Change Your Mind, Change You Life:

What it really takes to change and be your best self

One of the most fulfilling aspects of “Manifestation” is the ability to go back in time and reflect. I will use the word “Manifestation” often in this post, but I would like to break it down and share what that word means to me.

Manifestation is something that can be both positive and negative. Manifestation is the outward appearance that reflects our inner world. Our inner world is our thoughts, beliefs and feelings. Before we experience anything in our reality, we have already experienced it within our mind, first. This can be true for our greatest fears and our greatest dreams. Some may think, this means whatever I think, it comes true—-that’s not the case. We have millions of thoughts. According to a study completed by Dr.Poppenk and Julie Tseng, humans think over 6,000 thoughts in just one day! This brings me back to the CONTENT of our thoughts and this requires awareness. This requires mindfulness. This requires stopping in the moment and recognizing the content of our thoughts (Too simple? There’s POWER in simplicity). In regards to cognition, I like to think of our thoughts as hundreds of cars driving down many different highways, crisscrossing about through our mind throughout our day. Just because we think something, does that make it true? Just because we think something else, does that mean we believe it? I’m sure if we acted on every single thought that popped into our minds, that humanity would be a stumbling, insecure, inconsistent mess.

We don’t listen to every thought. We CHOOSE the thoughts we listen to. Let’s go back to my car analogy; the car of thought. Mindfulness and awareness is being able, in the moment, to observe and see the car (thought) drive by in our mind and ask ourselves, do we want to get in that car? Does my inner belief system align with this “car”, or am I just going to allow the car to pass by? This is an especially crucial process for individuals who struggle with depression and anxiety. Do we invest our energy into thoughts of constant worry, fear and depressed thinking, or are we choosing to get in to another car (yes, I know it’s hard)?

What does this have to do with manifesting?

Manifesting is choosing the thoughts we want to think so we can experience the idea come to life in our reality. Sometimes there is no effort involved. Sometimes something comes in to our life, good or bad, and we think to ourselves, “How did my mother know I have been wanting ______ forever…I never told anyone” or “Ugh, this is EXACTLY what I was fearful of happening”.

Just because we think something, doesn’t mean it will happen. We are actually given time to decide, is this really what I want to manifest in my life? Do I align with this? Do I feel good about this? Or do I feel I have zero control over this?

I have manifested some pretty scary negative things/events/people in my lifetime, but the moment I discovered the POWER I have to CHOOSE the thoughts I listen to, everything changed. My biggest manifestations have been ones that I struggled to believe in. Ones that were surrounded by fear and limitations (so I thought).

My first one was overcoming the fear of childbirth in order to have my 2nd child, Sailor Rae, at home..in an RV…in an inflatable pool. I had SO many fears! I knew the possibilities of what could go wrong. Every time I experienced a fearful thought, I would get out my journal and write about my childbirth experience as if it had already happened. I wrote my desires, not my fears. I made a cognitive and physical choice to write down how I wanted my story to go.

“I am at peace”

“I have joy”

“I am giving birth to a healthy baby girl”

“I am strong and am able to withstand the pains of childbirth”

“My child comes to me effortlessly”

On September 13th, 2016, I went into labor at 12am and Sailor Rae was birthed by 5:30am without complications and without medication. I had done it! I had proved to myself that I can have my deepest desires within my heart and I could have peace during the process.

In 2017 I started my divorce process with my ex-husband. Mind you, I hadn’t worked in years. I had nothing to my name, no money. I had become so co-dependent (yes, CODEPENDENT) on my ex-husband, that I didn’t even drive! I relied on him for EVERYTHING because I was so fearful of living, of making my own decisions, of finding my own way. What if I fuck it up? I couldn’t bare the thought.

Rightfully so, I know where all of this came from. So many SCARY things happened to me as a child. It seemed like everything I did, my pure existence, was punished. I always received negative outcomes. So much so that I expected things to not work out. I expected BAD things to happen! That is surely no way to live, but I didn’t know any better because that was the reality I had experienced for many years. So when things started to go right, I was really thrown back! Ummmm, how long is this going to last for? I would almost feel like, I didn’t deserve good things and if I had them, they wouldn’t last long. I was mentally prepared to continue to suffer internally. I had been punished for so long, my thoughts only knew how to punish me. I was far from a positive human. I struggled with deep depression as a child, even professionally diagnosed. I felt no HOPE, no point to living. I would daydream about Heaven because in my mind, that is the one place I knew I could go to and find true happiness and bliss. I longed for it.

Okay, back to manifesting.

When I started my divorce process, I knew I would have to level up in MASSIVE ways. My life would need to completely change. I knew what was coming—yet I had nothing.

I got out a notepad and I literally, physically and cognitively DESIGNED my new life. I wrote out the job I needed, how much it would pay, what the benefits were, how many hours I would work and all the physical items I would need to survive. I wrote down a place to live, how much the rent would be and what it looked like. I wrote out how I felt working and providing for myself. I needed to FEEL this reality so I could bring it to life. Failure was not an option. Homelessness was not an option. I had to address every fear, every insecurity and every limiting belief that told me I would fail.

The affirmations I used to change my truth looked like this:

“I am an asset. I am worthy of compensation and will help people. Because I am massively compensated, I can afford to help others and be generous”

“It is my purpose to heal the minds of others and therefore allow every individual to achieve their greatest purpose (mind you, I was not a counselor yet. I didn’t have counseling education apart from my psychology degree and I didn’t even fathom obtaining a counseling license)”.

“I am here on purpose, my work is needed”

“I want to be proof that you can live a life you love, making money doing what you love and not succumb to anything that doesn’t serve your soul”

I continued to write my affirmations (many more than these) until I believed them. This was an extremely difficult exercise for me to do because these thoughts were just TOO nice for me to think about myself. To think I have a purpose, to think I can do good in this world for myself and for others and to think I could possibly succeed! What a daunting thought to someone who was taught: you are nothing, you having nothing to offer anyone, you are ugly, you are talentless, you are trapped, you have no choice. I had to completely clean house, internally and externally.

I have not arrived to my goal, but I can say in just 5 years of practicing changing my thoughts and intentionally focusing on what I want for myself and my life, things have taken a DRAMATIC shift. I still experience worry, but I rarely experience the darkness I had as a child. I have achieved every goal I wrote down in my journal. I was able to get a job when I was going through my divorce. I found a roommate so I could afford to live. I went back to school to level up my income and graduated. As painful and traumatic as divorce can be and was, it was a necessary event to get my ass to level up, take charge of my life, stop relying on others, and live with a higher purpose.

Life is SO far from perfect, but we have a lot more power than we are aware of. Our life is our responsibility and what we make of it—no one else.

If you are unhappy or unfulfilled where you are at, manifest something better and greater. We have to do the work, spiritually and physically.

FAITH (belief) + ACTION (inspired) + unknown amount of time=MANIFESTED DESIRE

Faith doesn’t mean religion. In this context, it means believing that what you desire is indeed, possible. Not only are we called to believe in ourselves and others, we are called to take action, to do our part.

Example: I want a college fund for my kids.

Faith = I know this is doable

Action= Create a plan to take out $$$ every month and put in a separate account

Time= Everything takes time, we can’t control that part

Manifestation = 20 years later I have saved enough to put my kids through school without student loan debt

Is it magical? It may feel that way when it happens, but it’s actually more scientific than magical and it’s called the Law of Attraction.

If you would like to learn more about the Law of Attraction and need specific steps on where to start and how to change your reality for the best, see my free (super free, no strings attached) Abundance Academy and get started! (hint, this is your inspired action to changing your life)

See link below:

https://downtoearthcounseling.org/2021/10/26/the-abundance-academy/