Manifestation is Bullshit! And Why New Year's Resolutions Suck!

In this final episode of the Higher Paradigm for 2025, host Laura reflects on the year's growth and shares insights for a profound spiritual journey into 2026. She critiques traditional manifestation practices and New Year's resolutions, advocating for faith, divine timing, and internal work instead. Laura also explores the potent energy of the winter solstice as a time to go inward, set intentions, and trust in divine guidance. She introduces the 13 Sacred Nights Practice, highlighting its impact and inviting listeners to integrate similar practices for ongoing spiritual and personal development. Laura shares practical advice for setting intentions and creating lasting habits, introducing her 'Sacred Rise' mini-course and the '13 Sacred Nights' practice as tools for spiritual and personal development. Laura ends with heartfelt message and an emphasis on authenticity, setting boundaries, and embracing the cyclical rhythms of life, inviting the audience to co-create their future with divine support.

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00:00 Introduction and Reflections on 2025

02:34 The Truth About Manifestation

09:00 Rethinking New Year's Resolutions

14:47 Embracing the Winter Solstice

20:14 The 13 Sacred Nights Practice

27:25 Honoring the Holiday Season

32:10 Conclusion and Well Wishes for 2026

Much Love and Many Blessings to you.

Transcript

0:02

I am really excited to be sharing this last episode of the Higher Paradigm for the year 2025. It's really so crazy, when you think back on, on the year, everything that's happened and all the things that have unfolded, and with this podcast starting. This past April. I mean, there's just been so much growth and evolution already within the content of this podcast, and I'm just very much looking forward to the future of the Higher paradigm there's just so much opportunity. That I'm gonna share within this episode for you to anchor into more than manifestation practices New Year's resolutions. I mean, this is such a potent time of the year with the solstice right around the corner, and. Us being called to go inward. We are being called to grow and deepen in our own intuitive gifts, in our relationship with the divine. And I'm gonna share with you some beautiful ways moving forward on how to do this, and how to cultivate this in your own life, but also on where you can focus your attention. And how you can set intentions for what you wanna bring to life in the new year in a deeply sacred way, so Welcome back to the Higher Paradigm. I am your host, Laura. Before we jump in, as always, please like subscribe to the YouTube channel, the Higher Paradigm. Follow This podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and share it with anyone you believe would resonate with its content. We are here to grow in like-minded community, a community that invites us to go deep into topics that rival the status quo that. Question everything we've ever known that deepen in our own spiritual journey and our faith in God and our faith in ourselves, and our own intuitive gifts. So let's get started. Okay, so it's the end of the year and we so often see. Courses and classes and programs and events that revolve around manifestation. And I just wanna quickly share my thoughts on manifestation because for about four years, while bringing my dreams into reality was, to focus on manifesting, manifesting, manifesting. I invested multiple times in manifestation. Classes or courses or workshops, and I always felt disconnected and misaligned with all of it because the truth is manifestation is not possible unless you have faith. And are able to surrender and trust in divine timing. So therefore, the manifestation workshops, courses, classes, i'm just gonna be honest. I feel that they're bullshit. They're just a money grab. So please, if you're here listening to this. Stop falling into the trap because while it is possible to bring your dreams into reality, it requires three things in my experience and in my opinion, it requires that holding the vision, even when things get hard, you're holding the vision of the reality that you're creating. You're taking action steps. You're aligning yourself with that thing, with that vision. You're doing the things that need to get done in order for it to happen, but while you're holding the vision, taking the action steps, you're also not pushing and forcing or putting pressure on the outcome. You are surrendering the outcome to God. You are surrendering the outcome to divine timing I have been the person who perpetually holds the vision and then expects an outcome. And when the outcome doesn't come, I feel like I'm at a loss I doubt myself. I feel like a fool. I get angry. I feel like nothing is working, nothing is happening, and that is missing the point because these coaches, these people who are selling you manifestation. They are not teaching you that aspect, where, okay, you, you write it all out. You say what you want, you envision it, you hold the vision, you take the action steps, and you then surrender and you let it all unfold. Instead, they're selling us that you write every little piece. This is my experience anyway. You write every little aspect of what you wanna bring into reality into your. Journal like. From, you know, the type of toilet paper you would use when you manifest your dreams. Like every little tiny aspect, you write it out and you read this over and over and over again throughout the months, and it will come. We can't just write it in a journal and read it 10 times over and expect things to just show up in our lives. We have to take responsibility and we have to surrender simultaneously. So manifestation is a bunch of bullshit to me after years and years of putting pressure on this. Uh, and like I was hyper obsessed about it. I was so obsessive about. Money and bringing money, money, money, bringing clients, clients, clients. But the truth was I wasn't ready for any of that. I wasn't even ready. So God will give us what we are ready for, what we truly are ready for. And the more we put pressure and try to force things to happen, the more it shows the divine that we're not actually ready. So. I mean, that again, is just in my experience, because if you are feeling this urgency and this forcefulness about bringing your dreams into reality, then there's probably some internal work that needs to be done because urgency and force equals survival. So if you are in survival mode and you can't trust. And the unfoldment of bringing your dreams into reality, then you have to go inward and you have to look inside and you have to see what is actually going on. Because if you're living in survival mode, once you create or bring that dream into reality, if you bring that money into your life, if you bring that person, that dream boyfriend or whatever it is. Will you have the capacity to actually experience it, to actually keep it, hold it, to let it expand you, when we get things that we aren't ready for, they're fleeting. So it's really important to recognize if you are looking to call whatever it is in for 2026. Ask yourself if it feels like pressure, if it feels like urgency, if it feels like if I don't get this, then I'm T or I suck, or I'm a fool or nothing works for me, or I just, I'm always gonna be stuck. Really listen to those things. Really listen to those parts of you that are saying these things and get curious. Go inward and be with these parts of you and get into alignment with what you're dreaming of, with what you wanna bring into reality. Because pushing and forcing an urgency and self-doubt and. A short capacity will not get you what you want. New Year's resolutions are another fleeting thing that are bullshit. If anyone is selling you how to maximize your New Year's resolution, blahdy, blahdy Blue, or anyone's trying to sell you a gym membership. Take a step back, take a beat, figure out what it is that you actually want, and ask yourself, is impulsively purchasing this actually going to create a habit or a lifestyle change that I am trying to implement. Because when we quickly say, okay, I wanna lose 20 pounds by February, and we buy a gym membership and we go to the gym for three weeks, four weeks, and we don't see a result that we're looking for, what have you resolved? Nothing. You probably give up on the gym membership or whatever it is. Because this is requiring more of you. It's requiring more honest communication with yourself, more honest intention, setting more honesty within yourself, and it's requiring more radical responsibility and it's requiring you to be real if you want to lose 20 pounds. And setting yourself up for this expectation that by February 1st, if you start, go to the gym multiple times a week for four weeks, you'll lose 20 pounds, and then you get to that February 1st and you've lost like three. What are you setting yourself up for? You've uncovered the parts of you that still believe. You're not worthy or good enough or able, or things don't work for you or whatever it is. So when we have goals and intentions for the end of the year, it's really important to get real with yourself and to be open to this idea that this is the beginning of the rest of your life, that the weight you wanna lose requires a lifestyle change that is ongoing. It's not. For the short term, be open to the idea that bringing your dreams into reality requires a long term plan. And it doesn't mean that you have to have everything planned out or know what the next two years is gonna look like'cause you couldn't possibly know. It means that you stay true and committed and devoted regardless of what obstacles end up. Thrown at you regardless of what challenges you have to face while you're on this journey of lifestyle change or bringing your dreams into reality or making things happen in the new year, it's an internal devotion that you make to yourself that no matter what, no matter what halts you, what slows you down. What gets in your way? You will continue to trust in the divine guidance and continue to take action where you feel it is needed, and slow down where it is needed and recognizing that things take time. Change takes time. Be committed to the long haul, not the short term. And your life will change when we release control and we surrender and trust the process. We can better be present and embrace the process of getting to where we wanna go, because it is each baby step that we take. We want to see ourselves and feel ourselves in our optimal health. We wanna be in healthy relationships. We want to have that dream job. It's about every single step that you take in order to get there. And it's also simultaneously being present with. And recognizing what divine energies are also supporting you in this process, it's being thankful and grateful throughout. So every little baby step you take towards losing that 20 pounds, you actually, got on the treadmill and you walked for an hour on the treadmill when you really didn't feel like it, but you were grateful that you did it because after 15 minutes you had this burst of energy and you felt really good. So celebrating that tiny accomplishment I got on the treadmill today. Every single little accomplishment, we celebrate choosing to say no instead of yes. When you're asked to do something you really don't wanna do, and historically you're a people pleaser, so you say, okay, yeah, I'll do that. Even though everything in your body is telling you no, instead that one time. Choosing no and honoring what your body is telling you and what you do or don't wanna do. Celebrating yourself for that. Showing yourself some pride and joy in those moments. All you know, small ways we can celebrate, honor, be present, be grateful for the little actions that we're taking towards our. Desires towards our dreams, towards what we want our reality to look like, what we want ourselves to feel and be like. The winter solstice is in just a few days, and this is such a potent time. Energetically. Intuitively, the veil is thin between our world and the spirit world, and we have this beautiful opportunity to really be in the magic of it all. Really tune inward. Listen to our intuition, listen to our higher selves, access, more of our own inner wisdom. Get clear on the ways in which you can slow down and. Make a commitment to using this season of winter to figure things out in a sense. But to get started, I wanna share what December 21st the winter solstice through February 1st. Which is the six week mark of Winter, those first six weeks, we are being called to slow down, to be present with what is we're called into hibernation. Even as human beings, this is an opportunity for us to really. Surrender and go inward and be with ourselves and rest and replenish our energy and listen and tune into what our body is sharing with us while also tuning in more to what we're bringing forth or what we will be taking action steps towards in the spring or in the year to come. It is a good time to get clear on what habits and changes you want to devote yourself to for the new year. So we wanna ask ourselves, how much time can we devote to a new habit or a new practice? How much space am I willing to give to a new habit, a new practice, or to make a lifestyle change? And really almost ceremoniously, make this commitment to yourself. It's not just words. It's not just a sentence you write down. This is really tuning in and getting very intimate with yourself for instance, if you're looking to commit to creating a consistent daily self-care practice, December 21st through February 1st is a great time for you to get very clear on what this will look like for you. On how you can make sure that you are committed to this. What things are standing in your way? What excuses have you made? What emotions or sensations or feelings do you need to feel in order to make room for cultivating this practice in your life? What. Space do you have in your home or wherever you are planning to implement a self-care practice daily? What do you need to tell your family? All these different variables, and if this is something that you are interested in, is. Creating a daily self-care practice, I have this incredible mini course. It's called Sacred Rise, and it is a course to guide you and how to commit to a daily self-care ritual or a self-care practice that will support you mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. It's such an incredible little mini course, and you can go at your own pace and it'll guide you into figuring out reasons why you haven't been historically able to implement a consistent practice for yourself and how to change all of that. And I highly, highly recommend it., I will leave the link to that course in the show notes below. If you are interested, go ahead and click on it. It's a really low cost, mini course anyway. Ask yourself these questions. How much time can I devote to the thing I wanna change? How much time can I devote to the thing I want to implement do? And how much space am I willing to give? And as far as making a commitment to. You know, your healing journey or to having healthier relationship dynamics or you optimizing your own health December 21st through February 1st, is a great time for you to just be with and really get clear on what you can do to make this happen for the long term sustainably. Hold yourself accountable. All the things. A beautiful practice that I discovered last year to ring in the new year. Call in my desires for the year to come. But also a practice to surrender and trust in divine guidance, and my intuition is called the 13 Sacred Nights Practice. So this is a practice that I do, that I discovered through a woman named Laura J. Day. She created this 13 Sacred Nights Oracle. Card deck, book and I learned of this last year and I was just all lit up when I heard about it because it's not just about bringing your dreams into reality. It's about, again, trusting in divine guidance to bring things into reality that maybe you didn't even know. Were going to happen or could happen, that you weren't conscious of. This 13 Sacred Nights is a practice that begins on the solstice. You have a few days to prepare. Before beginning the 13 Sacred Nights practice itself, and then the 13th Sacred Night starts on Christmas Eve and it goes through till January 6th, I believe, is the 13 total days. And what we do is we have a whole ritual and ceremony around. What it is that this coming year is gonna look and feel like and being intuitively guided into documenting or, noting what each month of the year to come is going to hold. So it's a practice of. Tuning in to your intuition to divine guidance, and each night of the 13 nights, you are focusing on a particular month of the year. So day one of the sacred nights. Is a foresight of the whole year to come, intention setting of the whole year to come. Then the second night would be January of 2026. The third night would be February, 2026, the fourth March, the fifth, April, so on and so forth. So each of those 24 hour periods. You're focusing on the month that you're in, you're not putting pressure on anything. You're not trying to. Manifest something specifically instead, we're recognizing the messages, the symbols, the experiences that we're having throughout that day. We're recognizing them as something that is being divinely guided and we're writing it down. If something does pop in your mind, you're writing that down you're allowing this intuitive and divine messaging and support to guide you it's really interesting because you're writing things down and you don't know in the moment what they mean. But then you look back when you're actually in that month, like for instance, you, you know, this past August 20, 25, I went back into the journal and went to where I documented for that particular sacred nights practice. And what I wrote down didn't make sense at the time that I wrote it, but then reading it in August. There were some holy shit moments and I couldn't believe what I was reading, and it just, it feels so magical. Also, we don't always know everything, so we might be writing things down that are gonna manifest, that are gonna come to life and when we're writing it might have no inclination or idea that this is going to be part of our reality. We might not have any idea what we're writing or. What it means. We might associate it even with something else that we think it's going to mean, but in reality it means something totally different. So it's a really. Interesting, magical, fun way to bring in the new year and also surrender and trust in the Divine's plan for you. So that is a practice that I doing again this year. I am still integrating because last year I did not have the book or the Oracle card deck that Laura Day. Created, so I did it my own way. This year I'm actually doing it with the book and the Oracle deck, and I'm doing it the way that she has taught. So I'm really excited to integrate this and hopefully next year I will have a workshop or something where we can be together for the whole 13 Sacred Nights. I mean, I think that would be so freaking amazing and just thinking about it lights me up. You don't need this particular practice to do what I just said, though. If you listen to what I said, you can implement this for yourself. As I said, I didn't have the book or the deck, so I used my own Oracle card deck, um, specifically Angels and Ancestors deck, and that served as well. And basically I just set the intention for every single day of the 13 sacred nights and I did the journaling and I allowed the messages to come through and, and all of the things, and it was still powerful and potent. So if you set the intention that you're gonna spend the 13 nights from Christmas Eve through January 6th allowing your intuition and the divine to guide you, it's going to be pure magic for you, I promise. That is a great way to spend the beginning of the winter season. At the solstice, we're celebrating the dark and the return of the sun. So this again is a great opportunity to go inward and recognize what do we need to shine our light on? What do we need to see within ourselves to help us grow and evolve and heal and become the highest version of ourselves? This is a great time to do that type of work and to set the intention if we are interested or are devoted to our healing. Just taking note of what we are shining a light on and asking ourselves, what are the next steps that I could take to work through this, is there support that I could call upon? Is there an investment I could make in myself? What is the work that I need to do? This is also an important time to remember presence with God throughout the holiday season. And I know last episode, if you listened, is a little jarring to find out what existed before this holiday was all consumed by Santa Claus and also the birth of Jesus the whole point of that episode is not to cause you any distress or. Make you feel any sort of negative feelings about the fact that Christmas has a lot more depth and a lot more history than maybe we know. And, a lot of it is replicated or regurgitated traditions and beliefs the purpose of that episode was meant to inform and to recognize that there's so much more. There's so much more that we can focus on and be present with, and regardless of how we celebrate the most important thing. To celebrate is the magic and family and love and the warmth and the return of our son, whether that be the son of God or the sun in the sky or the sun within us. And this is just a beautiful chance to really. Focus on what is important to you. What is actually important to you? Is it celebrating the solstice with your kids? Is it. Getting a U log and lighting it with candles. Is it making meals together with your kids? Is it playing games and having all of the electronics turned off, but just really being with one another is, is going out on the solstice and looking at the night sky with your family. Does that feel good? Would that be awesome to do? Is it turning inward? Is it asking yourself reflective questions? As I mentioned in the episode where I shared more about consumerism and how consumerism has killed Christmas, it doesn't have to be that way. This doesn't have to be about materialism. It gets to be about what is present. In your life, what is present in your environment? What is present in nature right now? What is present within you? That's what this season is all about. How is God showing up? In your life, how are your wise, well, and healed ancestors? Your guardian angel, your spirit team? How is Jesus showing up in your life? How are ancient spirits showing up in your life? How is earth making you feel? Right now, you know, I personally have felt really, really exhausted, really tired. I've been sleeping a whole lot, and instead of feeling like something is wrong, I honor that. I am with that, and it is a slower pace, and it's not easy to cultivate. Especially in this hustle and bustle, go, go, go. Urgency, push force world we live in. But once we make this commitment to ourselves and we continue to practice slowing down and setting boundaries and saying no, and tuning inward and listening to our body, it gets easier and easier. So this is the perfect season. For us to really begin those practices and begin doing those things that align us with our own cyclical nature, especially as women, but us as humanity. We are meant to be in sync with the rhythms of the season. And so this is a great, great opportunity for you, for all of us to. Really get clear on what it is that we want, how we wanna feel, how we want the season to look, how we wanna spend time with our family, what we want that to feel like. And fucking do it. Just do it. Just implement and set the boundaries and be okay with change. Be okay with letting go of what no longer serves. That is the purpose of this season too. What are you ready to Let die? Let it die? So that you can bring to life more of what feels true and authentic to you. What feels good in your mind, body and spirit, all the things. This is the time. No better time than winter to do all of these things. So I'm gonna leave it there because I feel like that's a great note to end on and this is a great way to end the last episode of this season of 2025. I cannot believe it. I'm so excited though, for what's to come as we continue to bring more juicy episodes as we enter into the new year it's gonna be incredible. I have so much, so much still obviously to share and so many topics I cannot wait to dive into I send all of you who are listening. So many well wishes, so much loving divine healing energy I hope that you embrace this holiday season, with the most authenticity, with the most truth, with the most love, with the most compassion, with the most heart and warmth that you possibly could. I hope that this invites you into some beautiful ceremony and practices to guide you through the new year a year of co-creation with God. It's gonna be so freaking amazing. I can already sense it, I can already feel it, and I'm so excited. So. Until next time, I'll see you in 2026. Much love and many blessings to you.