The key to a limitless mind is already in your mind.
On this blog, we provide the mindset tools, affirmations, and wisdom to help you turn that key.
Explore Articles
The 3 Stages of Spiritual Stuckness (And How to Get Unstuck)
How a rotting mattress and an unsustainable paycheck taught me where our reality is truly created — and it’s not where you think.
Photo by Tomas Tuma on Unsplash
Let’s get straight to the heart of the matter.
The path of true creation — the kind that brings peace instead of burnout, and flow instead of force — is often misunderstood.
And that’s why so many people get stuck trying to “manifest” their way to a better life.
But my guess is…
You’re someone who senses a deeper power within you, but your external reality hasn’t quite caught up yet.
If that’s true, you’re likely facing one of three core challenges I know all too well.
See which one resonates with where you are right now.
Challenge 1: You see problems as “out there,” and it makes you feel powerless.
A difficult client. A slow-paying customer. A neighbor who leaves a rotting mattress on their lawn for five weeks (true story here).
Your frustration grows because you feel at the mercy of their actions. You’re stuck in a story you hate, and you’ve cast everyone else as the villain.
What you need isn’t a better strategy for dealing with them.
You need to realize you are the one holding the mirror.
Challenge 2: You’re “manifesting,” but it feels like a struggle.
You’ve visualized. You’ve affirmed. Maybe you even manifested a big win, like the $22,000 month I once had.
But the how was a nightmare. It came with burnout, stress, and anxiety. You got the what, but you lost your peace. You were still the same person, hustling for your worth.
This happens because you’re trying to change the reflection without changing the face in the mirror.
What you need is to shift who you are being instead of staying busy doing.
Challenge 3: You understand the concept, but you lack the “how.”
You’ve heard “change your identity,” but it feels abstract. How do you actually do that? How do you move from knowing you should be the person who already has what you want naturally, to truly feeling it as your reality?
What’s missing isn’t the theory.
It’s a simple, daily practice that bridges the gap between your future self and your present moment.
Wherever you see yourself, the solution is the same: Stop trying to rearrange the furniture in a burning house.
The liberating truth I discovered — first with a mattress, and then with my income — is from Neville Goddard’s book Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book):
“Man is actually the arbiter of his own fate.”
This means the cause is never truly “out there.” It’s within. Your concept of yourself determines the world you live in.
When I cleaned my internal clutter, the external mattress disappeared. When I shifted my identity from a hustler to someone in harmonious financial flow, my business transformed.
The simplest way to start this shift? Anchor yourself in a new state for just five minutes a day.
Sit. Close your eyes. Choose one feeling: love, peace, or joy. Generate the sensation in your chest. Let it warm you. For those five minutes, you are that peace. You are not wanting it; you are it.
This is how you make the shift inwardly. And the mirror of life is bound to conform.
If you’re ready to move from theory to practice alongside a community of like-minded people, we created our Skool community, Shift Your Identity, for you.
It’s where we support each other in doing this real, daily work.
→ Join the FREE Shift Your Identity (SYI) Community Here
In alignment,
Sophia (& Cristof)
A Mattress, $22k, and A Liberating Truth
Why Manifesting Often Fails — And the Identity Shift That Makes It Work
Photo by Sergey Shmidt on Unsplash
For five weeks, my neighbor’s old mattress festered on her lawn.
It became the backdrop to my life. I’d see it while taking out the trash — a sodden, decaying monument to… something.
Irresponsibility? Laziness?
I (Sophia) didn’t know, but I knew I was judging it. I’d feel a pang of irritation when I saw the neighborhood kids jumping on it, a potential health hazard. I’d sigh, thinking, “Why doesn’t she just deal with it?”
My frustration grew with each passing day. I was stuck in a story I hated, and I’d cast my neighbor as the villain.
Then, while immersed in Neville Goddard’s influential book The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book), a sentence stopped me cold:
“This great discovery of cause reveals that good or bad, man is actually the arbiter of his own fate… and that it is his concept of himself that determines the world in which he lives.”
Arbiter of my own fate. The words landed not as an empowering affirmation, but as a confronting truth. If I was the arbiter, the cause, then this mattress wasn’t just happening to me. My reality was mirroring something back to me.
I looked around my own apartment. And there it was: in the cupboard, four dusty paper bags filled with old college memorabilia and clutter from three moves ago. Ignored. Unattended. A mess I was refusing to deal with.
The parallel was undeniable. The neighbor’s junk outside my apartment was a perfect reflection of my clutter inside.
The old me would have either not done anything and continued to brood in her anger or, eventually, marched over and asked her, with barely concealed annoyance, to handle her mess.
That would be trying to rearrange the furniture in a burning house.
The new me, the one tentatively embracing this “arbiter” idea, knew the only door was inside my own mind.
I didn’t just clean the clutter. I became a person who lives in a clean, orderly, and attended-to environment. I handled my bags. I sorted, I discarded, I created space. I wasn’t just cleaning; I was embodying a new concept of myself: I am the kind of person who resolves things promptly.
The next day, the mattress was gone.
Now, you might call it a coincidence. But after five weeks of stagnation, the timing was… interesting. It was my first tiny, tangible proof. The universe wasn’t punishing me; it was showing me how the mechanism works.
This lesson became crucial when I started applying these principles to my business. I learned to manifest money, but I hadn’t yet learned to manifest a state of being.
I once visualized and “manifested” a $22,000 month. And it worked! The money came in. But the how was a nightmare. The projects attached to that income required three grueling months of non-stop, high-stress work to deliver. I got the number, but I lost my peace. I got the what, but not the who. I was still the identity of someone who hustles and struggles for abundance.
I was using the law of assumption to change the scenery, but I was still the same anxious character in the play.
Neville Goddard and the Buddha, in their own languages, point to the same solution:
Stop trying to change the reflection. Change the face in the mirror.
This is the shift from manifestation to Identity Shifting.
It’s the difference between:
Manifesting a specific income and becoming the person who is in harmonious financial flow.
Visualizing a perfect partner and embodying the state of being already loved and understood.
Affirming “I am abundant” and feeling the natural, quiet joy of the wish fulfilled.
This is where Neville’s “State of the Wish Fulfilled” meets the Buddha’s Brahmaviharas — the divine abodes of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. These aren’t complicated rituals. They are mind-states. When you dwell in the feeling of love, compassion, or peace, you are, by definition, not dwelling in lack, fear, or frustration. The light naturally drowns out the darkness.
You are assuming a new identity.
The One Practice to Start With Today
This might sound like a massive undertaking. It’s not. It’s a practice, like learning the piano. Every minute counts. Every note matters.
Don’t try to track and purify every “bad karma” seed at once. You’ll exhaust yourself.
Start here: Anchor yourself in a single, wholesome mind-state for five minutes a day.
Sit quietly. Close your eyes.
Choose one: Loving-kindness (May I be happy. May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I live with ease.) or simply the feeling of deep, quiet peace.
Feel it. Don’t just say the words. Generate the sensation in your chest. Let it warm you. Imagine your wish is already fulfilled — not as a frantic craving, but as a present-moment reality. What does that feel like? That’s your new state.
Dwell there. For five minutes, that feeling is your entire world. You are not someone wanting peace; you are peace.
In this state, you are naturally purifying old seeds and sowing new, powerful ones. You are shifting your identity from the inside out. From this place, action becomes inspired, aligned, and effortless — whether it’s cleaning your clutter or building a business.
The world doesn’t change when you chase a different reflection. It changes when you have the courage to become the person for whom that reflection is natural. You are the arbiter. And that is the most liberating truth you will ever embrace.
Ready to fully embody your new identity?
This is the work we do every day in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). It’s a space where we move beyond theory and into practice, supporting each other as we consciously choose and become the people we are meant to be.
If you’re ready to stop hustling against the current and start flowing with it, we’d be honored to have you.
I Was Stuck in “Manifestation Mode.” This 3-Stage Wake-Up Call Changed Everything
A frustrating $113 yoga charge taught me the real difference between begging the universe and commanding your reality
Let’s get straight to it.
Most people who learn about manifestation hit a wall.
They visualize. They affirm. They try to think positive.
But deep down, it feels like begging the universe for a result. And when it doesn’t work, they feel frustrated. Inauthentic. Stuck.
I know, because I (Sophia) was there just last month.
I was three weeks into a “1-Month Trial” at a yoga studio when I needed to cancel. I sent a polite email, and their reply felt like a gut punch.
They said I needed to give 30 days’ notice to cancel a one-month trial.
I felt cheated. Disrespected. My story was, “They are so unfair!”
So, I did what any good manifestor would do: I visualized a refund. I affirmed their generosity.
And… nothing happened. They charged my card.
My manifestation was a dud.
That’s when I remembered the real secret I’d been teaching all along. It’s not about manifesting what you want. It’s about becoming who you are.
The shift happens when you move through these three stages:
Stage 1: You believe the cause of your problem is “out there.”
You’re focused on the external circumstance — the difficult person, the lack of money, the unfair policy.
You think changing that is the key to your peace. So you fight, you plead, you try to manifest it away.
But this keeps you powerless.
Stage 2: You learn the concept of “assumption,” but you keep it in your head.
You understand that your state of consciousness matters. You start saying “I am” statements.
But if it’s just a thought, it’s fragile. The moment your 3D reality pushes back (like a charge on your bank statement), the old story of injustice comes roaring back.
The mind is convinced, but the body and your actions aren’t.
Stage 3: You realize “assumption” is a verb. It’s the act of taking power.
This was my breakthrough.
I stopped trying to get a refund and became a person who commands integrity — by first embodying it myself.
I asked one simple, powerful question:
“Where have I not kept my own promises?”
The answer was immediate and humbling. I had failed to deliver a bonus video to my own students months ago. I was guilty of my own “fine print.”
I didn’t meditate more. I took action. I created the missing video and sent it out.
The moment I did, a feeling of lightness washed over me. The internal conflict was gone. The work was done.
The next day, the yoga studio refunded my money, unprompted.
This is the core of it: Stop manifesting, start embodying.
The world doesn’t respond to your wishes. It responds to your state of being. And your state of being is proven to you — and the universe — through your actions.
If you’re ready to move from theory to practice, we built a space for that.
In our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity, we do the “mirror work” together. We help each other find those hidden places where we’re out of integrity and give you the support to align them.
It’s where you learn to stop begging the universe and start commanding your reality.
Click here to join Shift Your Identity (SYI) for free.
As always, remember:
Make the shift inwardly, the mirror of life is bound to conform.
Sophia & Cristof
If you want to read the deeper, full story behind my yoga studio realization, you can find it here:
The 3 Stages of Getting Unstuck (And How to Move Through Them)
If you’ve tried manifesting but nothing changed, you’re likely in one of these phases. Here’s the map to find your way out.
Let’s get straight to the heart of it.
You’ve tried visualizing. You’ve tried the affirmations. Maybe you’ve even built a vision board.
But the results you want still feel just out of reach.
What if the problem isn’t your effort, but your entire approach?
For years, I believed the same story you probably did: Work hard, do the things, and then you’ll become the person with the results.
It’s the “Action-First” model. And it’s a trap that keeps you in a cycle of striving and imposter syndrome.
But something shifted for us.
We discovered that real transformation — the kind that brings opportunities to your doorstep — doesn’t start with action.
It starts with identity.
And from my own journey, I see most people get stuck in one of three places on this path. See which one feels familiar.
Stage 1: You’re stuck in the “doing” loop.
You’re hustling. You’re putting in the hours. You’re following all the “how-to” advice.
But you’re doing it from the identity of someone who doesn’t have the results. It feels like pushing a boulder uphill.
What you need isn’t another action plan. It’s a new identity from which inspired action can naturally flow.
Stage 2: You’re “faking it,” but you don’t “feel it.”
You’re saying the words, but your inner self is screaming, “This isn’t true!”
It feels like a lie because your subconscious is highly integral. It rejects what it sees as false.
What you need isn’t better affirmations. You need a way to genuinely feel the state of the wish fulfilled, so your mind accepts it as a new truth.
Stage 3: You have moments of clarity, but they don’t last.
You get a glimpse of what’s possible, but the old story, the old feelings, creep back in.
Your growth feels fragile. The 3D world’s evidence is still too loud.
What you need isn’t more motivation. You need a structured practice to continually abide in your new identity, until the outside world has no choice but to conform.
Wherever you are, the shift is the same: You must stop ‘faking it until you make it’, and start feeling it before you make it.
This isn’t a theory. It’s how we landed a teaching gig in a 5-minute state of flow, without hustling for it.
We simply abided in the identity of “being teachers” for a couple of weeks. We connected with the feeling of ease, authority, and service. Then, the opportunity appeared. It was a natural, almost expected next step.
The action was a joyful effect, not a strenuous cause.
This is the core of what we teach.
By the way, we created our Shift Your Identity community and the Power of Awareness course (for Premium community members) specifically for someone like you.
I don’t just say that to be inspiring.
I say it because we were right where you are, not long ago. We built the system we needed.
As always, remember:
Make the shift inwardly, the mirror of life is bound to conform.
Sophia & Cristof
Stop Hustling, Start Abiding: The Easiest Path to What You Want
How a simple change in our daily mental practice led to a real-world opportunity in just two weeks
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash
I clicked ‘submit’ on the teaching application in a state of pure, light-filled flow.
It had only taken five minutes. There was no hesitation, no second-guessing, no imposter syndrome. Just two days later, Cristof and I were in a meeting with the community center program director, not to plead our case, but to decide on dates and pricing for our class.
This wasn’t the result of grinding out ridiculous work hours. It was the natural outcome of a practice we’d been doing for weeks: we stopped faking it until we made it, and started feeling it before we made it.
The Trap of the “Action-First” Model
We’re all taught the same script from childhood: work hard, study hard, do the things, and then — maybe — you’ll become the person who has the results.
Want to be a successful writer? Write for 100 days straight.
Want to be financially abundant? Work 80-hour weeks and save 50% of your income.
Want to be a teacher? Get the education, then the degree, then the position.
The actions come first, the identity follows. It’s a life of striving, and for many, a life of perpetual struggle. The imposter syndrome thrives here because you’re always reaching for an identity that feels outside of you.
But what if we have it backward?
The Download That Changed Everything
Less than a week before the kickoff call for our community, we had a moment of clarity. The real, transformational work isn’t in the action. The action is a byproduct. The first step is the identity.
You don’t just get good grades; you are an excellent student.
You don’t just earn a lot of money; you are a financially abundant person.
You don’t just teach a class; you are a teacher.
For us, the desired identity was clear: “I AM a person who knows identity shifting inside out, applies it in his/her own life with ease, and teaches it successfully to others so they can transform their lives.”
This wasn’t a lie we told ourselves. It was a state we chose to inhabit.
The Practice: “Abiding” in the Wish Fulfilled
So how do you move from “doing until you are” to being the excellent student, financially abundant person, or confident teacher? You don’t just affirm it once. You abide in it.
For a couple of weeks, several times a day, we would consciously drop into the “state of the wish fulfilled.” We used the “I AM” mantra above not as a desperate plea, but as a gentle reminder of our true, chosen state.
We weren’t visualizing a specific classroom or students. We were simply connecting with the feeling of already being the capable, knowledgeable, generous teachers we knew we were. The feeling of ease. The feeling of natural authority. The feeling of service.
This is the crucial difference. Manifesting isn’t about craving a future thing. It’s about experiencing the ultimate result of that thing — the feeling — right now, in your mind. Because even when you get the Lamborghini, the experience of joy and abundance still happens in your mind. Why wait?
When the 3D World Catches Up
This is where the magic happens. When you are truly abiding in that new identity, inspired action finds you. It feels like flow, not force.
The email from the community center? It didn’t feel like a shocking coincidence. It felt like a natural, almost expected invitation from a universe that had simply matched our internal frequency. Seeing the “Program Instructor Application” link wasn’t a surprise; it was an obvious next step. The energy was divine, intuitive, and effortless. No thinking, only doing from a state of being.
The action was a joyful effect, not a strenuous cause.
Your Turn: How to Find Your “I AM”
If you’re feeling stuck in an identity that no longer serves you, here is the simple, practical first step:
Identify the “Stuck” Identity: Get brutally honest. “I am a struggling freelancer.” “I am an unpublished writer.” “I am someone who is always broke.”
Define the Desired Identity: What is the opposite, fulfilled version? Not just having something, but being someone. “I am a sought-after expert in my field.” “I am an author whose words impact thousands.” “I am a financially abundant person.”
It might take a few iterations to get it right. That’s okay. The key is to find the identity that, if you truly felt it was your reality, would make the craving for the external thing simply… dissolve.
The Beautiful Paradox of Non-Attachment
Now, you might be wondering: “Isn’t this just creating a new form of craving?” This is where the Buddha’s teachings beautifully align.
The practice isn’t to cling to the specific outcome nor the feeling. We didn’t need to teach at that specific community center. We just dwelled in the identity of being teachers and left the specifics up to the universe.
Feel the feeling, but be unattached to the form it takes. The feeling itself is also a tool. Use it, and let it go when it no longer serves you. This is the path of true freedom — shaping your reality without being enslaved by your desires.
The more you practice dwelling in this state, the more natural it feels. And the more natural it feels, the faster your outside reality will catch up, often in ways more creative and wonderful than you could have planned.
If this resonated with you and you’re tired of the hustle, we invite you to join our free Shift Your Identity (SYI) community. It’s a space where we explore these concepts daily, share wins, and support each other in moving from struggle to flow. For those ready to go deeper, our Premium membership includes our Power of Awareness course and, most importantly, weekly live “I AM” calls where we practice getting into and abiding in the “state of the wish fulfilled” together.
Your new identity is waiting for you to claim it.
Stop Trying to Change Your Life
The one shift that actually works isn’t about doing more. It’s about winning the inner game first.
Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash
Let’s get straight to the heart of it.
You’ve probably tried to change your life from the outside in.
You set a goal. You hustle. You rearrange the external circumstances, hoping it will finally make you feel the way you want to feel.
It’s like rearranging the furniture in a burning house.
I (Cristof) was doing this for years. Until a simple moment on a gym bench — and a line from a movie — showed me the only way that actually works.
I was at a raffle, losing. My number wasn’t called. Again and again.
And I felt myself slump into the old story: “I guess I just don’t win these things.”
I was embodying “Someone Who Doesn’t Win.” And my reality was complying.
But right then, I made a choice. I initiated an identity shift.
I sat up straight. I smiled. I celebrated the others as if I were a winner who knew my turn was coming.
I didn’t just act like a winner. I felt like one.
The very next drawing? My number was called.
Then it was called again. And again. I won three times.
The prizes were small, but the lesson was everything: Your external world is a lagging indicator of your internal identity.
This is what Neville Goddard meant, in The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book), when he said the truth that sets you free is to
“experience in imagination what you desire to experience in reality.”
And it’s what Coach Carter, in the movie Coach Carter (affiliate link to movie), played by Samuel L. Jackson, meant by:
“Winning in here is the key to winning out there.”
“Winning in here” has nothing to do with a basketball court. It’s about the inner court of your mind.
Most people get this wrong in one of two ways:
They are clear on the what, but fuzzy on the who.
They know they want $10,000 a month, but they haven’t become the person who has and earns that with ease. That person is calm, confident, and sees themselves as a high-value creator. Who must you be?They understand the concept, but skip the feeling.
They visualize the goal, but they don’t live in the feeling of the wish fulfilled. They daydream about the future instead of reliving the present fact.
Your only job is to assume the feeling. Persist in it. When the old “losing streak” appears, ignore the echo.
The shift happens now. In here.
Then, and only then, does the world out there have no choice but to conform.
P.S. This is the exact work we do every day in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). It’s not just a group; it’s a living practice where we support each other in making these shifts permanent. If you’re ready to stop rearranging furniture and put out the fire for good, you belong with us.
Join the free SYI Community Here
The Yoga Studio That Overcharged Me Taught Me Neville Goddard’s Real Secret
I was trying to “manifest” a refund. What I got instead was a masterclass in the one law that changes everything.
Photo by Ginny Rose Stewart on Unsplash
You know that feeling when you get caught by a fine print you never saw coming?
I (Sophia) was three weeks into a “1-Month Trial” at a local yoga studio. Life happened — I got sick, my fitness goals shifted — so I politely emailed them. “Hey, can you cancel my renewal for next month? Thanks for the great classes!”
Their reply was a gut punch.
“Per our policy, we require a 30-day written notice to cancel.”
I read it twice. A 30-day notice for a one-month trial? To cancel a subscription I didn’t even want to continue, I would have had to notify them on day one.
I felt that hot rush of injustice. Disrespected. Cheated. It wasn’t even about the hundred-ish dollars; it was the principle. The “how dare they” story lit up in my mind like a neon sign.
My first instinct was to fight. My second, as a teacher of manifestation and the power of the mind, was to manifest. I visualized the refund. I affirmed “the studio is generous and understanding.” I tried to bend reality to my will.
And nothing happened.
The renewal date came, and the charge hit my account. My manifestation felt like a dud.
That’s when I remembered a line from Neville Goddard’s The Power of Awareness that I’d been teaching just days before:
“Man’s chief delusion is his conviction that there are causes other than his own state of consciousness.”
Ouch.
I had been seeing the yoga studio as the “cause” of my problem. But Neville states, bluntly, that this is a delusion. The real cause was my own state of consciousness. I was the common denominator in this story.
This is where I learned the critical difference between manifesting and identity shifting.
Manifesting (the way I was doing it) was like sending out a wishlist to the universe: “I want them to be fair.” It comes from a place of lack.
Identity Shifting, as Neville teaches, is becoming the person for whom the solution is already true. It comes from a place of assumption.
Neville defines assumption as “a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.”
So, I stopped trying to get a refund.
I became the person who was already treated with fairness and respect by the businesses they engage with.
But here’s the part I never understood until that moment. This isn’t just a mental exercise. This new state of consciousness requires integrating the second meaning of the word, “assumption” which is the “act of taking on power or responsibility.”
And responsibility, I realized, isn’t about blame. It’s about response-ability. The ability to respond to your reality by first looking within.
A question surfaced from a place of deep knowing, one that changed everything:
“Where have I not kept my own promises?”
The answer came instantly, clear and cringe-worthy.
Months prior, I had launched a digital course. I had delivered all the core content, but one promotional bonus — a juicy, hour-long video — had fallen through the cracks. I’d never sent it. It was a “small” thing, not critical to the course, but a promise was a promise. I had, in essence, hidden my own “fine print” from my students.
The yoga studio was holding up a mirror, and I finally had the courage to look.
I didn’t meditate harder on the refund. I didn’t do another visualization. I sat down at my computer and spent the next two hours creating that forgotten bonus video. I finished it, uploaded it, and sent a heartfelt email to every student who had purchased that course, apologizing for the delay and granting them lifetime access.
The moment I hit “send,” a profound feeling of lightness washed over me. The internal knot of conflict was gone. The work was done. I had cleaned up my side of the street. I had aligned my 3D reality with my new assumption of integrity. I completely forgot about the yoga studio.
The next day, I checked my messages on autopilot. There it was. A new email from the studio.
They apologized for the “confusion,” stated they valued me as a potential future member, and had processed a full refund.
My jaw dropped. “Oh my god, it actually happened?”
This wasn’t the Universe rewarding me for being “good.” It was the natural, inevitable result of a change in consciousness. As Neville says:
“If this assumption is persisted in until it becomes your dominant feeling, the attainment of your ideal is inevitable.”
I had shifted my dominant feeling from “aggrieved customer” to “integrity-driven business owner,” and the 3D world had no choice but to reflect it back.
The One Practical Takeaway You Can Use Today
The secret isn’t just thinking “I am” thoughts. It’s taking 100% responsibility for the reality those thoughts create.
If you’re facing a recurring problem — a lack of clients, difficult relationships, financial strain — ask yourself this powerful question:
“What have I done in the past that is the essence of what is happening to me now?”
Then, go fix it.
Can you deliver on that forgotten promise?
Can you pay that small, overlooked debt?
Can you offer a genuine apology where one is due?
If you can’t reach the original person, perform a symbolic act. Find someone else in a similar situation and help them. Dedicate the deed to healing the original karmic seed.
This is how you “assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled.” You become the person of integrity, and the world of integrity finds you.
This path of Identity Shifting is the most powerful thing you will ever do, but let’s be real: it can also be the most challenging. The concept of 100% responsibility is a massive pill to swallow, especially when you’re just starting out.
You don’t have to do it alone.
If this story resonated with you, if you’re ready to be encouraged and held accountable as you step into your most powerful self, come and join our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI).
It’s a supportive space where we move beyond theory and into practice, helping each other clean up our 3D realities and consciously create the lives we’re meant to live. No prior knowledge or understanding required.
Click here to join Shift Your Identity (SYI) for free.
The power to assume a new life is your birthright. Let’s claim it, together.
The Forbidden Alignment: What the Buddha and Neville Goddard Secretly Agree On
How a 2,600-year-old Buddhist truth and a modern manifestation secret point to the exact same method for finding peace and realizing your goals.
Image created with the help of Canva AI
I (Sophia) was having a crisis of faith, and I bet you’ve felt it too.
On one hand, I am a devoted student of the Buddha’s path. My mornings begin with taking refuge. I am convinced his teachings on the end of suffering are the ultimate truth. The Dhamma is my compass.
On the other hand, I was diving deep into the work of Neville Goddard. His teachings on the power of imagination to shape reality were producing tangible results. But a quiet, persistent voice in my heart kept whispering:
“Are you being led astray? Is this desire for manifestation pulling you away from the freedom from desire?”
It felt like I was trying to serve two masters. One promised enlightenment; the other promised the world. The cognitive dissonance was a low-grade hum of spiritual anxiety.
This morning, a line from Neville’s The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book) made me ponder:
“There is only one substance. This substance is consciousness. It is your imagination which forms this substance into concepts. Which concepts are then manifested as conditions, circumstances, and physical objects.”
I brought it to Cristof, whose understanding of the Buddha’s teachings is profound. “This,” I said, “reminds me of Dependent Origination.”
What happened next wasn’t just an intellectual exercise. It was the key that unlocked the door between my two worlds. The relief was immediate and physical — a literal weight lifted from my chest. We realized we hadn’t found a contradiction; we had found the secret bridge.
And it all hinges on one powerful, misunderstood link: craving.
The Meeting Point of Two Giants
For those unfamiliar, the Buddha’s teaching on Dependent Origination is a practical map of how the mind works and suffering arises. It’s a twelve-link chain, and a crucial part of it goes like this:
Consciousness leads to…
Body-Mind (Name & Form) which leads to…
The Six Senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch… and the mind as the sixth sense, the one that imagines) that allow for…
Contact between a sense and an object (including a thought or mental image), leading to…
Feeling (the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral experience from that contact; not to be confused with emotion), turning into…
Craving (the “I like this, I want more” or “I hate this, I want it gone” reaction).
This craving is the engine of suffering. It’s what makes us cling, grasp, and ultimately feel pain when reality doesn’t match our wants.
Now, let’s look at Neville through this lens.
Neville says the one substance is Consciousness.
Your Imagination (the sixth sense) forms this consciousness into concepts. This is the Contact with a mental object.
Next, the Feeling of that concept arises. Neville calls this the “feeling of the wish fulfilled.”
And here is where the magic happens. Where the two teachings don’t just align — they complete each other.
The Hack Isn’t Getting; It’s Stopping
The common mistake in manifestation is to feel the “wish fulfilled” with the desperate energy of craving for the 3D world to confirm it. We feel the feeling in order to get the thing. This, according to the Buddha’s map, directly fuels the chain of suffering.
But what Neville actually taught — and what we so often miss — is that the feeling of the wish fulfilled is an end in itself.
When you successfully generate the feeling that your desire is already fulfilled, what happens?
Relief. Satisfaction. Peace.
The thirst is quenched. The hunger is satiated. In that moment of genuine, embodied feeling, the craving stops.
You have, using Neville’s technique, actively broken the Buddha’s chain of suffering before it could create more suffering.
You are no longer “manifesting from lack.” You are “manifesting from satiation.” You have your desire realized in the only place it has ever truly existed: in your consciousness. The 3D manifestation becomes a secondary confirmation, a natural echo, not the source of your happiness. You can enjoy it when it appears, and you are equally at peace if it hasn’t yet, because your state of fulfillment is internal and untouchable.
This is the ultimate freedom. It’s not the absence of desire; it’s the absence of craving. The Buddha provided the comprehensive map to end suffering — the Noble Eightfold Path. What Neville Goddard offers is a powerful, precise tool for navigating one of the most difficult parts of that map: dissolving the craving of a specific desire before it takes root.
Your 2-Minute Practice to Dissolve Craving
This isn’t just philosophy. It’s a tool you can apply daily to keep desires from turning into craving. Here’s how you can use it today.
Identify the “Why” Behind the “What”: Pick a desire. Let’s say it’s “$10,000 a month.” Now, ask: ”What feeling would having that give me?” Is it security? Freedom? Validation? A sense of being capable and successful?
Step Into the Feeling, Not the Vision: Close your eyes. For just two minutes, forget the money. Forget the bank statement. Instead, generate the core feeling itself.
→ Feel the shoulders-drop relief of security.
→ Feel the deep-breath expansiveness of freedom.
→ Feel the chest-out confidence of being capable.Rest in the Relief: Linger in this feeling. Let it feel real and true right now. As Neville said, you must feel it so real that you experience a sense of relief, as if the thing is done. The moment you feel that relief, the craving for the external object vanishes. You have what you actually wanted all along.
It’s like the child who, unable to have a cat, imagines petting one so vividly they feel the joy and purring. They aren’t desperate for the physical cat in that moment; they are satiated by the feeling of love and joy. That feeling is the true goal.
Walking the Path, Aligned
This realization was our liberation from spiritual conflict. We no longer have to choose between the path to enlightenment and the tools for a well-lived life. They are two languages describing the same truth: consciousness is primary, and freedom is found not in getting what you want, but in no longer being enslaved by the wanting itself.
You can be a powerful creator of your own reality and a peaceful Buddha-in-training. In fact, one is the surest path to the other.
Ready to make this shift with a supportive community?
This synthesis of mind, manifesting, and identity is what we live and breathe in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). It’s a place where we move beyond theory and into practice.
Inside SYI, you get:
A supportive community to share your journey and successes.
Live Q&A calls where we dive deeper into these alignments.
Practical teachings on identity shifting to make these states a permanent part of your being.
Stop feeling the conflict and start experiencing the alignment.
Click here to join our free Shift Your Identity (SYI) community.
I “Tricked” Myself Into Winning 3 Prizes in a Single Raffle
Here’s the simple identity shift I used — rooted in Neville Goddard’s teachings — that you can apply to manifest anything.
Photo by Jake Ingle on Unsplash
I (Cristof) sat on a hard gym bench, watching my chances of winning a raffle slip away.
The first prize was called. Not my number.
The second. Not my number.
The third and fourth. Nothing.
My shoulders began to slump. A familiar, apologetic story started playing in my mind: “It’s okay, you never win these things anyway. Just be happy for the others. Don’t get your hopes up.”
I was, in that moment, perfectly embodying the identity of Someone Who Doesn’t Win.
And the universe was complying.
But I’ve been doing this inner work for a while. I recognized the old story as it was happening. This wasn’t who I am anymore. So, right there in the noisy gym, I initiated a deliberate identity shift. I decided to step out of “Someone Who Doesn’t Win” and into “A Winner.”
I sat up straight. I put a genuine smile on my face. I started applauding the other winners with sincere joy, as if I were a champion who knew my turn was coming. I didn’t just act like a winner; I felt like one. I allowed myself to feel the satisfaction and excitement of having already won.
The very next drawing? My number was called.
I won a gift card. I was thrilled, but an old pattern emerged. When my number was called again in the next round, I felt a pang of hesitation. “Should I really be this happy? People might think I’m greedy.” The old identity was fighting to pull me back.
I consciously reaffirmed my new state. “I have shifted. I am a winner. Winners get to celebrate.” I stood up, raised my arms, and joyfully accepted my second prize.
By the end of the night, I had won three times.
Now, in the grand scheme, a few ice cream gift cards are trivial. But the lesson was profound: Your external world is nothing more than a lagging indicator of your internal identity. When I identified as a loser, I got loss. The moment I shifted to identifying as a winner, I started winning. It worked immediately.
This experience cemented a truth I knew from Neville Goddard. In his book, The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book), he taught that:
“The truth that sets you free is that you can experience in imagination what you desire to experience in reality. And by maintaining this experience in imagination, your desire will become an actuality.”
But it was just yesterday that the final piece clicked into place. We were relaxing at home and watching the movie Coach Carter (affiliate link to movie). Samuel L. Jackson, as the coach, tells his team:
“The losing stops now. Starting today, you will play like winners, act like winners, and most importantly, you will be winners… winning in here is the key to winning out there.”
It hit me. That’s it. That’s the entire philosophy in one powerful, cinematic statement.
Most people hear that and think “in here” means the basketball court. But I finally saw it with perfect clarity.
“Winning in here” isn’t about a court. It’s about the inner court of your mind. It’s the identity you assume before the external result shows up. My gym story was a tiny, perfect example of winning in here (my mind) to win out there (the raffle).
The Simple Method for Shifting Your Identity
We spend so much time rearranging the furniture in a burning house — trying to fix external circumstances without addressing the internal fire of our own self-concept. The real work is within. If you want to create a lasting change, start by consciously shifting your identity. Here’s the practical, two-step method, that Sophia explains like this:
Step 1: Get Absurdly Clear on What You Want & Who You Must Be to Have It
You can’t build a house without a blueprint. Most people are vague. “I want more money.” “I want a better relationship.” This is useless to your subconscious mind.
Get specific. “I want to earn $10,000 per month from my creative work, with ease and joy.”
Now, here’s the crucial pivot most people miss: What is the identity of the person who already has that?
The person earning $10k/month with ease isn’t frantic or desperate. They are confident, focused, and see themselves as a high-value creator. They are a winner in their field.
Your desire isn’t just for the thing; it’s for the state of being that the thing implies. Define that state. Is it “a winner,” “a bestselling author,” “a magnetic partner,” “a debt-free person”?
Step 2: Make Your Future Dream a Present Fact Through Feeling
This is where you move from theory to practice. You must “assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled,” as Neville says.
The word “assumption” is key. The dictionary gives two definitions that are perfectly aligned for our purpose:
A thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.
The action of taking on power or responsibility.
You must accept as true, without any proof from the 3D world, that you are already that person. And in doing so, you take on the power and responsibility of that new identity.
How do you do this? In your imagination.
Let’s say your desire is to be a bestselling author. Don’t just visualize holding the book. That’s a step, but it’s not the pinnacle.
Instead, enter a scene that would imply your desire is fulfilled. Imagine reading a heartfelt email from a reader, telling you how your book changed their life. Feel the warmth in your chest. See the words on the screen. Hear your own grateful, happy sigh. Live in that feeling.
Do this not as a daydream of the future, but as a reliving of a present fact. This isn’t “someday.” This is now.
As Neville puts it:
“By desiring to be other than what you are, you can create an ideal of the person you want to be and assume that you are already that person. If this assumption is persisted in until it becomes your dominant feeling, the attainment of your ideal is inevitable.”
Your only job is to persist. When the old reality (the “losing streak”) shows up, ignore it. It’s just echo. When doubt creeps in, gently return to the feeling of your wish fulfilled.
Stop trying to build a new you from the outside in. It’s exhausting. Instead, make the shift. Decide who you are now, and let your outer world catch up to that truth. “Win in here,” and watch, almost as a passive observer, as your reality has no choice but to reflect your new identity back to you.
Ready to make your shift? This is exactly what we explore in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). It’s a space where we dive deeper into these principles, support each other’s journeys, and practice the art of conscious creation together. If this article resonated with you, you already belong. Click here to join our free SYI community today.