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What if the way that you've been taught to manifest is actually keeping you from having what it is you want? Because what if manifestation isn't actually a practice of the future? What if it's a practice of presence? Let's talk about it. You're listening to Relish, the podcast for people ready to stop chasing self-improvement and start savoring their lives. If you're tired of the hamster wheel of healing and hungry for more joy, presence, and meaning, you're in the right place. Hello friends, welcome or welcome back to Relish. My name is Alysia. And around this time of year, the internet gets loud about goals and vision boards and manifestation. This word, manifest your dream body, manifest your dream relationship, manifest a
million dollars. And I am not here to say that manifestation is nonsense. I actually believe in it and teach it, but not the way it's usually talked about. Relish is about stepping off the hamster wheel of fixing, striving, controlling so that you can actually relish your life. And the way manifestation is marketed most of the time, I've seen that it can become just another version of that cycle, that wheel. So today I want to demystify manifestation and I want to reframe it as a practice of presence not projection. So we're going to talk about what manifestation actually is and how it's misunderstood.
We'll discuss why the usual approach can keep you stuck in scarcity and shame. We're going to talk about the neuroscience behind identity, attention, and the nervous system. and we're going to talk about how to manifest in a way that's grounded, embodied, and actually effective. Before we jump in, if Relish has been meaningful to you, it would mean so much if you could follow the show, tap download, leave a five-star rating, and a short review. It really helps this work reach more people, and that's what I want is to help people live with presence and selfrust. So, thank you so much. Okay, let's get into it. I want to start with an embodied experiment to give you a felt sense of
what I mean because sometimes I find that it's even more powerful to experience this than just talking about it. So, first say something. I want you out loud if you can to say something that feels unquestionably true for you. Something inarguable. I live in Los Angeles. The sky is blue. Okay. And if you can say something that feels unquestionable about yourself. So for me it could be I love learning or I love dogs. Say it whatever it is for you and notice how it feels in your body to say something you know is true. So take a minute to do that and just notice the sensations in your body. Notice the emotions. What whatever is here. Maybe there's a steadiness, an
openness, a groundedness. Feel that. Yes. Notice what a fullbody yes feels like in your body sematically, the sensations and emotionally. So, I notice like a firmness, a kind of trusting energy. There's no doubts. There's no questioning. My body's pretty open and alive. It's kind of easy to say those things. All right. So now bring to mind something that you don't currently have, but something you want. You want to have it. Maybe it's something you want to manifest. Maybe it's just like a big dream. So go big. Something that feels too big. I want a really successful business. You know, it could be more money, a partner, giving a TED talk. Get specific. And if it feels safe where you are, I
want you again to say this out loud as a present tense statement. I have a million dollars or I have $10 million in my bank account or whatever number you're chasing. I have a partner who loves me for who I am and my needs matter. I'm thriving as the CEO of my successful company. I give TED talks and my voice impacts people. So, as you say whatever that is, I want you to pay attention to what happens in your body. What is it like to say that out loud? What sensations? Does it feel open and true? Or does something tighten up? Does it feel kind of cringy or scary or like you want to laugh it off or immediately qualify it?
Is your voice quieter or wavering at all? And then maybe even imagine saying that out loud to another human being, that desire. What would that be like? Is there any urge to shrink or hide or downplay? Now, if there is some kind of discomfort, that doesn't mean you there's anything wrong with you. It means some part of you doesn't believe it's safe or possible or allowed to have whatever that is. Your system is in scarcity, at least with this aspect of your life. So even if you consciously want something, your subconscious beliefs are different and directing more of your experience than you realize. And your actions are run in great part by your subconscious mind for all of us.
So if your being, your way of being is subconscious, then your doing is going to be subconscious too. And then your results, what you have will match that. So, this is what we're getting at in this episode in a nutshell. If your body can't say it with a full body yes, then your nervous system is probably not ready to take the actions that would actually create it. And that's why manifestation has to become a practice of presence. So, let's start with definitions again. Words, my favorite. People often connect manifestation to the law of attraction. You know, a sense of we attract what we focus on. And that's not completely untrue. But if we're not clear, manifestation becomes more like magical thinking. And that can actually keep us from living
the life we want because it keeps us out of the present moment. And it keeps us out of agency. So a common definition for manifestation is the action or fact of showing an abstract idea. That's a little wordy, but basically it's like making something real. Bringing a thought, a desire, or a belief into physical form. Making the not here essentially. Now, on the surface, that's not wrong. But I've seen modern culture kind of turn this into I want something that I don't have and I need to figure out how to get it. So, manifestation becomes I need to manifest more money. I need to manifest the relationship. I need to manifest that version of myself. And underneath that is the assumption right now I don't have enough.
And at a deeper level the root is right now I am not enough. So that is shame and scarcity running the subconscious show. And that is why it's so seductive. You know, manifestation, the way it's talked about, it offers this promise of control and the illusion of certainty in an uncertain world. It gives us hope that if we just visualize hard enough, our pain's going to end. So, it says, you know, stick with me. I'll give you the steps. I'll give you the map, the method, the secrets. But for most people, manifestation becomes a futurefocused coping strategy. One day I'll have enough. One day I'll be enough. One day
I'll feel secure. And that reinforces the belief that right now you don't have enough and you're not enough. So it plugs right into that shame loop. Something's wrong with me now. And if I manifest the right future, then I'll finally be okay. I'm going to do a much deeper dive into shame very soon. But if you currently have a manifestation practice and it's keeping you mentally living in the future, constantly reinforcing not yet, not enough, it's going to keep you in suffering. It's going to keep you in scarcity. So the way I view manifestation, it's really about making the subconscious part of you that doesn't believe it's possible conscious.
Because if your being again is subconscious, your doing is going to be subconscious too. and then your results will match that. So let's go back to a framework I mentioned before. Most of us have been conditioned to live in that do have be model. When I do X, you know, when I do uh get the degree, the launch, the business, lose the weight, then I will have Y. I'll have the job, the money, the relationship, the body, and then I'll be happy, confident, safe, worthy. That's the hamster wheel that I think we all know well. never arriving at the end goal because it's really saying I have to hustle for my enoughness and the focus is on the doing. I have to do so that one day I can be happy and enough and that day is
never today. It is never the present moment. It is always in the future. So a reframe we've talked about before is the be do have model. what I be, my ways of being are going to impact what I do and that will impact what I have in life. So for the context of this conversation, when I be or maybe become the person who embodies that future now, I will naturally do take the action that aligns with that identity. You do have to take action and then I will have the results that match that future me who I already am by the way. So beneath it all, we're chasing a feeling. We think when I get the money, I'll feel safe. When I lose the weight, I'll feel confident. When I get the relationship,
I'll feel loved. But we are trying to meet an internal state with an external solution. So presencebased manifestation asks what do you think that future thing that you want will let you feel? What is it that you want to feel? And can you start practicing feeling that right now? And not by pretending, not by forcing, but by building the nervous system capacity where you feel safe enough to actually hold that state. Manifestation is not magic. But when I teach it, we talk in my programs about how it can feel like magic until you start actually practicing it. Because when you don't have what you want and you're in that scarcity, it can feel like the only way you could possibly get it is if the universe came and dropped it into your lap magically.
The way you are going to manifest what you want is not by thinking hard enough or you know getting some portal to open that's going to drop whatever it is into your life. You're going to manifest what you want by taking the necessary action. And the reason that you don't take that action is because of those subconscious beliefs that are fueling that hamster wheel. So this is important presencebased manifestation. It's not passive. You do have to take the action. You do have to do stuff. We all have to do stuff in life. The difference is your doing, that action that you take is going to come, it needs to come from your being. If your way of being are those beliefs, I'm unlucky. I'm not enough. Success
isn't for people like me. I'll be rejected if I try. Then your action is going to come from those beliefs. Your do will be subconscious, comfortable, familiar, protective. Even if you consciously want something different, you're going to procrastinate, self-sabotage. You'll undercharge. You'll avoid visibility. You will pick the familiar over what's aligned and true. And then you'll wonder why manifestation doesn't work. But it is working. Actually, you are always, we are always manifesting something. The life that you have is in many ways the life you've manifested through your ways of being and the actions that flow from them which has largely been driven by your subconscious beliefs.
Now I do want to be clear unfair things happen. External circumstances happen and systems are real and trauma is real and privilege is real and life is unfair. And at the same time within the sphere where you do have agency, your being, your ways of being are going to shape what you do and that's going to shape what you have. So this is not about blame. It's about stepping into agency. Because the alternative is waiting for something outside of you to magically change your life. Presence-based manifestation is becoming conscious of your being. So you can take conscious action. And yeah, that's going to be uncomfortable because what you currently do is very comfortable. Even if it's painful because it's not getting
you what you want, it's familiar. That's why your nervous system likes it. Part of manifesting, I think, is becoming more comfortable with being uncomfortable. That's just a part of personal growth work. Really, all of this is not so different than any other personal growth work. You feel safer in your own system when you stick with what you know. If your manifestation practice does not involve discomfort, it's a sign. It's probably magical thinking. So, let's ground this in a little bit of neuroscience. Dr. James Dodie, he's a Stanford neurosurgeon. He wrote a book called Mind Magic. I'll link it below. It's about the neuroscience of manifestation.
He talks about how attention and emotional state shapes what we uh perceive and pursue. And he emphasizes that practices like compassion and presence can shift our physiology. They shift our stress response and heart rate variability which is going to impact what is accessible to us. Then there's the reticular activating system that you know it's called RA, the filtering network that helps your brain decide what to notice and pay attention to. Your brain can't process everything. So it's filtering constantly based on what it believes is relevant subconsciously. So if your subconscious belief is I'm not enough, I'm unlucky. Success isn't for me. I'm not that kind of person. If
that's your identity, your brain will literally filter out opportunities that don't match your story or you might see them and dismiss them or talk yourself out of them. But if your identity shifts toward into those beliefs, I'm capable, I'm deserving, I can take up space, your attention starts filtering in different data. So manifestation isn't magic. It's neurobiology plus perception and reshaped by your identity. And the nervous system piece matters too. Your brain is a prediction machine. So if you try to visualize a big life while your body's in threat, okay, anxious and shut down or overwhelmed, your system doesn't read it as possibility. It's it reads it as danger. So your manifestation
practice could accidentally deepen the fear if you're not regulated enough to hold what you're imagining. That's why I believe manifestation is the most powerful when it's from a place of presence. Presence is what makes your body feel safe enough to expand and relax. And we can only receive what our nervous system feels safe holding. So this is the trap. If your whole practice is calling whatever it is in the underlying message is it's not here now. And so that reinforces I don't have enough. I'm not enough. Something's missing. That same [snorts] engine as shame and scarcity. That same hamster wheel now with, you know, maybe some glitter and some magical thinking. It
keeps you striving and hustling and hoping that something outside of you is going to fix something inside of you. That's not abundance. That's dependency and suffering. So instead of reaching for another method or another map, we need to shift our orientation. So let's take the I want to manifest a million dollars example. Could you train your reticular activating system to see more opportunities to make money based on what you pay attention to? Yes, you could. That's real. But if your nervous system has not healed its relationship to money and safety informed by your subconscious limiting beliefs, then you will overlook opportunities. Or you might see them and feel too scared to actually take them. Or you'll sabotage what you build or
procrastinate. Or you might earn the money and then find a way to lose it, overgive it, blow it. or if not, you'll still be trapped by the scarcity in your nervous system that it never actually feels satisfying or like it's enough because money becomes a mirror of nervous system capacity. So, this is one reason that a lot of lottery winners lose everything. Their identity and their nervous system were not prepared to hold that level of resource. We can only receive what our system feels capable feels safe holding. So, manifestation is not really about getting. It's about becoming the person who can hold what you want without collapsing or self-destructing and taking on that becoming identity. So,
let me share a real example from my life. Last year, you might remember this if you're listening to the podcast. I had this aspiration to get 100 podcast reviews on Apple Podcast. And if I had gone to my journal and written down, I want to manifest 100red reviews, you know, fine, nice. But probably not a lot's going to happen. I still had to take action. I had to create the podcast. I had to show up consistently. I had to make quality content. And then there's the even more uncomfortable part for me. I had to say it out loud. I had to ask people to leave reviews. So, a lot of that action was uncomfortable, but especially the asking, telling people about our dreams,
it is really hard because we have subconscious beliefs that tell us we can't do the thing or we're not worthy or deserving. If you go back to the beginning of the episode with that exercise, that's what I mean. If you can't say it out loud to someone or even to yourself, your nervous system is not going to feel safe to go take the necessary action. Acknowledging it to yourself is the first step and then taking on the identity of that future person. So I bet that future you doesn't keep the dream a secret because there's no shame. They believe they're deserving of it. So for me to take the action of asking you to leave a review, I had to step into the identity of someone whose work reaches people. And I don't want to, you know, deceive
anyone into thinking that means I feel so worthy all the time and I feel enough. No, I'm human. But this practice is about stretching ourselves into who we authentically are, becoming that. And it is uncomfortable to say what I want and voice my desires and my needs. But the more I do it, the more I see I do deserve it. And I expand my tolerance and also what I think I'm capable of. And I also want to make this distinction with the hundred reviews example, which I know this is kind of benign, but I think it's sort of helpful in that way. It was not action alone. It wasn't like me going up to random people on the street and pulling up their phone and asking them to leave the review to check it off the list. It was
my way of being while doing it. So for me being in my ask, authentic, kind, grateful, curious, honest, vulnerable, extending generosity to others. These were the ways of being that I tried to take on while taking the action. Then that do of asking people to leave reviews, that's what will lead to the result, the have. So you see I didn't you know a year ago if I had said I want to manifest a podcast with a hundred reviews it would have felt like magic with that breakdown. Can you see it's not magic? It's you starting to believe that you can actually believe it. Not just saying it like an affirmation. If you want a different result in your life, you have to do something different. But really you have to be
differently. Manifestation is not going to remove the discomfort. It's going to teach you and require you to be more comfortable with being uncomfortable because you'll trust yourself to actually hold it. So, this episode's very kind of high level. We're not going to get into the weeds of manifestation today, but I do want to offer a couple practical starting points for you to explore if you're wanting to manifest something in your life. One is identity mapping. So, journal and reflect on who is this person that you're becoming? What does the future version of me feel like on a daily basis? And then choose a couple of small behaviors that you can practice now. You know, what behaviors in general do you
want to integrate that you know are aligned with that future you? What does that person do every day? Do they, you know, eat breakfast? Do they exercise? Do they work through the lunch break? Do they take Fridays off? And what do they feel while doing it? Get to know that future you inside and out. What matters to them and who they are, what they feel. All of us, we have to know where we're headed so we have some direction. This is why I have everybody create a vision for their life before they start manifestation work. The next is actually embodied visualization. I would not skip
the first step. A lot of people skip straight to this. Close your eyes and visualize the life you want to have. Do the first part, then ground yourself. And when you visualize, it's got to be from a place of your body. This is not thinking about the life you want to have. It's feeling the emotional state in the present tense. The goal is to create the safety and the possibility. It's not shouldn't feel like a fantasy. At some point, I am going to do a whole thing a whole episode on the science of visualization as it relates to visualizing for manifestation. Right now, I want to say another mistake I see people make is they're visualizing their future self constantly in that ideal
state of having achieved whatever it is. But it's also really important to visualize the process. You have to see yourself taking the action and overcoming the challenges that are inevitably going to be there. And that's going to train your brain to believe and see you can actually do it. You are still the one doing it. life is not happening to you. The next the third step is a realignment with yourself and kind of check in as you go. Instead of is this getting me what I want? Ask am I acting in alignment with who I'm becoming with my truth. Is this rooted in my light and my
authenticity, my true intuition, my compass, or is this driven by fear and my protector trying to stay safe? The final step is to relish it. Now, manifestation is not escaping the present. It's becoming present enough to feel right now what you thought the future would give you. And this is one of the steps where people trip up. It can be really powerful when we start manifesting and things actually start showing up to get caught up in wanting more. I coach a woman uh she has manifested some really powerful things in her life. And just last year she manifested a new career, a new community, and even a car. She manifested a Porsche. And part of our work together moving into 2026 has been reminding her, helping her get off that
hamster wheel of focusing on what's next to notice what's already here. Notice and appreciate how different her life is now. How 6 months ago she was in a job where she was miserable, feeling so misaligned and disconnected and purposeless. And now she has started her own business. And you know, on a Tuesday at 11, she can go to the gym or run errands or walk her dog. It's a totally different daily life. So, we talk about the power of stopping and noticing the sensations of driving that car or getting that drinking that coffee in the middle of a day, in the middle of a Tuesday with a friend to really be here for the joy, the journey. Because our brains are going to keep pulling us back
into the future, future tripping and scarcity. That's not a personal flaw, especially when we're new to this. Our work is to come back to the present as many times as we can so we can feel the abundance and enoughness that's already here and help dismantle the illusion that somewhere out there has something that we don't right now. And what most people that really deeply do this work find is that happiness is not in some future state. It's available here and now for you, for me, for all of us. In fact, it's only available here and now. But don't take my word for it. You actually can't. You have to see it for yourself through your own experience. Also, here's something that
was kind of mind-blowing for me to discover. Your system is already wired with the capacity to feel anything you want to feel. Anything you want to feel is already possible. Anything you want to feel in the future is already possible now in your nervous system. Nothing outside of you can flip a switch and grant you access to a feeling that you don't have access to. So for that client I talked about the job in the Porsche, you know, they're not expanding her capacity for joy and
abundance. She already had the capacity. The work is clearing what blocks accessing it in the moment and building the nervous system safety to let it actually be felt. And when we do the deeper work, the irony is we can call more into our lives, but we end up finding we actually need less than we thought. We start to see we have everything we need to be happy. Now the manifestation uh division I guess of the personal growth industry would not make a lot of money if it told you that. But that's the truth. That is you know not just the spiritual truth but the neurological truth. So the paradox is manifestation for the future requires we heal the past and become more present now. And you already have everything you need. It's
okay to want more but you don't need more to create that future you want. You have to stop living in the future and be present. Manifestation's not forcing reality to match your preferences. Uh it's not thinking positive thoughts while ignoring the pain or you know using some kind of spiritual language. Manifestation the way I hold it is it's becoming the version of yourself who already lives the life you desire. Being that future you here now, today in the present moment and taking the actions that match that identity, that identity where you believe you are worthy, you are enough. And that means at times facing discomfort to heal your subconscious beliefs, your nervous system. Take
action. It is scary. Okay. taking on a new identity. Taking on the identity of the person who in the future has whatever it is you want. Taking that on now means letting go of the identity that you currently hold. And that current identity is what's keeping you comfortable. This is going to require getting uncomfortable. And in this way, manifestation then is not necessarily a bypass. I believe and have seen and practiced. It can be an embodiment practice. So to sum it up, manifestation is presence, not projection. It's identity first, not achievement first. It's nervous systembased, not fantasy.
It's abundance now, not later. So, if there's been something you are trying to manifest from the future or just something you want, even if you don't like that word, just pause and ask, "How can I begin embodying that version of me who has that thing today?" It doesn't have to be perfect or all at once, but you know, moment by moment, breath by breath, choice by choice, one little nervous system safe step at a time. This has really been I want to acknowledge a highlevel kind of primer episode and overview. Um, but I've done a lot of research and designed my own tools for manifestation in my own work and practice. So, if you want me to go
deeper into this, email me and let me know. I don't want to like commandeer the podcast with this, but it's just so popular right now. I wanted to talk about it. If this resonated, it would mean a lot to me if you followed the show. Tap download, leave a fivestar rating review. We did hit over a 100red reviews in 2025. We manifested that. And for 2026, the aspiration is 1,000. Oh my gosh. Saying that is kind of scary, but it reminds me that sometimes we have to feel a fear and do it anyway because that's how we grow and rewire our brains. And you know what? I might sit here every episode all year asking you,
"Help me get to a thousand reviews." And what happens at the end of the year? If we do, great. I manifested it. We manifested it. And if I don't, then what? So what? Who cares, right? Like the only thing that will get in the way is if my identity is wrapped up in the fear of judgment, of like saying it out loud and failing. And I think right now I've done enough work to say I'm not. I'm actually excited to like see if we can do it. Let's see if we can do it. All right. So, thank you so much for letting me grow here in real time with you. I appreciate every person who takes the time to express a few words of their
experience or gratitude or kindness in a short review. And if you know someone who likes manifestation or is kind of curious about it or maybe someone who even needs a grounded reframe, I do hope you will share this with them. Thank you for being here. My hope for you is to just go and be you. become um the truest you who you already are and I have no doubt you are going to manifest all your dreams. You are worth them. See you soon.
