After spending several weeks in Spain, I decided to pass the remaining weeks of one summer in Cannes, France, and prepared to leave by car. After telling a resident friend of my departure, she began to cry and begged me to stay. She and others said, “Don’t be foolish; you will arrive on the French Riviera on their greatest holiday, the fourteenth of July, when the overcrowded city is bursting its seams. There will be not a hotel room or apartment to rent within thirty miles of the beach. You will be forced to sleep in your car if you are lucky enough to find a place to park.”
I knew I must do some serious creative imagining that night if I was to find suitable accommodations in Cannes. I mentally rehearsed, in vivid and happy detail, the pleasures of a beautiful apartment on the top floor of one of the loveliest buildings ringing the Cannes Bay. It looked down on the blue Mediterranean, where I swam daily and promenaded along the picturesque beach. So incredibly real was my practice that the next morning I cheerfully and confidently announced that I would be leaving in an hour.
The friend who lived nearby was inconsolable, so I said, “Pack your bags and come along.” She answered, “But my fourteen-year-old son, I can’t leave him alone.” “Bring him,” I answered, realizing that the two would complicate my plans. So off we went to the famous and elegant playground of the jet set of the Western World.
Knowing it would be useless to inquire at the regal Hotel Carlton where I had stayed a few weeks earlier, or the other fine hotels along the Croisette, I inquired at a small but lovely hotel one block from the beach, and incredibly, a guest was just checking out. “But only one night,” said the firm concierge. So we had a great suite overlooking the blue bay where we enjoyed a delightful breakfast on the terrace.
Realizing that we must check out within three or four hours, I left early to visit the real estate offices for apartment rentals. When I explained that I needed at least three bedrooms on a high floor along the Croissette, everybody laughed. Not for love nor money, they assured me, was there one vacant apartment in the entire city of Cannes, as well as for many miles around. Undaunted, I thanked them cheerfully and went on my way to the next agent. After six agencies had laughed with roars of amusement at my naivete, I saw that it was up to me to fulfill my own dream.
This is the point at which a seeming obstacle to our plans triggers the self-programmed negatives in our subconscious, which then begin to send up messages of doubt, fear, failure, and disappointment. Immediately our spirits are invaded by all these conflicting forces—reminiscent of a football team of dauntless heavyweights running interference against our plans. And it is here that knowledge and experience are vital.
Recognizing all these signs I immediately thought of the guests whom I had invited from Paris and New York and wondered where and how I would house them. But I quickly recognized the situation that confronted me and began silently to celebrate the ideal apartment in which we were all happily settled. I put on a happy face and strolled lightly down the avenue, pretending that all was wonderful and that I was leisurely returning home. Noting the lovely curve of the bay, I allowed it to attract my feet in that direction.
So I walked toward the building which I found the most attractive and, courting the joy of fulfillment, I pretended that I lived there. Cheerfully confident, I went around to the back of the building and found the small quarters of the concierge but she was nowhere to be seen. After a little walk, I returned just as she appeared.
Sustaining the bright feelings and manner of my position I asked her cheerfully not merely for a three-or four-bedroom apartment, but I stipulated the top floor, adding that I needed it at once and that I expected to stay for two months.
“Well, you are very lucky, Madame,” she said, “for one of our tenants just moved out unexpectedly and I was up there cleaning the apartment.”
In less than an hour, the three of us were happily installed in a beautiful three-bedroom apartment with a terrace on the top floor overlooking acres of formal rose gardens and the famous Cannes marina with its abundance of opulent yachts.
My friend and her son from Spain stayed with me for a week and were replaced by other friends from Paris. We had only to cross the flower- and tree-lined street and walk through the rose gardens to swim in the iridescent blue waters of the Mediterranean.
Reflecting over these recent weeks, I saw that this had been one of many lovely summers that was started in thought, rehearsed in imagination, and out-pictured broadly in the four directions. It was a delightful holiday despite predictions to the contrary.
Once you have adequately imprinted your subconscious with your desired blueprint, all other conditions will bend to the laws of the mind. The real estate offices in Cannes, for example, were stating absolute facts; there was nothing to rent within thirty miles of the city. But I had self-programmed a very pleasant summer, and the thought seeds that I planted in New York, bloomed brightly on the Spanish and French Rivieras.
Story from the book “The Magic of the Mind”.
