I Manifested Everything I Wanted and I’m Unhappier Than I Was Before

Hi Kelli

After years of ‘working on my vibe’ I got all the ‘big’ things I wanted and I have never felt worse. Based on how you talk about manifestation, I thought this would be a question you would enjoy addressing! Thanks for all you do! 

Yes, yes a million times yes, this is a question I would love to answer. So let’s get to it…

Why You Feel Worse Now

The belief we need certain things in our life to be happy, that the answer lies in the external world, is extremely deeply ingrained. The ego mind operates from a space of lack, scarcity and feeling inherently ‘not enough.’ It is absolutely convinced this void can only be filled through acquisition of things, of people, of experiences. 

Feeling better, feeling content in life, feeling whole and complete, is not something that can be accomplished internally by way of a shift in thinking and emotional state. Again, you are inherently ‘not enough’ as you exist now. It believes all the bad feelings you have can only be remedied through external means. 

And the ego mind is very simplistic in its thinking–if it believes it feels badly because of how your life is now, or because you don’t have something it deems ‘desirable, then that is why it feels badly. If it believes getting something you don’t have will make it feel better, then that is what needs to happen. End of story. Its conclusions are not open to debate, analysis or questioning. 

If the ego had a religion, it would be ‘more.’ No matter what you get, it will always want more. There is no end to ‘more,’ so we see how this desire is problematic. If one area of your life gets ‘fixed’ it will focus on another. Once one ‘problem’ gets solved, it will happily find another. No accomplishment will ever be sufficient, and you will always need to be ‘stepping up your game,’ ‘taking it to the next level.’

If we truly believe that changing our circumstances in some way, acquiring something we currently do not have now, is key to feeling better, that hope of future ‘happiness’ can really keep us going. It will motivate us to do all sorts of things we think will get us that desired result. We have something to look forward to. We have something to keep us occupied. 

We may be pretty unhappy now, but there is promise things will change and we will be happy as soon as these things show up. We create all sorts of fantasies in our mind of this more desired reality, which produces all sorts of really gratifying feelings.

But when those things finally happen, and we see we don’t actually feel all that different, the expected emotional pay off fails to materialize, that is disappointing to say the least. We may experience a feeling of disillusionment that comes on suddenly and strongly, or seeps in over time. 

Thinking something would make us feel dramatically different, only to see it doesn’t, is a really hard pill to swallow, especially if it was something we were working towards for a long time. When you spent your whole life thinking you would finally be happy once you got married ,or reached a certain point in your career, only to find that isn’t the case, a sense of despair may creep in.

 If this won’t make me happy, what will? Feeling like you still need to do something differently, that you still have to ‘get’ more, not knowing what that ‘more’ is, not knowing if you will ever figure it out, or if you believe you have, will actually get it—not a great feeling to say the least. 

All the ‘effort’ put into getting something, whether it was just your ‘energy work’ or actual action, seems like such a waste. 

And to think you must ‘start over,’  put in this same amount of effort for a ‘new’ thing? Talk about painful, especially if your journey to getting whatever you have acquired now wasn’t the smoothest ride.

And it likely wasn’t a smooth ride, to some degree–at least emotionally. And this is because all our ‘wanting’ in the external world is driven by the egoic mind. which in turn, is driven by lack, scarcity and the delusion the outside world has anything of true value to offer us, emotionally speaking. 

‘Spirit’ you, or however you think of what spiritual teachings tell us is ‘who we really’ are, doesn’t care if you are married, have kids, how much money you have, what your body looks like, how many followers you have on social media, whether you have a ‘successful’ business or anything else about the experience of your human ‘personality-self’. 

While we have probably heard a million times that happiness, peace, contentment and all those other warm fuzzies can only come from within, for many people, this truth really doesn’t start to sink in until they have personally experienced it. 

They got everything they wanted, their life is ‘good’ but those deeper negative feelings are still there. Our own personal experience is the strongest ‘proof’ we acquire regarding the truth of the ‘spirit thought system’ and the lies of the egoic one.

So if one were to find themselves in this position, and getting something else isn’t really the answer, what is? 

The Only Way to Feel Better

If the outside isn’t the problem, it automatically holds that it’s something on the ‘inside.’ It is our perceptions, our stories, our narratives about our life circumstances, about ourselves. 

So the only way to feel better is to get at the root of it all–our mind. Therein lies the problem and the solution. It’s really a beautiful thing because perception is choice, meaning we simply need to choose to look at things differently. Not easy, but yes, it really is that simple. 

Not a lot is being asked of us in this regard. No one can choose for us. No one can stop us from choosing except ourselves. We get to decide by which thought system to abide–ego or spirit, or whatever terms you prefer. 

But the trick is, if the problem is in our mind, we must be willing to look at what is in our mind. Most of us aren’t. Which is why we get so obsessed with changing the outside, why we get so attached to getting certain things. We think it will provide enough relief from our emotional distress that we won’t need to deal with that messy business of our problematic thinking and the pain it causes. 

Never forget the egoic mind operates from pain minimizing, which is very different than trying to maximize well being. Pain minimizing mode doesn’t actually heal anything because we aren’t actually dealing with it, which is why changing the outside will never get us anything more than that.

And ‘minimized pain’ is usually still pretty painful, though it can be easier to deny for  various reasons; we may be able to distract ourselves from it pretty well. 

But back to the point at hand…we can’t change perceptions, beliefs, stories and narratives unless we first look at them. You must ask yourself why you believed it was so important to get more money, have a successful business, get married, have kids, get a different job, live a certain type of lifestyle,etc… 

What did you think those things would provide emotionally? What problems did you think they would solve? What bad things did you think about yourself that would be proven ‘untrue’ if you did get these things? What was the story there? 

When we start examining that story more deeply, it becomes clearer and clearer that changing the outside never could have solved any of these problems because the problems were purely in our mind. 

If you had really low self esteem, and believed you were undesirable as a romantic partner in all sorts of ways, finding someone who wanted to marry you wasn’t going to solve that. No matter how loving that person was, no matter how great they think you are, that would be no match for your own self-loathing. 

If a fear of loss drove you to make a lot of money, no amount of money would take away that scarcity consciousness because that may have been coming from the egoic mind’s deep terror of feeling unsafe in this world. It really had nothing to do with money specifically so making more money would do nothing to take that feeling away. 

Your mind made you believe your lack of success in life is what was making you not feel good enough so naturally you expected to feel ‘good enough’ when your business took off and you became a prominent name in your field. 

But that feeling didn’t come from your circumstances, that came from within you, so no matter how much praise and notoriety you receive, you still feel  like a fraud, like you are not enough inherently, that you don’t deserve what you have achieved. 

That changing the outside isn’t the key to changing the inside is one of the most liberating realizations we can make, though the egoic mind may not take so kindly to that news. Like I mentioned before, it can be quite disillusioning when we realize how we have been operating our whole life really is completely backwards.

If we have been living our whole life in ‘getting’ mode believing doing so is the key to happiness and fulfillment, where do we go from there? What’s the point of anything? What do we do with ourselves?

 These questions used to vex me a lot ,and sometimes they still do, but not as intensely as before. It took me a while to realize these questions were posed by the egoic mind still fighting for its agenda and relevance. Withdrawing attention from the outside is a big threat. Changing our thinking in such significant ways is a big threat. 

But this realization is a good thing, it truly, truly is. So…

What Do We Do with This Realization?

If nothing on the outside can truly make us happy, does that mean we shouldn’t strive for anything? Does that mean we are best living some ascetic life where we meditate all day and give up all the trappings of worldly life? There are some people that do come to this conclusion, but it appears that those who feel this calling are few and far between. 

Most people, even most ‘spiritual’ people, will continue to live a worldly existence where they will have jobs and businesses, romantic relationships, family ties,etc… They may still harbor certain fears, desires and perceptions that leave them believing they still need and want certain things, that leave them concerned with the happenings of the world. 

But these elements start to lose dominance in the mind. The fears, the attachments, the delusional thinking are no longer the drivers, they are no longer calling the shots. Whereas before you may have felt wholly consumed by these feelings and thoughts, there is now a part of you that remains ‘separate’ from all of that, that is able to observe it all and rein it in. 

In some cases, people may make drastic changes in their life because their pursuits were so steeped in ego, and there was nothing about what they were doing that had anything at all to do with their happiness and well-being. 

For example, people pursuing a certain career, or position, for no other reason than status, or wanting to ‘prove’ something. They hated that job and  now realize no level of accomplishment will give them what they are truly seeking, so they walk away completely. 

To continue doing something that was making them so unhappy now knowing that will not lead to any sort of real happiness in the future, would seem insane. 

For many of us, this realization may not create drastic change in our lives, but it drastically changes how we live them and move through the world. 

You won’t take everything so seriously anymore because you realize it doesn’t matter. Whereas before, you were constantly in pursuit of arbitrary goals that mean nothing in and of themselves, you stop doing that so intensely. 

You now know that growing your email list by 25% in the next 3 months, or doubling your income by the end of the year, won’t mean a damn thing for you emotionally. When we set goals that mean nothing, we won’t feel much of anything when we accomplish them. You may still set certain intentions for your business, but you are much more relaxed about them.

If the outcomes don’t matter, you can just do things for the enjoyment of it. You can run your business from an energy of just doing something about which you are passionate, of being of service and just wanting to help people. And all your ego concerns about money get taken care of in the process.

You are no longer always in that energy of trying to ‘get’ something from people. Imagine how relaxed you would be on your next consultation call with a potential client if you truly didn’t care whether they hired you or not? Imagine being free of that pressure to ‘sell yourself’ or convince them of anything?

You won’t feel as much pressure to ‘enjoy’ things or make sure all your plans go just the way you want them. You can enjoy traveling or other experiences without placing all this expectation on them to give you something emotionally.

This realization just doesn’t affect your pursuit of stuff and experiences, it can have a positive, life-changing impact in so many other ways too. 

Imagine how different relationships would be, especially romantic ones, when we realize that our happiness is not dependent on the other person, that we truly don’t need anyone else to be happy? 

Imagine just letting your partner be who he is, and giving up the fights and resentments, because you know now that even if he changed in all the ways you believe he needs to, it wouldn’t actually make that much of a difference in how you feel towards him, and how being around him would make you feel?  Imagine what relationships of all stripes could be like when they have been stripped of all the demands the ego mind has placed on them?

Imagine how differently you could feel right in this very moment when you realize that all your unhappiness now really isn’t coming from your circumstances? Imagine how much pressure you could relieve yourself of that comes from constantly trying to change things, constantly trying to ‘figure out’ how to get what you want, because you believe you can only be happy if you succeed in this?

If external change really can’t make us feel better, if the external isn’t the problem, it may start sinking more and more that you really wouldn’t be any happier if your cankles and muffin top disappeared, or if you had your 18-year old boobs and neck. 

You understand if your body isn’t the real problem, you would probably still hate the ‘improved’ version just as much; you would feel just as unattractive and self conscious. So you start becoming more accepting of how you look.

And even if you still care about your appearance to a certain degree, and still do things to look a certain way, it may not be as extreme, you may not experience the same tension. 

If you are engaging in a diet and exercise regimen that makes you miserable, just to maintain a certain weight, you may question the wisdom of this choice. This doesn’t mean you will automatically start eating whatever you want and ‘let yourself go.’

 But your motivation to take care of yourself may switch from just wanting to look ‘good’  to wanting to be healthy and feel good. And looking ‘better’ will probably be a natural byproduct of this. 

Again, this realization can leave us feeling a bit unmoored, and unsure of how to really live from this space, but that is all normal.  And again, it’s a really good thing to realize, it’s really good that this is how it works.

This truth offers us tremendous emotional freedom, the sweetest kind there is. It offers us a way out of our emotional suffering because it reveals to us the real problem–our mind. If offers us a way to live in the world where we will enjoy our experience here a lot more, not less. 

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