Transcription
All right, hello and welcome to this training. As you can see from the title, what we're going to be covering today is how to attract everything by wanting nothing. And as you can see from the overview, what we're going to be talking about more specifically is first the overview itself, the wanting trap, the cluttered receiver, the vacuum principle, the review, and then the action items for the day or the next few days.
Now, before we get started, if you want this training along with this document, then make sure to join the free community from the link in the description. If you want to work with me one-on-one, then make sure to book a call from the link in the description. And if you want weekly tips on health, wealth, love, and self, then make sure to join the newsletter again from the link in the description.
With that said, let's get started and talk about the wanting trap. So, here's the thing most people get wrong about manifesting. They think that the game is about really wanting harder, visualizing more, affirming louder, basically just pumping more desire into the universe and hoping that something sticks, which sounds pretty reasonable on the surface because wanting feels like you care. It feels like you're doing something, like you're actively pulling your future towards you. But the reality is that wanting is actually a signal of absence, right? A kind of energetic broadcast that says, "I don't have this yet." And the more intensely you want, the more clearly you're telling yourself and everyone around you that you're in a state of lack.
And this is where it gets a bit sciency, but because your wanting is literally noise in a signal to noise ratio situation. Meaning, the more you're focused on the gap between where you are and where you want to be, the harder it becomes for your brain, your body, and your attention system to actually notice opportunities that are already around you. Since your reticular activating system, which we've talked about before in other trainings, is tuned to confirm whatever you believe is true. So, if you believe you don't have the thing, your RA will helpfully filter out evidence that you could. And you can think of it like a radio dial that's basically stuck between stations where the station you want is playing perfectly fine, but all that static from wanting is drowning it out. And the more emotional charge you put into the wanting, the louder the static gets, which is the opposite of what you'd expect, right?
Your brain can only process a tiny slice of reality at any given moment. Maybe a few hundred bits out of millions. So, it has to choose what to show you. And it chooses based on what you've told it matters, which is exactly why someone who believes they're unlucky keeps finding evidence of bad luck, while someone who believes they are lucky keeps stumbling into good fortune. Right? There's an attention economics angle here too where your cognitive bandwidth is genuinely limited like a budget. And every unit of attention you spend on wanting or craving or longing is really a unit you can't spend on noticing, receiving, and acting.
And there's a subtler thing happening here too where wanting puts you in a particular physiological state, a kind of grasping, reaching, striving mode that your nervous system reads as not safe yet, not there yet, keep pushing. And that state has a frequency to it, right? A vibe if you want to call it that. You've probably met someone who just felt desperate, like they were trying too hard to close a sale or to get your approval or make something happen. and you could sense it even though they didn't say anything explicitly desperate. But that's the energetic signature of wanting and it repels. And the opposite is also true, right? Where someone who seems genuinely unbothered like they'd be fine either way tends to attract more easily because they're not leaking need everywhere, which paradoxically makes people want to give them things.
And this is basically the whole problem with mainstream manifestation culture, the vision boards and the affirmations and the raise your vibration stuff because most of it keeps you anchored in wanting mode rather than receiving mode. Now, there's nothing wrong with those stuff. If you enjoy doing them, keep doing them. But they be be aware that they kind of keep you anchored into that wanting state, right? Into that wanting vibe. And it keeps you staring at pictures of what you don't have yet rather than creating actual space for what you want to arrive to arrive. Right?
There's a whole industry built on this. Honestly, if you think about it's selling you more journals and more techniques that are all basically amount to want harder with better strategy. And the reason it keeps selling is that wanting feels productive. It feels like you're doing the work even though it's often the thing that keep that's keeping you stuck. And it's the same trap as being busy versus being effective. You can spend all day doing manifestation rituals and feel it. It can feel like you actually accomplish something without actually moving any closer to what you want because the rituals themselves can become a way of avoiding. And there's also something weirdly comfortable about wanting. Like it lets you keep dreaming without having to actually receive because receiving actually requires change, right? It requires you to become someone who has the thing and that's scarier than just continuing to want it from a safe distance. So you end up in this weird loop where you're affirming abundance while your entire posture, environment, and relationship structure is screaming scarcity and your subconscious picks up on the contradiction every single time. Which is why affirmations alone rarely work for people whose lives aren't aligned with what they're actually affirming. Right?
James Clear has this thing in atomic habits about how your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits and your habits are a lagging measure of your identity. The same principle really applies here where your external results are a lagging measure of your internal state and if that state is fundamentally wanting right craving your results will keep reflecting that. So your environment is always giving you feedback about what you actually believe which is why someone can say I'm abundant while living in chaos and clutter. And the clutter is the real truth your system is operating from. So the move here and this is what the rest of this training is really about is to stop trying to manifest through wanting and start manifesting through space through creating room for things to arrive rather than constantly having to reach for them and chase after them. But before we can talk about creating space, we need to understand why most people's lives are so full that there's literally nowhere for new things to come. So, let's talk about the cluttered receiver.
Now, here's something you might not have been told before. Your life is probably already full, like completely occupied with stuff, people, commitments, habits, thoughts that leave almost no room for anything new to enter. And this fullness is actually the main reason your manifesting hasn't been working because you're essentially trying to pour water into a cup that's already overflowing. So, we can start with the obvious one, which is the your physical space. You can look around your home or your office, and you'll notice how much stuff you have that you don't actually use or need or even like anymore, right? furniture from a previous version of your life, clothes that don't fit who you're becoming, objects that you just keep just in case that basically represents some anxiety about the the future or some um sentimentality about the past. All of it taking up space and sending signals to your subconscious about who you are and what you deserve. And every object in your environment is a little vote for a certain identity. We've talked about this before, which is why minimalists often report feeling lighter and clearer after decluttering because they've stopped being surrounded by constant reminders of their past self or their fears. Right? There's actual research on this, too, where cluttered environments increase cortisol levels and decrease the ability to focus, which means your stuff is literally stressing you out and reducing your capacity to think clearly about what you want. And a lot of these objects are what I'd call identity anchors. Things that basically keep you tethered to who you are rather than who you're becoming. Like keeping your overweight clothes just in case you gain the weight back, which is a vote of no confidence in your future self.
Then there's the mental clutter, which is maybe even more important, and that is all the open loops and all the unfinished decisions and things that you've been meaning to do that just sit there consuming background processing power, like apps running in the background of your phone, draining the battery even though you're not using them. There's this thing called the zygarnic effect where your brain holds on to incomplete tasks more persistently than completed ones which is useful for remembering to finish important things but becomes a problem when you have dozens of uncommitted decisions just sitting there taking up cognitive real estate. So every I should really or I need to eventually that you haven't resolved is really a tiny drain on your mental energy. And those drains add up until you're operating at like 60% capacity without realizing why you feel so scattered and tired. And even unmade decisions are a form of clutter. Because holding multiple possibilities in your head without committing to one really keeps you in a state of lowgrade tension, which is why people often feel relieved after finally making a choice they've been putting off, regardless of which option they picked. Right?
And then there's the relational clutter, which is the hardest to address. all the people in your life who you've outgrown or who represent a version of you that you're trying to leave behind. Connections that you maintain out of obligation or guilt or habit rather than genuine mutual enrichment. Right? Some of these relationships are actively keeping you stuck because every time you interact with certain people, you unconsciously revert to an older version of yourself, the version they expect you to be, which makes it really hard to grow into someone new while constantly being reflected back as someone old, right? It makes sense. Other relationships are just neutral drains. They are not necessarily bad, but not nourishing either. just people you give time and energy to without really getting anything back, which wouldn't be a problem if your capacity was unlimited, but it isn't, right? And there's this Jim Ran uh line about being the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and it is cliche, but it's cliche because it's true, right? Your relationships are constantly co-creating your sense of what's possible, which is why upgrading your environment often means upgrading your circle.
Now there's the deeper mechanism here though. Uh your system, your body, your mind, your life is constantly really trying to maintain homeostasis. It's trying to stay stable and predictable. Which means it actively resists any change even when you constantly want change. And all that clutter is part of how it ma maintains that status quo of how it maintains that homeostasis. And this is why cleaning your room can feel so weirdly hard sometimes, right? Or why ending a relationship that's clearly not working takes so long because your system has adapted to the current arrangement and basically experiences any change as a threat, even a positive one. So the clutter has become comfortable in a dysfunctional way, like a weighted blanket made of old stuff and stale commitments. And there's something almost soothing about being so full that nothing new can get in because at least it's familiar, right? So, some people unconsciously use clutter as a form of protection, filling their space and their schedule and their mind so completely that they have a built-in excuse for why they can't take on any new opportunities, which feels safer than actually having room and having to make choices.
And I like to think of it in terms of receptors, basically like the receptor sites on cells that allow hormones or neurotransmitters to bind and create a response. If all of your receptors are already occupied, there's literally no place for new signals to land, which is exactly the situation most people are in when they wonder why nothing's changing despite all of their manifesting efforts. Your attention receptors are occupied by mental clutter. Your time receptors are occupied by draining commitments. Your space receptors are occupied by stuff you don't really need. And your social receptors are occupied by relationships that aren't serving you. And so even if the universe or whatever you want to call it is sending you opportunities, signals, invitations, you can't receive them because there's nowhere for them to actually attach.
Now the final piece here is understanding that your environment is always telling you a story about who you are. A story your subconscious reads constantly. And if your environment says this is someone drowning in stuff, overwhelmed by commitments, surrounded by the past, then that's the identity your system will keep generating results from. Your external reality is feedback from your internal reality. Like we've talked in other trainings, right? And your internal reality is also heavily shaped by what you're immersed in every single day. So it becomes this loop where your cluttered environment reinforces your cluttered internal state which generates more clutter. So the only way to really break the loop is to intervene at the environment level. To start changing what you're surrounded by because trying to change your internal state while living in the same mess is like trying to meditate in a construction site. The good news is that environmental change is actually one of those highest leverage interventions you can make because it shifts what your system is exposed to without necessarily requiring any more willpower. It just happens automatically once you've set it up.
And look, this gets into uncomfortable territory, but the state of your environment also often reflects what you believe you deserve. People who believe they deserve beautiful, spacious, orderly lives tend to create and maintain them. While people who believe that they deserve chaos or scarcity tend to accumulate it, right? And that means your clutter might be a self-esteem issue as much as a organizational one. And this connects back to the identity piece from earlier where you have to become the person who has the thing before you can have the thing. And part of becoming that person is creating an environment that matches not waiting until you have more money or more time, but starting now with what you've got. And sometimes the work is just giving yourself permission to have space to have clarity, right? To have room for new things, which sounds simple, but it runs into a lot of deep programming about not being worthy of nice things or needing to stay busy or full or productive to earn your right to exist.
So now that we understand the problem which is wanting keeps you in lack and the mechanism which is clutter blocks reception, we can actually talk about the actual solution which is creating what I call a vacuum. A genuine emptiness that nature or the universe or reality whatever you want to call it cannot help but fill. So let's talk about the vacuum principle.
There's this old principle usually attributed to Aristotle that nature abhores a vacuum meaning empty spaces naturally get filled which sounds like basic physics but it has profound implications for manifesting when you understand it properly. Now the idea is that instead of trying to pull things towards you through wanting you create the conditions where things flow towards you automatically by making space. And you can think about how actual vacuums work in nature where air rushes in to fill any empty space. Water flows to fill any low point. Pressure always equalizes from high to low. Right? The same principle applies to your life where if you create genuine space, meaning physical, mental, relational, and temporal, something will come to fill it. It's almost unavoidable. And this is why people who clear out a closet often end up with new clothes without specifically trying to get them. or why people who end draining relationships often find better ones appearing without much effort. Or why people who clear their schedule often find more valuable opportunities showing up. The key word is automatic. Because when you're operating from vacuum, from space rather than wanting, you're not straining or reaching or grasping. You're just making room and letting the natural pressure differential do the work.
And this is the real shift from wanting mode which is reaching, grasping, trying to pull to receiving mode which is open, spacious, ready to accept. Right? Which feels completely different in your body if you pay attention like the difference between clenching and relaxing. So you can try this right now. Make a fist and imagine wanting something really badly and then feel the tension in your hand and in your arm. Now open your hand palm up and imagine being ready to receive. Notice how different that feels even physically. That's the energetic difference we're talking about, right? So, your whole life has a posture like this, a clenched or open quality. And most people are walking around in a constant state of mild grasping without realizing it, which is exhausting and counterproductive. The paradox is that you get more by reaching less. That loosening your grip actually increases your holding capacity.
So, let's talk about how to actually create a vacuum. Starting with a physical level because it's the most tangible and often the easiest place to now the obvious first move is decluttering. Getting rid of anything you don't use, need or love, which sounds simple, but it will bring up resistance because every object has some attachment or justification most likely and you'll need to override those with the understanding that holding on to stuff you don't need is blocking the new stuff you want. Right? So, Marie Condo's spark joy test is fine, but I'd add another layer. Does this object represent who I'm becoming or who I was? Because some things don't spark joy, but also don't drag you backwards. They're just neutral. And neutral is fine to keep. Go faster than it feels comfortable because your mind will invent reasons to keep things if you give it time. And most of those reasons are just homeostasis talking, just your system trying to maintain its current state. and actually get rid of things like don't just move them to storage or put them in boxes in the basement because hidden clutter is still clutter as far as your subconscious is concerned.
And then actively create empty space like don't immediately fill every shelf and drawer with something else. Leave some containers empty. Leave some walls bare, right? Some corners unoccupied as a visual reminder that there's room for more. Empty space is really an invitation for something new. And your system will read that invitation constantly, which gradually shifts your identity from someone whose life is full to someone with room for more. And the emptiness needs to be intentional, right? Which means you might need to defend it against the automatic tendency to fill. Resist the urge to buy something to fill the shelf. Resist the urge to hang something on the wall. Let the vacuum be. And as you clear space, upgrade the quality of what remains. So you're surrounded by fewer but better things that actually represent your taste and values, which reinforces the identity of someone who has high standards and doesn't accept clutter. And this is where the self-worth piece comes in, right? Giving yourself permission to have nice things even before you feel like you've earned them because the environment shapes the identity which generates the results. So raising your standards for what you allow in your space trains your system to expect more to recognize and reject things that are below the new standard which starts to happen automatically over time.
Now the mental vacuum is trickier because you can't just throw thoughts away right but you can close loops you can make decisions and you can reduce the amount of unfinished business occupying your cognitive ram. So start by making a list of every open loop you're actually aware of, every I should really and I need to eventually that's been basically floating around and either do them, schedule them, delegate them, or consciously decide to drop them because an acknowledged decision to not do something is also a decision, right? It also frees up more space than an uncommitted maybe someday. So this is basically what David Allen's getting things done system is really about. It's getting everything out of your head and into a trusted system so your mind can actually let go of the background processing. Now, people who do this often report an immediate sense of relief and clarity, like finally putting bags down they've been carrying for so long that they forgot they were heavy. Now, the thing is this is not a one-time thing, right? You need a regular practice of capturing those new loops and then closing or processing them before they accumulate. Otherwise, you'll be right back to full within weeks. So, same with unmade decisions, which are maybe even more draining than incomplete tasks because holding multiple possibilities open requires constant low-level processing. Make the decisions, commit to them, and then just move on. Most decisions don't need to be optimal. They just need to be made because even a suboptimal decision really frees up more energy than continued deliberation, and you can always adjust later. So, perfectionism is often just a fear of commitment in disguise. uh way of keeping all of your options open while actually choosing nothing which feels safe but is actually very costly in terms of mental capacity. And a regular meditation or mindfulness practice also can help here not necessarily to achieve some special state but just to let your mind settle in process like letting murky water become clear by not stirring it right and silence and boredom are underrated. I've made videos on this uh there when your mind can actually complete the background processing instead of always being fed new inputs. So reduce your inputs, consume less content or news or social media because every input creates processing load and most inputs are adding clutter rather than value.
Now, the relational vacuum is the hardest, but often the most impactful because relationships are where we really lose the most energy without realizing it. And they're also what most stubbornly anchor us to old identities. So, do an honest audit of your relationships and asking ask yourself for each one, does this person actually energize me or drain me? Does this relationship reflect who I'm becoming or who I was? Am I maintaining this out of genuine care or just obligation, guilt or habit? And this is going to be uncomfortable because you'll probably find that some relationships you've invested a lot in are actually not serving you at all. Right? And that feels almost like a loss, like admitting you were wrong to invest. But sunk cost thinking will keep you pouring more energy into draining connections. And the longer you wait, the more you lose. And you can end or reduce relationships with compassion, right? You don't have to be harsh or burn bridges, you can just gradually decrease the time and the energy you invest while still wishing them well. Now, for relationships you want to keep but that tend to drain you, the move is boundaries, right? Strong boundaries, which means clearly defining what you will and want to accept and then actually enforcing it. Now, you don't always have to explain your boundaries in detail. A lot of the times you you don't need to explain boundaries at all. Sometimes you can just change your behavior and let people adjust because really asking for permission to have boundaries often invites negotiation. And you don't want to be negotiating on your boundaries, right? So people who respect you will respect your boundaries once they understand them. And people who don't respect your boundaries are showing you important information about whether they should be really in your life. And as you clear relational space, intentionally fill some of it with people who represent where you're going, people who inspire you, who are living the kind of life you want, who see your potential and reflect it back to you. You become like the people you spend time with. So this is one of the highest leverage investments you can make, even if it means spending money to be in rooms with people who are ahead of you. Being around people who have what you want also gives you permission to have it yourself because you see that it's actually possible that people like you can have these things.
And so finally, there's the temporal vacuum, meaning creating actual empty time in your schedule rather than filling every slot with commitments, which is maybe the hardest one for ambitious people who feel like empty time is wasted time. Now, you need a margin in your calendar. Space between things. Time that's uncommitted and unstructured. Not because you're lazy, but because that's when the unexpected opportunities can find you or unexpected ideas. When the ideas can actually percolate, when the rest can actually restore, right? This feels counterintuitive if you're used to measuring productivity by how busy you are. But being constantly booked is actually a form of a scarcity mindset, right? a fear that if you slow down, you'll fall behind. But sometimes you need to slow down in order in order to go fast. So creating temporal space requires trust that the time will be well used, right? Even if you don't pre-plan how and often the best things that happen come from unstructured time. Now I'm not saying fill that time with social media, right? This is not good time. This is not empty time. Practically, this means saying no to things more often, even good things, even opportunities that maybe seem valuable. Because saying yes to everything fills your calendar until there's really no room for the thing you actually want. And that thing needs empty space to really land in, right? Every yes has an opportunity cost in terms of what you can't say yes to later. And people who understand this actually get more selective about their yeses, which is how they end up with better outcomes. So fear of missing out keeps people overcommitted. But the real thing you're missing out on when you're too busy is the life you actually want, which requires space to receive. So build temporal vacuum into your rhythm. Like regularly scheduled nothing, even if it's just an hour a week to start, right? Protect the time that you defend against invasion until having space feels normal rather than anxious. And this is an identity shift as well. becoming someone who has time rather than someone who's always busy, which changes how you feel about yourself and also how others perceive you. And ultimately, that's what this whole training is about, right? Shifting from someone who's constantly wanting and chasing and striving to someone who's open and spacious and ready to receive because that's when things actually start flowing towards you.
Now, let's go over the review. We talked about the wanting trap, the cluttered receiver, the vacuum principle, the review, and finally your action items for the day or the next few days. First, pick one area of your life. It can be physical space, mental loops, relationships, or schedule. And create genuine and create genuine vacuum this week by removing or closing or ending at least three things that are taking up space without adding any value. and then deliberately leave some emptiness unfilled for at least 30 days. And try to resist the urge to immediately fill any space you create, whether that's a cleared shelf or a freed up hour or an ended commitment. And then finally, practice the embodied difference between wanting and receiving daily, even just for a minute, feeling the difference in your body between grasping or clenched and receiving mean meaning open. and choose the receiving posture as your default.
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this training. I hope it brought a lot of value. If you want this training along with its respective document, again, make sure to join the free community from the link in the description. If you want to work with me one-on-one, then make sure to book a call from the link in the description. And if you want weekly tips on health, wealth, love, and self sent directly to your inbox, then make sure to sign up to the newsletter again from the link in the description. Once again, thank you for being here and I'm going to see you in the next.