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In this blog post I explore what it means to get curious, internally, and externally. I talk about why this is so powerful, yet often forgotten about. I also give you tips and exercises to get curious without judgment and how you can expand your curiosity. But first, let me share a little background on Internal Family Systems and manifestation, my method to manifestation. You can always skip over this part if you would like!
Introduction to Manifestation with Internal Family Systems (IFS)
There are so many ways one can manifest. And I am not saying those other ways or methods are wrong, I am just saying that those methods might not work for everyone. We are all unique and need different ways to obtain the same goals or dreams that we are manifesting. My method of manifestation uses Internal Family Systems (IFS).
Unlike other manifestation methods that often dismiss, invalidate, or dismiss any emotions that aren’t positive, this one focuses on addressing the subconscious blocks (those uncomfortable emotions) that get in the way of manifesting. IFS also focuses on bringing us into alignment with our True Self, to become Self-Led, and connected to the Universe. This is how you manifest your most amazing life! But first…
What is Manifestation?
Manifestation is the process of transforming your desires and ideas into reality. It is based on the belief that the Universe is constantly giving you what you focus on, so by focusing on your desires, through intentional actions, you can manifest them into your life.
And for manifestation to work we must believe in ourselves. And really truly believe it to our core. We must believe that we can have what we desire.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
I view the world through the lens of Internal Family Systems (it’s the therapist in me!). I believe IFS not only works in a therapeutic setting but also within manifestation.
According to IFS, we are composed of many parts, aspects of our personality, and our True Self. Our parts and True Self work together. True Self is what connects us to the Universe, it is our higher self, our authentic self. Our parts are what make us human. However, our parts can also take on new jobs and roles based on our experiences. Particularly in childhood/adolescence. IFS helps us connect with these parts of us building relationships and trust within our internal world. No longer having that internal struggle, being pulled in many directions, or second guessing ourselves or our abilities. IFS brings healing and harmony to our internal system, just the way it was intended to be.
The Importance of Self-Worth
You probably have seen so many people manifesting successfully, and you don’t get how that is happening. Maybe because they aren’t “good” people. This is the thing. It’s not about good or bad when it comes to self-worth, people can be selfish, self-righteous, unkind, but they believe in themselves. They have high self-worth.
The secret to manifestation is being in our worth.
This is fundamental. This is the key to manifesting. And it’s not talked about enough. It’s bypassed so often with an unspoken assumption that we are in our worth.
Unfortunately, there are subconscious reasons why we don’t feel worthy of what we are trying to manifest. These are the past programming conditioning, and limiting beliefs that our parts are holding onto.
Addressing Subconscious Blocks
To manifest effectively, we need to delve into our subconscious minds, get to the root of those blocks. Those reasons we are not manifesting the things we desire. Positive thinking is helpful but not enough to create profound shifts. This is because positive thinking is done on a conscious level. Our blocks are in our subconscious. Once we work through these blocks instead of ignoring, avoiding, or dismissing them, then we can use positive thinking. Then it won’t feel like there is something inside fighting us or not believing us. Real manifestation happens once we are in our worth; by addressing the root of our thoughts and feelings, we unlock the incredible potential to manifest our dreams into reality. This is where Internal Family Systems comes in.
Understanding Our Parts
Our parts take on new roles and jobs as a way to protect us, keep us and our internal system safe. Even if it doesn’t seem like it’s the best thing to do, especially as our experiences change. These parts of us are so impacted by our experiences, they internalize them often leading to programming, conditioning, limiting beliefs, negative self-talk, unhealthy behaviors, and ultimately low self-worth. Remember-we must be in our worth to manifest.
Often times, our parts take over. They blend with our True Self, and we are then only operating from a place of past programming, conditioning, and limiting beliefs. This is not the place we want to be when we are trying to manifest!
Using principles of IFS, we learn how to align with our True Self, connect with our parts, and build trusting relationships within the system. By building that trust and relationship, the parts learn that it is safe to allow our True Self to take the lead. We can also work with these parts holding the past programming, conditioning, and limiting beliefs, so they can begin to heal, let go, and feel safe. This is where the magic happens!
Connecting with Your True Self
True Self, also known as our authentic self or higher self, is our intuitive guide. When we are in True Self, we are open to the Universe and can receive what it offers. Accessing True Self energy means being present, connected to our bodies, and aligned with the creative consciousness of the Universe.
Knowing you’re in True Self involves experiencing at least one of the 8 C’s: compassion, curiosity, clarity, creativity, calm, confidence, courage, and connectedness. In other words, are you feeling open? These qualities signify that you are aligned with your True Self and ready to co-create the life you desire with the Universe. Being in True Self energy is also how we connect with our parts.
Curiosity can help us not just with things outside of ourselves but also with what’s going on inside too. Often, we get stuck in loops and patterns based on past programming, conditioning, and limiting beliefs. But if we can become curious about these things, without judgment, we become open to our internal world like never before.
When we become curious, we can see these loops and patterns and can break cycles that have kept us stuck, disconnected, and unable to manifest.
Becoming Self-Led
The more we go inward, talk to our parts, build a relationship, the more we become Self-led. The more we become Self-led, the more we are opening ourselves up to the Universe. We feel inherently worthy, deserving, of what we are trying to manifest. This is because the parts are no longer jumping in based on what happened in the past. Instead, they feel safe and secure to let our True Self take the lead.
This creates internal harmony and opens us up to the Universe. By working with our parts, we can heal from past programming and limiting beliefs, making space for our manifestations to flow in.
My Theory on Manifesting Negative Things
Before I go into the topic today, I wanted to go a little more in depth on something I discussed in the last episode. I talked about a theory I’ve been working on around manifesting bad things by thinking negatively. I said that the negative thinking is coming from a part and not True Self. if you are not in alignment with your True Self and the Universe, how are you able to manifest?
I’ve been thinking more about this, hence the idea of a working theory. And something popped into my head. It can feel like we are manifesting bad things but in reality, what this is, is patterns, cycles, and loops, based on past programming and conditioning. If you are conditioned to believe that you are undeserving of love, then you are going to subconsciously sabotage relationships maybe by not pursuing a certain person because you think they are out of their league. Or if the only relationships that you’ve witnessed were ones that were unloving, fighting, unhealthy, subconsciously you are going to be more pulled to this type of relationship. It is not that you manifested it. It is that some of the parts only know this and feel comfortable in this space.
So again, it’s not manifestation, it is a subconscious pattern continuing to be played out. And subconscious is the point of this. When it is subconscious, we are not doing it deliberately.
This is why awareness of our patterns and cycles go a long way to stopping them.
With self-awareness, we can make conscious choices not to engage the way we previously have. I know it is easier said than done.
Getting Curious
This is why I wanted to talk about getting curious. Finding curiosity with who you are, what you do, asking yourself why. Without judgment. Without criticism. Instead, being a neutral observer. Someone that is impartial, has no personal preferences, or no judgments.
If this seems a little difficult, a great way to begin is to try to be a neutral observer in all areas of life not just towards yourself.
A great exercise to practice this is to look around your environment and describe it. Without judgment words. For instance, I see white walls, clothes hanging on white clothes racks. I see the window with a blue sky and some clouds. If you don’t know, I record these podcasts in my dressing room. It’s small and the clothes muffle so there isn’t an echo or added noise.
Notice I didn’t say, I see white walls and there’s a smudge over there on one, I should really clean that. And oh those clothes hanging up look like crap and should be rehung.
When we use judgment words it makes us feel some type of way. But when we are a neutral observer, we are just that, neutral.
Practicing this exercise begins to shift your brain’s perception of what you are wanting it to focus on, neutrally observing instead of judgment.
Be a Neutral Observer
Then you can turn inward. Begin reflecting on your day. This can be done in the evenings or before bed. Journaling this is great. Then you can follow patterns. This is not the time to berate yourself for something you said or relive a conversation a million times while getting down on yourself because you thought you were too mean, or the tone was off, or if the other person is mad at you. And this is something I hear again and again over the years from clients. So, I know this happens often, we want to end this. No more nitpicking and beating yourself up.
Instead, you are going to be a neutral observer and then get curious about it.
Getting curious also doesn’t mean getting on yourself for an interaction or situation that happened in the day. Getting curious is following a thread so that you can get to know and understand yourself better.
As you reflect, you can notice that an interaction you had with someone earlier in the day brings up feeling maybe uncomfortable, anxious, shame, guilt. All of these are parts. They are trying to tell you something. By getting curious you are unblending from the part so that you are seeing things through the lens of True Self you. Being able to respond to these feelings with “huh, that’s interesting. I wonder why that’s coming up?” Just ask, and listen, write down what pops up.
Follow the Thread
An example of this could be, say you texted a friend, hours go by with no response. Some people can think that they are probably busy and will respond when they can, no big deal. However, someone else might think, “are they mad at me?”. “Did I do something wrong”. This is what you pay attention to. Notice what emotions are coming up, body sensations, this is how you can tell that a part is activated.
This could play out in different ways, you could continue to be anxious, worried, reliving every past conversation and text exchange you had the past month to see if something was said that resulted in this friend being mad therefore not texting back. Or you could have another part that berates this part that is worried maybe some tough love from the inner critic. Or you could take a breath, and just notice it all and get curious about it.
We want to just ask why it is coming up and follow the thread. Continue to be curious and explore. This is giving you so much information as to what happens internally when external things activate your parts. And as you do this, and you journal you are in essence mapping out your parts.
Getting Curious Outside of Yourself
This is one way to get curious as a way to tune into True Self and identify parts being activated. Getting curious in other ways can help you get into True Self as well.
And that is just to get curious about the world around you. Do you remember a time when you were a kid, and everything seemed new? You explored, you played, you tried new things out, asked questions, built things out of boxes or Legos or play doh. You painted or drew. Now this is also getting into creativity. But I think they go hand in hand.
I remember as a kid my curiosity was endless. This was before the internet when you had to ask everyone questions, spent hours at the library looking things, discovering new ideas, new things.
Young Me
When I was young, I was curious about so many things. We usually are when we are kids. Everything can seem new and magical. You just want to figure it all out! Some of my curiosity took form with building tree houses. Growing up I lived near railroad tracks (Molly Ringwald’s character in Pretty in Pink and the whole “wrong side of the tracks” really resonated with me). By those tracks were trees, not just any trees, but trees that you could easily build a tree house in with their thick and crooked tree limbs.
So, that’s what my friends and I did. We built tree houses. This fed my curiosity to explore. I got curious about the limbs and if they could hold the weight of us all. And curiosity to rebuild when it would inevitably get torn down by the railroad company. My curiosity didn’t waiver even after stepping on a nail and having to eventually get a tetanus shot!
That is until I started hearing things like my questions were “dumb”, or was told “why do you need to know that?”. Looking back now, I don’t think they knew the answers and instead of saying, “I don’t know”, people would become defensive. Which made me start to second guess myself.
Why We Lose Curiosity
After a while, I stopped asking. I became too anxious to ask anything, even in classes out of fear of looking dumb. Since that is what I internalized. As time went on my curiosity sprouted up but would get shut down again. This time by my parts trying to protect a young vulnerable part from being hurt when all she wanted was to quench her curiosity. That hurt part was always inside wanting to ask questions. Wanted to know all the things, wanted to understand.
These protector parts were afraid of that hurt that vulnerable part felt, diligently trying to do what they can to prevent feeling that hurt again. Because of this, I stopped trying new things, exploring, and getting out of my comfort zone. I was stuck, I felt stagnant. I was just going through the motions of life.
That is until I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided I no longer had any fucks to give. I realized it wasn’t dumb to ask questions. It wasn’t ridiculous to be curious about things and further explore them to see where they take me. I wouldn’t be here now if I continued to stifle my curiosity. It took years before I became confident enough to ask questions. To allow that curiosity to see the light of day. But when I did, it was glorious!
My Path
I think that’s a big reason I became a therapist. I wanted to understand how people thought, why they behaved the way they did, why they hurt others, why they would tell a kid that their questions were dumb. Spoiler alert, it’s all past programming, conditioning, their own limiting beliefs, and traumas.
Our curiosity can end for so many reasons, it can be like mine with not having supportive role models in my life at a young age, it can be because of other factors from caregivers, societal pressures, and norms. I used to joke that it was a luxury to be curious. To philosophize about life. Who had time for that? Especially women when we are trying to do all the things. But you know what? We need it. We need curiosity and wonder. That is how we connect to our True Self (curiosity is one of the 8 C’s of True Self). If we don’t get curious, we are denying ourselves this amazing experience beyond our own world.
Masculine and Feminine Energies
I’ve been hearing so often lately about masculine and feminine energy. So much so that I am taking it as a sign from the Universe to further tune into it. Masculine and feminine energy has nothing to do with sex, gender. Everyone has both of these energies. It also doesn’t mean that masculine is aggressive and feminine is passive either. It’s considered the balance, like yin and yang. Masculine energy is explained as Doing, Feminine energy is Being. Open to receive.
The thing is, in our culture, masculine energy is revered. We are always doing. On the go. We aren’t just being. We aren’t allowed to pause, take a break and just be for some time. But we need to be able to do this. This is how we become one with the Universe. The being is how we tap into our intuition, how we get curious, how we are inspired to create. All of that gets shut down if all we are doing is doing.
However, I said that it was a balance, the masculine energy can support the feminine energy. I heard this recently somewhere and if I remember where, I will be sure to add it. But someone said we get inspired when in feminine energy, this is where we can dream, manifest, then the masculine energy can come in and help us actualize this vision. So, we need time to be curious.
If you’re feeling like you are missing that wonder and curiosity, you might be asking, how do I get it back? Or even how do I engage in it more often?
How to Get Curious
You have to prioritize it. I am all for micro acts. I love micro skills. Anything that I can do quickly that has a big impact. No matter what, at this moment, I know that I won’t take hours to just sit and ponder life, not saying that you can’t and that I won’t eventually, just not right this moment.
Instead, I prefer to meet myself where I am at and do small things. Ask myself questions, or when I get an intuitive hit that I should be curious about, I put it in my notes app to explore later, then I allow myself a little bit of time to do it. I give myself permission to let other things be paused and enjoy these moments of wonder. It’s hard, even for me. The struggle is real. But it is something that I am prioritizing, and I invite you all to do the same.
So I ask you, what is something that you have been curious about that you’ve put off? What is something that brings you wonder and awe. It can be something as simple as sitting outside and watching nature. I love watching birds, squirrels, sometimes rabbits, raccoons, and once a deer, in my yard. I also love getting curious about trying new creative things, which right there brings in both curiosity and creativeness-2 of the 8 C’s of True Self. For the past year or so, I’ve been weaving. I make these awesome fiber art wall hangings. I get curious about color combinations and textures of the fibers I use. And the entire process is creative. I also love interior design, so I am online a lot looking at that as well as how to refurbish furniture, which I also enjoy doing.
What Inspires Your Curiosity?
So, what’s something you’ve always wanted to do? Is there a hobby? A place to go? Maybe learn a language? Read a different book? Take a class? Join a group or community? What is one step you can take right now to begin embodying curiosity, without judgment? Try it out and see how it goes. If it doesn’t work out, try something new. I’ve tried a million things; you never know if you don’t try. Being curious doesn’t mean you have to stick with something either if it’s ultimately not for you.
I hope this episode inspired you all to be more curious about not only your internal world but getting curious about everything. Don’t forget when turning inward be a neutral observer, no judgment. And as a matter of fact, no judgment on things you want to get curious and explore at all. Let yourself just BE. Thank you all for listening. See you next time!
How To Manifest Without the Self-Sabotage
I want to give a quick reminder to everyone about my E-course that is available, How to Manifest Without the Self-Sabotage. This course uses Internal Family Systems/Parts Work techniques to guide you into tapping into your True Self energy and explore and work with the parts of you that are blocking or sabotaging your manifestations. This is the foundation of how to manifest without the spiritual bypassing, positive thinking only jargon that often just invalidates our parts. By doing this work, you build your self-worth because you learn how to unblend from those parts that are hyper critical, have high expectations, or focused mainly on others instead of on yourself. You gain awareness and understanding of your internal world, why your parts are doing what they do, and how to align with your authentic, True Self, so you can align with the Universe and manifest!
This course includes a video, guided meditation, worksheets, workbook, and infographics, that can be used over and over again with your parts! The link is in the show notes, and you can also find it right on the website, trueselfmanifestation.com. Go check it out. It will change your world!
Links
How to Manifest Without the Self-Sabotage E-Course.
Free Guide How to Tap Into Your Intuition
Find True Self Manifestation here.
Free Quiz- Are Limiting Beliefs Blocking Your Manifestations?
Read the blog here.
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Email: angel@trueselfmanifestation.com
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