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Manifestation & "Lucky Girl Syndrome" · I Care About You

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Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome.
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Welcome to the I Care about you podcast. The podcast where
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we explore mental health, wellness, and the
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beautiful and sometimes messy journey of being human.
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I'm your host, Juliana Jay, and today we're diving into
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a cultural phenomenon that's been buzzing across TikTok and beyond.
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It's called the Lucky Girl Syndrome. It's the idea that if you
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truly believe you're lucky and that everything is always working out for
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you, then it will. Sounds magical,
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I know, but is it a mindset hack or just
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another way of spiritually bypassing the hard stuff? So let's get
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into it. I want you to know before we start that I'm babysitting a
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really cute little dog. And so if you're watching me, you might
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see some dogs going around. There's my dog, sweet Jane,
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who greeted you in the beginning. And there's also another little dog
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here, Nano. So let's get into it. What is Lucky Girl Syndrome?
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You've all seen the memes. What exactly is it? It originated
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with the TikTok influencer, Laura Ghalib, I hope I'm
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pronouncing her name right, who posted a video saying that
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the key to her success is simply believing that she's lucky.
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She tells herself that good things are just going to happen to
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her, and that's her mindset. Having this mindset that you're
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lucky and everything will just happen to your advantage actually makes it
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come true, just in the act of living in that reality that you are lucky.
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This idea quickly took off, especially among the gen zers and millennial audiences.
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Hashtags like LuckyGirl Syndrome have racked up millions of views.
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People are sharing their own affirmations, stories, and unexpected
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opportunities as proof that the mindset works. Before we go any
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further, I actually have to say that this is something I've done for most of
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my life. Just, I never called it anything. If you're
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a naturally optimistic person, you tend to think that
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nothing's off the table of possibility. And in essence,
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you're kind of treating yourself like you're lucky.
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And a lot of people just kind of live their life that way.
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Here's Nano. If you're optimistic, you might naturally be
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kind of doing this lucky girl stuff or this lucky stuff
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all on your own without really attributing it to
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the Lucky Girl syndrome. So at its core, the Lucky Girl syndrome
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is a close cousin of manifestation and law of attraction, which we've talked a
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lot about in this podcast. The concept is simple. If you repeat to yourself
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often enough, that you're lucky. Your brain begins to notice the good more
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than the bad. And over time your attitude, choices and energy shift
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towards positivity and maybe luck. It's really
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very closely related to Law of Attraction and Manifestation in that if
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you live the reality you want to live, the universe
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will fall in line with you. You will attract the energy that you're looking for
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if you yourself are becoming the energy that you seek.
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So what is the psychology behind positive affirmations?
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Let's zoom out a little bit and take a look at the science of all
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of this. Positive affirmations can indeed have a psychological
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impact. Repeating kind, supportive statements to yourself
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can improve self esteem, motivation, and even resilience.
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This is so, so true. I often do affirmations on this podcast and I'll
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probably do a companion affirmation segment to this particular podcast
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that we're dealing with. I totally believe in affirmations,
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but the power of affirmations really lies in doing
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it consistently over and over and over again and replacing negative
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kind of beliefs about yourself with positive affirmations when it happens. Retelling the story
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to yourself. According to cognitive behavioral research, affirmations can
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rewire your neural pathways. You begin to counter
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negative thought patterns and cultivate more self belief.
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This can help reduce anxiety, increase focus,
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and fuel your drive towards your goals. Now this is something I
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really took on a couple years ago. When I first started this podcast.
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I was doing a year out of my comfort zone. I'm kind of a wallflower
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sort of person. So that I have a podcast is weird. But that
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was part of that was changing the neural pathways of
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I can't to I can of changing the neural
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pathways of people are going to judge me negatively to
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maybe that doesn't matter so much to me. It's what I'm doing that matters.
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Research suggests that affirmations can help you rewrite those negative
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pathways that you things like I'm ugly, I can't
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do it, I'm not smart, I'm not good enough. I'm not
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enough. I don't matter. I'm nothing. These negative thoughts can
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be replaced with affirmations like I love myself. I am
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worth it. I do matter. I am smart enough.
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I am enough just as I am. I am a beautiful person can
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really shift your viewpoint of yourself and over time you'll
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just start thinking more positively about yourself. But. And of
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course there's a but. Mental health experts caution that unrealistic optimism
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can backfire if we rely solely on affirmations without
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action, we start to Bypass the real,
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often complex work of healing, growing and making decisions rooted
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in reality. This is where realistic optimism comes
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in, balancing hopeful beliefs with grounded understanding of
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what's possible and what's needed. Now I'm of the mindset
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and the belief that all things are possible. They might not be
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possible in the way which you are imagining them, but you might be able to
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get to that same goal or that same possibility taking a different route
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or readjusting what the definition is of what you're seeking
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or how you're going to get there. Being flexible
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but action is the key to basically everything
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in life. If you don't put action behind what you're trying to do
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or what you're trying to change, you're going to have a really hard time changing
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those things long lasting for the, for the real deal.
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So having realistic optimism, like for example, I can't
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have a successful podcast. It might take two years,
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three years, four years. It might be a lot of work. I might want
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to quit sometimes, but I want that as a dream. And I'm going to go
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for it because I can do it. I am smart enough, I'm an expert in
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what I do. I can learn more all the time. I can push beyond
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any negative feedback that I get. And I
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want to tell you, when I first started this podcast, I got some negative feedback
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from somebody very, very close to me in kind of this snarky sort of
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way. And I had to really work through
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that. I had to really let it go. And there's a whole bunch of mechanisms
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for letting things go. And I'm going to talk about that next week, so stay
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tuned for that. Another thing about the lucky girl syndrome
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is there's a lot of people out there that think it's like, it's great,
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let's do it. But there are a lot of criticisms. So what are the
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criticisms of the lucky Girl syndrome? One concern is that it oversimplifies
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how life works. Not everything is within your control. Bad things happen,
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sometimes randomly, sometimes because of systematic inequality,
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illness or trauma. Not because we don't think positively enough,
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but because there are other factors that are engaging in our
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reality. Critics argue that the trends lean
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towards toxic positivity. The idea that we should try to focus on the
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good, dismiss the bad, and suppress the negative emotions like fear,
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sadness and frustration, which all have their place. And it's
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really about finding a balance, as in everything in life not
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being so positive over there that you're not even addressing
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these other things you need to work through or deal with for someone dealing with
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chronic stress or poverty or discrimination, this mindset can feel dismissive
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or even shaming. It implies that you're not thriving. It's because you
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don't believe in yourself hard enough. And that's just not fair. It's not
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true. There's a lot of people out there who are really putting a lot
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of energy into themselves, and their obstacles are much bigger than other
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folks, or they're dealing with other things,
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or they're in a situation that they can't really get
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out of and they don't really have the means to
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really get out of, out of what's happening now and do what they want to
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do. Because that's a huge, huge barrier.
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Poverty is a huge, huge barrier. Discrimination, huge, huge barrier.
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Chronic stress, trauma,
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inequality, not being seen and heard,
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having even something like, you know, when you're in school or high school, I came
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from a very small town, and everybody gets typecast, right? And sometimes
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your typecasting is negative. Like, for example, maybe you're
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a class clown, and you could take that as positive, but you could
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also take that as negative. And sometimes people will
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call you really mean things. Like, for me, it was like fat girl and things
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like that when I was in grade school. And I latched
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onto that and carried that through my life. So sometimes it's really hard to even
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overcome these labels that
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other people have put on us and move forward through life.
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It's not fair to assume that everybody
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can get to this place of exactly where they want. Now, I said before,
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I believe in dreaming big and all of that. And I do. And I do
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believe that people can do all kinds of amazing things.
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And what I'm saying here is some people have it much easier than
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others for very hard reasons and
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for reasons that you can't understand and I can't understand and
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other people can't understand because we. You haven't been there. It's a unique experience
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to the person specifically. So how do we take the
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good from this trend without falling into the traps of this trend?
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A more balanced approach comes from something called mental contrasting.
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This practice encourages you to visualize your ideal outcome,
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but also identify potential obstacles. That way, you're not just wishing
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for change, you're preparing for it. And this is huge. And this is really another
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kind of manifestation technique is to visualize your ideal outcome
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exactly where you want to be. Even script it out. Like, say you want to
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audition for a play. Script out that scene. What that scene of auditioning or wanting
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to audition or signing up to audition. Might look like for you. What does it
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look like for you to be in your. Your dream job? What does it look
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like for you to be in your dream relationship? You not only spend time meditating
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and visualizing it and feeling like that is
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your reality, letting it seep into your entire body and not just be up here
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in your head, but it's also journaling about it, scripting about it, visualizing it,
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and preparing for. Preparing for it is really huge.
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What are the steps to get to where you want to be? You can't necessarily
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just go from 0 to 300 in a matter of seconds.
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There's little mini goals or steps along the way that you have to take,
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and it's preparing for those that help you. You can still affirm good things
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are coming my way, but then ask what steps can I take to invite them
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in? I always think that good things are coming my way.
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It's all in divine timing. I don't really know when they're going to show up.
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I always hope they show up soon, but sometimes they don't. A classic
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example of that is when I became a published author and I got a
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book deal from a publisher. It was total serendipity.
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But I remember when I was a child really wanting to be
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a writer. And I had a vision that I wouldn't become a writer
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until I was the age that I am now or in this decade that
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I am now. And as a kid I was like, oh my gosh, that's so
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far off. But then I went to school and I realized that
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I'm dyslexic. And then I thought, I can't write. I can't even spell. I don't
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understand grammar. I don't understand any of it. I was so far behind in all
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of that, and that wasn't really addressed. I also had a
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lot of speech impediments and kind of a hearing thing. And those
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things weren't really addressed at the times I went to school. So I just thought,
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I'm not good enough to write a book. But I really wanted it. I used
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to pretend like I was an author all the time. All the time,
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constantly pretend. Writing books and being authors I admired as a kid and
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really living into that and scripting it and.
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And visualizing it just as a kid in play.
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And sure enough, the vision that I had came into being into
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truth. It was total serendipity. I wasn't really totally pursuing
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a book offer. It just fell into my lap. And then, lo and behold,
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I have a book. I Have a published book. I'm a published author.
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So I do really think that those.
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All of that scripting and visualizing as a child really
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prepared me for where I am today. But it didn't come
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right into being when I wanted it to. I even tried to write when I
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was in my 20s and was very unsuccessful at it and put it
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down for a long time because it just wasn't ready. So I do always believe
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that good things are coming my way, even in dark times, which is really hard.
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But it's really important to ask yourself, what steps can you take to invite those
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good things in? What do you need to do? Because until your energy is
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right and you've done the work, it's hard to get those things. You have to
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do the work. There's no getting around it. Pair this with mindfulness.
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Awareness of your thoughts, your emotional state, and how your beliefs shape your
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behavior. When you're grounded in self awareness,
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affirmations become empowerment, not escapism.
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So if you're really grounded in self awareness, you know who you are, you even
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know your dark side, you know your shadows, you know you have some idea.
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Affirmations can be really empowering. But if you're using
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them to escape really doing the work on why you have
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certain negative beliefs about yourself, then they aren't as effective. You can
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say to yourself, I believe good things are possible. I trust
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that I can handle what comes. I can rewrite my story with grace and realism.
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It's not about pretending that life is perfect and nothing bad ever happens
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and you're just totally lucky and all great things come to you all
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the time. It's about choosing belief with awareness and then putting action
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behind it. So what I mean by that is identifying, maybe even write down
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some of your negative beliefs. This was an exercise I did a while ago and
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it was really powerful for me. I wrote down the things that I don't like
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about myself, which then I could use to identify what
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are the negative things? I tell myself, what's my negative self talk?
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And then I thought about what is the opposite of that? Or what do I
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want? Instead of feeling like I am unloved, I want to feel loved.
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I am loved. So I turned all of that negative self talk
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into a positive affirmation. And then
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I thought to myself, is this positive affirmation true?
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Yes, it's true. Some people do love me. Is that enough?
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Maybe that's enough. Because maybe a lot of your negative self talk
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is not a truth at all. None of it's a truth. It's just what you
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believe. And if it isn't something like, at one point, I want
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to be a podcaster, I want to do a podcast. And I don't have that.
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I'm not a podcaster. And the opposite of that is I am
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a podcaster. And then I identified what is the path between I am
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not to I am. What. What do I need to do to get to the
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space of I am. Do I need equipment? Do I need to figure
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out how to write scripts? Do I need to figure out how to even post?
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What software do I need? What do I need? Do I need to learn how
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to edit video? So many things, right? And I just lined all those
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things up. And then you. You have a roadmap to get
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to the new thing that you want to be. And sometimes if you're really dealing
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with things that are deep, like you feel unworthy, are not valid
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or alone, those are some dark shadows
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that, that you need to probably do some work on how you got that
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belief. Where did that belief come from? Where did it stem from? And can I
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retell that story? Because a lot of those stories that we have about ourselves,
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where we generate these negative beliefs, happened to us as we
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were children, and we didn't really understand the full context of what was happening.
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And I often use the common thing for children
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of don't talk to strangers. So when you're a kid, that makes sense. Your mom
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tells you that or your guardian tells you that, so you won't go
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talking to strangers and get into trouble. But as a grownup, you don't necessarily
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have to subscribe to that. I mean, you have to be careful with your life,
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but you don't go around not talking to anyone just because they're a stranger.
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But a lot of us do in adulthood simply because we've never contemplated
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that belief that was given to us when we were children. And there's so much
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more. There's so many beliefs that work their way into your internal biases
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and your. Your beliefs about self and your beliefs about others and your
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beliefs about where you are and what you need to do in life and what
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brings you happiness. And those are all beliefs, not truths. And you can change them
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at any time. But sometimes you have to do that deep, deep work to get
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there. So it's not as easy as just deciding
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you're lucky one day. Although having a mindset of optimism is
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really helpful, I will not deny that at all. At the
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end of the day, what do we make of the lucky girl syndrome?
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It speaks to our deep human desire for control, hope and
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meaning in the unpredictable world. And it's not a bad thing.
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It really isn't. To think you're lucky or good things are coming your way,
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none of that is bad. Believing that we're lucky can in fact
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open doors of confidence, gratitude and unexpected opportunities. But it's important
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to pair that belief with compassion, discernment and
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real world action. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Believe all
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great things are possible for you. Believe that you can have them,
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that you are worthy of them, that they are meant
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for you. Just surround that with compassion for yourself
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and others, for discernment. To be able to understand one thing about
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all of these positive beliefs that we have. Sometimes they're
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not even ours. I had one for a long time that I had to go
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to graduate school, of which I did. But that wasn't my goal.
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That wasn't the thing I thought would bring me happiness. I was just doing it
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because I thought, oh, then my parents will be proud of me. But it wasn't
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mine, it was never mine. And I didn't really
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realize that because it was just so internalized that I had to be this
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high functioning human all the time. And I need to prove myself that I'm worthy.
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And I had so many beliefs that weren't even mine. There's a lot of beliefs
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that aren't yours, that come with the gender you're assigned at birth, that come
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with people's expectations of you when you're a child, that come with relationships,
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that come with trying to fit in, that come with work world. It's just
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so many that aren't yours. So sometimes it's really good to
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just do a deep dive into what do you
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want to bring into your life? What positive things do you want for
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you? Really you just you. Not society, not your family,
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not your friends, not somebody you want to get back at,
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but for you, because at the end of the day, it's just your life's all
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about you. It's not about the other people. Let yourself hope,
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let yourself dream, but also let yourself feel the pain when it happens.
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Let yourself feel, let yourself plan for things, Let yourself grow.
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A lot of our growth is tied into painful experiences or things that don't
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go right. And when they're over and done with, oftentimes if
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you've done the work, you look back on those hard times and actually feel
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gratitude. And that's very healing. Because you
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know what is luck for real?
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It's often a mix of hard work, mindset, community and
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timing. It's just not in your control.
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Luck is not in your control. Optimism is in your control.
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Dreaming in your control what you're going to do about it. In your control.
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So what do you think about it? Has it been really helpful for you?
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Has adopting this lucky mindset been great for you?
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Or has it been more challenging for you? Or did
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it have any effect at all? Did you not even try it? How have you
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tried to get out of your negative mindset if you have one? And what did
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you do it and how was it successful? Give that some thought.
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Leave it in the comments if you're watching or listening somewhere
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where you can comment and let me know. And as always,
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I want to thank everyone who watches this podcast who
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shares it with people. I really love to see that.
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It's so wonderful and I thank you. Thank you so much. And if this podcast
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you think might have helped somebody else, please share it with them.
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And of course, please like and subscribe if my
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content is helpful to you in any way. Suggest what content you
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might like to see in the future. You can also DM me or go to
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my website, julianajbruno.com and contact me and
19:29
we can have a conversation about it. But until then,
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thank you so much for joining me on I care about you and I
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want you all to know that I love you and I support you and
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you have this. You don't have to be lucky to have
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the life of your dreams. You can do it and I believe in you.
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So take good care my friends, and I'll see you next time.