✳️ 30 days of testing the Book of Positive Aspects.
✳️ A Friday night at the harness races with an uncompromising $20 budget.
✳️ A scratched horse, a perfectly timed P.A. announcement, and an "accidental" ticket upgrade.
✳️ A $2,300 trifecta that liquidated the overdue red-letter bills in one fell swoop.
It was time to put it to the test. The Book of Positive Aspects process from the “holy grail.”
I was curious to see what would happen if, instead of waiting for my life to change so I could feel better, I changed how I felt first, which apparently would allow things to change. The total opposite of what I’d been doing.
I was open to this theory. I had nothing to lose.
So it was three weeks later, deep into changing my internal frequency, when a surprising verbal invitation arrived for a fun Friday evening with our friends at the Gloucester Park harness races.
My initial reaction was to decline their thoughtful gesture.
As much as I wanted to go, our limiting beliefs about money were still running the show, so we simply could not afford it.
That sobering realization was compounded by the stark reality of two red-letter bills stuck to our refrigerator door with the gut-wrenching word “overdue” stamped across them.
That really sucked!
I felt the heavy weight of disappointment to my core.
However, to my surprise, my husband, upon hearing the news of an opportunity to blow off some steam, stepped in and countered with, “We can head out for a night of fun without spending a ton of money.”
I was convinced to go.
We set ourselves a budget to spend no more than $20.
Later that evening at the races, my husband had a good feeling and decided to wager $3 on a trifecta, despite the fact he wasn’t normally a gambling kind of man.
After breezing over the racing form guide, he settled on horses 7, 8 and 9 for two main reasons; number one, the numbers lined up, and two, he was going with his gut.
With his selection now made, he wandered towards the TAB (betting office) to secure his bet.
However, along the way, an announcement came over the P.A. loudspeaker revealing that horse number 9 had suddenly been scratched.
As my husband pondered his next move, the jockey of horse number 10 was now being interviewed over the same P.A. loudspeaker.
He paused at a bench to fill out his $3 trifecta and handed it across to the bookie.
The bookie took one look at his ticket and shook her head. Three dollars would not cover it. An incorrect box had accidentally been ticked—the exact order of the horses to finish had become any order. This blew the cost of the ticket out to $11.
My husband hesitated for just a second, before he recalled the wise words of a work colleague, “If you make a mistake on a betting ticket, just roll with it.”
He handed over the cash.
With the race now fully underway, we gathered in the grandstand to watch with our pulses racing and bated breath.
To our utter amazement, as the horses thundered past the winning post, horses 7, 8 and 10 were leading the pack.
He promptly returned from the bookie's office with his wallet bulging with $2,300 cash in winnings.
Everyone laughed as he dropped his wallet on the ground and used his foot to squash it down just to secure the clip.
Suffice to say, that unexpected windfall took care of our red-letter bills.
I’d begun to deliberately feel better, and our financial situation had instantly changed.
I wondered what might happen if I continued with my BOPA experiment for another 30 days.