One of my quarterly clients was very excited to begin the new year back in January. The astrological forecast looked great, with lots of positive transits of Jupiter and Uranus, and very little difficulty. Over the year she has reported a personal expansion, with a greater ability to define and develop herself in her relationships and in the rest of her life. Still, she has been disappointed in the business side of things this year. Although we worked on Visioncrafting in the January session she had not followed the program, and her financial picture was down from the previous year.

Most of us are familiar with the hard work that comes from challenging planetary cycles that force us to let go of aspects of our life that aren’t working, or cause us emotional and sometimes physical pain. We look forward to times of harmonious transits as being periods in which we can just relax and good things will come to us. This is certainly true, because harmonious transits (especially of Jupiter and Uranus, the two planets that seek liberation and expansion) will open doors for us. But unless we are clear in our intention, our higher self will generally guide us to an inner liberation rather than automatically improve the financials of our business.

In the case of my client, she works in an industry that has been hard hit this year by the financial downturn but she and I expected that the positive transits would carry her through with more ease and grace than she has experienced this year. But I am convinced that Jupiter can take us only so far, and that while it will facilitate our goals and intentions, those goals and intentions must be clarified and kept in focus.

We are complex beings, and our personal needs are complex as well. I’ve noticed that when I feel tired and need a break, clients stop calling for consultations. When I tell the Universe – I’m back and ready for clients! – the clients magically reappear. My ability to manifest is more powerful now because I have been practicing for nearly 20 years, but all of us can have this same effect in our lives if we are willing to put in the focus.

This does NOT mean that we can manifest specific experiences or people or jobs. One of my Visioncrafting clients has been looking for a job for a year. We worked on creating a vision for her of the type of work that she wants to do, the experience that she will have and how she will feel when she is doing this work. She recently called me and said that she is still out of work and nothing has happened. When I asked if she was doing the practice we had worked on she said no, but she was visualizing herself getting a particular job for a year and it hadn’t happened yet. This kind of manifesting, where want a particular job, or a particular person, or a particular situation, is rarely effective. We always have to find that balance between the desire to create an intension or vision for the life we want to live and the understanding that the Universe will create the situation for us that is most perfect for what we need at any given time.

When I work with Visioncrafting clients it’s always interesting to see how the intentions evolve from the initial list of goals and desires. Once we start delving into the emotional and spiritual needs that form the foundation of the desire for change we can really begin to create magic. In a difficult astrological climate such as the one we’ve had over the past year, efforts to create positive changes in our life may have caused us to feel we were swimming upstream and against the tide of negativity. Sometimes it is in those times of adversity, though, that the greatest impact can be achieved.