Arielle Ford and her soulmate Brian Hilliard, found love after 40 and have been married 16 years.
Courtesy photo |
Arielle Ford gets what she goes after.
Whether it was a well-heeled career as a book publicist in the personal growth and contemporary spirituality movement, or the man who became her soulmate and husband of the last 16 years, the dynamic personality says she can empower others to the same.
She will speak on that subject and more at the upcoming Sun Valley Wellness Festival, at Sun Valley Resort over Memorial Day weekend.
Ford believes in a self-manifested destiny, and frequently contributes to columns and blogs and makes television appearances on shows such as “Today,” “CNN” and NBC’s “The Other Half” with her insights.
She is the author of seven books including the “Hot Chocolate for the Mystical Soul” series and the more recent “The Soulmate Secret,” now in a fourth printing and translated in 20 languages.
Ford is one of the founding partners of the Spiritual Cinema Circle, a subscriber-based monthly DVD club dedicated to providing movies about love and compassion. She is also the creator of the at-home publishing study course “Everything You Should Know About Publishing, Publicity and Building A Platform” and the annual 21st Century Book Marketing event, which is the premiere book-marketing event for authors.
She produces the PBS pledge shows the “Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” and “The Happiness Prescription,” both featuring Deepak Chopra. He hand-selected her as a member of the prestigious Evolutionary Leaders, an international organization Chopra founded.
IME: For many years, you were the bridesmaid, not the bride. And I’m referring both to your former career and your former love life. Is that coincidence or a shift in thinking?
I was very fortunate to learn the powers of the Law of Attraction and Manifestation nearly 30 years ago and, in the beginning, I used this to create a very successful career as a book publicist and literary agent.
One day, at age 43, I woke and realized I had “forgotten to get married.” When I began reflecting on my life, I realized that my sole focus had been building my business while simultaneously dating men that made me miserable. They looked great on paper but in real life I was choosing toads (worse than frogs!). As I was contemplating the empty space in my bed, I decided to see if there was a way to use the Law of Attraction to manifest a soulmate. Very quickly, I began to utilize the various processes, prayers and rituals I used to create my career and I customized them around love and romance. Within six months, I met my soulmate, Brian, and in three weeks we got engaged. A year later, we had three weddings. Next month we celebrate our 16th anniversary.
How did you come to represent the theme of writing that you did?
After Brian and I got together, I inadvertently became the poster gal for single women over 40 who had found love. Everywhere I went, single women would pull me aside and whisper in my ear, “How do I get a Brian?” I would share my process with them and eventually they would tell me that it also worked for them.
One day my (late) sister, Debbie (Ford, a life coach) asked me to share my story with 250 of her coaches. At the end of the talk I was overwhelmed with requests to teach them how to manifest their own soulmate. In response to that I created an online product, and about a year later Harper One saw the product and made me an offer to turn it into a book, “The Soulmate Secret.”
The book is now in 21 languages and in 40 countries. At that point, my life took a big turn that I never anticipated. I began to receive invitations to speak and present workshops. Having been “behind the scenes” for most of my life, I never expected to be the one onstage. Turns out teaching people how to manifest love is really fun and I totally enjoy it because I have proof that it works.
It works for women and men, of all ages (it even worked for my 80-year-old mother-in-law), all income levels and regardless of how much you weigh or how may relationships you have had. The only people it doesn’t work for are the ones who are committed to believing that it won’t work. Some people get stuck in a story that they are just “unlucky in love.” I know how to turn that luck around.
What happens at one of your presentations?
My workshops are very experiential and fun. I teach the principles of the Law of Attraction and we do a variety of exercises and processes together. These are designed to prepare you to manifest the love of your life. For those that are familiar with the movie and book “The Secret,” and have found that “it didn’t work for them,” the reason is because it left out the most important part of the process … it’s what I call “the secret sauce.”
In my workshops, I share several versions of this “secret sauce.” (Hint: It’s a closed-eye meditation life process that take you from your head to your heart and activates the manifestation process.) “The Soulmate Secret” has several steps to it and we work through all of them in the course of the day-long event. Participants leave inspired, excited and knowing that love will soon be theirs.
How do you protect yourself and your voracity against the naysayers?
I don’t concern myself with the naysayers. I rarely come across them. The people who show up at my talks are generally pretty mature and conscious and they understand the concept of personal responsibility. What I mean by this is simple: If we are looking for what’s wrong with something, chances are that is all we are going to find. If we are looking for what’s right, and we realize that we are powerful beings who can co-create our future with the Universe, then guess what? We get to impact our lives in a very positive way.
Just like the Law of Gravity is always working, whether we are aware of it or not, so too the Law of Attraction is always at work. Knowing that, you might as well figure out how to use it to your own advantage.
Is wellness, as a movement, maturing?
Absolutely. I was Deepak Chopra’s publicist in his early days as an author, from 1993-2004. When we first began working together, the terms “holistic, integrative and alternative medicine” were nearly unheard of. Back then, yoga and meditation were considered and dissed as strange Eastern concepts. Today, it’s all become very mainstream. Today, all of these things are completely accepted. Research and science has now proven what Chopra (and others) said more than 20 years ago: that we can reduce stress and improve our lives through exercise, meditation, yoga, food and many other forms of active wellness. The emerging field of epigenetics is now proving that we can even overcome some of our family medical history through our beliefs and practices.
What’s on the horizon?
My most recent book is “Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect Relationships.”
What exactly is Wabi Sabi love?
It is an ancient Japanese aesthetic that honors all things old, weathered, worn, imperfect and impermanent by finding the beauty in the imperfections.
For instance, if you had a large vase with a big crack down the middle of it, a Japanese art museum would put the vase on a pedestal and shine a light on the crack. Or, they might fill the crack with 24k gold!
Wabi Sabi Love is devoted to exploring the simple, fun and effective ways to apply this concept to our love relationships through stories and exercises that demonstrate how to attain groundbreaking shifts in perception so that you can embrace and find the beauty and perfection … in each other’s imperfections.
I call this “going from annoyed to enjoyed!”
Practicing Wabi Sabi Love is a way to bring more ease, fun and light-heartedness into your relationship.
Sun Valley Wellness Festival
The Sun Valley Wellness Festival, scheduled for Memorial Day weekend, May 22-26, will offer four days of presentations by more than 50 world-renowned speakers, as well as movement classes, workshops and a Wellness Expo. Among the many speakers who will share their knowledge during the weekend are Diana Nyad, Kris Carr, Panache Desai, Eric Saperston, and yoga expert Tommy Rosen. Arielle Ford (featured here) will present her one-day Soulmate Secret workshop on Friday, May 23, and her Wabi Sabi Love presentation on the morning of May 24. For more information, go to www.sunvalleywellness.org.
