Is Lucky a State of Mind?

“The amount of good luck coming your way depends on your willingness to act.”

~~~ Author, Barbara Sher

Every day I pull an angel card, a tarot card or an oracle card from one of my many decks asking for a message for the day. Lately I keep drawing card number 49 from Colette Baron-Reid's Spirit Animal Oracle Deck. It is Rabbit Spirit, and it says Now is a Lucky Time.

I know rabbits are associated with luck in many cultures, perhaps because they are plentiful at springtime and are so fertile. Is it luck that has me pulling the same card for what is now three days in a row? Or is spirit trying to get my attention? Even the card number tells me that it is a personal communication. Card 49 for a woman born in 1949.

When I was a child, I felt lucky and used to tell others I was lucky. I believed it, seeing magical opportunities unfolding in my child's vision of unlimited possibility. And luck did seem to be with me as I won prizes at fairs and had my name picked in drawings for something a child would love to have. I would tote (or have my father tote) my stash of stuffed animals, and even a bike, home. I would go to bed surrounded by my proof of my lucky nature.

Even in adulthood with its demands for serious grown up responsibilities, I retained my belief that I was lucky. I would toss a coin in a slot machine on my way to the buffet in Vegas and have it pay off. I got to have a career that allowed me to travel all over the world, a deep desire from my earliest years of learning about different countries and cultures in school. I have been lucky - often. And I used to affirm that to myself daily until I no longer did.

Luck is an energy. And, like all energies, if I embody it, believe it, and affirm it, I can experience it. Somewhere, along the way, I stopped believing I was lucky. It seems spirit is reminding me to work with the energy of luck in a mindful way. I have again decided to use an affirmation I used to say daily as part of my meditation practice.

I AM LUCKY.

The second I utter these words, whether in my mind or out loud, I feel a shift. I feel the complementary energy of gratitude lying underneath the energy of luck. I have noticed that people who are deeply grateful, often find themselves lucky, and that is because gratitude places one in a blessed and healing state of being.

Believing I am lucky opens me up to the synchronicities of the universe. And that is where Barbara Sher's quote comes in. On a very simple level, if I stand at the counter looking at all the scratch-offs and lottery options, but never buy a ticket, luck won't matter.

I won't be lucky if I'm not willing to say YES when an opportunity comes my way. I won't be lucky if I'm not willing to listen to my intuition, and then act on the guidance I receive. And that is the part of Barbara Sher's quote that matters. Acting on those intuitive feelings to go to a certain place, to call a certain person, or to submit an entry to a contest. How often have I let an intuitive sense dissipate and talked myself out of an action that would have made a difference?

I invite you this week to consider the energy of luck and make it part of a new belief about yourself. Be mindful of the clues the universe sends you - the chance meetings, words spoken, unexpected flashes of insight, the nagging feeling you should call a certain person. These are some ways the universe sends you opportunities, but you, and only you, can choose to act.

Write I AM LUCKY in your journal, put it on your screensaver and your phone, add it to your mirror - let it become part of a fresh way of seeing yourself and your life. Does believing you are lucky mean that no difficult experiences will come your way? Of course not. Life is ever-changing. Part of being human is to have both the blessings and the challenges. But don't string those challenges together in your mind until you convince yourself that you are not one of the lucky ones, because the wheel of fortune will turn and you'll want to be ready to act when luck again comes your way.

With love and continuing prayers for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and all those in need,

Cathleen