Alchemy, Manifestation traps & Identity collapse
100% Rupture before 100% Rapture
Tragic is the precursor to magic, both situated at either end of Alchemy. The bigger your dream, steeper the price. Higher your path, heavier shall be your toll.
The Universe is a kind and loving parent but its gifts are not cheap. If anyone has led you to believe that if you change your thoughts about having it easy, everything will come to you easily, that’s not how Nature works and never will. Source is the first Alchemist and Life didn’t happen in a Quantum leap that everyone is hooked on, with AI and quantum computing on the rise.
The first single cell organism appeared nearly 4 billion years ago, and it took another 1.6 billion years for Cyanobacteria to trigger the Great Oxidation Event to pump oxygen into Earth’s atmosphere. It wasn’t until nearly 385 million years ago that the first true trees and large forests appeared further altering Earth’s climate and ecosystems, with the start of the Ice Age nearly 2.5 million years ago. You already know how long it took for human evolution from apes to neanderthals to sapiens.
My swim coach would often remind me when I was impatient to learn too fast —
“Nature does not rush anything and still accomplishes everything” and boy did I resist it until Nature beat it into me the hard way. There is no argument with Time!
Do not fall for late-stage, neoliberal capitalism overselling manifestation as if it’s Amazon’s cheapest, best, fastest Prime Delivery. They’re leaving out a lot of details and barely anyone is talking about manifestation as a continuous process with more stagnancy than flow and more plateaus than peaks on that path. In the world of action-adventure sports, experts often repeat sage advice— “Beware the peak moments fantasy” because legends like Felix Baumgartner have died chasing the adrenaline rush. God rest their souls!
The law of attraction works just fine but manifesting anything is not just about the initial choice. It’s also about the subsequent choices we have to make especially when it’s hardest and Life extracts a heavy toll, asking us to navigate ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty. Everyone is talking a big game on manifesting something but no one’s talking about making the next choice to sustain what’s manifested and the countless ones after.
When we have been sold it should be quick and easy, that’s where it comes off the rails and what’s attracted and manifested slips through our fingers when we have not been prepared to make the hard choice to preserve our manifested reality. When our reality does not match the sales pitch, we get ready to ditch it like a low quality product because capitalism has colonized our minds to treat everything like a smartphone and another subscription to a cool tech toy. There’s always the next one if the last one doesn’t work or gets boring too soon. Endless choices on Social, Netflix, Amazon, Costco and every dating app has literally altered our brains and physiology and every single one of them have a team of psychologists getting paid handsome salaries to help them keep us hooked — That’s the modern day hypodermic needle and all of us are addicted to quick, easy, more because the reward centres in our brains light up every time we can get all of that easily. The constant dopamine rush over-activates the dopamine receptors in our brains, leaving us with a dopamine deficit, and robbing us of what’s real and what it takes to sustain our manifested reality through delayed gratification. It’s like swimming in an ocean of endless choices and still coming away thirsty. None of this makes sense!
Preservation hurts and it’s painful, demanding, disorienting, soul crushing, heart breaking and yet sustaining our manifested reality demands discipline and surrender over long periods of time before we can bring our vision to life — The Universe is 13.8 billion years old and yet it took nearly 10 billion years after its birth for Earth to have its first single cell organism. One-click prime delivery and instant gratification have extreme trade-offs, especially for the human psyche — Compared to our ancestors, we are increasingly likely to be more impatient with less mental fortitude when things don’t work on our timeline.
In climate action circles, there is an analogy, “If the entire existence of the Universe was a 24-hour period, then Earth formed at 4pm in the afternoon and modern humans arrived at 4 minutes to midnight”, so that tells us where we fit in the grand scheme of things, and how long it takes to go from intention to manifestation. Now don’t be scared or discouraged. Instead, take a step back and revisit your timeline. A mentor once said to me, “Our dreams don’t work on our timeline”, and boy was she right. We all start with a vision, and then we all get caught up in the details of how and when it should happen. To be fair, it’s only human to be like Backstreet boys and get hung up on, “I want it that way” or like Queen and Freddie Mercury drowning all our doubts and fears singing, “I want it all”. Love both songs, but manifestation ain’t a 90s banger. Wish it were!
The 80/20 rule with manifestation is that we get to keep the 20% that is our dream and vision but we must learn to surrender the 80% details in our monkey minds, including the timeline. The distance that each one of us has to travel from dream to reality is delusion, because there is no evidence it’s real until we make it to other side. So, it’s alright to be a dreamer with our heads in the clouds. Only, once we have glimpsed the 30,000 or 80,000 ft view, we have to come back down and build it from the ground up
Please don’t be thinking like Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Christopher Nolan that time is non-linear, to challenge this. As true as it may be, that won’t help or empower you or anyone else. Our obsession with the quantum leap is doing us more harm than good, assuming you are tracking the polycrisis unfolding all around us. Bigger the obsession, nastier the toll!
Nature does not rush anything and yet accomplishes everything. Nature never had it fast and easy nor can we. Sorry folks, they have been lying to us about manifestation and we should research and reflect before we become disenchanted, impatient or caught in a vicious cycle of manifesting something and then losing it soon after because their sales pitch does not match our reality and expectations. The tip is not the Iceberg!
The Universe meets us half-way and shows us the path, but we have to walk it even when it’s invisible. We have to be trailblazers and architects of our reality.
So all our hullabaloo about pain, loss, setback, failure and discomfort is exactly what’s holding us back from being reliable and resilient keepers.
Alchemy sounds exciting but none of us can be alchemists unless we learn to endure the tragic as gracefully as possible. Magic is real but it’s not as fast as pulling a rabbit out of the hat. It’s a process. It’s a skill. It’s a journey. Pain, loss, setback, failure, discomfort are not error signals, calamities and betrayals by Life. They are teachers and precursors to the portal of Alchemy. We don’t get to weave a worm hole in space like Doctor Strange and just drop into it to get to the other side. We have to endure all of that and navigate the darkness, delay and confusion to get to clarity. Time and tide do not sway for us!
Here’s the hardest part that no book, no ayahuasca or Vipassana retreat, no cacao or fire ceremony, no virtual training, no Burning Man like festivals, no guru, no influencer, no agent of manifestation, prosperity and abundance is telling you — Real alchemy and manifestation are ongoing processes and both demand a significant shift to a near-total identity collapse. Identity is our anchor in Life that tells us our place in our world — Who am I, what am I worth, and what is the meaning of my Life. It’s made of up of core beliefs, conditioning, bias, tradition, culture, relationships, work, life experience and epigenetic inheritance — All of us carry up to 95% genes from our fourth generation ancestor so you can imagine how complex, critical and sticky our identity is.
The best a manifestation coach will tell you is that you have to the become the person who can receive your manifested reality. They leave out the part that involves identity crisis, collapse and evolution. That’s the most painful part of alchemy and manifestation no one is talking about because none of us are going to pay for that much pain, none of us will ever sign up for that kind of chaos and mayhem. That’s why late-stage capitalism is coming off the rails because their lies are in the open now and they are trying to squeeze the last drop left.
Why is identity collapse hard?
The human brain models itself to its surroundings which comprise people, places, relationships, the way we perceive the world around us, the way we define self-worth, success and fulfilment, the way we make sense of our lives and the way we relate to each other. All of that forms our identity. So if we are manifesting something that conflicts with any of that, guess what — It will manifest but it won’t last unless we sign up for identity shift. If we have to make it last, we have to sign up for identity shift and therefore some level of collapse of beliefs, conditioning, relationships, careers and anything else holding us back. All of that must be offered to the Universe as non-negotiable payment.
Now if that triggers or scares you, then there are mild, medium and spicy options to choose from, so you get to choose what suits your appetite, but you have to endure some level of identify shift. The price tag is directly proportional to the level of your dream!
Radical alchemy and manifestation demand a lot of blood, sweat and tears over and over again until you run dry. And then you go again until you learn to be a farmer again, who doesn’t stop when it’s too dry, too rainy, too stormy, too hot, too painful, too intense, too cold, too much, too hard, too expensive, too dramatic, too fast, too slow, too imperfect for your beliefs and conditioning. Source and Universe do not honour our excuses, they honour our willingness to trust even when there is no reason or evidence. No play, No way!
That’s the signal in the noise, the wheat in the chaff, the needle in the haystack and the diamond in the rough. You want your treasure, enter the cave that scares you. You want God, Love OR Truth, make the hard choice your hurt, pain and trauma won’t allow you to make. You want the greatest gifts of the Universe, surrender completely, practice faith in the unknown and invisible, stop asking for more proof and clear signs, and walk the path, meet the Universe halfway and be willing to lose who you think you are to remember who are you are meant to be, what is truly yours to do and the promises you have made in past lifetimes.
Remembrance = Risk & sacrifice!
Finally, if we don’t honour all the signs and proof the Universe is giving us, it will stop after we have ignored enough, so don’t wait forever to take the risk. Honour its rules & limitations and don’t make the mistake of treating its generosity as a cheap thrill or an offer without an expiry date. All our choices are recorded in the cosmic ledger and Time does not wait for anyone forever. Earn yourself reunions, not a lifetime of regrets. Earn yourself fresh beginnings, not recurring patterns. Earn yourself freedom, not safe shackles!
Source rewards our analysis and logic AFTER our trust, faith and devotion!
Hold on to your biggest dream and talk yourself into letting go of 70-80% of your details, filters, flags and ideas about how it ought to be. Also, let go of your fears and apprehensions about things that might not work the way you feel comfortable with them. They could be better, but they are definitely not going to be as bad as you and I think. Anything between great and terrible is worth giving a shot, because which part of our lives is really terrific all the time? If your answer is same as mine, you and I can find magic in the mundane and maybe reality will surprise us when we say “Yes” more!
”There are two types of pain you will go through in your life; the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces, while regret weighs tons”
~ John Rohn
Last but not least, please do not let your self-worth be defined by rejection, delayed plans, promises you made to yourself but could not keep because Life forced your hand, dreams you dreamed but could not live in the way you imagined or on your timeline, and all that stuff that blocks your heart from believing again and keeping the faith alive, because if you got this far, then you and I are the same.
It’s alright for all of that to come and go. That’s the human condition none of us can escape, and we can still say “Yes” when the Universe opens doors again, and instead of being afraid to fail, be cautiously optimistic about moving one step closer to your dream.
Avengers lost the Infinity War, but got themselves one more shot at the Endgame. That’s the Hero’s journey — non-linear, adventurous, full of twists and turns, ups and downs, scary and exciting, unpredictable yet worth telling. A Hero is unstoppable not because their path is easy. It’s because they met and embraced tragedy on their path as a Divine teacher. Be your own Hero, treat everything in your journey as a sacred offering & live your life to the fullest!
#amorfati
“The intention or energy behind saying I want determines if you will manifest what is desired or just recreate the experience of wanting it”
~ Neale Donald Walsh
ੴ ॐ नमः शिवाय