Latest / In The Driver's Seat / Why Manifestation Isn't Working for You (And the Weird Fix That Actually Works)
Transcript
- Lisa French: Are you tired of trying to manifest your soulmate or a fat bank account Only to end up with more frustration than when you started? Here's the secret. The problem isn't that you're not trying hard enough. The problem might be that you care too much. In this episode, I'm going to show you why the real key to finally getting what you want. is to start with something you really wouldn't be bothered if you didn't get it. I'll tell you exactly what I practiced it on instead of my big dreams. It was small and random and I also really didn't need it. Like it was a be a nice to have type of thing. What ended up happening changed how I see everything about manifestation. Let's be real. The whole world of manifestation can feel like a total trap. You're told to visualize your dream life, feel the burning desire for it, want it with every cell of your body. I've even talked about visualization in my teachings. So you spend hours scripting, making vision boards, repeating affirmations until you're blue in the face. You do everything you're supposed to do. and yet the one thing you want more than anything just seems to drift further and further away. It's a special kind of torture, right? To pour all your hope into something only to be met with crickets. This is the big contradiction of wanting. The more desperately you want something, the more you can accidentally push it away from you. Now this isn't some kind of cosmic force punishing you for being needy. The mechanism is much more practical and it's happening inside your own mind. When you're fixated on a high stakes outcome, like finding the one, your soulmate, or fixing all your money problems, your nervous system goes on high alert. And that is not a state of joyful creation. It's a state of deep anxiety. It's energy of lack. Every time you think I need this to happen, what your brain really hears is I don't have it and my life is broken without it. That desperate needy feeling can create some powerful psychological resistance. When you're anxious, your perception of risk gets amplified and your mind can get stuck in loops, making it harder to see solutions or opportunities that are right in front of you. Think of it like trying to catch a little fish in a pond with your bare hands. If you're calm and move slowly, You might be able to scoop it up. But if you're starving and desperate. You'll splash around like crazy. Euphrantic moves stir up mud from the bottom and cloud the water. And the fish senses chaos. It is long gong. Your desperation didn't just fail you to get the fish, it actively scared it away. The same can be true with your goals. Excessive anxiety and attachment can cloud your judgment. You get so fixated on the one way you think it has to happen that you miss the dozens of other paths that might open up for you. Psychologically, this is often described as an unhealthy attachment. When your self worth and happiness are completely tied to a single external goal, You have given away your power. You're no longer steering the ship. You're just clinging to the driftwood in a storm, hoping you wash up on the right island. That's not a powerful creative state. And it's almost impossible to build a dream life when you're stuck just trying to survive. The solution, as weird as it sounds, is to learn the art of not needing it. You have to practice what they call non-attachment. But how can you practice not needing the one thing you feel like you need in your life? You can't. That's like learning to swim in a riptide. The stakes are too high. You need a calm, shallow pool. you need to start with something that you don't care if it shows up or not. Early in my spiritual journey, I was deep in that struggle. I had a list of my big important things I was trying to bring into my life. I was journaling, visualizing, doing all the work and getting nowhere. I felt stuck, frustrated, and honestly, I a little dumb. I'm a pretty practical person and all the woo-woo stuff was starting to feel like a huge waste of my time. My frustration led me to a simple almost throwaway thought. I had an opportunity to try it on something that I didn't really care if I got it or not. I just thought it'd be fun to have. And so I thought, okay, let's see if this works. Let's prove it. And because it was so unimportant, I would have no emotional reaction to the outcome if it was not that I was going to get it. I had been reading all kinds of books and following different spiritual leaders and teachers. So I finally came to a realization, like, okay, if this really works, let's prove it. I should try it on something doesn't matter at all. Like something with zero emotional baggage to me. And then when I decided to run this little experiment, I knew I had to find something that would be like maybe nice to have, but I would really have no emotional reaction if I didn't get it. So it was hospital week. I worked at a hospital in Iowa and every year there's a week that they just do fun things, celebrations recognition, awards, that sort of thing. And this particular year they had different departments put together what they called well they they were just like baskets, but people get really creative. So like you maybe put together an actual picnic basket, but you have all the things that go with it. Like maybe a picnic blanket and a bottle of wine with a wine opener, those sort of things. Movie night. There was a like a popcorn bucket with movies and popcorn and and that sort of thing. Movie maybe even a gift card to the movie theater There was one particular one that I had my eye on and it was a fire pit. And inside the fire pit there was like a box of graham crackers and bag of marshmallows and thing of chocolates to make s'mores. I think there was some firewood starter. you know, things like that. And I thought, that'd be really cool to have in the backyard. So in order to win the basket, you'd buy a certain amount of tickets or whatever you wanted to buy and then a ticket like this And you you would write your name on the back of it. each of the baskets that were donated by the department had a little jar or whatever next to it. And you would drop your ticket in whichever ones you wanted to try to win. So you could spread it out. Like if you bought 10 tickets, let's say, you could put it one in 10 different things, or you could pile 10 of them all in one, trying to really up your chances of winning that particular basket. I know that I did put some in another basket, but I don't remember what it was. Because I really thought I'm going to try to win this fire pit. So every time I wrote my name on the ticket, I started doing a visualization, which is a method to manifestation. I really went through the steps. every time I wrote my name, I heard my name in my mind being called as the winner. And then I also imagine myself sitting in the backyard in a lawn chair with a fire on a cool night, feeling the warmth of the heat, smelling the wood burning, imagining making the s'more with the with the kit that they include with the basket in the in the fire pit. And I just and I felt also the calmness, like how you feel, you know, just kind of the warmth of the fire and how it relaxes you I went through all of it. But I also went through like, it'd be really fun to hear my name. I'd be really fun to win this. It'd be so cool. But again, if I didn't, my life was not gonna be any less without it. I didn't have my all my hopes hung up on winning this fire pit. So after I dropped the majority of my tickets in the bucket for the fire pit, then I just let it go. I don't care anymore about if it comes or it doesn't. I just let it go. went on a went on about my day. I don't remember how many days before this would have been before the drawing, cause they allowed several days for people to get their tickets in the buckets. after that I was detached from the outcome. then when it came the day of the drawing, I went to the cafeteria where all the bassets were and they were doing the drawing. I'm guessing they probably had some sort of free treat And so a bunch of us were gathered in the cafeteria. It didn't have to be present to win, but it was going through all the different drawings and it came to that fire pit and it called my name. And I won the fire fit. And I thought to myself, my goodness, it worked. It worked. But in some way it was more like this aha moment where it all clicked inside of me of I had set a clear intention, I took action and then I just let it go. And my lack of desperation, clinging on to the hope. it really was the superpower in all of that. I just made it fun. It wasn't attached, there wasn't any anxiety about it. And no desperation meant no resistance to it. I hadn't been splashing around in that pond scaring the fish away. I had just cast the line, set the pole down, and walked away. And the fish just bit. The fire pit wasn't just a piece of metal for me. It was a tangible sign that this principle does work. I didn't just see an object, I could feel the experience that it offered, the warmth on a cool night, the crackling of the wood as it burned, the smell of the smoke my children sitting next to me laughing, us joking around, It represented a feeling of peace and joy. And it came to me not through struggle but through release. it arrived because I got out of my own way. I realize that this is a practice and This is a manifestation gym. You don't walk into a gym and try to bench press 500 pounds on day one. You start with the 10 pound dumbbells and then you do the reps. You build the muscle. That silly fire pit was my 10-pound dumbbell. Now I want you to have that aha moment. If you've felt stuck trying to manifest something big, it's probably because you're trying to start your workout with the heaviest weight in the gym. It's time to put that down and pick up something that feels effortless. it's time for you to try this yourself. call it the detachment challenge. The point is to prove to yourself that you are a powerful creator by starting with something so small and insignificant that your brain doesn't have a chance to build resistance to it. Here's your three step guide. Don't overthink it. The magic is in the simplicity. So step one Choose your start small item. This is the most important step. You have to pick something you genuinely 100% do not care if it comes or not. It needs to be specific. You'll need to recognize it, but something emotionally neutral. So if you pick like Finding a dollar, but at the at the moment you're worried about money, that's probably a bad choice. Your money anxiety will latch on to that dollar and you'll be right back to splashing in the pond. Here are some examples of low stake items, and just pick one that feels the most meaningless to you. Like seeing a lime green car, finding a safety pin on the ground. Hearing a specific kind of obscure nineties song or any song from your past. Seeing an image of a pineapple unexpectedly. Or seeing a yellow butterfly. And that could be like in actual in your environment, or maybe you see a picture of it somewhere. The key is emotional neutrality. The item should be so random that if you never see it, your life is exactly the same and you feel zero disappointment. You should be able to say, if it happens, cool. If it doesn't, who cares? And really mean it. So step two is set the intention once. Once you have your item, just state your intention one single time. You can say it out loud Or you can write it on a piece of paper you immediately throw away. For example, I intend to see a lime green car this week. That's it. You've done the active part. What you're doing here isn't sending a magic order to the universe. From a psychological view, it's more like you're priming your brain's attention system. There's a network of neurons in your brainstem called the reticular activating system or RAS that acts as a filter for all the information hitting your senses. when you're setting an intention, you're basically giving your RAS a new instruction. Hey, besides all the usual important stuff, maybe keep an eye out for lime green cars. You're not magically creating more lime green cars, you're just adjusting your internal filter. So you're more likely to notice one that's already there. Step three: genuinely let go. Now Now for the part that feels the hardest but should be the easiest. Do nothing. Walk away, get on with your life. Don't look for the lime green car. Don't wonder when it'll show up. Don't test to see if it's working. Every time you check, You're signaling to your own brain that you're attached, you're anxious, you're operating from a place of not having it. You're holding on to it too tight. the way you genuinely let go is to trust the first two steps were enough. You choose your item, you set the intention. Your only job now is to live your life. Non-attachment comes from the smart choice you made in step one because you picked something you don't care about. It's easy to forget. It doesn't have those emotional hooks to keep snagging your attention. Practicing non-attachment is about releasing the need to control the outcome. It's a state where your peace isn't dependent on whether you see that car. You can be happy and whole right now, with or without it. Ironically, that state of inner calm is what makes you more open and observant. A calm mind is a perceptive mind. Your internal state has very real practical effects on how you experience your external world. This little experiment is the first step in the manifestation gym. When your start small item shows up, and it will, often in a surprising and funny way, take a moment to feel that quiet. Aha. Don't brush it off as a coincidence. Recognize it as a data point. It's a sign that you sent an intention. You released the resistance And you allowed something to arrive effortlessly. You just completed your first rep. You've shown yourself how the mechanism works. And I wrote a list. These are all pretty pretty small items. I mean, and I know that this is definitely not an entire list, but I've won tickets to a music festival. a favorite one is my grandson's birthday was coming up and I always put dollar bills in his birthday card for how old he is and it was a dollar short and I thought, I need to break a bigger bill so I can get some dollars to add to the dollars I already had. And I thought to myself so I walk every morning and sometimes I find money, usually change, but sometimes I find dollar bills or ten dollar bills or whatever. And I thought, I'll just find one on my walk. And I'm not kidding you. I walk a little over three miles every morning and not even quarter mile in, there was a dollar bill laying on the ground. I've won a private flight to Tampa when I instead of having to drive the seven hours. And at the apartment complex where live, they w had a fun community event, music bingo, and it was the last game, the last prize was left. It was a their bigger prize. And we didn't know what the prices were, but I just declared I'm gonna win it. And I I could I heard myself saying bingo and sure enough I won and I got a Lowe's gift card and I bought plants with them for my patio. So your homework is to try this. Pick your silly meaningless item, set the intention, and then let it go. And when it shows up, I want you to do one more thing. Come back to this video and share your story in the comments. What did you choose and how did it appear? Reading through everyone's stories will build your own belief even faster. It creates a feedback loop of success that reminds us all that this isn't some rare magic, but a practical skill anyone can learn. To practice this, manifest a safety pin. Then a perfect parking spot. I've done that many times. Then a free lunch Just keep doing these small low stakes reps, each with success. You're not just getting stuff, you are fundamentally building a new habit. You are building your non-attachment muscle. You are teaching your nervous system that it's safe to want something without being consumed by it. You are building confidence in your own ability to get out of your way. And once you have that confidence, once you've mastered letting go on the small things, you can finally go back to your big dreams. But this time you'll approach them not with desperation, but with the quiet, powerful confidence of someone who knows exactly how this works. If this episode resonated with you, please give this video a like and subscribe or follow for more practical ways to create a life that you love. And also if you want to learn more about visualization and want an actual step-by-step guide, I have a visualization guide that is totally free to you. I will drop a link in the show notes, but you can get it at LisaFrench.rocks forward slash visualization. Now go pick your start small item. I can't wait to read your success story. Until next time, remember you are always in the driver's seat of your own life.