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Manifesting Isn’t About Getting What You Want
It’s about becoming who you already are. The moment I understood this, my reality had no choice but to change.
For years, I believed in the grind.
If I wanted the dream life — the ocean-view home, the thriving business, the financial freedom — I had to work hard for it. I had to hustle. I’d set a big goal, my stomach would knot with a mix of ambition and anxiety, and I’d start the slog.
The to-do lists were long. The effort was real. But so was the underlying vibration of lack. The nagging whisper: “Is this ever going to actually pay off?”
Every task, from writing a crucial article to the mundane admin of transferring blog posts between accounts, felt like a heavy “have-to.” I was building my future from a place of exhaustion, not excitement.
Then, a simple yet radical idea from Neville Goddard’s book The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book) stopped me in my tracks. It reframed everything I thought I knew about manifesting:
“Manifesting is nothing but experiencing the results of your concepts of yourself in the world.”
Let that sink in for a moment.
It’s not about visualizing harder or reciting a thousand affirmations. It’s not about forcing the right action. It’s about your self-concept. Your identity. The state of consciousness from which you operate.
Neville goes on to say,
“Consciousness is the one and only reality.”
The world, he explains, has no motive of its own. It operates with “motiveless necessity,” meaning it has to reflect the arrangement of your mind — the sum total of all you believe and consent to be true.
My problem wasn’t a lack of action; it was the state from which I was acting. I was acting from “Sophia who wants and struggles,” instead of “Sophia who already has and enjoys.”
The shift happened in a morning meditation. Instead of wanting the ocean-view home, I decided to feel what it would be like to already have it. I felt the salty air on my skin, the vast, calm horizon, the deep, unshakable peace and financial abundance that view represented.
I bathed in that feeling for five minutes. Then I got up to face my day.
My to-do list was the same. I had to transfer a backlog of articles to our new Medium channel. But something was different.
The task that used to feel like a draining, doubtful chore now felt… pleasant. It felt like the ocean breeze. I was energized, motivated, and confident that this small, aligned action was part of a natural, unfolding process. I was no longer building my reality; I was expressing the reality I had already claimed within.
This is the secret they don’t tell you about “massive action.”
When you act from the “wish fulfilled,” your action transforms.
It becomes motivated: You’re not forcing yourself; you’re flowing with inspiration.
It becomes intelligent: Your intuition guides you to the most effective actions, not the most exhausting ones.
It becomes magical: The “bridge of incidents” — Neville’s term for the unfolding path — appears, offering solutions you could never have forced.
Let me give you a real-life example.
We’re building our coaching business, which means we need to get in front of people. The hustle mindset says: “Cold email 100 people! Go network! Grind!”
But from our new state of aligned creators, our intuition nudged us to simply book a yoga class at our local community center. While signing up, we noticed a link in the town newsletter: “Apply to Become an Instructor.”
Following the nudge, I filled out the form. It took five minutes. The next day, we had a meeting. A day after that, we were scheduling dates and fees. Suddenly, we were being offered a platform to reach tens of thousands of people in the town’s next Parks & Rec guide — not as yoga instructors, but to teach our program, ‘Ace Your Goals.’
No hustle. Just ease. The path unfolded because we were in the state of people for whom visibility is natural and easy.
Your Practical Framework: The “State Shift” Method
If you’re tired of the grind, try this. Don’t just read it — do it.
Know What You Want. Get specific. Is it $10,000 a month? A soulmate? Perfect health?
Identify the Core Feeling. Why do you want it? Is it security? freedom? joy? love? The feeling is the real goal.
Step Into the Identity. Who are you being once you have it? For five minutes, close your eyes and feel that feeling now. Be the person for whom this reality is a normal, natural fact.
Pro Tip: Do this 3x daily.
Morning: To set the tone for your day.
After Lunch: To reset and reclaim your state before your second work shift.
Before Bed: To let your subconscious mind work on it overnight.
This isn’t about denying your 3D reality; it’s about changing the source of your creation within it. You stop rearranging the external furniture and start rebuilding the internal foundation.
The World Mirrors Your Inner State
The bills might still be on the counter. The inbox might still be full. But from the state of the wish fulfilled, you handle it all with a new energy. You are no longer a beggar hoping the universe will provide. You are the architect, operating from the completed blueprint.
You are giving yourself the feeling you’ve been chasing all along. And in doing so, you become a magnet for the circumstances that match it.
The transformation begins when you stop trying to create your reality and start experiencing it from within.
Ready to Move From Knowing to Living It?
Understanding the theory is one thing. Consistently living in the state of the wish fulfilled is another. It requires practice, guidance, and a community that speaks your language.
Inside our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI), that’s exactly what you’ll find. This is where you can:
Practice the State: Get daily, structured guidance to help you embody these teachings.
Find Your People: Connect with a powerful community of like-minded creators and manifestors.
Get Unstuck: Receive the accountability and support to move through doubts and witness your own bridge of incidents unfold.
If you’re ready to replace the hustle with a feeling of natural, oceanic ease, you belong with us.
Click here to join the Shift Your Identity (SYI) community for free.
Your new state is waiting.
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.
The Manifesting Mistake That Keeps You Stuck in the Hustle
How I learned to stop rearranging the furniture in a burning house and finally build a new foundation.
Let’s get straight to the heart of it.
The path to a life of freedom and abundance isn’t about doing more. In fact, that’s the very thing keeping most people stuck.
But something tells me you already sense that.
You’ve probably visualized, journaled, and set big goals… but the feeling of “hustle” is still there. The alignment you’re seeking feels just out of reach.
If that’s true, you might be making the same mistake I made for years.
You’re trying to manifest goals instead of shifting your identity.
I learned this the hard way. I was a six-figure freelancer, completely burned out. My calendar was packed, but my soul was empty.
I was, what I now call, “rearranging the furniture in a burning house.”
I was so focused on sending one more email, tweaking one more design — the actions — that I ignored the roaring flames of my own misalignment. The house (my old identity) was on fire, and I was worried about the couch.
My wake-up call came during Hurricane Helene. Being evacuated from my home made the metaphor devastatingly clear: you can’t save a house that’s being consumed. You have to get out and find a new foundation.
In that pause, a teaching from Neville Goddard’s book The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to book) finally clicked:
“Manifesting is experiencing the results of the concepts of yourself in the world.”
It’s not about getting things. It’s about becoming the person for whom those things are natural.
I had to step out of the smoke and into a new identity. I stopped asking, “How do I make more money?” and started asking:
“Who am I if I am already a financially abundant and generous teacher?”
This isn’t “acting as if.” It’s feeling as if.
And when I made that shift, everything changed. Opportunities aligned with that new identity started to appear — like teaching locally and building our free online community — without the exhausting chase.
If you’re ready to stop hustling and start being, the way out is simpler than you think.
Your first step is to ask yourself one powerful question:
“What is the feeling I am truly seeking from my goal? And who is the ‘I Am’ person that already embodies it?”
Find that feeling. Slip into that identity for just five minutes (or even just five seconds for beginners) today. Let it be your inner soundtrack.
The rest will begin to unfold, intuitively.
We built our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI), as a sanctuary for this exact work. A place to put out your fires and build a new foundation, together.
If you’re ready to step into your new identity, join us here.
→ simpleandaligned.com/syi
As always, remember:
You are the conscious creator of your reality. Now, let’s create from a place of being, not striving.
With love and alignment,
Sophia (and Cristof)
The Hustle-Free Way of Manifesting Goals
Stop rearranging the furniture in your burning house and learn to build from a new foundation instead.
Photo by Kareli Lizcano on Unsplash
I (Sophia) was a six-figure freelancer, and I was exhausted.
My calendar was a mosaic of client calls, project deadlines, and content to be created. I had hit the revenue goal so many solopreneurs dream of, but the cost was my sanity. My time for rest, for freedom, for inspiration, for simply taking a deep breath — was gone. I was constantly “doing,” but I felt completely empty.
I was, as I now see it, expertly rearranging the furniture in a burning house.
I was so focused on the actions — sending one more email, tweaking one more design, going on yet another client call — that I ignored the roaring flames of my own burnout and misalignment. The house was on fire, and I was worried about whether the couch was in the right spot.
If you’re a creator, a solopreneur, or anyone trying to build a better life, you might know this feeling. The frantic hustle. The feeling that if you just do more, you’ll be more. It’s a conditioned lie we’ve inherited from a world that prizes effort over alignment.
My wake-up call came in a double-whammy.
First, I hit a wall. Despite using spiritual teachings for inner-peace and manifestation techniques to “attract” more money, I was still burned out. I realized I was just manifesting goals, not changing my identity. I was trying to get a new sofa for the same burning house.
Then, life forced me to stop. Last year, during Hurricane Helene, we needed to evacuate. Standing there, with the literal world I knew potentially crumbling, the metaphor became devastatingly clear. You can’t control the storm, and you can’t save a house that’s being consumed. You have to get out. You have to find a new foundation.
In that forced pause, the teachings of Neville Goddard, which I had studied for years, finally clicked in my gut, not just my head. He wrote, in The Power of Awareness (affiliate link to the book),
“Manifesting is experiencing the results of the concepts of yourself in the world.”
It’s not about visualizing a thing. It’s about becoming the person for whom that thing is a natural reality.
The fire wasn’t my client load; it was my self-concept. I was operating as a “struggling freelancer” who had to hustle for every dollar. My identity was the burning house. No amount of rearranging — no new client, no higher rate — would put out that flame.
I had to step out of the smoke and into a new identity entirely.
The Shift: From Goal-Getter to Generous Teacher
I stopped asking, “How can I make $X?” and started asking, “Who am I if I am already a financially abundant entrepreneur?”
The answer wasn’t about having a fat bank account. It was about the feeling. The feeling of security, of generosity, of being a valuable teacher who helps others transform their lives. I defined my new identity:
“I am a financially abundant & generous teacher of identity shifting.”
This isn’t “acting as if.” It’s feeling as if. You honor your present 3D reality, but you consciously choose to generate the feeling you believe you’d have if your desire was already true.
And then, a funny thing happened. The opportunities that aligned with that person started to show up.
A local community center invited me to teach a workshop on identity shifting. Our free Skool community, SYI, began to grow with beautiful, like-minded souls who genuinely wanted to learn from us. We weren’t chasing; we were creating value from a state of abundance, and the means to create a livelihood from doing what we love naturally unfolded. The money started to follow the value, not the other way around.
Your Practical Takeaway: How to Step Into Your New Identity Today
You don’t need a hurricane to start this shift. You can start in the next five minutes.
The process is simple, but it requires courage to stop “doing” and start “being.”
Get Crystal Clear: What do you really want? And more importantly, why? Dig for the feeling. Do you want more money for the number in your account, or for the feeling of security and freedom it represents? Do you want a successful business for the status, or for the feeling of creative expression and impact?
Define the “I Am”: Complete this sentence from the end result: “I am a person who…” Not “I want to be,” but “I AM.”
→ Instead of “I want to be a successful writer,” try “I am a widely-read author whose words transform lives.”
→ Instead of “I want to be debt-free,” try “I am a financially abundant and secure person.”Slip Into the Feeling (The 5-Minute Practice): Close your eyes. For just five minutes, let go of your current reality. In your mind’s eye, slip into the identity of that “I Am” person you just defined. Don’t visualize objects; generate the feeling. What does it feel like in your body to be that person? Is it a lightness in your chest? A quiet confidence? A sense of expansive freedom? Let that feeling wash over you. Breathe into it.
Carry It With You: Open your eyes and go about your day. But let that feeling be your inner soundtrack. Let it infuse your decisions, your conversations, your work. Action will become intuitive, not forced. You’ll stop procrastinating and second-guessing because you’ll be moving from a place of alignment with your inner self.
Stop trying to save the burning house. The hustle, the exhaustion, the constant “doing” from a place of lack — it’s all smoke and mirrors.
Step out. Breathe the fresh air of a new identity. Build a new reality from the inside out.
Ready to stop hustling and start being?
This is the work we do every day in our free Skool community, Shift Your Identity (SYI). We host free calls where we practice these exact techniques together, support each other, and celebrate each other’s wins. It’s a safe space to put out your fires and build the identity you truly desire.
Join us for free at simpleandaligned.com/syi. We’d be honored to have you.
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.
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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.
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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.