I Tried This Manifestation Practice—and Everything Changed

It took me years of trial and error, then - ⚡

Welcome to Figuring It Out, Edition #10 for 2025—your go-to corner of the internet for curating a beautiful life, inside and out. If you were forwarded this or found it via a comment you can quickly and easily subscribe below!

Before I kick off - I’ve been debating whether I should include recommendations in my weekly post or monthly post and would love your opinion!

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Generally speaking, I’m fairly amenable to new ideas and people’s passionate opinions. But at this point in my life, there are a few things I have unshakeable belief in.

Things I know to be true:
– You have to soothe (your nervous system) before you can solve (your problem).
– Life is almost never black and white – it’s usually grey, requiring you to be able to hold two opposites as true at the same time.
– You can’t ‘positively think’ your way into your dream life.

Your dream life requires you to show up – to face your fears, doubts, and discomfort – and transmute your current circumstances into a new reality.

I say this having learnt it not the easy way, but the long, slow way.

The moment I graduated university at 21, I almost instantly felt a daily anxiety that had never previously existed for me. All of a sudden, the even playing field we’d all been on disappeared. It was like a starting gun had gone off. Everyone was racing ahead, but I didn’t hear it – or so I told myself.

The belief that I wasn’t good enough had been triggered, and it may as well have been an air raid siren for how pervasive it became in my mind.

At the time, the only thing that soothed these fears – while I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life – was going to yoga. I didn’t even like it for months, but I kept going back, again and again, knowing it was the only thing that quietened the highly critical voice in my head. Knowing that, at some point between downward dogs and savasana, I’d be able to fall asleep that night without spiralling.

So I dove in headfirst into that cult-y world. First it was yoga (I became a certified 200-hour teacher), then yoga-adjacent books and authors – usually in the Hay House world. Gabby Bernstein, Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Louise Hay. All names I read and followed as I tried to live a life that was positive, void of negative thoughts, and hustled my 20-something heart out chasing external validation.

All while never actually getting what I wanted, or anything that felt good once I did have it. My insecurities still lingered, no matter how much spiritual wisdom I consumed. I was so hard on myself, constantly hustling and trying to climb an invisible ladder (which at times felt like Everest) to receive the validation that I was, in fact, good enough. More money. Better title. An amazing relationship. I hustled so hard for these external markers of success – but no matter what I achieved, it never felt like enough.

I was 28, fresh out of a break-up, when I read about Lacey Phillips’ manifestation process in a goop article. Back then, the To Be Magnetic platform was still emerging. I think she’d been on three podcasts, had about 20k Instagram followers, and the courses were ad hoc and clunky (not to criticise – just to contrast with the slick app they have now).

But the minute I read “you manifest from your subconscious mind, not your conscious,” it was an Oprah-level ah-ha moment. I knew it was the missing piece I’d been searching for. As they explain, by using psychology and neuroscience, you can identify those subconscious beliefs and actually change them to align with higher self-worth habits and beliefs.

I’ve had some friends describe To Be Magnetic as self-paced therapy. Others go deeper, calling it a manifestation method to decode your blocks and reprogram limiting beliefs – raising your self-worth and attracting what you want in the process.

I instantly became addicted. I’d come home from work in San Francisco, head straight to the bedroom of my shared apartment, and spend hours journaling, reprogramming, and visioning a more aligned future. It wasn’t about wishing and hoping this time though, now it was about looking at my past to decode the beliefs that were holding me back.

I threw myself into the process – using the tools to identify all the subconscious beliefs, stories, patterns and behaviours that were shaping my everyday choices and my big-picture life.

Since using the To Be Magnetic process, I’ve manifested some very cool things:

• A dream job that also gave me a $10k raise within 3 months of starting

• Incredible, aligned friendships

• Incredible marketing retainer clients that drop into my lap (no more hustling!)

• Relationships

• Small things like free sunglasses, free facials, tickets to events.

After a few years, if you’ve really dug in and faced your shadows, you reach a point where you can’t even imagine believing those old limiting beliefs that were once your truth. And you realise, what this process actually gives you isn’t the physical thing you want.

It’s something much deeper.

• It gives you calm.

• It gives you deep satisfaction in your own voice and values.

• It gives you a kind of confidence you can’t shake (except in those moments when you’re getting put through the wringer with tests).

What I’ve really manifested:

• Internal self-worth (rather than external validation)

• A calm nervous system

• Aligned friendships

• Quiet confidence

• Self-trust

• An understanding of energetics

The To Be Magnetic Process follows these steps:
1. Unblock: Identify the beliefs, stories, and behavioural patterns holding you back, and explore where they stem from through tools like shadow work and inner child healing.
2. Expand: Find examples of people who already have what you’re trying to create—helping your subconscious see to believe.
3. Aligned Action: Take meaningful steps towards your desired reality, rooted in clarity and alignment.

Trust me when I say this comes from experience: over the past several years, I’ve discovered there’s a profound difference in the response you get from the same action—depending on whether you’ve done the internal work or bypassed it.

I swear by this truth: the exact same external action gets a completely different outcome when you’re calm, aligned, and clear on the inside.

What I would add to this process if you want to manifest:

• Nervous system regulation: I wish I’d known when I was younger that keeping my nervous system calm and secure is the foundation of everything else. Like I said at the top: even if you don’t believe in manifestation or self-development, you have to soothe, before you can solve.

• A toolkit: Build a routine, rituals, or go-to list of things you can turn to when life inevitably throws curveballs and responsibilities your way. It could include people, exercise, hobbies, supplements, recipes—whatever you know you can rely on to ground you and ease the challenges, helping the ups and downs feel a little smoother.

• Community: As they say, you are who you surround yourself with. But beyond that, finding like-minded people who can support you—and walk the journey alongside you—makes it so much more enjoyable. Sometimes this path feels like its own language, and when you meet someone who speaks it too, it fast-tracks a real connection.

If you want to dive deeper, check out the To Be Magentic podcast, Expanded, and in particular this episode that is Manifestation 101.

Have you tried manifestation? Whats your experience of it? Let me know!