that's more of a personal question: how was your journey with manifestation?
tysm for this question!! i've sort of stayed away from getting too personal on this account because i intended it to be more of an account to give advice and just share my beliefs, but i'm happy to talk about me more if you guys want that <3
okay warning that this will be a very long reply lol
so honestly, i was just another victim of 2020 shiftok, i was 14 and found it in late 2019 i think, and it always stuck with me even though i thought it was silly and barely gave it a second glance at first. still, eventually i got into making scripts and trying to "do" it, but with (seemingly) absolutely no success for so long.
all that time was really really significant to me in hindsight though; it really pushed me into spirituality and philosophy and thinking about existence more than i ever did before. i am not at all someone who grew up in an open minded family when it comes to spirituality, i actually grew up in a pretty Christian house, nothing extensive but just a lot of people who really deeply believe in their religion. i never really believed myself, though i genuinely wanted to because i was scared. but i was always the one questioning everything since none of it resonated with me as enough, and that same questioning was always vilified which just reinforced to me that this couldn’t be my truth.
anyway so- i went through this really hard period in my life from the ages of like 17 to 19 being the peak. i grew up super privileged, which i am definitely aware of, and i never had to worry about "real" problems as my parents would say. but internally, i really struggled for a long time. i dont know what exactly it was but from maybe like 10 years old i just completely hid my identity to please other people to the point where i had no idea who i was honestly. i guess i just had a bit of an identity crisis that bled through every aspect of my life, and shifting was for a long time a sort of "escape" for me mentally so i didn't have to face that.
i did really good in school when i was younger, i floated through every thing with very little effort, but around 14 things started to go downhill. my mental health just really really declined, i had dreams and goals that i never told anyone about and as school started pushing careers and the future onto us, i really struggled because i felt like i couldn't tell anyone the things i wanted to achieve since it felt like no one around me knew me so revealing myself at that point for some reason felt so impossible? it sounds really stupid but it all has to do with identity.
so through high school i just kept declining, i still floated by doing the bare minimum. i did enough for no one to notice anything was wrong, but i had a really low self-image, like i hated taking pictures of myself, i had such bad social anxiety, i would shrink all the time. i quit the things that i loved and made me feel alive like dance because i felt so disconnected from my body, and that really just made everything worse. long story short i graduated pretty averagely, nothing outstanding, no clear goals on paper, just floating. barely living, just surviving. i made a ton of mistakes along the way because i was so disconnected from myself and i believed i was so incredibly separate from the world around me, and i was always in fight or flight, always trying to preserve the peace for this current moment, always living in survival mode, living from fear, living from lack, living from separation.
when i started university was when everything hit the fan for real. i grew up very sheltered and protected by my family so dorming my freshmen year was my first time having true independence on some level. i went in thinking it would be when everything finally turned around for me, but of course with the mindset and energy i was living from at the time, it was anything but. with my new independence i became really self destructive, an eating disorder that def existed before then thrived in this time and really took over my life for a while after that.
i made a ton of mistakes in this time: i lied to my parents, failed like every class my freshmen year, basically went through hell on earth. i was severely 4n4r3x1c and had this huge lie my parents found out about while i was probably close to the limits that my body could handle. it was a time for sure. i ended up getting suspended from my top 40 university cause of my grades, and it was a huge moment in my life. everyone around me was upset at me and logically i "deserved" it, but really i was struggling and didn't have any resource around me to ask for help as my family never believed in mental health or cared to hear about things like that.
anyway i realized then that through all this time that i had been floating and being self-destructive, i had been using shifting as a kind of escape. i thought if i did it, once i did it, everything would be fixed. and of course, i "didn't do it" by that time, and everything seemed in the moment to not be fixed, so that was when i decided to once and for all "give up" on shifting. (spoiler alert i did not actually give up.)
but i think doing that was the best thing i ever did for myself in that moment. that time where i finally took a break from shifting- for the first time since finding it btw, which had been like 4 years atp- i started rebuilding my life, and more importantly, i started uncovering my identity, my authenticity, who i wanted to actually be. i did my sophomore year at a community college and commuted, i started recovering from my ED, and i most importantly developed this urge to really look into spirituality. this time not from a pov of escape but rather just because i wanted to know more of myself and existence, it was just a calling or something that i can't really explain.
while i had known of shifting for years at that point, i hadn't ever really delved any deeper than that into anything spirituality related. so i started fresh, i put shifting on the backburner and decided i was starting over. i started with little youtube channels of people talking about basically just all sorts of different spirituality things. i even made this playlist in real time back them, on youtube, where i saved all the videos i watched that sparked something in me in the moment; i just went back and looked at it because of this ask and it's so insane because each video i found was literally like perfectly aligned, like each one was a perfect stepping stone into the next without my knowing or intention of looking for anything specific. it laid the foundation perfectly. it's also interesting because it don't even remember really looking into the labels of these topics specifically of "nonduality" or "law of assumption", it just kind of became what i found that felt right on it's own somehow without those topics being labelled anything specific. it was more just a knowing that i built for myself. and no, that knowing was not perfect at first. i knew things but didn't accept them as my truth for a while still, so i mostly still had the same type of experience of lack, but in truth everything was already aligned and i just hadn't known it at that "time".
anyway, so i did this for a year ish, just exploring spirituality on my own, quietly building my own philosophy and belief system with no external pressure. no one else knew about this and no one needed to. it wasn't an escape, it was more like expansion? i was simultaneously doing my sophomore year at this time, and i got all As, transferred my credits and applied and got re-admitted into my original university!!
still, little "bad" things did happen all in between this; i totaled my cars twice, i relapsed a few times, but most importantly i still struggled a lot to truly express myself to those around me. i still lived from separation even though things were in the larger perspective looking up. but all of those moments too i now look back on all of it and choose the perspective that it all was helping me because every moment was so perfect in ways i can't even explain, it's like if i wrote a book and had to place challenges perfectly to trigger some sort of growth in a character, it was like that. not saying that there is a "journey" or "growth" to ever happen, but within the illusion it feels like that and it's really beautiful imo, at least i choose to hold it that way.
anywayyyyy again- so i rejoined university. and while i was mostly fully recovered at this point and knew who i was much better than ever before, i still was hiding my true self from those around me. identity doesn't do well suppressed in this human experience, in my opinion. i was still working towards a major completely unrelated to what i actually wanted, still struggling and trying to please my parents while sacrificing myself. still hadn't learned that very important lesson that success will never follow you where you hurt yourself to achieve it. you cannot expect to feel aligned when you disrespect yourself. and that's what i had been doing basically forever, so not doing it felt impossible and insane.
however, that moment came anyway. i didn't do great my first semester back at my university and my parents were upset and disappointed. and at this point was when i was one foot too far in the "new" identity that shrinking further couldn't happen anymore. so i finally finally finally told everything to my parents, from my ED to my dreams, just everything. they are amazing and i love them even though they struggled to understand me and have some preconceived ideas about success because they're immigrants, it was not bad at all like i thought it would be. i mean it was at first, i actually think that was one of the lowest i have ever felt. but ultimately that moment of finally expressing my self and finally standing in what i wanted changed everything for me.
from then, i switched my major. yes, right before my junior year spring semester i changed my major. i am now studying the thing that will be most helpful to the life i actually want to live. i started fully trusting the flow of things, i started loving myself unconditionally, and most most MOST importantly i starting trusting myself. that is the biggest thing ever. i stopped waiting for validation from outside me because that was exactly what had destroyed me before. i just stopped. i decided to forgive myself for my mistakes, stop believing i was defined by a past, and stop believing i was stuck in an old identity. i chose differently and stood in it. and guess what, it changed everything. i truly am thriving more than ever before now, succeeding, doing things i love, feeling fully free and authentic and am myself in ways i haven't been since like 5 years old, it feels so so so good. i stopped relying on the outside world, and ironically, that's exactly what makes the outside world so beautiful. i finally decide to trust that i could create my own path by MYSELF, not with the validation of someone else, and i decided that i was enough right now. and that shifted everything for me.
now i am on path to graduate the same year i was always supposed to, even though i literally just changed my major. and i'm still doing a specialization and a minor, i'm going to study abroad next winter, i'm getting everything i ever wanted. i'm making art again, expressing myself, i feel beautiful and love myself in every way, i loveee taking pictures, i love meeting people and speaking to all sorts of new people, trying new things, getting to perform again which i LOVE so much but lost for so long. i am finding success and positivity and beauty everywhere i look. i have my desired body without hurting myself, i have my desired appearance without relying on things like subliminals or "methods", i am a master manifester and shifter because i say i am. i "fixed" every problem i believed i had with myself. i chose myself even before i saw any difference, and i trusted i was enough as i was, and yes it was so so so hard at times, but i just trusted and let it go. and of course, it all belongs to me now. it can't ever not, and it never was not mine. doesn't mean i'm perfect all the time or anything, but it does mean that when things happen i no longer view it the way i once did. ironically, life lost its pressure and meaninglessness when i realized there is no predetermined meaning or one true path. there just is everything, and there is me. right now. i am, and that's more than enough.
i don't say any of this to say that you must suffer to "become enlightened" or to succeed or to have a journey with a movie like arc with growth and a happy ending. you don't need these cinematic type dramatic things to happen to you. everyone's experience is different. hardships does not equal success. i just simply choose to look at things i believe to have "experienced" under this lens, i simply choose to believe it was all "divinely guided". that was what helped me make my change in the way i expressed my identity.
which is the last point of this; all of this to say: i say "i" many many times in this ask. this whole reply was about "my journey". in truth, of course, none of that exists; not this self, not this imagined journey. it feels real, and i choose to accept it as part of my identity in this experience because i choose to be immersed and worldly without fear- i love life. i love this life and every life i accept the experience of living, i love my ego self. i love my character. i choose her and this journey, i choose to be present here in every moment even though i know it's an "illusion". i do not wish escape or more ever because i know there is no more than the everything/nothingness that i am right here. this is why i feel "aligned"; because i know in this moment that i was never not aligned.
anyway so that's all i have for you!! that's my story. again so sorry that this became a whole book and also sorry if it has any spelling or grammar mistakes this was kind of just me typing for like 10 minutes straight without thinking BUT if anyone relates or wants to talk about anything i mentioned or anything else EVER, pleaseeee reach out in asks or dms, wherever you want. i might take a few days to reply but i will always reply.
i love you anon and also everyone else reading this so so so much and i hope you know that you will always be okay. right now is perfect exactly where you are, and exactly where you are is exactly where you are supposed to be. trust yourself, choose yourself, and move forward in confidence and faith. you can never be lost because you are everything. <333
