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We manifest 80% of who we are, and 20% of the things we do. Unfortunately, most people spend their time worrying about the 20%, the "doing", and not enough about the 80%, the "being". We manifest our identities. Who we are is our biggest manifestation tool and many of us aren't in touch with this part of ourselves.
How often do you take a moment to get to know yourself as much as you would a friend or partner? For most of us, not often.
As technology continues to dominate our lives, it’s become even more important for us to get to know ourselves better—to date ourselves. Our ability to manifest depends on it.
Importance of Dating Yourself
When I talk about dating yourself, really the idea that I’m trying to instill is becoming comfortable with yourself by getting to know yourself at a deeper level.
If you’re already a confident person you may be thinking, “But I’m already comfortable with myself!”. However, sometimes we believe ourselves to be very confident and comfortable, but our actions can tell a different story (more on this in a sec).
Dating yourself is an important factor for growing as a person, and therefore manifestation. You will be so much more successful manifesting what you want when you’re totally aligned with, and creating from a healthy mindset; And, a healthy mindset is driven by self-worth and self-love.
What do I mean about the actions of someone who appreciates themselves? Well, if you checked out my previous posts about this, you know that one of my answers to this is to date yourself! I mean this both literally and figuratively, by the way.
Dating yourself isn’t about finding something to do to OCCUPY YOUR MIND. In fact, "doing" is the exact opposite of what we want. We want "being", or self-exploration during this time.
How often do you schedule time with yourself? I’m not talking about watching Netflix, scrolling social media, reading, or any other passive time. I’m talking about intentionally scheduling QUALITY time with yourself. Creating space to check-in, get to know yourself better, re-assess what’s working, and what isn’t in your life.
When you date someone else you spend a lot of time going through this process, so you already know what to do intuitively. While we spend more time with ourselves in this life than any partner, we typically don’t make time to get to know the current version of us. Not who we were last month, last year, last decade.... who have you GROWN to be... in this moment? How would you describe yourself without mentioning what you do for a living, where you live, or who you associate with?
Your ability to date yourself, especially in a public setting, speaks volumes to your feelings of self-worth as well as your confidence. The vulnerability of dating yourself in public is tricky at first. Before you try it out, ask yourself if you could comfortably sit with yourself without distractions (yep, I mean your phone too!)? When you first try it out, you might struggle with the ego telling you a variety of things—maybe it says that you look lonely, undesirable, or silly. Sit with these feelings and reflect on whether that is something you truly believe, or an idea you've adopted. See what else comes up and allow yourself to become the observer of your thought patterns.
Can you take yourself to dinner and enjoy it? Or, even better (and harder), can you treat yourself to a solo traveling experience? When I backpacked Europe alone, I painfully and vulnerably FELL INTO dating myself. I was forced, but it was an incredible experience of growth for me, one that ended up changing my life. It allowed me to ask some deep questions like:
How are my energy levels right now? How do they change throughout the day when people aren’t around to influence them? What does my body need when I’m not putting it’s needs aside to take care of other people? Who am I when I don't have anyone around to define me? Who did I want to be? What is my identity? My REAL identity? I realized that when you’re constantly around people, the identity they've given you contribute to how you act around them. When all of that is stripped away.... I was forced to figure out who I was without the clutter of influence.
This deep level of connection with yourself is where real, lasting growth takes place. When you start to get to know yourself at this level, you start unlocking a whole new level of authenticity in your life. You can live in a way that is more wholly aligned and you can manifest beautiful things from this place of being.
To connect with this part of you, to manifest anything, you have to get to know all sides of you—starting with the parts that are most uncomfortable or that you don't like. Maybe it’s confidence issues, jealousy, emotional suppression, past bullying, procrastination... maybe you start to uncover things about yourself that scare you like admitting that you want out of your marriage, out of your career, or out of your current identity. It's okay to allow these hidden truths to come to light. It's okay to sit with these parts of yourself.
This is tough stuff. This is the work that really matters when it comes to manifestation. Remember, manifestation is 80% who you are and 20% the things you do. The work I'm talking about in this post allows you to self-coach the 80%, so you can become someone who simply manifests; someone who doesn't have to actively think about manifesting.
Start by grabbing a journal and taking yourself to the park, a beach, to dinner, out for coffee, etc. While I recommend spending more time becoming aware of yourself, I find that starting off with writing can allow new beliefs to surface that our consciousness isn't aware of. A great way to try this out would be to write aimlessly, without thought, until you feel you've done enough. This allows us to write down a stream of unconscious thoughts that we can re-visit later. Don’t worry if what you're writing doesn’t make sense, if it’s not legible, or if you don’t really believe what you’re writing.... just write. Afterward, sit with anything revelations that came through, any surprises. Did you write anything you didn't expect?
When you're choosing not to journal and you're embracing the "being", notice what you want and crave when it’s just you. Become aware of your thought patterns, how you talk to yourself internally, what judgements come up, and how your internal dialogue behaves. Get to know who you are without using distractions to escape.
While you practice this new skill, your ego will resist at first. Despite what it might say to you, the ego's resistance doesn't mean that you're doing this 'wrong' or that this exercise is not in alignment. Let go of the negative thoughts the ego will try to introduce. Remember, the ego resists change (even when it's good), and dating yourself will really start to transform you. Expect the discomfort and allow this to be one of the first emotions you experience fully, without avoidance.
Use this time to ask the questions you normally don’t sit with. I mean REALLY sit with. Go deeper than you normally allow time and mental bandwidth for.
What about yourself scares you? How does your body feel? What recharges you? What drains you? What patterns are reoccurring in your life? What beliefs have kept you back?
Let's commit to spending more time getting to know ourselves, consistently. How often can you make time?
Dating yourself is about self-connection without distraction. It’s about finding out who you are when you strip away the layers of other people’s expectations. It’s about finding out who you are at your core without any labels when all of the lights are off..
Meet this version of you, know them, love them deeply. They're your biggest fan and your route to manifesting everything you want. They're the 80%.
Have a fantastic rest of your week, and I will catch y’all next Monday. Until then, go out there and manifest some miracles!
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