Manifesting Isn’t What You Think: Stop Forcing, Start Aligning Your Life

Manifesting Isn’t What You Think: Stop Forcing, Start Aligning Your Life 

What if everything you’ve been told about manifesting… isn’t the full truth? 

In this raw and thought-provoking episode of Star Women Rising, Melinda unpacks the myths, half-truths, and frustrations surrounding manifestation. From vision boards and forced outcomes to unexpected chaos after “getting what you want,” this conversation challenges the idea that you can simply think your dreams into existence. 

Drawing from personal experiences—starting with early exposure to Creative Visualization to years of trial, frustration, and eventual clarity—Melinda shares a powerful shift: manifestation isn’t about control… it’s about alignment. 

If you’ve ever tried to manifest something and ended up disappointed, overwhelmed, or wondering why it didn’t work, this episode will resonate deeply. Because sometimes the breakthrough comes when you stop trying so hard. 

✨ In this episode, we explore: 

•  Why traditional manifestation advice often feels confusing or incomplete 
•  The hidden cost of forcing outcomes and “chasing” what you want 
•  How getting what you asked for can sometimes lead to unexpected chaos 
•  The difference between control vs. alignment 
•  How stillness, surrender, and trust can open the right doors naturally 

This isn’t about giving up on your dreams—it’s about approaching them differently. When you stop manipulating the outcome and start aligning with what’s meant for you, everything begins to shift.
 
Because the life you’re trying to force… might not be the life that’s actually meant for you.
 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Star Women Rising, where cosmic roots meet earthly power. I'm Melinda and together we'll awaken the fire within and above, exploring intuition, soul wisdom, and the ancient truths written in the stars. This isn't about escaping the world. It's about remembering who you are and rising stronger in it. Star Women Rising is part of the Chicology Podcast Collective, Real Women, Real Stories, Rising Together. Before I begin, I'd like to invite you to check out some more episodes, podcasts from the Chicology Collective. Today, if you're feeling in the mood to explore friendships, check out Slightly Unsupervised. Jennifer and Jackie, two grown women with responsibilities they actively ignore in favor of overanalyzing friendships, starting emotional revolutions, and laughing at things that should probably concern a therapist. Best friends, business partners, accidental life coaches, founders of Bestimony, because apparently marriage isn't the only relationship that deserves a ceremony. And honestly, they've put in way more work than most couples. Jennifer is the visionary, the I've already planned our retirement home matching outfits and emotional breakthroughs for the next 10 years type. She's deep, intuitive, and one spiral away from either a breakthrough or starting a new business before lunch. Jackie is the wild card. I didn't think this through, but I support it emotionally type. She brings the chaos, the honesty, and the perfectly timed one-liners that either heal you or absolutely take you out. Together they are 50% emotional intelligence, 50% poor decision making, 100% convinced they could survive anything as long as they're together. They've lived full lives, lost people, lost each other, found their way back, and now refuse to do anything halfway, including friendships, storytelling, or calling each other out. If you're looking for polished, keep on scrolling. If you're looking for real, raw, laugh until you snort, cry in your car kind of connection. Welcome to the chaos. They are the podcast for you. Go check them out. They're a treat for sure. Today I wanted to talk about manifesting. Once in a while I get on these kind of pet peeve sort of things, and it feels like a pet peeve. I start maybe revisiting areas in my in my world that I've come across that now for some reason either don't make sense or they feel incomplete or they feel like just utter bullshit. I don't really feel like manifesting as utter bullshit. I feel like it is one of those, one of those things that you get sort of partial truths or you get half truths. It's not that I don't believe that that it exists. I just feel like it's probably something different than what we're being told. You know, I I don't I don't fully understand the mechanisms behind it or what it is, but I think I'm starting to gain some clarity on what it absolutely is not. So I there's probably a lot of you out there that have at some point in your lives come across the idea of manifesting. I think I was about 15 years old. Like I I've mentioned before, my mother was was the maverick in her family. She was she was the wild card. Uh she was the rebel. She was going against the grain with her uh with her upbringing. And I I was about 15. I don't even know how she came across this book, uh, but she and I don't even know if she got it for herself or if she actually got it for me, but it was uh the book was called, if I remember correctly, Creative Visualization by I want to say her name was Shocky Gwane. So this was back in the 80s. It had it came with a book and a workbook, and I somehow ended up with this book and workbook and I read it, which was interesting because I don't I was not a reader at the time. I did not enjoy reading, but I read this book, started going through the workbook, and I I was really deep into it. I found myself spending a lot of time in in this workbook and doing the whatever you call it, the little can't think of the word, but you know, the projects that you do in a workbook. I don't know why the name escapes me. And I I was into it, and it it had to do with writing down what you want, writing down your desires, how you want to see things go. And and clearly at 15, this is probably pretty deep. Like, what do you think you want when you're 15 years old? I think I was I was just using it for everything. And it it had to do with, you know, this or something better now manifests for me in the most satisf satisfying and harmonious ways for the highest good of all concern. And I think that is actually the exact quote. And the fact that I am, you know, a middle-aged woman and I can still remember that tells you how much I was working this book. But I kept with it because I actually found there to be some some merit to what was going on. And I I don't think obviously everything I was trying to manifest came to fruition, but I think there were enough things that happened that made me think, okay, this there's something to this. And I've I've carried that throughout my entire life. And I after about that stage in my life, I don't think I really went back to actively trying to manifest things, but it was an experience. I knew it was there, carried it with me. And throughout the rest of my, you know, my teens and young adulthood and onward, I encountered many different thought processes about manifesting and how you manifest. You know, if you want something really bad and you focus on it, but you can't focus on it from lack, and you have to, you know, there was all these different rules about what your what your mental state should be and how you should focus on it and what to do and what not to do. And at some point it just became very confusing. And I think I I then I just sort of let it go. But even even recently, I've you know, I mentioned before I'm a YouTuber. I've come across some different people on YouTube that discuss manifesting. I think at one point in my I got into the some Abraham Hicks, which I really I really enjoyed. And she, you know, she's channeling, and um, I don't have a good recollection of of what that was all about, but it did sort of revisit the manifesting with that. But you know, if any of you are like I am or was, you found that it felt very random when you tried to manifest things. Either it felt very random, felt like it didn't work at all, or it felt like you may have gotten things that you thought you wanted, and then it came with like disaster, like chaos. It was like, okay, well, I wanted this, but I didn't account for all the other stuff that came with it that I that I didn't want. So I don't think I'm alone in this. And it seemed like the more I tried to force things, the messier they got. And when I say that, for instance, you may get that relationship, that person, you may manifest that that person of your dreams, and then you you get them at your prince charming, and then find out that, yeah, you know, whatever, he's okay, but the rest of his family's a mess and it's a nightmare. And it just, you know, there's I just there's so many different scenarios with this. I'm getting what I want, but I'm getting more than I bargain for, and not necessarily in a good way. And I I think I can honestly say I'm probably not the only one who's who's dealt with that. And but I'm super cognizant of it. I am super aware that manifesting is not exactly what everybody's telling you it is. Maybe you've realized that too. Maybe there's others of you that are out there kind of going, now there's what is this? And and I I don't want you to to give up on it. That's that's where I'm at. I haven't given up on it. I I think I've given up on forcing it. And I think the myth, what people think manifestation is, is you know, you think about it, you visualize it, you know, create your vision board. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying don't do that. I'm not, you know, do what works for you, but visualizing it and wanting it badly enough that that's going to manifest your dreams. And if that were true, we'd all have everything we want. So either either we're not being told the whole story, we're doing it wrong, or we've misunderstood what this actually is. And like I said, I've I've noticed that forcing, and when I say forcing, I mean, you know, where you're maybe you're in a situation where it's something you want, and I've had this, it's something you want, and you just keep going after it and you keep jockeying yourself around to get what it is that you want. And but you don't control, you know, you you don't control the full picture of it. You can you can want it badly, you can jockey yourself around, you can do everything, every step you need to do to to get it and not get it or get it, and it's a disaster. You can you can force outcomes, you absolutely can do that a lot of times, not always, but you don't control the full picture. And I have definitely gotten things that I've wanted and realized I didn't want I I didn't want what came with them. Like I said, I you know, there's I can probably think of many instances, probably work instances come to mind where you know you you think you want a position or a job and you get it and then it drains you, sucks the life out of you. And it I think it creates this this idea or this feeling that we have to that if you know if you really want something, you have to go through this tremendous amount of effort. You have to control everything you do, every outcome, and you know, you do everything you can to try to make it happen. And that's not that's not manifesting. That that I learned that. I don't know what it is, I don't even know what you would call that, but it's it's definitely not manifesting. And I've done it, I've been there. Some things have worked out, some things have worked out in ways that seemed good at first and ended up being disastrous, and some things never came, like things that I really thought I wanted never came to fruition. I back years ago, I really wanted to go into like a like a metaphysical health or holistic health care type of type of business. I I got my certification and and whole food plant-based nutrition. I set up a little shop. I really wanted to make that work. I thought I was gonna be a practitioner, I know I was really into that. And it I took steps to do that, acquired tools, acquired information, I acquired a knowledge base. And no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't I couldn't get that going. I also there was also an aspect of me that really couldn't get into the the paying aspect or the monetary aspect of it because I always feel like people get priced out of wellness or you know, o the only the people who can afford what, you know, to have access to that are the ones that that get well. So I I did have some conflicting things in my mind, some conflicting aspects to that. But I took steps, which in manifesting, it's some of that, you know, think about what you want, take steps to get to it. And it never never came to fruition. And fast forward 10 years, and it it is definitely not something that I want to do, that I want to mess with. I do stuff to try to help my family. I use the knowledge that I've acquired, you know, to help keep everybody around here while we defer to functional medicine now. You know, I'm not doing any of that. We defer to somebody else, which is totally fine. We have an amazing functional health practitioner who's just been beautiful to our family. But I personally have absolutely no interest in doing that. And in fact, our practitioner offered me a job several weeks ago, and I thought, man, you know, nine, ten years ago, this would have been a dream job to work in a functional health clinic and be around all of that. And when I thought about it, gave myself some time and thought about it more clearly, I was like, hmm, now, you know, what sounds like the perfect job would end up being a disaster for me. I don't have the time to dedicate to it, nor do I have the desire anymore. So, you know, if if those things that I wanted would have manifested, where would I be now? Completely disinterested, probably trapped, locked into something that I committed to and cannot work around or, you know, and then having to to pull back or quit or whatever, whatever the case. So when you when you try to force it, when you try to make it happen, you just don't get the thing, you get the side effects that go along with it. What I have come to realize, and this has been a pretty recent aha moment for me, was during this time where I was dealing with health issues, dealing with personal relationships, family relationship issues, and I had completely just tanked. I had spun myself into um a position of paralysis. My body wouldn't move, my mind wouldn't move, wouldn't work, and I had to just I had to just sit and nothing that I was interested in before, you know, was interesting anymore. I mean, I literally lost interest in pretty much everything, everything, everything in my life, eating, and don't get me wrong, I wasn't starving myself, but I wasn't, you know, my husband would say, you know, what would you like for dinner? It's like, please don't ask me that. I can't, I cannot think about dinner right now. My mind just wasn't working. I I did learn a lot about a lot of things. I like I said, I'm a YouTuber. I read some books, but I certainly was not able to execute anything. I couldn't, I kept trying to garden. I mentioned the garden. The garden was, I really wanted to get a garden going. I had no energy, I had no ability cognitively to execute any of that. There were only a couple things that I was really able to do. Crochet, read some books, um, and and just just be. And in that, like I said, I lost total interest in everything. Everything that I thought I cared about, everything I thought I wanted was gone. And it was just empty. And empty is not necessarily bad, right? But in that emptiness, you know, and in that losing a desire for everything, really interesting things started to happen. And I mean, after a roughly 14, 15 years of collapsing and being forced to be still and be empty, something really notable began to happen. And it was very subtle at first. That here and there some really, really good things started happening. I didn't put them up on a vision board. I didn't write my desires in a book followed by uh followed by a mantra to make it land in a in a good way. Uh didn't have any desire for anything, but slowly but surely some really good positive things started happening. Something as simple as a really beautiful day with no drama or a chance video that would pop up on my feed that was completely outside of everything that I had been looking at. Like like my my garden, the garden that I had been trying so hard and epically failed and kept trying to force it and force it and force it, and then it was just a disaster. It kind of reminds me of if any of you guys have seen uh Inside Out to where anxiety comes in, and she just she try as she may and she just keeps creating more and more disasters. That was that was me with this garden. Everything I tried, it ended up more and more of a complex mess where it got to the point this year where I said, Yeah, I'm not gonna, I don't even think I'm gonna do it. I give up, I can't. And it was really when I said, I can't, I can't do this anymore. It's overwhelming, it's not working, and I just said I'm not doing it, didn't think about it, lost interest. Husband threatened to bulldoze the garden. It was not long after that, not even a week, that something popped up on my YouTube channel, my YouTube feed that took me in a whole new direction that has just been the most magical, beautiful experience. To my point, each day, and and not that my days have been, you know, just completely free of things that I don't appreciate or that I don't enjoy. Um, each day it just seemed like something else would come in that was really more aligned with what I was wanting. And so it got me thinking, and the reason I wanted to to do this podcast on manifesting is because what I'm learning is you don't manipulate the field, you don't manipulate the world and what you see, it doesn't cater to your demands, it doesn't cater to your desires, it doesn't cater to your wants, it doesn't really cater to what you think you need. What it works with is your alignment. And what I'm learning is the more I am centering myself, the more I am aligning myself with the uh the potential. There's potential out there for for things to happen, for things to come in. And as I go inward and align myself, then those doors, that potential opens up for me. And it's and I can still choose my path, you know, A and B come in, and I may say, yeah, I feel a little more aligned with A. So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go down path A. And as I align more with path A, more doors on path A begin to open up. And what that's told me is, you know, the the less, the less forcing, the less, you know, wishing and demanding and whatever the case I do, the more my world seems to be forming around me in a way that I find very pleasant, very beautiful, very pleasing. Now, for me, you know, for me, I like the simplicity. I just want a very simple, quiet life. And that is what is aligning for me. And that's that's not to say that there's not something, something down the road that is still waiting for me, but the difference is is I'm not looking for that. And I know that totally goes against everything we're ever taught, including in the spiritual world of manifestation, that if you don't, if you don't create it in your head and you don't execute the steps to do it, then you're you're not gonna get it. And I'm I'm not saying that you don't have to take the steps, you definitely have to take the steps, but you also don't have to force it. You align with it, you center yourself, you you align with what's available. The potential is already there. It's up to you to align with it and then make the choices, which is a very different, very different thought process of everything that I've ever been told. And maybe, maybe people were saying that. Some people were saying that, that the potential is there, you align with it, not not, you know, you line it up to you, you don't, you know, you don't just call it in, you don't just command it to come to you. This is a very different experience of of manifesting that really felt. Effortless. It has taken a lot of stress off me. It's it's really a trust. I trust that I will I will receive what I need. I trust that I will receive what excites me. And I'm not banging my head up against a wall trying to make things happen when I have learned from past experience that doing that has almost always led to unforeseen consequences that I absolutely did not enjoy, appreciate, or want. And then you try, you know, trying to figure out, well, how am I going to get the hell out of this? So it's been a it's been a very fascinating journey, but I really wanted to touch on that because manifesting what I'm finding was nothing at all, nothing at all what I had been told or what I thought it was. And this has been a far more pleasant experience. And I I'm looking forward to to what else, you know, what else is out there for me potentially that I can align with. And I am I can imagine it will, it will, it will line up with what I'm wanting, the kind of person I'm becoming, with what I'd like to accomplish in my everyday life here in my home. I don't know. Just something I wanted to share. I don't know if anybody else out there has had a similar experience with, you know, forcing things, disaster afterward, or getting what you want and really wishing you hadn't, you know, be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. I've had many of those, many of those experiences. And once I just stopped, once I just stopped, something really incredible happened. So I just wanted to share that. Thank you for joining me here on Star Women Rising. If today's conversation stirred something in you, trust it. That's your fire awakening. This podcast is part of the Chicology Collective where women everywhere are reclaiming their voice, their power, and their light. Be sure to subscribe, share this with the Soul Sister, and explore more shows under Chicology because we rise higher when we rise together. Until next time, keep reaching for the stars and rooting deep in your power.