A Deeper, Simpler Manifestation Process (Jessica Gill)
Listen now (49 mins) | “There are so many blessings in the in-between. “There are so many blessings in the in-between,” says Jessica Gill, chief content officer at To Be Magnetic and cohost..."
You can also find this episode on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Jessica Gill is the chief content officer at To Be Magnetic, the manifestation organization that was founded by Lacy Phillips. You might recognize Jessica’s voice from the Expanded Podcast. And she’s a big part of the team that brought Lacy’s new book to life, How to Manifest.
I will say that after reading How to Manifest, something really clicked for me. I love how deeply intuitive—and simple, but not easy—this manifestation process is. And I love that it’s really about what you discover about yourself, what you gain, and how you evolve in the process of figuring out what you want and how to move toward it. Another way that Jessica holds manifestation is that it’s not about resolving or erasing a problem—but it’s about outgrowing a dynamic that has continually triggered you and held you back.
I loved talking to Jessica about all of this. She does a great job of breaking down the manifestation process. And we talk about the myths of positive thinking, exploring your subconscious beliefs, and identifying the expanders in your own life. We also talk about how to read the tests that the universe sends us, and the beauty of mini manifestations and being in the in-between.
MORE FROM TO BE MAGNETIC:
To Be Magnetic Website
Follow To Be Magnetic on Instagram
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
ELISE:
Congrats on the book. It’s taken you guys a minute.
JESSICA:
Yes. This was a long time coming. So we’ve been asked as a brand to write a book forever. People just love the physical copy, being able to give it to friends instead of listen to this podcast, learn about TBM. It is always a book form. And Lacey, the founder of Tub Magnetic, which I’m sure many of you guys already are familiar. She’s a projector in human design, which if you’re not familiar, they ideally rest the majority of the day. They have a lot of big ideas and downloads and they kind of see things from a high level, but they need a lot of rest. She has adrenal issues, she’s got two kids, four companies. Her bandwidth is so extremely limited that we’re like, when on earth are we going to freaking get a book out? How is this going to happen? And it was interesting, I think it was maybe two years ago, this agent came to us and was like, have you ever thought about it?
I feel like now’s the time. And it was this agent that Lacey had really wanted to work with and she was like, alright, universe, if we’re supposed to be putting a book out, you need to help me figure out the right people and places and support to get this baby out there because the model of how most people do a book is not the way that we’re going to get it out there. We have to do it in our own authentic way. And every editor had already been doing the TBM work and then we found this amazing ghost writer. And then I was like, I’ll handle exercises. It was a full team collaboration to get this out. And so yeah, it’s really exciting to finally be at the stages of
ELISE:
Releasing it. It’s funny, we were talking before this about how there are obviously a wealth of ways of getting information out to people now, but every platform is not for every person. And we were talking about how I chafe at the idea of video podcast, which seems just counterintuitive to me. This is supposed to be an audio experience and I don’t want to produce a TV talk show in the corner of my bedroom. But in terms of to be magnetic, which I think I first interviewed Lacey probably 10 years ago at this point, I don’t know how long the company very early, but you guys were gaining a lot of traction. It might’ve even been before you were there, Jess. And over the years I’ve been nudged do this process, and then it wasn’t until I sat down and read this book that I was like, I’m signing up.
So I think for many of us who are sort of verbal, visual people, sometimes you just have to have a book as the prompt to do the work. And it was great. It’s already such an accessible, intuitive, duh system. And I say that with the most adoration in my heart because people often say about my work, oh my God, this is so obvious. And I’m like, yeah, but you didn’t see it. It’s hard to actually outline and put the system out there and then you’re like, oh yeah, that makes so much sense. So let’s start there, which is the backbone of to be magnetic, which is that manifestation used to be taught as a positive thinking exercise, right? Only positive thoughts, only vision boards, no negative thoughts. Can you talk a little bit about the superstitious, paranoia inducing world of manifestation and why that’s not true?
JESSICA:
I think a lot of the practices that you may hear from the Secret or any manifestation talk is now the new trend of it. The most ridiculous, crazy things like do this, get in the vortex, pretend you already have it, write yourself the check to cash in a few years. They’re all great and can be fun practices and get you on the path of that, but nothing is actually going to change unless your wiring changes, unless your relationship to your self-worth to what you’re capable of really changes on a fundamental level. And that was something that Lacey really caught early on in examining that process for herself. I mean, she has tried every single method under the sun and kind of the origin story of TBM is she was really a broke actress trying to make her way in the world and was consumed with all of these manifestation techniques and none of them were actually moving the needle.
And it wasn’t until this unlock of, oh, our self-worth is directly correlated to what our behaviors, our actions, what we can manifest, what we can call in. And so really at the root of the work at to be magnetic, and that’s why we say it’s neuroscience backed work with Dr. Tara Swart on really understanding all of the science that’s going on behind the scenes, but understanding that your reality in so many parts, and obviously there’s extreme circumstances which is beyond your control, but so much of your reality is a reflection of what you think you deserve, what you feel safe stepping into what you feel expanded is possible for you. And when you can take it through the lens of our work, which the three main pillars are, I’m blocking, expanding, and taking a line action. Those are really the three biggest places where your subconscious beliefs come out into reality. What are those limiting narratives can you see to believe it’s possible for you? And are your behaviors lining up with someone who actually believes that about themselves?
ELISE:
Yeah, no, I think that it’s funny. While I was reading your book, I was talking to one of my oldest closest friends on text, and I like to hand sell books whenever possible, Jess. So I was like, order this book sign up for to be magnetic. But she’s someone who thought she was thinking sort of the right conscious thoughts about the abundance that she wanted to create in her life and the relationship that she has actually achieved. And as she was texting me back, I was like, ding, ding, ding. There’s your actual subconscious belief you just said it, which is that in your experience, women have been confined or constrained by their financial relationships with their partners and they’ve had to trade off their authenticity in order to be taken care of. So that’s what you actually believe and that’s what you’re enacting in your life.
Even as you’re consciously saying, I want a really balanced relationship which she has with her husband, and I want financial abundance. I’m like, you don’t believe it’s possible? And she was like, oh. I was like, yeah, go do this work. Go do the unblocking. I think that’s where most of us are stuck. I think some of us get stuck even earlier I do, which sometimes it’s very difficult for me to even identify what I want every time I sit down to do this sort of process. I’m like, I don’t know what I want, Jess, what do I want? How do I figure that out?
JESSICA:
It’s so funny. I feel like I constantly am like, oh, I want to do that and I want to do that. It’s dropping in constantly, but I think it’s in two parts why it’s hard to figure that out, one, because I think especially when you’re just starting a new process or manifesting, there’s this fear of commitment. I think I want this now, but what if I change my mind or is that going to be the highest good for me? Or I just trust the universe will give me whatever it thinks is best for me. There’s all of this fear of claiming something without realizing that even if you manifest a thing, you can go on to manifest something else after. Or you can be like, oh, okay, I got that. I don’t know if I want that anymore. Lemme try something else on. You know what I mean?
So you’re not married to whatever you manifest so you can debunk or drop that fear. But then the other piece is actually stating what we want can be terrifying because now we’re facing our fear of failure. If I actually put pen to paper of the things that have been percolating, am I okay with not getting it? Do I even want to sit with the shame of it not happening? Or what if it doesn’t work for me? I’m going to tell everybody I’m going to manifest this thing and then if it doesn’t come to fruition, I’m the failure. There’s something wrong with me or I have these things that are really bad. So I think those two things make it challenging to do, but then if you’re trying to figure out what are those little clues like secretly, what do I want or what is my soul calling for above anything else?
You talked about it in your latest book too, but looking to people that you have envy or jealousy towards looking towards people that you admire, these are your expanders. These are people who are showing you what you want as possible. And I’ll even go further that if you have someone in your orbit who is doing something that you feel inspired by in any way, shape or form, that is like a wink from the universe saying, this is for you, a part of this. Your own unique authentic version of this wants to connect with you. It wants you to step in this direction. You wouldn’t be interested or inspired or looking at this if there wasn’t something here that we’re trying to communicate to you. So look around and I think it also takes a bit of healthy pride to say that you want for something.
I think especially when there’s so much suffering and horrible things going on in the world, it can feel really almost selfish to say, well, I want more or I want this or I want that. I think we have to contend with the both and that there are horrible things happening and my happiness, my joy, my fulfillment, my purpose, my calling or my desires are not impeding on those things. They don’t have to be one or the other. I don’t have to absolve myself of any joy or positivity just to acknowledge all of the other things happening in the world. In fact, our joy is the perfect rebellion to
ELISE:
All of that happening too. I think so many of us feel we need to be loyal to the temperament of the culture or the temperature of the culture in a way that it feels dissonant to have joy or abundance when there’s so much lack. So we feel like we should align with the lack and the scarcity instead of trying to reach for even though more conscious people who have access to resources, time, money, energy, the more good work I think that we can do in the world. I mean, our work is very aligned and I write about this concept of expanders and on our best behavior because it’s so critical. I’m going to put that in the parking lot. We’re going to come back to that. I also feel, I guess what I would say in my own life and identifying what I want, the precursor to that and the reason that I’m signing up for to be magnetic and doing it with the friend that I was texting is because of an increasing irritation.
And I really like how you guys talk about how some of us are really not blocked in certain parts of our lives. We’re blocked where we’re blocked. And it might be in relationships or it might be in work or it might be around money, but we’re not universally blocked. But for me it’s this irritation and I can’t tolerate this anymore and it’s these patterns that keep circulating and resurfacing that are asking me to attend to them. And so that’s where I also feel like, okay, here’s a prompt for what I want not. This is not what I want, so what do I want instead? Maybe it’s the dark night of the soul, even though I’m not going through a dark night of the soul, but it’s that struggling or suffering that’s required. I’m sure many people enter your program being like, something’s happened. This isn’t working. So what would
JESSICA:
Work? Yeah. I think that one of the number one ways people find TBM is in the midst of a rock bottom where they’re like, I give up. Whatever I’m doing is not working and I need to try something else because I’m at a loss here. And not saying that you’re energy right now is in a rock bottom, but you are at that place where you’re like, okay, I’m open to trying something different. I’m open to going about looking at this dynamic in a different way. And I think whenever we have something that whether it’s a rock bottom or maybe we’re just feeling that stagnation or we’re just that irritation or the rut or just that, oh God, this thing again, what is going on here? That in and of itself could be your manifestation, which is I want to move through this. That was why I initially signed up for the program because I was really grappling.
I had so many layers of dealing with trust issues. My dad had cheated on my mom, they got a divorce. It was very messy. And so trust in relationships was extremely challenging for me. And here I was in this very healthy relationship, this extremely trustworthy man, and I still had this distrusting part popping up, and I had tried every different modality of going through this and I was like, what is going to get this thing to unstick? How do I let this thing finally shed off once and for all? It’s no longer my story. And that is when TBM came in and I would say even a year of really examining that dynamic through the work, I feel like a recovering trust issue person because all the activation I was having around that acknowledging my behavior is really looking at how I was perpetuating that story in so many ways.
It’s in healing it in attuning to it, in on blocking, expanding, align action with it. It completely shifted my wiring. I’ve never had anything so drastically be like, this is a story I feel like I’m going to carry with me for the rest of my life to this literally has no activation in me anymore. It feels like something of a past self. And I think that happens for a lot of people. They go in with these mega stories where they’re like, I just don’t want to carry this anymore. I know there’s a better way. And that in and of itself becomes the manifestation.
ELISE:
I think that’s so important that what you’re saying too, which is often I think we’re taught a problem like that, a trust problem, that there’s some sort of solution or resolution that you’re going to find learning to trust. There’s some antidote that’s the opposite of that. And I think that that’s not accurate actually. And what happens, and Carl Young writes about this really beautifully, which is that problems are not resolved. They are outgrown. But I think we get stuck in this sort of arrested development space where the pattern reenactment is happening until it’s like, Jess, you got to grow out of this. I think that’s another way of looking at the manifestation where as you just said, it doesn’t activate you anymore. The problem’s not resolved, right? Your dad cheated. I’m sure you’re betrayed. All of us are in your life to this day, but you’ve outgrown that dynamic.
And I think culturally, we give a lot of credence to rock bottom, but I think most of us are victims. I think that there’s so much middling success for so many of us. It kind of works. It kind of doesn’t. That captures, it’s like its own Eddie or Riptide. This relationship’s not the worst relationship. But I don’t know if this person’s my soulmate. This is the waters in which most of us swim. I can get along, but is this the best that I can do? I think that’s the quicksand and your experience of watching people go through the program. That probably is the trickiest thing to unroot, right? In some ways, it’s better to have a rock bottom rather than business kind of works, but kind of doesn’t.
JESSICA:
Yeah, the rock bottom, you will manifest the fastest on the other side because all of your defenses are down because you lost whatever it is. There’s no fear of losing it. It’s lost, it’s gone. So I think that opens up another possibility in the brain of resilience. If people just got out of a divorce or a relationship that was devastating that they broke up or they lost their job or this friend cut them off or whatever, they don’t have to fear the bad thing happening again. The bad thing already happened. Now they have to pick up the pieces and say, so now what? And in that now what space? I think that is what becomes so magnetic because now you don’t have to build to save the relationship or save the job or save whatever. You can build from authenticity. But if you are in the place where you are settling and you’re like, everything’s okay, it’s not great, but I don’t really want to rock the boat.
It can be a little bit trickier to leave those scenarios because you’re still getting comfort from them. There’s a benefit to it. There’s always a self-sabotaging part of us that connects with that limiting belief that keeps us stuck in that narrative that tells us why it’s safer to do this, why it will help security wise if we do this. Don’t want for too much, don’t think too big. You’re the one that’s going to fall in their face if you do this. And I think if you are in that place where you’re not thinking big for yourself and you’re kind of settling in these ways, expanders are going to be enormously important to your process. Rock bottom, it’s unblocking and align action. Obviously expanders are helpful too, but if you’re in that stuck place, you need to see to believe that you can make that switch and life is going to be exponentially better if you’re in that relationship that feels really safe, but you’re like, I don’t know if this is my person or we do all the things, but it doesn’t feel right. You need all the expanders that have been like, I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I left and I’m in the most thriving relationship I’ve ever been in. That’s going to start to prime your brain to really see, to believe it’s possible.
ELISE:
All right. Let’s talk about expanders. I wrote about expanders in the chapter on envy, partly because thanks to you guys, I had started to hear that all the time. You’re an expander for me. You’re an expander for me. And I was what is an expander? And I love the idea of fragment expanders because I think it’s hard sometimes to find someone who you’re like, I want everything about that person and everything they have. Usually there’s one component that’s a flashing neon sign. So to back up on envy, it is someone has something or is doing something that you want. And because for so many women in particular, our envy is unconscious. When it’s triggered, when we see someone who has something or is doing something that we want, our instinct is to make this person who’s making us uncomfortable and feel bad go away. So we’re going to deprecate them, criticize them, judge them, shame them, destroy them, et cetera. This happens on the public stage all the time, and you guys are flipping it, right? Which is, no, no, no, this person is your road sign. This is a GPS point for you study this person and remind yourself if this person has this, I can have it too. They’re showing you what’s possible. Can you talk about that early inspiration for finding those examples?
JESSICA:
I think when you look at some of the people who have great achievement or success, it’s almost pulling back the veil of this concept of openness. And that’s really what expanders are. They are allowing your brain to be open and to almost have a positive bias. So if you are seeing the world as expansive, you are seeing the opportunities, not even just the opportunities in front of you, but you are seeing the opportunities in all these other people and how they’re doing to show you what is possible there. So when Lacey was developing the method, this is a pattern that came up again and again and again with herself and other clients where they were doing the unblocking, their self-worth was growing. They were taking actions in the right step, but they still were like, I just don’t have a story or an example or something I can latch onto that I believe that this narrative could actually work for me.
And so one way this plays out a lot is people wanting a very specific type of relationship. They’re in a relationship and maybe the husband is the breadwinner and the mom doesn’t work and the mom stay at home because that’s what they saw growing up and modeled to them. But they really want to be the breadwinner. They really want to have a massive career. So they keep attracting partners that are the primary breadwinner that would put them in the position where they wouldn’t get the relationship they need until they are physically around couples or witnessing couples that have the dynamic that they truly want and they can see, oh, they’re safe, they’re fine, they’re normal, they’re like me, they do this. There is something that really activates in the brain. It’s almost like especially if you can be in person with them, there is something that you just are absorbing on all senses level of that possibility being in reach for you as well. So really it came from just seeing the necessity of it in people’s patterns so many times of how the act of having an expander at your fingertips, someone that’s showing you the opposite modeling of what you’re trying to break, it disproves the spell almost instantly of whatever you’ve been holding onto for so long, you could dream up this idea, but if you have no one really there, it’s really challenging to actually get your body to believe it.
ELISE:
Right. No, it makes sense. And you mentioned this idea of self-sabotaging, and we all know how hard change is, right? We resist change. We want status quo. It’s why we sabotage each other when someone’s changing. Sometimes you’re in a group and someone’s exercising and losing weight, and that is intolerable to the other people because now you’re making me feel bad. I need to get you back to how things have been, right? And you see this often in family dynamics where one person starts shifting and it shifts the entire family structure and it is very uncomfortable and everyone will buck and resist. And we do this to ourselves. I do it to myself all the time, and I build my case for internally about why things are, how they are, why they need to be, how they are, and how they can’t change. I know it’s a part of the method. So how do you make those machinations conscious or how do you get people to become aware of that?
JESSICA:
I mean, anywhere that you’re having judgment or envy or ridicule or trying to keep someone in a box, it’s usually a mirror to whatever you’re doing to yourself in your own psyche. So that’s a really good way to find that. But then when we look in the self-sabotaging part, that’s really kind of in the unblocking, that is when we’re really peeling back. The layers similar a lot to your work, but there’s usually some kind of story down there. There’s some kind of system of belief, there’s some kind of freezing, and that is the thing that’s going to keep us safe. And then we can start to peel back, okay, what are the behaviors I partake in that upholds this belief system? How can I see how this is showing up in my judgments of others, what I’m choosing to do on a daily basis? How is this protecting me in some way?
And then we also go into in our deep imaginings, which are our hypnosis audios, going into the brain and figuring out those formative stories. Where did I first remember learning this or feeling this or adopting this narrative? It made me feel safe. I think so many times when we self-sabotage, don’t even realize we’re doing it until we can look at the story and then be like, oh yeah, that behavior is upholding that story, that action’s upholding that story, that mindset is upholding that story. Choosing to see myself as the victim is upholding that story. And that’s when you really get to peel apart all of
ELISE:
Those pieces. I mean, we were talking earlier about one of my stories, which is I’m the only one who can do things, so I should do them all. That’s a story I workshop in choosing wholeness over goodness, which is part of the sloth chapter. And to keep that story going, I will do all sorts of shenanigans, right? And I will also look for all the reasons why. If I’m not the one who does it, it won’t get done correctly. And I’m sure everyone listening can relate to that instinct where you’re like, but there was a typo and you didn’t schedule this on the right day. You’re just constantly looking to reconfirm to yourself that your story is the story and that does keep you safe. And that story is an unbreakable agreement that will just create catastrophe if it goes away, right? We’re really good at this. Do you think it is ultimately about safety, even though you would probably say the universe wants so much more for us?
JESSICA:
Yeah, I mean, we’re wired for safety. We’re wired for survival. We’re not wired to thrive and live our best lives, our bodies, our systems, our physiology is wired for survival and reproduction. And so what is going to help us get closer to that? Don’t break away from the tribe and make sure to fit in. Don’t be ostracized by society. Don’t piss people off so you don’t lose your job. It’s whatever these norms are that we’ve picked up growing up that makes it feel like this is the way we need to behave in society in order to be safe and survive. And I think now it’s at a place where we can really peel the layer back on that and say, okay, let’s question some of this. We’re operating on autopilot from our conscious brain of reacting this way because that was our blueprint, that was our programming.
But do they actually work for us? Could we change them? If we change them, what would that look like? What are examples of other people who operate in a different way and are safe in their way of doing things? And what’s interesting about the example you gave too, where, okay, you’re looking for evidence that your story upholds that you have to do it all and you do it right, especially when you first acknowledge, oh, that’s the thing, that’s the root, that’s the part that’s operating there, okay, that’s the belief I’m working with. You’ll immediately be faced with tests which are just little opportunities from the universe saying, okay, this happened. Are you going to go back to that way of thinking still? Are you going to go back to fixing the problem for everyone? Are you going to go back to not delegating? This is your opportunity to change even if a spelling error goes through.
And the crazy thing that winds up happening, and this is why it feels like magic, is when you can say, okay, I’m safe. Even if there is a spelling error, I am so committed to this next path, this new version of self that even if these errors happen, I’m okay. I’m good, and I’m still going to keep choosing me again and again. Again, eventually with the unblocking, with the processing, with the aligned action, it overwrites and then the reality shifts. Suddenly you won’t have spelling errors, suddenly you will have the most supportive, amazing, competent people at your side wanting to help you. I have seen it again and again. Again, I know we cannot change people, but I have seen so many times that the circumstances and the people around you and the situations do change. When your inner work is done, you don’t do the inner work to change other people, but there is this beautiful byproduct that when you are your own north star compass, not reliant on all these other things, it kind of works itself out in a beautiful way too.
ELISE:
Okay, you want to manifest a new relationship, a new job, more money. Can you give us an example of what that looks like in its simplest form?
JESSICA:
So let’s say you’re launching a business or you’re working on your side business and you’re having a really hard time getting clients and you want to manifest more clients or higher paying retainers, whatever it is, but you feel like you’re hitting a wall. Okay? So you would take it through, you’d craft your list. The first thing we do in the process is have people connect with their authenticity. We have an exercise called your authentic code. It basically runs you through a list of questions and a deep imagining where you connect with your inner child and really sit with what calls to me in this season, what am I thinking about? What am I obsessed with? What am I interested in? What are those pillars that make me so at least I have a little bit of a north star of before even crafting my manifestation list of what I want, am I on the right course?
So many times when people write their manifestation lists, it’s from what they think they should have or what their mom wanted or what their peers want. Let’s get our vision in the driver’s seat before even thinking about what we want. Then we go into crafting the list. You can be as detailed or less detailed as you want, but why do you want those things really examining, okay, I want more clients. Why? What does that bring you? More money? Okay, what does that bring you? I want to be able to send my kids to this kind of school and blah, blah, blah. Okay, is that important to you? Does that align with your authentic code? Is that really going to feed into a different narrative story that’s going to be really powerful in your life to really understand your why? So you’re not manifesting all these things out of superficial levels or ego or things like that or fear a hundred percent.
Then we go into the process of unblocking, expanders, align action. Now, the three of them are kind of working in tandem at the same time. So in the book we’ll walk you through finding expanders people who have what you want, even if it’s a fragment or a piece of it, or even we have a term called bridge expanders where they’re one step above where you’re at right now. Maybe they don’t have the full picture, maybe they don’t have the full client list you want, but they have one client or they just got a new client or they just raise their rates and their clients remain. Whatever it is, start looking for those expanders. Try to connect with them in person as much as possible. Learn from them if they offer sessions, book sessions with them any way you can immerse in their world. So you can see how your brain will just naturally pick up the information it needs to by being around them.
And then comes the unblocking, and that is where we get to one of the biggest questions that can really drive home. What is the root of why you don’t have What you have now is twofold. Your block may have something to do with the fear of having it. So if you had it, what are you giving up? What are you afraid is going to happen in your life? Oh, well, if I got more clients, then I’d have less time to be with my kids. And actually that is so terrifying to me. I don’t want to be a mom that’s not with my kids that much, or the fear might root to I’m terrified that I’m just not good enough that people will see that I’m a fraud and I don’t have as many credentials as all the other coaches out there, and what do I do about this?
Or maybe you’ll see that the fear has to do with asking for what you want. You have to always be passive and people have to come to you. You’ve never really seen to believe that you can go out there and state who you are and what you want and what you offer and share with the world. You’ll figure out what web narrative is operating beneath the surface that’s basically at odds with your manifestation. And then we have a whole unblocking process through deep imaginings journal prompts to really get to the core root of that and not only discover it, but almost communicate with it. Figure out if there’s an inner child part there, figure out if there’s a shadow part there. Figure out if there is just somatic work that you need to do to calm your nervous system. And then the fun part of going out to the world and taking aligned action.
And that’s where it’s like, okay, if I know I want more clients, what are five things I can start to do that are likely opposite of my limiting belief that will start to move the needles towards this process that will start to allow me to take action? So for this person that could look like I’m going to update my website and I’m going to share it to 20 friends and let them know that I have new offerings and I’m open for business, what are those things? And usually the aligned action that is the one that you’re most resistant to doing, the one that you find is most scary is the one that will often move the needle the most.
ELISE:
And you talk in the book about mini manifestations and major manifestations, and that part of building this trust muscle with the universe is these mini things and building your momentum to actually tackle some of these core issues. And as you were explaining that, I was thinking about what I want to manifest is I’ve been so devoted to efforting and to overwork and to having a million jobs to justify myself on the planet. What would it look like for me to actually manifest ease and abundance through doing less? My core story is if I am not sort of up against the wall, I won’t get anything done. I’m terrified of my own sloth, and I find it intolerable in myself when I have sort of a low, I mean, I sound like a monster, but I find it intolerable to have a low and not very productive day. And I’ll even find myself being, oh, I didn’t do anything today. And then I’ll be like, what did I do? Oh, I recorded three podcasts and I wrote a newsletter, but yet not enough, Jess, I’m going to have to do some deep work around that if that’s truly what I have to unblock in order to give myself some more space.
JESSICA:
Oh my gosh, I have so many thoughts on this, but I mean, this is a really pervasive one I think for a lot of women. This theme of I have to do it all in so many ways, and whether this is someone who is really focused on their career or their family, it can show up in so many different ways, even a cultural narrative to what we were talking about earlier of it’s not just going to come to you. There’s so much programming in that. And the interesting thing is the antithesis to this is not nothing but it’s self-worth enough to honor the stillness, to honor the ebbs and flows, to honor the cycles, to honor all of that. One thing, even as a company, we did it to be magnetic, is we take four breaks a year. Two of them are two week vacations for a company that is on a content cycle and a podcast that comes out weekly, this feels like a very radical act.
And yes, we have to prep everything ahead of time, but those two weeks as best you can, try not to slack, message email, put on your vacation reminders and go live life. That is extremely challenging for me and has also been the best medicine of, oh, right, why am I on this hamster wheel? And that was where so much action came in for me, was catching and releasing that impulse to do and saying, Nope, we can sit rest and lean into it. But I mean, yeah, you would not be alone taking that through. And there’s a lot to unpack there.
ELISE:
And I would imagine that the universe is sending you tons of tests, right? Just five alarm fires in terms of things that you could take care of from your vacation. I mean, I know I’m dealing with a core issue too, because I feel like the tests are coming fast and furious along with all the confirming evidence of, oh no, I can’t really rely on anyone else. There are no shortcuts. The universe is just shoving everything in my face currently. So how do you know when it’s a test versus a necessary roadblock sending you back to the drawing board?
JESSICA:
So the way I would look at tests, let’s say you’re manifesting more ease in your life, and let’s say you delegated something to someone and it didn’t go well, the test is not necessarily, oh, I need to hire someone else to do it for me, or whatever. It could be more. So the test is to the story of what’s happening. So it’s not even about the thing that’s happening, it’s what meaning are you making the story about you, your narrative and how you need to respond and show up. So the opportunity is how can I show up to this test from a place of that higher vision, that authentic self, that thing that was really calling to my soul when I first began on the journey of this work? Is this walking towards that or is this walking back towards the fear? Is this walking back towards the old part?
And oftentimes the answer is, yeah, I’m terrified and I’m reacting the same way I did before. Well, okay, great, let’s process it. Let’s journal on it. Let’s do a little di and go through it. But oftentimes the test is really saying, what is the opposite of how I have shown up in the past and how can I show up to this situation differently? But I think what you were talking to is when people are presented with a test of a door is closed, even with Lacey’s story with acting, right? She started as an actress and she was struggling to get the roles and lock the roles. How did she know if acting was no longer for her? Because it was a no so many times, or if this was a case of keep resisting, it’s out there for you. You’re only going to know that if you do the authenticity piece first.
So when she did that, she realized, if I think about being on set all day, I have no energy for that. Yeah, I love expressing and communicating, but is that the only way I have to do it? Isn’t there other ways to do it? And wow, I’ve picked up all this programming and modeling from my parents and society and the women in my family that you’re only worthy if you’re beautiful and a model and onscreen and whatever. That’s not my story. I don’t believe that. So she knew that wasn’t actually the aligned path for her. It was the condition path for her, the way that she thought that it needed to express. And that was when she was like, okay, this actually isn’t for me. I’m going to move in this direction instead. But having that relationship to say, what is mine? You can tell it’s yours because it’s this pole, this calling. It might feel scary, it might be new, but it feels like this is right. I ultimately know this direction is right for me. Versus the other path. There’s oftentimes ego involved. Our ego is like, but we’d be cooler or we’d be safer or we’d be valued in society if this, and as much as we can working to drop that and really get in touch with our heart and what speaking there, because that is going to give us such a more fulfilling path than anything the ego part could really manifest.
ELISE:
One of the things that I loved about the book, and I love about the process too, and you highlighted it or touched on it a couple times, but is that it’s this iterative process. You talked about bridge expanders, but also just this idea that you’re not saying you’re working a job and you’re making $22,000 a year, and in six months you’re going to manifest $22 million. I mean, maybe you are, and maybe that’s a potential for some people, but it’s more about running this process and just expanding and expanding some more and expanding some more. And you write a bit about the shadow, but you got to take these bites, right? Maybe it’s not a full meal. I was looking at your money manifestation quiz, I can’t remember what you guys call it, but it’s this idea that people are sort of living at these different levels of scarcity. I think probably so many people going back to the beginning of our conversation are like, well, I’m doing pretty well relatively right or My relationship’s pretty good relatively, and yet we’re all on the spectrum. And just because you’re not living paycheck to paycheck or deep in debt or whatever it may be, doesn’t mean that you’re fully expanded are people in your community. They just keep taking a bite and just keep going a little deeper.
JESSICA:
A hundred percent. So many of our members have been with us since day one and continue to run the process in different iterations and styles and formats. At least I’ve seen this happen so many times. If someone goes from zero to a hundred, it’s not to say that they can’t do it because plenty of stories of people out there who do. I think it is very destabilizing, and it is a big shock to the nervous system because you likely haven’t addressed any of the narratives or stories of what kept you in that first level to begin with. And then all of a sudden you find yourself at a hundred and you’re like, I can’t sustain this. What am I doing here? I’m a complete imposter. And with our work, we like to tell people, manifest something that feels realistic in the next six to 12 months.
I think for your highest good, it’s better to go inch by inch moving up because then you really integrate. That’s such an important part of this process. It’s not just arriving at the next level, but having a bit of wisdom about it, having a bit of transformation. I touched on the trust issues in the beginning of this episode, and if I didn’t have that year to really integrate all those pieces, and I had been working on that issue in therapy in so many modalities for so long, but I had to be at the place where my nervous system was like, okay, we’re safe now to release this. We’re good here. We can be done with this story now. It has served its purpose in my course, and I can be done. And I think we have to give ourselves a little bit more grace. We’re in such a instant gratification culture. There are so many blessings in the in-between. You can manifest amazing mini manifestations or just kismet opportunities or these things that you wouldn’t even believe would transpire in the midst of doing this work that I just wouldn’t want to go from zero to a hundred because you miss all the magic.
ELISE:
No, I love that. I think that that’s really profound. It reminds me of Gay and Katie Hendricks and the upper limit problem too. And there’s only so much, and you touched on this that we can tolerate. It’s like why you pick a fight with your husband after a really wonderful day of intimacy and closeness. It just becomes too much, becomes intolerable, and you have to learn how to titrate and expand with the work. So I think it’s beautiful. I love talking to you. I love what you guys are up to, and I love how closely Venn diagrams with so many of the things that I work with and work on and so many other modalities, and it’s a very elegant, beautiful system that, again, it’s one of those things where you’re like, oh yeah, obviously. And yet you couldn’t see what you were up to until you were actually seeing what you were up to.
JESSICA:
So good. Thank you, Elise. Yeah, I mean, we’re obsessed with it. It feels like a really solid framework to keep running and shifting and transforming your life again and again. And yeah, we’re just really excited to have the book out to get to more people and reach more people and hopefully inspire change. And also, the beautiful thing is when you utilize the process and you manifest your dreams, you have those crazy stories that come through. Some of the stuff people write in with, I’ll hear them. I’m like, they did what? I’m like, I need to get back to my TBM work. How are they manifesting these crazy things? But you become that example, that expander to other people. You are paving the roadmap for other women, children, men, humans, everything to see that it’s possible to do as well. So having the courage to claim what you want go after it wholeheartedly is opening the door for so many people behind you too.
ELISE:
So the book is called How to Manifest could not be more simple. And as you read it, you’ll be nodding along with the insights and what’s shared in terms of rooting out those limiting subconscious beliefs, finding those expanders and figuring out what you really want, which is honestly a lifetime’s worth of work in my experience, and starting to take action. And it’s also about refining your intuition, balancing your nervous system, and as she mentioned, really attuning to the heart and using the blueprint born there rather than navigating out of your fear. Because I think so many of us, and I put myself smack in the middle of this camp, our are motivated by our fear and scarcity rather than what we want and what’s possible. So you can go to To Be Magnetic. There’s an app, there’s a whole community, and they also have a podcast that Jessica co-hosts with Lacey, though I think she’s primarily running it at this point where they share expander stories.
And there’s a whole community of people, primarily women, but men too, really supporting each other and showing each other what’s possible. And if you like, on our best behavior, if you like Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness, this work will feel aligned and in tune. It’s in tune with Internal Family Systems. And as mentioned at the close, it’s aligned with a lot of the work of Gay and Katie Hendricks and Upper Limit Problem. It’s very cohesive in a way that will feel, I think, familiar to anyone who has yet to encounter it. If you got something out of today’s episode, I would so appreciate your help spreading the word. Please rate and review the episode, follow pulling the thread on your preferred podcast platform, and share this episode with a friend who would also enjoy it. That’s how we grow this thing. It’s so helpful. Thank you.
Restack!!! Can’t wait to listen. Love you Jess!