Manifestation – the acknowledgment of what you want and asking why you want it. Are you being influenced? Or is that an authentic need that's per your maxims?
Anti-Belief – What is the belief challenging what you want?
Growth – What change needs to happen to get what you want?
Integration – How do you apply that change to your life?
Notice – Observing the signs and synchronicities to help you expand
Expansion – What do you do once you’ve manifested?
Alea says the last step, expansion, is one rarely talked about. What do you do once you’ve realized that manifestation? And what happens if you worked really hard and realized this isn’t what you wanted?
“All my problems weren't solved because I got that manifestation. I think that that's so important for people to realize that happiness is an inside job,” says Alea. “I really believe that manifestation is only here to help us learn about ourselves, who we are, what we want, our identity, those kinds of things. And then the process starts all over" name="description">
Have you ever watched the movie The Secret? It shares this idea that you can manifest whatever you want you desire. One of the misconceptions is that if you really want something, you should just meditate or hope, and it will just fall on your head.
Today, we’ll demystify what manifestation actually is, with Alea Lovely, who is a spiritual advisor and philosopher who's been an intuitive and energy coach for over seven years. She's the creator and host of the podcast, Spiritual Shit, which is a No. 1 podcast on iTunes.
I really hope you hear the humanity in Alea's story and how she talks about her journey in childhood. She shares about learning to listen to herself over the rest of the world and what that takes from each one of us to find the courage, the strength, and the honesty to do that with integrity.
Alea had a religious upbringing. She was used to asking others – the priest, the pastor, the college professor – what her experiences meant rather than finding those answers within herself. She went through the process of learning her intuition, how her trauma informs her decisions and anxiety, and then trying to find her inner voice and questioned how it spoke to her.
“It's really important for me in the work that I do that I not only help guide others to, you know, the answers that they're looking for, but also give them the tools and the depth of understanding how to do that themselves,” says Alea. “So that way they're never reliant or never dependent on someone else again.”
Alea says manifestation was her gateway into spirituality. At 25, she became an atheist and was in a dark place where she felt she had no guidance and no one to turn to. She was scrolling on her phone, and “The Secret” came across her feed.
She dove headfirst into the idea of manifestation, positive thinking and affirmations. But she found missing elements to The Secret’s formula, because they were calling it a law, but it doesn’t work the same for everyone every time.
“I can think positive all day long, but I'm still a Black woman of size in this world,” says Alea. “There are certain things that are of it feel available to me and that are not in my socioeconomic status."
She says positive thinking is important, because if you’re in a negative mindset, it’s going to be more difficult to see those opportunities.
The Imagine Method came from Alea asking, what does it mean to live a good life?
“I start people off before you even get into the method of listing off your five maxims,” says Alea. “Your five maxims are like the top five things that you need to have in order to have a good life. So to give an example, financial security, romantic love, time spent with family, health and wellness.”
Then rate your list. What follows is the Imagine Method framework:
Inception – what are you starting from, and what is your current reality?
Manifestation – the acknowledgment of what you want and asking why you want it. Are you being influenced? Or is that an authentic need that's per your maxims?
Anti-Belief – What is the belief challenging what you want?
Growth – What change needs to happen to get what you want?
Integration – How do you apply that change to your life?
Notice – Observing the signs and synchronicities to help you expand
Expansion – What do you do once you’ve manifested?
Alea says the last step, expansion, is one rarely talked about. What do you do once you’ve realized that manifestation? And what happens if you worked really hard and realized this isn’t what you wanted?
“All my problems weren't solved because I got that manifestation. I think that that's so important for people to realize that happiness is an inside job,” says Alea. “I really believe that manifestation is only here to help us learn about ourselves, who we are, what we want, our identity, those kinds of things. And then the process starts all over
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