It all starts with how we think.

In this weeks post, I talk about manifestation, the power of what we write, and about the effect our thoughts can have on our lives.

I’ve always believed that what we put out into the universe we get back.

The law of attraction.

So, when I hit a roadblock in a certain area of my life, how much responsibility do I have for that?

I told my husband the other day that whenever I plan to go back to the gym, something gets in the way. When we got back from Costa Rica, I got sick. I had a fever, a major head cold, and snot pouring out of my face. Is this the effect of my thoughts already setting myself up for failure because I planned to hit the gym when we got home from our vacation?

After I healed from my cold and became a functioning human being who could think about physical exercise without cringing, I was overwhelmed by holiday plans. I decided not to load myself up too much and pushed it off again. I was like, nah, as much as I don’t want to be one of those New Year's resoluters, I’ll hit the gym in 2025. 

Fast forward to New Year’s morning, I woke up with the worst toothache and scheduled myself for an emergency dental appt. They told me I needed a root canal. Lucky me. If I can power through a day of work with a throbbing face and steady discomfort then I can probably go to the gym. But I’m not that hard-core. I’ll stick to walking my dog until this situation is resolved and I can live again without being tied to a strict rotation of Tylenol and Advil—poor man’s codeine.

So what the heck!? Is divine intervention saying I don’t need the gym? Or is the self-sabotaging part of my brain just sending signals to the universe to help me avoid health and wellness in general? I could overthink this and wind up with two or three different conclusions. But I won’t bore you with that, I’m sure you have your theories by now.

When I dig my heels down into the base of my problem, I think about how we create our reality and how our minds are more powerful and sneaky than we are aware of.

I have friends who tell me that they don’t get sick. I internally roll my eyes at that and think germs are real, but I can’t recall a time that they were, so are they impervious to germs, or does what you think really hold that much power?

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I started a journal last spring solely for manifestation. It worked so well, it scared me. I asked for something, the universe gave me what I asked for, but not what I needed and that freaked me out.

I spend a lot of my mental energy giving into the cosmos and allowing that divine whatever to have control because even when things suck, I always wind up in the right place and I’m grateful for that. When I used manifestation last year, I got what I wanted—but I hated it. I thought to myself, oh shit manifesting is real, and learned that it’s a power that can easily be abused. I haven’t tried it again since.

My struggle to attract reminded me of a video where a father asked his kids to write him a recipe for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The instructions the kids wrote said, “Put the knife in the peanut butter,” so he jabbed a knife into the container but didn’t take it back out because the recipe didn’t say to do that. The kids got hilariously frustrated.

That’s what I feel manifesting is like. It’s hard to navigate. How do you ask for what you want but still allow the universe to guide you where you need to go? How do you know your recipe is fool-proof before it’s been tested?

That’s a topic for another day. Maybe one I can experiment with, and get back to you on.

I think manifestation is practiced by everyone every day without awareness. It listens to our small thoughts and responds:

I can’t keep plants alive, so your plants always die.

Something always gets in the way of the gym, so you never make it to the gym.

There are no nice guys out there, so you only meet a**holes.

I’m always going to have blank, I’m always going to be blank, so those negatives attach themselves to you disguised as truth. We take these little nuances of our lives and bank them like they’re a part of our identity like they’re unsheddable quirks and bad luck we’re stuck with when in reality, it’s those funny ha ha affirmations we repeat over and over again, that make those things a reality and give them power.

I’m clumsy

I’m not very smart

I’m bad at doing blank

I’m ugly

I’m not fun

I’m shy

I’m depressed

Etc…

So when I use my Substack platform to vent about things I’ve experienced what kind of power am I giving to the universe? If I indirectly attack someone or air my grievances to the world in a way where a ripple can form, aren’t I telling the universe I have space for that to come back to me? Aren’t I telling the universe I like to publicly grieve, so give me more I can grieve about? Aren’t I telling the universe, I’m irresponsible with my emotions, and so I want to be surrounded by people who are too…

It all matters. How we receive things, and how we give them away.

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I’ve had a certain theme pop up in multiple pieces of literature I’ve been reading. Our responsibility as writers—the responsibility not to cause intentional harm. There’s a fine line between freedom of speech and creativity and I’ve been thinking a lot about where that line is and how we can still rightfully use our voice, but in a way that limits hurting others, especially when you pull from experiences and give not-so-vague examples.

I’m not talking about political opinions and write-ups that can offend people. I think when we take offense to something, that’s not the same thing as being hurt, and we hold a lot of responsibility for those reactions. But I am talking about using our platforms to pick apart other people’s emotions because we didn’t like how their feelings made us feel… Does that make sense?

I’ve used this platform to do exactly that. I’ve vaguely spoken about people in my life who have hurt me under the guise of creativity. When in reality I was just airing my grievances publicly. I was also aware that the people I was referring to—albeit anonymously—might see what I’ve written. On the off-chance I’d be asked if my article was about them, I planned to sound shocked and reply with a “What? No! That’s not about you”. That’s irresponsible, and it’s not ok. I’m entitled to my own experience, as are they, but I want to attract a certain standard of life, and dragging others through the mud because they hurt me even though I didn’t name names, is still dragging them through the mud. You can’t anonymize energy…

(Now, just a quick disclosure, I’ve never bashed someone on here, I’ve only just expressed how I felt hurt in a roundabout artistic sort of way, but I still don’t think that’s always ok.)

I’m not saying I was fully aware that I was doing this. I was and I wasn’t. That’s growth, and I’m proud of myself for being able to sit here and write about how I was wrong so that I can be better. Emotions are powerful things, and I think it will be a lifelong battle learning how to feel them, let go of them, and react to them in ways that don’t attract more of the same.

It’s on me to break that cycle. To be hurt, but then to take control of that hurt instead of allowing it to keep gaining momentum. I think it’s up to me to hold those emotions tight, self-soothe, and instead of handing them off to someone else in the form of a well-worded essay, re-shape them into something that might make someone feel good further down the line.

I think in the same way we need to take responsibility for what we attract into our lives, we also have to control what energy we send out. What we put out in the universe, in my experience, always comes back to us.

If I tell myself that there will be something that gets in the way, I’ll find a roadblock.

If I make depression and anxiety part of my identity, I’ll always be anxious and depressed.

If I weaponize my emotions I’ll attract people who do the same.

If what goes around comes around do you want to be hit in the face with rocks or flower petals?

As always thanks for reading,

Rach.