Be, Do, Have
You Create Who You Are, Not What You Want
How to manifest a fulfilling life.
I rolled down my car window, checking the addresses on a footpath leading to several tiny homes. In the early 1900s, Venice, California was initially established as a planned city imitating Venice, Italy. Venice is home to many early 1900s buildings built to emulate Italian renaissance architecture.
I noticed that the footpath led to an arched footbridge over a canal. There was a maze of small canals mimicking the canals in Venice, Italy.
A couple of blocks away, I found a place to park and walked back to the footpath entrance. I followed the footpath to one of the pretty arched bridges, crossed the canal, and found the house I was looking for.
There was a white gate and a garden full of beautiful flowers. The house was small but pretty. I walked down the stepping stone path to the half-open front door.
Smelling the faint scent of incense, I heard a voice from the inside saying, “Come on in. Oh, and can you close the door behind you?”
It was a crazy time in my life.
I was obsessed with finding answers to my life. I was recently divorced. I had just quit a well-paying job as a Project Manager for a Japanese Real Estate Developer. I was unfulfilled, miserable, and running out of money fast.
The land of psychics and channels
During that time, there were many psychics and channels in Southern California. As soon as I found one, I would make an appointment, get in my car, and drive. Two to three times a week I would put another 150 miles on my car traversing from Orange Country to the San Fernando Valley just to find an answer I wanted to hear.
I often received the answer I needed to hear but didn’t like it.
Read more about some of the guidance I was given in this article:
I walked in and closed the door behind me.
Following their instructions, I closed the door and sat down in the chair they pointed to. “How may we help you?” they asked, looking at me with deep, wide eyes.
I started deciding to not waste time and asked. “How can I create the reality I want?”
“One moment,” they said, closing their eyes. Beginning at the top of my body and moving down, they began moving their head back and forth as though they were scanning my energy. They opened their eyes and somewhat abruptly said, “Who are you?”
“Wha, what do you mean?” I stammered, taken aback by their question.
“Who are you?” they said more assertively. “How can you manifest something without knowing who you are?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I said, starting to feel frustrated by their answer. “I want to manifest my desires.”
You Create Who You Are, Not What You Want.
“You create who you are, not what you want.” they began explaining. “What if your desire is not really what you want? What if you only think you want something, but it doesn’t turn out to be something fulfilling when you get it? You recently quit your job. Yes?” they asked, raising their eyebrows.
“Yes,” I said, wondering how they knew that.
“You thought it was what you wanted, but it turned out to be something you don’t want. It was unfulfilling. It was not who you are. Do you see this?” they asked.
“Yes,” I said, nodding my head.
It took me a while to grok what they said. And it put into motion a life-long quest…
I began a quest to know the answer to the question, “Who am I?”
You don’t see reality. You only perceive what you are taught
In college, I majored in Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics. I was fascinated by how language determines what we see and what we hear. I went to graduate school in Japan. Before the influence of other languages due to mass media, the Japanese language had just one word, which means both green and blue. The word is ‘aoi.’
Japanese see different colors than an English speaker
A hundred years ago, if you had asked a Japanese what color a blue sky is, they would answer aoi. If you then pointed to a green grassy field and asked them the color, they would answer with the same word, aoi.
The same is true of sound. A native Japanese speaker cannot distinguish between the English ‘L’ sound and ‘R’ sound. It sounds the same to them. Why? As soon as they learned the meaning of different sounds in their language they stopped being able to hear other sounds that are distinct in other languages.
In linguistics, the sounds of a language that carry meaning are called distinctive features. Once learned, your brain blanks out many other sounds that are not distinctive features of your language. If you don’t need them, you no longer hear them.
As you learned to speak, your ability to perceive different sounds decreased.
Due to what you learn from the meanings and sounds in your particular language, you perceive (hear) reality differently than someone who speaks a different language. You not only hear and see things differently but cannot see the same colors nor hear the same sounds as a person in another culture can.
Read my article — Is Your Language Stopping You From Seeing Reality?
But, it is more than this. What you believe to be real is not only determined by your language, it is determined by your conditioning, your beliefs, your culture, and your emotional wounding.
Emotional wound skews how you perceive reality.
Emotional wounding also determines how you perceive reality. For example, a young girl is constantly teased by her abusive father. He makes fun of how she looked for many years, especially her hair.
Fast forward to the present. A coworker compliments the girl saying, “I like how you did your hair today.”
“Fuck off! Mind your own business,” she snaps back.
She misperceives her coworker’s intention, thinking they are making fun of her as her father did. Her view of reality is skewed due to the emotional wounding caused by her father’s teasing her.
You create what you are, emotional wounding and all.
You radiate what you are. Ideally, you want to radiate your Authentic Self. However, your Authentic Self is often hidden beneath the subconscious layers of your conditioning, emotional wounding, and education.
A parent wants their child to grow up successful and with an abundance of money. They push the child to study hard to become a lawyer. Due to her parent’s beliefs and conditioning, the child comes to believe she is meant to be a lawyer. She radiates that identity. She works hard and successfully joins a prestigious law firm.
However, five years later, despite the success and good money, she has an emotional breakdown.
Why? The belief that she was meant to be an attorney was not her own. It was her mother’s. It was not authentic.
How to create a fulfilling reality.
- Question your beliefs and how you view the world. I once had a spiritual teacher who often said, “Don’t believe what you hear. Don’t believe me. Don’t believe yourself.” What you learned through your conditioning, even the words you were taught when learning to speak, can skew your perception of reality and how you view yourself. Beneath it all lies your essence, that beautiful self that is the authentic you. By eliminating what is false, you will discover what is real.
- Make emotional healing a priority. Finding your authentic self is challenging when we are easily emotionally charged. This is a dense timeframe in humanity. To some degree, almost everyone has been emotionally wounded. However, there are more beautiful tools and help available for healing now than ever before. Find what works for you. The more you are free from emotional charges, the more you will radiate your authenticity and create the world you desire.
- Put yourself first. There is a difference between being self-centered (with a small s for self) and being Self-Centered. When you are self-centered, you put the inauthentic ego-self first. When you are Self-centered, you put your authentic Self first. When you yield to your Self, you powerfully radiate who you are, and in turn, the universe yields to you.
One of the secrets that make people powerful manifesters is putting themselves first. Famous celebrities and successful business tycoons share this trait. In their view, the world revolves around them. Whether you come from ego or from your authentic Self, putting self first works. However, fulfillment only comes from radiating what is real, your authentic Self.
Everyone has a shining diamond at their core that radiates their authenticity. Find your diamond, honor your Self, and put it first. Then hang on to your hat as you continually create a fulfilling life.
