This is The Magic-Seeking Reason I Read ...

Unique Perspectives: This is The Magic-Seeking Reason I Read ...

By Kim Stevens

“People really like hearing about the books you read.” 

It’s what my video editor told me during our last shoot, and I loved the idea.

“I’m in.” 

The next time we met up to film, I brought three of my favorite books – Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch; Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion; and A Course in Miracles scribed by Helen Schucman. They were all stuffed with post-it notes, thoroughly highlighted, circled, read. 

Those three books have a common thread and it’s basically that we’re supposed to be happy. Most of the answers we seek are inside of us. Follow your bliss. You’re meant to experience miracles. 

Other books I’ve read – Abraham-Hicks, Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle and the like – offer the same message with different messengers: When your mind and heart are open, abundance will flow to you freely. When you’re present in the moment, life becomes joyful and easy. 

Beyond the ideas, I practice these truths every day. It’s why I have so many post-its and tabs and circles and notes in my books. I have to test them out. Understand them fully. Can you really follow your bliss? Seriously? It sounds so easy, just do whatever makes you happy but let me tell you, it’s not easy. The world doesn’t like when you go in the direction of joy. There’s judgment from other people, there’s judgment inside my own head.

I practice these theories because I want to be happy. I want to be all that I can be in this world. I want to know how it all works because I know there’s a magical way to live life. I know that intuitively. I feel it in my gut. In my heart. 

So magic is what I seek. That's why I read these books. They lead me to the truth. And once I’ve thoroughly studied them, I go out and practice because I want to have the experience. I can read all day long but it doesn’t mean anything in my estimation until I go out and practice. When I practice, I get to have a new experience of myself. I now have the idea in my cells. It becomes a cellular experience of me following my bliss and seeing new doors open for me, as Joseph Campbell says. Doors will open for you that have not opened for anyone else …

And then, just like magic, they do.