reported a sex drive boost as a side effect.

During these intervening 3 decades, as many as half of all women are estimated to have been suffering from low libido & other sexual problems. Yet only now is anybody trying to do something about it.

“It’s been almost a social taboo,” argues Dr. Crista Johnson, a fellow at UCLA’s Female Sexual Medicine Center. “You didn’t want to talk about these things. Women weren't supposed to [have desire].”

No kidding. The Grand Inquisitor, placed in charge of Europe’s spiritual purity by the Catholic Pope during the Inquisition, regarded all women as potentially corrupting & women who showed any inclination to actually wanting & enjoying sex were regarded as possible succubi, vessels of Satan.

If the accusations stuck, they could be killed. Similar punishments awaited (& still do await, sadly) Muslim women who get too friendly with men they aren’t married to. And of course, "The Scarlet Letter" is about American Puritans.

Religion, though, is just a cover. Men are simply scared.

Johnson has researched the practice in some societies, especially African, of female genital cutting, the removal of the clitoris & the sewing together of the outer labia of young women. “Thousands of years ago, patriarchal societies feared women’s sexuality," she says. "They felt it was necessary to curb their desire. Voracity had to be controlled.” This is still true today.

Mixed emotions
But don’t get too comfortable with the notion that we here in modern America think differently. We’re all messed up about how to regard women with strong sexual appetites. We rightly fret about sexualizing young girls, but we also tend to condemn adult women who celebrate their sexuality.

Look at our reactions to women who wear mini-skirts, cleavage-revealing tops, thong bikinis. (Attorney General John Ashcroft was so unnerved by the Justice Department’s statues depicting nude women, he ordered them covered.) Men seem to want the women we love to desire us, but we get tetchy about them having desire in general even while we men are being encouraged to act like little devils by the makers of Viagra.

That male view is often shared by other women who are just as willing to label a sexually aggressive woman as a tramp. And as Johnson points out, it's women who do the genital cutting.

Yet we also fetishize highly-sexed women. Helmut Newton’s photography of strong, proud nudes worship them. Artist Hajime Sorayama’s “gynoids” turn women into depersonalized sexual machines capable of draining every last drop of our male vital fluids, leaving us quivering piles of wimpering Jell-O.

Yee-haw.

There seems to be no space in between for the average woman who just wants to feel good about wanting & having a rich sexual life. But that’s all changing.

Johnson herself exemplifies why. She’s 29, a freshly minted ob-gyn, who says she got precious little medical school education about female sexuality. Now, she notes, younger women like her are saying, “I demand my sexual needs be taken care of. I demand a sexually fulfilling life. My desires are important & valuable. We're finally breaking the old traditions.”

It’s not easy though. “We’ve been socialized to view sexuality in a negative light," Johnson says. "People put together in one lump sum promiscuity, prostitution, the gaudy things that are in music videos & movies & say these are negative consequences.

We have HIV, teen pregnancy, [STDs]. What needs to be distinguished is what a healthy relationship consists of. Too many people in this country are attaching a negative image to sexuality.

They aren't distinguishing. That’s the challenge, to look at sexuality as healthy & desirable, not something to be banned or hidden.”

Benefits beyond the bedroom

A possible breakthrough like testosterone therapy isn't just about having orgasms or suddenly feeling the urge to install a stripper pole in the living room. Women just enjoy feeling sexy. They like having desire.

Far outside the bedroom, that spark helps them feel alive & vigorous.

Sexual health experts hasten to say that testosterone is no cure-all. All the testosterone in the world won’t make a woman in a troubled relationship or with a poor body image want sex any more often & a host of medical problems, like depression, gynecological conditions & high blood pressure can stymie desire.

That tingle between your legs is more complicated than how much of a hormone you make.

But however testosterone therapy fits in, it's an encouraging sign that we're just going to have to get over our collective squirm over sexy women. Women from their 20's thru their 70's are coming to the UCLA center & to other centers springing up around the country, hoping to feel the urge again. They're not content to accept less, nor to accept a “natural” decline.

I’m not sure if that means we'll see 70-year-old grandmothers in latex chaps, but grandpa could be in for a surprise. 

Brian Alexander is a California-based writer who covers sex, relationships & health. He's a contributing editor at Glamour & the author of "Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion" (Basic Books).

4 Signs That a Man's Ready for Marriage & 4 That He's Not by Sherry Amatenstein for iVillage

excerpt: He's Discovered His Desire to Be a Dad

Carol Morgan, a Boca Raton matchmaker (www.carolmorgan.com), observes, "He's ready for marriage when he stares longingly at kids & suggests you would have beautiful children." [Editor's note: I'll say!]

If your man isn't as straightforward, take a cue from John Malloy, who says, "Most men want to be young enough to teach their sons to fish & play ball & do the male-bonding thing."

His research has found that age can have a great effect on a man's attitude toward marriage. Most college-educated men don't consider marriage as a serious possibility until age 26. In fact, they enter a phase of high commitment between the ages of 28 & 33.

Men who've gone on to graduate school - doctors, lawyers, etc. - hit their commitment-peak phase during ages 30 to 36. But Malloy says that once a single man hits 37, the chances that he'll marry start to fade. And after his 43rd birthday, he'll probably remain a bachelor for life.

That's not to say that a man won't catch marriage/fatherhood fever later in life. Mitch J. was 39 when he started seriously wanting a child. The problem for the Los Angeles film publicist: His live-in girlfriend had two children from a previous marriage & no intention of becoming pregnant ever again. Mitch recalls agonizing:

"If I stay, I know I will have a good relationship and a stable future. If I leave, who knows if I'll ever find a woman I really love & who wants children."

Finally, he chose to leave. Within a year he met Pauline. They're now married & have a baby girl.