One of the very first magical lessons I received was when I was about 16. One of my crazy mother’s crazy friends told me “when you want something, tell it to the Cosmos. You’ll always get what you need.” At first I thought this was just hippy-dippy wishful thinking, not at all grounded in reality. But, as someone who is (mostly) willing to try everything at least once, I remember tentatively trying to give my needs, wants, and desires over to the stars, to “tell it to the Cosmos.”  Throughout the years I’ve had mixed results, but they’ve been mostly positive.

Such actions don’t need to be prayers, though that works, too. It’s also very important to note that you totally won’t get everything all the time (like all those times I told the Cosmos I was really ready for this certain boy to date me. Yeah, I guess that just wasn’t in the stars!) And while it probably is hippy-dippy pie-in-the-sky thinking and advice, in my experience “telling it to the Cosmos” can be an incredibly useful and powerful act of self-knowledge and manifestation.

Speaking your wishes out loud helps you solidify your own thoughts and desires. Oftentimes our thoughts are just a mish-mash of words, images, or phrases in our heads. We have feelings and emotions and images and stuff just churning up there. If we have to speak it, or write it, our wishes become more than just abstract concepts in our brains and become something tangible. Turning thoughts into words requires a cognitive process to occur, and through this process, our abstract hopes and dreams become more concrete. Rather than just thinking about the general anxiety I might have about money, if I say “I would like a way budget my money for the summer”, this process is a good first-step towards that job of budgeting. After I tell it to the Cosmos it becomes clearer to me.  I’ve been able to take an abstract thought and turn into a concrete sentence. And after my thoughts and intentions are clearer, maybe then I can take steps towards the actual budgeting process.

I really do feel as if the Stars are listening to us. We are a part of the Cosmos and the Cosmos is part of us.  No matter what your belief system is, being in communication with ourselves can be very powerful. It can be life-changing. So, whether you see it as praying or spell casting or creative visualization, I truly believe that there are forces out there that want to take care of us (even if that force “out there” is really our own internal self.  As above, so below/within and without, right?)

When you say stuff out loud, you’ll be surprised about who is listening. Maybe you speak my desires to the Cosmos, but maybe your mother or your sister or your Facebook friends have heard, or seen, your desires. For example, when I finished graduate school I began the process of receiving my provisional license to practice clinical social work. It’s about a two year process and takes a lot of work, which I found a bit discouraging after finishing up the intense process of graduate school. After graduation, I hit the major roadblock of unemployment and financial difficulties, so I posted a really needy, ranting post on Facebook about how I was worried and feeling a bit trapped because I couldn’t afford the provisional license. I usually try to limit my ranting and whiny Facebook posts, but I really felt like I needed to express my concerns and to share my frustration, so I indulged.

Within half an hour, I had people offering to help out – family, friends, friends of family and family of friends. I was overwhelmed and humbled, and I was literally brought to tears from the generosity of the people in my life, near and far. See, we’re all in this together, and when one of us succeeds, it’s like we’re all succeeding.  I’m lucky to be blessed with loved ones who are kindhearted and really don’t want to see someone suffering. I had no idea that whining on Facebook would be an answer to this anxiety about paying for my provisional license, but the Cosmos (and my friends!) were listening. People aren’t mind-readers (they’re not.)  So sometimes saying something out loud is literally the only way for the people around us to know what we want or need, or how we’re feeling.  We can’t expect people to know information from out of nowhere, and sometimes the Cosmos needs to be told, too.  This was a good reminder of what my friend told me so long ago. “Do you want something?” She said. “Well, you’re not gonna get it unless you ask!”

The Cosmos is always, always listening.  Sometimes we just need to speak up!