Your Best Self, with Problems

Image - Spirit Warrior A student of Manifest Anything writes to me that she worries about manifesting the very thing she most fears.

"In one of the audios from the Manifest Anything program, you explain how invoking the Sacred Element of Fire might mean talking to people about my issues. I'm afraid that, if i were to discuss these issues with anyone, I would be manifesting the opposite of what it is I want. Wouldn't talking about it be giving it attention, energy?"

Just "not talking" about something that's bothering you will never "make it go away." That is one thing that will result in an exact opposite. Your fear will continue to have power over you. Repression can act as a kind of pressure cooker, forcing fear to grow without any other kind of outlet but an eventually more explosive, more destructive release of energy.

Your "best self" is not someone with no past, and no problems. Your "best self" is not someone who only talks about nice topics, and avoids things that are difficult or uncomfortable.

How does your Best Self address challenging issues? How does your Best Self communicate about sensitive subjects? How does your Best Self engage the hard work of healing and forgiveness?

Your Best Self is someone who can detach enough to see that the past is not the present or the future; who can talk about anything; who handles shit with compassion, empathy, courage; who is able to forgive yourself and others; who can drag any monster out into the light, see it for the truth of what it really is, dust it off, put it to rest, dab away a few tears if necessary, and know that tears are the release of pain, not the manifestation of it.

Whatever it is, this thing that you fear that you'll manifest by confronting it -- or even just by acknowledging it -- it's probably already here...

Your best efforts are wasted on trying to bar its way inside. Move into the part of your story where you show it to the door. Courageously reorient your intentions toward vanquishing some shit like a spiritual warrior bad ass.

Slade's signature

Image credit Leigh Anthony Dehaney via Creative Commons on Flickr