How to Manifest What You Want When You Feel Stressed or Overwhelmed

 

It’s been a while since I talked about my manifesting technique ~ the one I discovered accidentally when I was trying to relieve stress. But this week I was reminded of its effectiveness so I decided I should mention it again for those of you who haven’t heard about it.

And if you want help practicing this in a more focused way, I created two journals to walk you through it. The Soft Life Alignment Journal helps you relax your nervous system, raise your vibration, and start imagining your life from a place of ease instead of pressure. And if money is the area where you feel the most resistance, the Soft Life Wealth Planner helps you shift your money mindset and begin picturing a calmer, more abundant reality. You can use either one on its own, or get both together for 10% off.

Because the truth is, this practice is simple… but when you are stressed, overwhelmed, or used to focusing on what is not working, it can help so much to have a place to write it down, soften the resistance, and gently redirect your thoughts toward what you actually want.

As most of you know, back in 1998 my husband became disabled in a work accident right when we had just bought our first house and I was pregnant with our oldest son. Thankfully he survived (and even went on to thrive) but at the time besides the stress and worry about his injuries, he had to stay home on disability for 3 months and money was really tight. I didn’t get paid maternity leave and we were losing $600 a month he had been making in overtime pay. 

I talk about this a lot because it is how I started my business, trying to make money during that time. But what I don’t tell you often enough is how trying to overcome the stress of that period led me to a life-changing discovery.

So, let me preface this for those of you skeptics by saying at this time I had never heard of manifestation or growth mindset or the law of attraction. I had once read a magazine article about synchronicity, but for the most part no one was talking about that stuff, at least not in my circles. And when I did first hear about the book The Secret and all this stuff I thought is was a load of bull… even though I had already discovered this practice. I just didn’t realize I was already doing it.

Anyway, after I had our son and went back to work I was still nursing him. I had to pump my breasts during the day to provide milk for his babysitter to feed him. If you have ever breastfed a baby you know you have to really relax to get to “let down”, which is when you begin too release milk.

Now ordinarily your baby helps with this. You know those shuddering breaths a baby takes between drinks of milk? That is a biological signal that tells your brain to produce more milk for the baby. But when you are using a machine or manual breast pump that doesn’t happen. And even though I bought the most expensive state-of-the-art great pump machine that was supposed to encourage milk production, I was having a lot of trouble making enough milk.

Later I found out this was partly inherited… my grandmother told me she barely had enough milk for my aunt, her first baby, and her second baby (my mom) was starving and had to have formula with cereal mixed in because she never could produce milk after the first pregnancy. 

It didn’t help that there was nowhere for me to pump at work. My cubicle had no door and there were no empty offices, so I usually had to sit in on a toilet in a bathroom stall while I was pumping. Disgusting, I know. And also uncomfortable and not very private. I was just barely producing any milk and unfortunately my son didn’t tolerate formula well at all and had trouble keeping it down, so the whole situation added even more stress.

As a relaxation technique to help me calm down and release more milk, I started this practice: I would imagine myself walking down a flight of stairs. When I got to the bottom I would open a door. I would step through the door and then I would be in my perfect reality. I would just imagine everything I wanted… staying home with my son. Living in a big beautiful house. Having lots of children. Having a mountain cabin. Owning my own private beach… and on and on. I would do this while pumping and also while I was home nursing my son.

And within a pretty short period of time, that imagined reality became my physical reality. First, about 18 months after the accident I was able to quit my job to stay home with my baby. Then about 18 months after that we built a big, brand-new house that was exactly what we wanted. And then we were able to adopt two children in China, about 5 years apart. And then we moved to an even bigger house on a lake. And now we have a second home, a mountain cabin with a private beach.

Nowadays I practice this very regularly. I have gotten a lot more structured about it, but I think it actually works even better when it’s spontaneous. I was telling you a few months ago how my husband was up for a really big promotion but it would have required him to live in South Carolina for two years without us, because we don’t want to move our son out of school in his senior year. I told him, “This or something better” and I was actually relieved when he did not get the job. I imagined him working from home and having a lot more flexibility and money and sure enough, a couple weeks ago he started a new job. He works from home 2 or 3 days a week and has a lot of agency over his time. When he does go to an office he drives a much shorter distance to the next town over. It used to take him over an hour each way to get to the office. Occasionally though, he has to travel to different offices all over the country. Last week he went up to the mountains and got to ride Polarises and then hike 45 minutes up to a mountain top. He had a fabulous time but it took about 3 hours to drive up there.

Then the other day I was talking to a student who was complaining about high gas prices and I was saying how thankful I am to work from home. Now that our son has his license I rarely drive at all. After the call I thought to myself, if only Jerry could work from home all the time and not have to pay for gas. I imagined that for a few minutes and went about my day.

That very night he walked in and announced the company had ordered him an electric hybrid SUV and he could pick it up in the morning. When he did he found out it comes with a gas card. So they will pay for the gas he does use and he can charge it up on the days he goes to the office. So no more paying for gas!

I am getting so good at this it happens almost accidentally. It might not happen in exactly the way I imagine. For example, I had more children on my list and didn’t realize that would involve traveling all over China, but that was an amazing experience I would not trade for anything. And our kids are just as much our kids as our biological son. And I imagined my husband working from home so he didn’t have to buy gas ~ well, he’s not working from home full time but he no longer has to buy gas. 

So the key is to remain observant and recognize when you have achieved your goal, even if it doesn’t look exactly like you thought it would. And then pause and stay in a state of gratitude and wonder. Because it is truly miraculous that we can order our own reality and have it appear.

This practice will help you see as well how careful you have to be in what you are dwelling on and imagining. Your thoughts can and do become reality, so don’t think about things you don’t want. Acknowledge a bad situation you don’t like and then let that thought go. Replace it by imagining what you would like.

The steps are very simple and you can do them for any amount of time, pretty much anywhere. You just pause and close your eyes and breathe for a minute and imagine yourself in your ideal situation. Before I go to sleep at night I do a longer practice where I count the stairs as I walk down them, or sometimes I imagine an elevator with the floors counting down, or I imagine I’m in the slow Pirates of the Caribbean line at Disney World. If you are having trouble bringing up the picture, try to see the numbers on the steps or on the road in front of you as you count down, and try to focus on physically feeling your feet on each step. And breathe deeply and relax as fully as possible. 

And then you just play pretend like you would as a child. 

I think this works because when you are just pretending, just imagining, there is no pressure. You aren’t worrying about having the things you want because you are busy pretending you have them. You aren’t feeling lack… you’re just having fun. If you do start to feel any lack or grief at not yet having the thing, just go back to your staircase and walk down again and relax some more until you can get back to just pretending again.

The thing is, your brain can’t tell the difference between a feeling that comes from reality or imagination. So if you get a stressful email and feel panic or fear, your brain just reads that feeling the same as if you were literally in fear for your life and running from a tiger that was about to eat you. It can’t tell the difference. And it also can’t tell the difference between a good feeling that comes from imagining a good situation and actually living in that situation. And when your brain is relaxed and open, you begin to see paths to your ideal situation and you can intuitively follow them.

Whether you believe it or not, your consciousness can create its own reality. I resisted this idea for such a long time, until I started to see the links between my thoughts and my physical reality. Especially when they manifest almost instantly like Jerry’s company car.

So if this still seems a little out there, or you’re not sure how to begin, start with the Soft Life Alignment Journal. It will guide you through the same kind of relaxing, imagining, and releasing resistance I’ve used for years.

And if money is the area you most want to shift, the Soft Life Wealth Planner was created especially for that.

You can grab either journal, or bundle both together and save 10%.