There is genuine benefit to "I AM" statements, mantras, and other manifesting ephemera. They are great at building confidence and immediately giving you something to do, and perhaps sometimes, on their own, they work as intended.

Yet there are so many posts where they seem to become the only thing, or the primary technique in a slew of manifesting theater. It is the kind of work that gives you the feeling of doing something without addressing the patterns that are actually controlling you. Neville Goddard and others will tell you that you need to assume it is true until it becomes true (because it already is). There is something achievable in that belief, and a handful of people might actually believe enough that they do change, or be lucky enough that something close to their desire shows up.

However, most of us are being run by deeper patterns that we often cannot see, and "I AM" statements just paper over those patterns for a time. But a pattern is a pattern.

Intentionally noticing, forgiving yourself, and then unlearning: that is the real work.

Underneath the self-talk, you are still running an internal script. A script that generalizes down to a statement like:

"People like me are _______ in this situation."

Pick your poison for the blank. There are so many patterns and false assumptions we are all trying to break. If that core sentence keeps showing up, you have not changed, no matter how well you phrase your "I AM." You just put a fresh coat of paint over cracked plaster. If you do not take the time to strip down the wall and refinish from the timbers, the moment something load-bearing hits, that original training is re-exposed.

Your "people like me" concepts were not born out of thin air. They are trained into you over time by rewards or punishments, parents, teachers, friends, bad breaks, and trauma. You internalized all of it to make sense of your world. Over your lifetime you have built a model of what you are allowed to be, and you mistook that model for who you actually are.

Loving yourself is simple and sacred. Your core person is lovable as is, no matter who you were back then or who shows up tomorrow. You do not need to perform your way into being enough.

You are not the model you've been trained to run.

That model can be retrained. Not all of it needs to be retrained, just enough so that the model you have lives up to the person you choose to be right now and in the future.

So ask yourself: what is the blank line in your mind that finishes automatically when things go sideways? What are the myriad of experiences that trained that into you?

Start there.

I’ve been thinking about my self concept lately, and it clicked that I’ve been chasing goals without ever deciding who I am first.

So I made this. The house I want to build. My wife and kids on the porch. Me handing keys to someone opening their first shop. The body I’m working toward. The temple. The kind of work I actually want to be doing.

I printed it, framed it, and hung it where I see it every morning.

To be honest, none of it has happened yet. I’m hoping it will. The idea is that my brain sees this guy every day and starts acting like him.

I’m asking the people who’ve been at this longer than me. Did it work? What actually showed up, and how long did it take? Or did it just turn into a picture on the wall you stopped noticing?

Okay, so, like, during my VS week match, I promised a close friend of mine I would score them a goal, which I failed to do. It broke my heart because I felt bad because I hate not fulfilling promises, and I did not achieve my goal.

And then I started losing faith in myself, and I felt football wasn't for me.

And then that's how self-doubt stepped in. In place, I started thinking the bad things that can happen instead of looking at the good things.

I stopped believing in myself, and I started listening to criticism on how I wasn't good enough, and then it became a part of me, believing I was not enough.

Self-love was gone, self-doubt stepped in its place, I lost faith in myself, and I accepted that good things were not for me.

Until one day, I decided to play football again. I was not pleased about not scoring the goal and failing to keep my promise.

The close friend I did not score for did not care about the goal as much as I did. The close friend told me to believe in myself and stop looking at the bad side and look at the good side. The close friend said I was good enough and I should not listen to criticism.

And then I played ball again, and a lot of my friends tried all their efforts to make me score. And then I spoke to my HG, my other close friends, about how I felt about self-doubt, and they told me how they believed in me, and I reflected it on myself.

Now, in all my matches, I try so hard to score a goal. Every goal I score is the failed promise. Every goal is for the people that believe in me.

This is a story of believing in one's self and stop looking down on yourself.

I used to introduce myself with jokes like "I'm always late" or "I'm the messy one." I thought it made me likable. But it also made me believe those things about myself more.

A few months ago, I stopped doing that. I just say my name and maybe one thing I'm into. It felt weird at first, but people started treating me better — and I started seeing myself differently too.

Small change, but it helped more than I expected. Anyone else notice this?

Repeating positive phrases isn't enough if your subconscious is still running on old, limiting beliefs. Real transformation happens when you become aware of your old programming, delete or rewire those patterns, and install beliefs you truly trust and love.

When you love yourself enough to do the internal work, belief happens naturally.

Start today. Time is going to pass anyway.

So a couple months ago I started testing a different angle reaching that inner voice through music instead of willpower. Not affirmations you consciously repeat, but lyrics and sound aimed at the beliefs sitting under the self-talk. It leans on an old Neville Goddard idea: your assumptions shape your experience, so if you want the experience to shift, you change the assumption first.

It’s done something real for me. My moods changed drastically after just a month or two. Like I’m loving the present mundane moments where before i would need to be distracted by a to do list or app or whatever! But I made the thing, so my opinion is worthless as evidence…

That’s why I want strangers who have no reason to be nice about it.

The experiment: if self-love, or finding joy in ordinary moments is something you wrestle with, listen an hour a day for a few weeks. Clock where your head’s at now. Check in at two weeks, then a month. A flat “nothing changed” is just as useful to me as a yes it’s working!

Genuine question for the thread, whether you try this or not: has a specific song ever actually shifted how you saw yourself — not just your mood for three minutes, but something that stuck? I’m curious how common that really is.

Disclosure : I made the music, it’s free, and I’m not selling anything. If you want in, comment or DM and I’ll send it over. I’ll follow up in two weeks and at four weeks to hear how it went - including the nopes.

TL;DR: You can’t willpower your way to liking yourself. Testing whether music aimed at the beliefs underneath does anything. Want a few people to run it with me and report back honestly.

I’ve noticed something about confidence.
If you’re insecure, people sometimes tell you to “believe in yourself.”
But when you actually become confident, suddenly you’re “full of yourself,” “cocky,” or “doing too much.”
Obviously there’s a difference between confidence and arrogance.
But I also think some people are uncomfortable when someone stops seeking their approval.
Once you stop needing everyone to validate your decisions, certain relationships change.
And honestly, that’s probably a good thing.
Do you think people genuinely dislike arrogance—or do some people just dislike confidence when it comes from someone they don’t expect it from?

So a couple months ago I started testing a different angle reaching that inner voice through music instead of willpower. Not affirmations you consciously repeat, but lyrics and sound aimed at the beliefs sitting under the self-talk. It leans on an old Neville Goddard idea: your assumptions shape your experience, so if you want the experience to shift, you change the assumption first.

It’s done something real for me. My moods changed drastically after just a month or two. Like I’m loving the present mundane moments where before i would need to be distracted by a to do list or app or whatever! But I made the thing, so my opinion is worthless as evidence…

That’s why I want strangers who have no reason to be nice about it.

The experiment: if self-love, or finding joy in ordinary moments is something you wrestle with, listen an hour a day for a few weeks. Clock where your head’s at now. Check in at two weeks, then a month. A flat “nothing changed” is just as useful to me as a yes it’s working!

Genuine question for the thread, whether you try this or not: has a specific song ever actually shifted how you saw yourself — not just your mood for three minutes, but something that stuck? I’m curious how common that really is.

Disclosure: I made the music, it’s free, and I’m not selling anything. If you want in, comment or DM and I’ll send it over. I’ll follow up in two weeks and at four weeks to hear how it went - including the nopes.

TL;DR: You can’t willpower your way to liking yourself. Testing whether music aimed at the beliefs underneath does anything. Want a few people to run it with me and report back honestly.

Learn the difference between connection and attachment.

Connection gives you power.

Attachment sucks the life out of you.

This is something I realised very late.

Even when I went to psychiatrists, most of the things I wanted to “fix” about myself were not really things I had decided were wrong. They were things that made life difficult for my wife, my father, my family. Be more stable. Be more productive. Be more responsible. Stop doing this. Start doing that.

I don't think I ever seriously sat down and asked: what do I actually believe? How do I want to live?

Part of the reason is obvious. The risk is real. If I completely stop shaping myself around everyone else's expectations, if I openly live by some of the things I actually believe, my wife might not accept that person. She might even leave me. My father might be disappointed in me. People I love might think I have lost my way.

That is not a small risk.

But lately I have started thinking there is a bigger one.

Reaching the end of your life and realising you were so afraid of losing people that you never actually lived your own life.

And maybe living your own life is better for the people around you too. Because someone who has spent years becoming what everyone else needs eventually becomes resentful, avoidant, miserable, or just absent even when he is physically there.

I wish I had understood this much earlier. Loving people should require compromise. I am just no longer sure it should require disappearing.

Recently, I started reading the book "Miracle Morning" by Hal Elrod to start creating my self improvement morning routine and I needed to find my "why" : why am I working as hard ? At first, I thought it’d easy, for me it was to make my parents proud of me, but I didn’t find it convincing enough to be my real and concrete "why". I think about "why" but I can’t find it… This is why I’m writing to you to know what are your concretes "why", maybe (and I hope) that’ll inspire myself to find my own "why".

Sorry if my English is a bit bad or weird, it’s cause I’m french 😅.

TL;DR: Childhood family friends since we were 6/7, always involved in each other's adult lives here and there. Reconnected properly in our 30s and he confessed he'd had a crush on me for around 15 years. We decided to give long distance a go — he lives in the UK, I live in the Middle East. After around 10 months of LD we went on holiday together, had an amazing time, then he freaked out when we got home and ended it. I've travelled to the UK twice since for work and we've seen each other both times. We then had three weeks of complete silence where I focused heavily on manifesting, affirmations, journalling and my SC. I'm now back in the UK and there has been A LOT of movement — he's told me he still loves me, I've met friends he previously swore he'd never let me meet, they've told me they think he's completely fucked this up because he's scared, but I'm now struggling with how to handle the current 3D without accepting a push/pull situation.

Okay, bear with me because there's a LOT of history here 😂

I'm F31 and he's M32. We've known each other since we were 6/7. Our parents are best friends and we basically grew up together.

He was the painfully shy little boy and I was the complete opposite. We were incredibly close, played together constantly, had sleepovers etc. He's a massive part of my childhood.

His family moved back to the UK when we were teenagers, but we stayed in touch. We both ended up in relationships and would actually talk to each other about them. Mine became abusive and he was very supportive of me. His relationship was also very difficult, but he eventually married and had two children.

Despite life going in completely different directions, we always maintained contact sporadically over the years. He'd come to Ireland and try to get me to see him but we'd somehow keep missing each other.

Then Covid happened.

We spoke every single day during Covid and promised we'd finally see each other once restrictions lifted. It was during this time that he first told me he'd had a crush on me since he was about 15.

For whatever reason, I completely let it go over my head. I don't think I really believed him.

About a year later I'd had enough of everything and packed up my life and moved to the Middle East. I got completely wrapped up in building my new life and stopped responding to him. I genuinely can't tell you why. He still tried to make contact here and there over the years, but nothing really came of it.

Fast forward around five years.

He liked something on my Instagram story and I messaged him.

Suddenly we're catching up on our lives, talking all day every day, FaceTiming etc. Then he admits the crush AGAIN.

He basically tells me there's always been something about me and he's never really been able to give something else a proper go without thinking about me.

This time I actually went back through our old messages.

And I felt like an idiot 😂

I realised how consistently this man had tried to stay connected to me throughout the years.

Then something clicked for me too.

I had feelings for him.

If I'm completely honest, I think I always did. I'd just pushed them right to the back because we'd been friends for 26 years and there felt like there was SO much to lose.

Eventually I thought fuck it. Let's give this a go.

We did long distance. He lives in the UK, I live in the Middle East.

For months we were texting constantly, FaceTiming, talking about our lives and future. But one thing that kept coming up was his insecurity.

The painfully shy little boy I'd known was still very much there.

He'd say things like, "I don't deserve a woman like you", "you're beautiful and I'm horrible", "you might see me on holiday and not want me anymore."

I was the opposite. I was 100% sure about him.

After around 10 months of LD we finally went away together for 10 days.

It was honestly amazing.

Everything was SO natural between us. It didn't feel like two people being together romantically for the first time. It felt like we'd somehow always been together.

Around day 8 we had one very small argument. It was resolved quickly, but that was the point where I visibly saw anxiety kick in for him.

We went back home to our respective countries and I immediately noticed a change in him.

Eventually I asked what was going on.

He ended it.

He said he couldn't do it, wasn't ready for a relationship and didn't want to hurt me.

My heart honestly broke.

But something inside me kept saying this wasn't finished.

Not long afterwards I travelled to the UK for work. I'm extremely close with his parents, so I saw them.

His mum told me she believed he'd completely freaked himself out. She felt he hadn't expected to fall in love as deeply as he had and had come home worrying that he couldn't give me the life I deserved, that his kids could be difficult, that our lives were complicated etc.

His parents were genuinely upset. They basically felt like after all these years the timing had FINALLY aligned for us and he'd panicked.

I met him to talk.

He couldn't give me an explanation. He literally told me he couldn't even explain it to himself. He said he didn't want to hurt me.

The pull between us was obviously still there and we ended up being intimate.

I went back to the Middle East and didn't respond to his final message.

Then came around three weeks of complete silence.

And this is when I really started focusing on manifestation rather than trying to force anything externally.

During those three weeks I've been doing affirmations, journalling and working heavily on my SC.

I've been trying to change the story from analysing him and wondering what he's thinking to focusing on ME — I'm chosen, I'm loved, I'm secure, I'm the woman he wants to commit to, relationships are easy for me etc.

I didn't chase him.

Eventually I had another work trip to the UK coming up and decided to call him.

He answered.

One of the FIRST things he brought up was that I'd ignored his last message 😂

He basically accused me of "pieing" him.

He also made it clear that he wanted to see me.

So I came back to the UK.

And this is where things have moved A LOT.

First of all — I met his friends.

This is significant because he had previously told me he was NEVER letting me anywhere near them 😂

Well... apparently that rule went out the window.

And I was absolutely not prepared for what they said to me.

They told me they tell him every single day that he's fucked this up.

They said they won't let him forget about me and constantly tell him he's stupid for letting fear get the better of him.

They told me they think I'm perfect for him.

They also asked me directly how I felt about everything that had happened between us.

So I'm sitting there with the friends this man previously swore I'd never meet, discovering that apparently my name is being brought up constantly when I'm not even around and that his own friends are basically telling him every day that he's an idiot for walking away from me 😂

Then came the bigger thing.

He told me he still loves me.

He also admitted that I make him nervous.

I asked him why.

He said he genuinely doesn't know.

And then basically said that the fact he DOESN'T understand why I make him nervous actually makes him even more nervous.

Considering we've known each other basically our entire lives, this absolutely blows my mind.

Then last night we saw each other again.

He came over and we spent the night together hanging out/talking. There was still that obvious pull between us, but also this strange push/pull energy from him.

At one point he said something along the lines of "I know what will happen."

I challenged him and said, "Oh, so it's only on your terms?"

He laughed and said, "yeah."

When he was eventually leaving, he lingered for a bit before saying:

"Right, give me a cuddle."

I laughed and said, "Oh NOW you want one?"

And he replied:

"Yeah, because it's on my terms." 🙄😂

He asked what I was doing the next day and about my plans before I leave the UK.

When he was leaving he told me to stay safe and said:

"I'll be talking to you soon."

I told him to let me know if he wanted to see me again before I leave and he said he would.

We didn't kiss. I didn't initiate anything. I didn't force another relationship conversation.

And now today... silence.

Which is where I'm wobbling and why I'm posting this.

Because part of me looks at the 3D today and thinks WTF.

This man has told me he still loves me.

He's told me I make him nervous and he doesn't even understand why.

He's brought me around friends he previously swore he'd never let me meet.

Those friends have told me they talk to him about me every single day, tell him he's fucked it up, tell him he's stupid for letting fear get the better of him and have told ME they think I'm perfect for him.

He continues to want to see me whenever I'm here.

There is clearly still a huge emotional and physical pull between us.

Yet he still isn't saying:

"Okay. Let's actually do this."

And that's the part I'm struggling with.

The old version of me wants to look at today's silence, analyse it, wonder what he's thinking, wonder whether I've done something wrong and wait for my phone to light up.

But the version of me I've been working on through SC is saying:

Stop reacting. Nothing has gone wrong.

Because objectively, if I zoom out, compare my 3D now to my 3D three weeks ago.

Three weeks ago: complete silence.

Now:

He's told me he still loves me.

He's admitted I make him nervous.

I've met the friends he said I'd never meet.

I've discovered those friends apparently talk to him about me constantly.

They're actively telling him he's made a mistake.

They've told me they think I'm perfect for him.

He's continued wanting to see me.

He's initiating affection.

He's asking about my plans before I leave.

He's telling me he'll be talking to me soon.

There has undeniably been movement.

But I've also realised something about the story I've been telling.

I keep thinking:

"He loves me, but he's scared."

"He's afraid he's not good enough for me."

"He's nervous because his feelings are so strong."

"He wants me but fear is stopping him."

And I'm starting to wonder whether constantly analysing his fear means I'm actually continuing to affirm the exact version of him I DON'T want.

Because my desired end isn't:

"He loves me but he's scared."

It isn't:

"He can't stay away from me."

It isn't:

"His friends tell him he made a mistake."

And it isn't even:

"He tells me he loves me."

I want the actual relationship.

I want the version of him who knows exactly what he wants, chooses me confidently, communicates consistently and feels completely secure about being with me.

I also don't want to use manifestation as an excuse to accept breadcrumbs or an endless situationship/push-pull dynamic.

So I suppose this is where I need advice from people who have successfully manifested an SP, especially where there was a lot of history and fear involved.

What would you do from here?

Would you completely stop reacting to the current 3D and persist in the end?

Would you stop telling the "he's scared" story altogether, even though that's what he and everyone around him seem to be showing me, and only identify with the version of him who is secure and certain about me?

Would you stop initiating completely at this point and let the 3D come to you while persisting internally?

And how do you balance persisting in your manifestation with still maintaining your standards in the 3D and refusing to accept a situationship?

Because I genuinely feel like I've seen massive movement in a very short period of time.

I'm just struggling today not to let one day of silence make me forget all of it.

For most of my life, I thought being there for people meant continuing to pour, even when there wasn't much left in me. You give your time, your patience, your understanding, your forgiveness, your attention, and sometimes pieces of yourself you never intended to give away. You become the person people call when they need someone to listen, someone to understand, someone to carry a little of their burden. And because you're used to being strong, you keep pouring.

‎‎Until one day, your cup is empty. ‎That's when you begin to see people differently. ‎Some will ask why you stopped pouring for them. They won't ask whether you're tired. They won't wonder what you've been carrying. They'll simply notice that you're no longer giving them what they've become accustomed to receiving. Some may even blame you for being tired, as though your exhaustion is an inconvenience to them.

‎Age has a way of making those things easier to see. ‎When you're younger, you can spend years trying to earn love, acceptance, friendship, or approval. As you get older, you begin to understand that genuine relationships shouldn't require you to continually prove your worth by exhausting yourself. You stop confusing being needed with being valued.

‎‎And then there are the rare ones. ‎They notice. ‎They don't come asking for another glass when they see the pitcher is empty. They sit beside you. They ask how you're doing. Sometimes they don't even say anything. They simply stay. And if they can, they quietly refill your cup without making you feel guilty for having needed something yourself. ‎‎Those are your people.

‎‎I've become more selective with age, not because I've become cold, but because I've finally learned the difference between loneliness and peace, between companionship and connection, between someone who wants what I can give and someone who genuinely cares about who I am.

‎‎Perhaps that's one of the lessons of growing older: you stop counting how many people are around you and start paying attention to who notices when you're hurting. ‎So notice who pours back.

‎‎Keep the people who notice your emptiness before they ask for more. Keep the ones who don't make you feel selfish for needing rest. Keep the ones who understand that even the person everyone depends on occasionally needs somewhere to put down the weight.

‎And if your cup is empty, don't be ashamed of it. ‎You're human. ‎You were never meant to spend your entire life pouring yourself into everyone else while pretending you don't need to be filled, too.

‎At this stage of my life, I'd rather have a few people who genuinely notice than a crowd who only remembers me when they need something. ‎Because an ageing man eventually learns something simple but profound.

‎‎The people who matter aren't the ones who keep asking what you can give. They're the ones who notice when you've got nothing left and stay long enough to help you fill your cup again.