I don’t really believe in the Law of Attraction.

Yes, you heard that correctly.

Wait, what? WTF?

Don’t I call myself an LOA blogger and “grumpy manifestation queen”?

OK, just hear me out for a moment.

Here’s the reason I’m saying there is no Law of Attraction: If it were really true that positive thoughts attract positive things and negative thoughts attract negative things, a whole lot of people would have absolutely horrendous lives… but they don’t. Read my more in-depth explanation here.

So, what then?

Honestly, after nearly 30 years’ experience with manifestation and lots of thinking about the subject, I truly believe that we all have a divine spark in us… the God-given power to create.

Our tools are attention, intention, imagination, emotion, and faith. This has nothing to do with the Law of Attraction—it’s really more like magic.

For all the Christians who are flinching right now: Remember that what Jesus did was also a kind of magic, one that he actually wanted his disciples to emulate.

The three wise men who followed the star to Bethlehem to witness Christ’s birth were magi.

And I believe that each and everyone of us has a natural, God-given gift that allows us to manifest reality through “the will and the word,” as true magicians say.

Magic is all around us, but in our scientific era, we don’t call it that anymore. We call it neurolinguistic programming, the placebo effect, psychosomatic condition, hypnosis, family constellation, Reiki, tai chi, qi gong, meditation, positive thinking, and… yes, Law of Attraction.

My biggest LOA accomplishment in terms of impact on my life and its trajectory was no doubt my move from Germany to the US... specifically Sedona, AZ.

For years, my life as a copywriter in advertising agencies hadn't fulfilled me anymore. I found it shallow and emotionally unsatisfying. I had a huge interest in New Age spirituality and longed for a community of kindred people with a more profound view of life.

I had a German friend who had moved to Sedona a year earlier, and after visiting her, I was hooked. The huge New Age community in town was incredibly exciting to me, and I met amazing people through my friend who were so warm and welcoming, I felt right at home. 

From that moment on, all I wanted was to move to Sedona. But there were some obstacles to overcome. Unlike what you may hear, it’s extremely hard to get a long-term visa for the United States if you’re not the spouse of an American. Seeing how restricted my friend's life was, who had overstayed her tourist visa and was now illegally in the country, that was not an option for me.

So for months on end, I visualized the same scene over and over: How I would round the bend on the I-10 from Phoenix and get the first glimpse of the beautiful Red Rocks and would stop at a scenic spot, get out of the car, and yell, “I’m here!”

I would visualize this scene so vividly and with such overwhelming gratitude that I’d burst into tears.

At that point, one of my German coworkers and I had left the big agency we were working for and had opened up a small copywriting business together. One of her old clients, a well-known magazine publisher, gave us a new editorial project: a soap opera magazine for German teens. 

We had to interview German teen soap stars on a regular basis, so both of us acquired journalist status, including press IDs.

Since some US soaps like Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place were also very popular in Germany, we wrote about those too and interviewed some of the stars. Which gave me the opportunity to apply for a journalist visa for the United States. 

An important aspect of this was that I took a leap of faith. German bureaucracy is famously slow and complex. If you think you've seen a tangle of red tape in the US, you haven't seen anything, I assure you.

I was still waiting for my journalist visa, but nonetheless, I proceeded to cancel my apartment lease and my insurance (car, health, etc.), and sell everything I had. 

The visa came through just in time for me to make my one-way flight to Phoenix (which I had already booked).

And the day I made Sedona my new home for the next two and a half years, I reenacted exactly the scene I had visualized all those months.

​I drove around the bend on the I-10, got out of the car at a scenic point, threw my arms up in the air and shouted, "I'M HERE!!!"