Just F*cking Do It

I remember the first time I fell in love. Like madly and completely in love. I was nine. I was at summer camp for two weeks, and this is where I learned my first lessons about love and me.

His name was Vinnie. He was eight and kind of round with dark hair, but something about him just lit me up. I remember the excitement of seeing him and the sadness I felt at parting.

More than all of that, I remember being ballsy. I had no fear when it came to expressing my feelings, and I was apparently a born romantic brainwashed by Disney from an incredibly young age.

I picked the perfect moment to deliver my Oscar-winning declaration, which took place towards the end of the two weeks, under water at the local leisure centre. I mean you can’t get much more romantic than that.

As I signalled for Vinnie to go under water next to the supersize multi-coloured inflatable, I held my breath and was poised as I lowered myself under the water. I began frantically pointing to my eyes, then led his gaze to where I was tapping my heart, which I followed with the finishing touch of pointing at him.

‘I LOVE YOU!’ I mouthed, and, boy, I did.

I honestly cannot remember what happened at that point. I want to say he did something similar back, but I have probably repressed the rejection with the pile of others I received in the years after. It didn’t last longer than the summer camp and I was only nine, but I never forgot about my first summer love affair.

He lived in a different town and there was no chance of us meeting again but I spent days and nights daydreaming about my first love. Three years later, I moved to a new house and it turned out to be in the same road as Vinnie’s.

A decade later, I met him again in a pub where, in a drunken stupor, he proudly related the story to all his friends about how I declared my undying love under water. The cringe factor was so unbearable, it almost took my breath away.

Maybe you will think this was one hell of a coincidence. However, there is also a strong possibility that, given what I will share in this chapter, you may begin to see the power of energy in action and how our thoughts give the Universe a heads-up in creating our physical reality. I am pretty sure that I ‘manifested’ my whole family moving to a new house so that I could be reunited with Vinnie. Oops. Sorry, Mum.

What the fuck is ‘manifesting’?

So, let me break this down for you, because understanding the principles behind manifesting is essential. When you manifest, you have brought into reality something that you once thought of.

This is called the Law of Attraction, and this, simply put, means that you can attract what you want into your life – because your thoughts can absolutely become your physical reality. It is a universal law, which means it works for everyone, all of the time, whether we are aware of it or not and we can’t be messing with laws! I remember how, when I was growing up, my mother would always tell me that I could do anything that I put my mind to. She was right, but there’s a whole dimension to it that I never really understood.

The Law of Attraction states that we can attract anything we want if we truly desire it. Everything in our physical world – our bodies, relationships, finances – is a direct reflection of our internal state and thoughts. Simply put, how you feel on the inside will mirror what you see on the outside. Your perception of the outer world is directly correlated to your internal world. What this means is that, whether we are conscious of it or not, we are responsible for bringing both positive and negative influences into our lives.

This isn’t some woo-woo nonsense. As humans, we rely so much on the notion that what we see with our eyes is reality that we can all be excused for not really appreciating what exists beyond that. There are many forms of energy waves within the electromagnetic spectrum – radio, light, sound, infrared, ultraviolet, gamma to name but a few. They exist all around us and can be measured with scientific instruments yet are invisible to the human eye. This means that we must open our minds to what we cannot see. Gravity is not visible, yet we can feel it holding us down to the ground. We can’t see electricity, but we know not to stick our fingers into a plug socket. Having faith in the Law of Attraction means having confidence in the invisible forces that are working tirelessly around us.

Take a moment to think about your physical world and everything tangible in it – cars, houses, people, a freezer full of Ben and Jerry’s – OK, maybe that’s just me. Before the car came the idea of the car. Before the house was built came the desire to build the house. Before Ben and Jerry made tubs of delicious, ridiculously high-calorie ice cream came the thought of building an ice cream empire. Everything that is now in the physical world started off as a thought, a daydream or a desire.

Of course, I’m not negating the fact that you need to take action. A car didn’t magically appear in a puff of smoke straight after the idea was conceived like some Harry Potter piece of wizardry. A business doesn’t automatically make a million dollars just because someone desired it and thought about it. Our physical bodies must take action alongside the non-physical Universal Intelligence. It’s this Universal Intelligence that is helping us along the way by providing us with the right opportunities and insights to bring our ideas to physical fruition with ease.

Once you have thought of something in your mind, the Universal Intelligence will use its energy to make it happen for you. If you have been fantasizing about a new partner in life, once that vision has been secured in your mind, the Universe will help create the circumstances in which you meet that person. If you can think about it, then it can always be manifested into physical reality. The idea has been given to you because it is meant for you. The desire has been given to you because it is meant for you. If you can see it in your mind, then you have the power to make it a reality. Isn’t that cool? But it’s crucial that you understand that, although thoughts are creative, not all thoughts are equally creative. Do you get everything you think about? No you don’t, and thank goodness. I mean, imagine if every thought of a teenage boy became reality – the world would be totally messed up!

Many of the thoughts people think never materialize, because they lack many of the ingredients necessary for turning them into physical reality. Most thoughts don’t possess enough strength to cause things to happen. There is not enough ambition, desire and belief behind them, and the thoughts are not repeated often enough to gain the power to cause movement in the energy. Whatever you put your attention to will grow as long as you are feeding lots of positive energy in its direction. Desire and attention give energy to the Law of Attraction, which then literally turns you into a magnet for your desires and transports all you want from the non-physical world of thought into the physical world.

Some things take longer for the Universe to orchestrate while some thoughts manifest quickly and easily even without much energy or focus. Have you ever thought about someone and then suddenly they telephoned out of the blue? Some may call this coincidence, chance or luck. But I believe it’s the Universe showing you that what you think can come to fruition.

So, what is the Universal Intelligence?

Physics shows us that the entire universe is the movement of energy and information, and at some level everything is made up of the same raw materials – carbon, oxygen and nitrogen.

Imagine a tomato. A beautiful, juicy red tomato. Where did it come from? Can I hear you saying, ‘a seed’? Well, if you went and got some of those seeds and rubbed them between your fingers for long enough, what would happen to them? They would disintegrate into dust. If you put that dust under a microscope, you wouldn’t see any magical tomato-growing molecules; you would just see the same atoms that we and every thing else are made of.

We are made of the same stuff as tomato seed dust, but something causes that dust to turn into beautiful yummy red tomatoes, a stupendous energy force. It’s the same energy force that takes our thoughts and turns them into physical reality. The same energy that makes our hair and nails grow and helps us to breathe every day. We take all this stuff so much for granted that we don’t stop to question how it actually happens.

Ultimately, we are made of the same stuff as a chair, a tree, the tomato and even that smelly stray sock you regularly find under your bed. Just lots of energy particles vibrating. It’s a revelation that blew my mind. So, in essence, we are all just walking, talking, thinking – and hopefully not stinking – socks. OK, I may have gone too far with that, but it made me chuckle.

The seed is the potential of a big tomato – it is the ‘idea’ behind the tomato. With good faith, we know that, if we plant that seed, water it and give it sun … boom, a tomato will appear! We don’t doubt that the seed will turn into a tomato. We have a belief that it will grow, even if we have never asked ourselves what actually causes it to grow. Well, that incredible force of power is the formless energy and the intelligence behind life, referred to as many different things in different hoods – the Source, God, Mother Nature, the Motherload, Allah, the Goddess or the Life Force.

They all refer to the same thing, a powerful-as-fuck energy that turns ideas into reality. I refer to this invisible force as the Universe throughout this book. The Universe is taking our mental pictures and helping us turn them into our perfect jobs, dream cars, Mulberry handbags and ideal partners. Having faith in this invisible force of nature will help you transform your life more quickly then you ever would have otherwise because it gives you the comfort of knowing that you don’t have to go on the journey alone and that you can deliberately co-create your life. So, as you can see, the long and short of manifestation is energy.

Whether you like it or not, believe it or not, this energy is always working in the background. Whether you are trying to lose weight, find the love of your life or make more money, there are tangible, practical ways you can change your mindset from a psychological perspective to make this happen, and I will be sharing these all with you throughout this book. However, having the knowledge that you can create what you want, if you truly want it, and design a life of your dreams is pretty amazing.

So, how the heck do you manifest what you want?

Let me start by saying that, although there are some clear steps to deliberately creating your life (aka manifesting), it’s also a process that is natural for us – once you have been through this whole book and have begun to unleash your potential, you will find that manifesting becomes more natural and less a step-by-step procedure.

I once heard an explanation that really illustrated this well. Let’s say that you went to a school as a child where you learned about manifesting and the notion of manifesting became so normal that you didn’t even question it. The belief was supported by your parents, your teachers and your peers, and therefore you knew that, if you desired something and took action, it would be yours. Your beliefs would be different and your outlook on life would be dramatically different.

The first step to manifesting is to decide what you really want. Chapter 3 will be all about goal setting and will help you craft your ideal life. The second step is to decide that it’s done, which means having complete faith in the Law of Attraction. This is the hard part, as your brain will fight you on this, because you didn’t in fact go to the school of manifesting, so you need to train your mind and reprogram it to believe it. Expectation is a powerful force because it gives you the confidence that you can create the life you desire. The more you see things happening in your life and the more you witness your thoughts manifesting, this will start giving you the confidence and helping you believe that this shizzle is, in fact, very real.

In the JFDI! task at the end of Chapter 1, I told you for 24 hours to expect the Universe to give you a gift, with the same level of expectation that your food would arrive at a restaurant. Imagine you did go to that school where manifesting was drummed into you. As you make your way through this book and start seeing things change, your faith in the power of manifesting will increase and your ‘faith muscle’ will get stronger. Instead of questioning whether the outcome will come to fruition, you will take inspired action in the full knowledge and expectation that the outcome will be yours.

We will cover what ‘inspired action’ means later on, too. In order for you to take inspired action, you need to understand what deep-rooted beliefs you have that are in conflict with what you desire, and how to reprogram them. (We will tackle this very soon.)

Being a vibrational master – how to stay tuned to UniverseFM

One of the most important pieces of the puzzle, so that we can manifest like a mofo, is taking control of how we feel. The way you feel gives off a vibration. Have you ever referred to someone as ‘high vibe’ or ‘low vibe’? Well, as humans we can literally feel the vibrations of those around us. When we feel joy, love, freedom, gratitude and passion we literally vibrate at a higher frequency, and when we feel fear, depression, grief, insecurity and guilt we vibrate at a much lower frequency.

In order to manifest, we need to be in vibrational alignment with the Universe. To know for sure whether we are in alignment and whether the vibration we are putting out is attracting what we want, not pushing it away, we need to pay close attention to how we feel.

Imagine owning a radio and UniverseFM being the channel you need to be tuned in to in order to manifest. UniverseFM has a high vibrational frequency. In general, when we feel good, we are in ‘attraction’ mode and tuned in to UniverseFM, and when we feel bad, we are tuned in to a frequency of lack – let’s call this ShitFM. The better we feel, the more open we are for our desires to come to us easily. Simply stated, our emotions are the biggest indicator of whether we are in alignment.

Have you ever noticed that some people seem to have it all and are so ‘lucky’ because they keep just getting more and more amazing stuff? Conversely, cast your mind back to one of those days where one thing after another kept going wrong. There is no such thing as coincidence. It is all down to your energy creating everything that your mind is vibrationally putting out there, and that is exactly how the Law of Attraction works.

Let’s step away from energy and look at this from a psychological perspective. If you desire something, feeling happy and energized and in the ‘right frame of mind’ is going to help you take action towards getting it. Numerous academic studies show that happy individuals are successful across multiple areas of their life including marriage, friendship, income, work performance and health. Psychologists also argue that the happiness–success link exists not only because success makes people happy, but also because a positive disposition fuels success.

Once upon a time, when I first stumbled across the Law of Attraction, I was willing to believe anything despite my cynical mindset at that time. I tried to manifest £100k but didn’t realize that there is a process to activating the Law of Attraction that one must follow. I just sat on my arse eating tortilla chips wondering why, as soon as it became apparent that the £100k wasn’t coming my way, the Universe hated me. The reality is, I wasn’t in the right of frame of mind; I was firmly tuned in to ShitFM. I was never going to attract anything (or do anything to make that £100k) when my energy was so low vibe and so I quickly pooh-poohed the whole concept.

Managing your energy is the number-one rule of manifesting our desires, and this is one of the hardest things for us as humans to do. Why? Because for so long we have been letting our overly conditioned subconscious run the show and are too easily influenced by what is going on around us in the physical world rather than tapping into our highest potential. Our emotions are often a by-product of the situations happening around us, the impact of other humans on us and our subconscious limiting our thought patterns.

So how do we start changing our energy so that we are constantly tuned in to UniverseFM? How do we stay happy and joyful and high energy all the time? Well, look, we are humans and I am realistic; sometimes things happen that just piss us off, like getting a parking ticket, or disagreeing with the mother-in-law (again). But, seriously, there are ways to manage our energy so that we can bounce back quickly if we do accidentally find ourselves tuned in to ShitFM and belting out a tune to ‘crap, crap, crap’. And sometimes, really bad things do happen in our lives that knock us for six and then we spiral into a low-vibe state.

It’s your job, however, to become super-conscious of yourself (this book will help you do that) so that even in those moments when you feel anger, rage, jealousy, envy or any other negative emotion creep up, you know how to quickly shift your energy back to a positive state. This doesn’t mean repressing or ignoring negative emotions. They are just as important in our lives as positive ones as they provide us with valuable data. We need to feel the full range of what is going on internally for two reasons:

1 When we feel down or frustrated or going through something challenging, we can use that as a marker for what we don’t want. How many success stories have you heard where there’s a rags-to-riches theme? It often takes someone to hit rock bottom before they can feel a whole-hearted desire to make a huge change.

2 When we go through difficult times in our lives, it shows us where we need to grow more resilience, confidence and gusto. It gives us the opportunity to see if we are playing the victim.

Understand this: pain is physical, but suffering is mental, and that even in the worst times of our lives, we always have a choice to think differently. Being positive isn’t mumbo-jumbo – we really can choose to see every situation through a different lens, one with a solution.

I know that my dreams and desires rely on me staying high-vibe and I have turned achieving this into an art form. And I want you to make this an art, too. Vibrational mastery will be your new hobby – after all, knitting is so 2011. By the time you have finished this book, you will have all the tools of the perfect vibrational master, and you will be something akin to a superhero. And although I know that, however much I dream of it, I won’t ever be able to fly without the aid of some as yet un-invented jetpack, I do believe that we humans can achieve a level of vibrational mastery that allows us to manifest some crazy stuff.

So how do we become masters of vibration and tap into attracting what we want like a magician? (And just for the record, I finally did manifest that £100k in one month – this stuff really does work.)

Clear your connection

The first step is that I want you to imagine a tunnel of light that goes straight up from the top of your head towards a big ball of yellow energy. (Have you ever done that in a yoga class?) That big ball of yellow energy is the centre of the Universe. Well, that tunnel of light needs to be a bright white for us to be able to manifest what we want. And I hate to break this to you, for so many people it is black – yes, black! However, in most cases, while black is my colour of choice for outerwear, when it comes to my connection to the Universe, it needs to be bright, bright white.

That blackness arises out of years of conditioning, comparing, judging, criticizing and complaining. Hands up if you’re guilty! Heck, we all are, and if you are there shaking your head, then you may as well give up right now on this transforming-your-life malarkey because being honest with yourself is step numero uno. Your job is to clear out that tunnel so you can have a direct, clear, efficient access to the Universe that allows you to manifest your deepest desires.

So how do we clear up our connection to the Universe? Well, we need to understand a few things going on inside us that have corroded the tunnel and turned it black. Let’s start with the fact that, even though we are one person, we have different levels of operating.

Firstly, as I have explained earlier in the book, we can operate from a conscious level and from a subconscious level. And scarily, over 80 per cent of what we do comes from the subconscious. The brain conserves energy by ‘automating’ our day-to-day processes and thinking. Remember, our brain is simply an organ that acts like a computer, storing and processing data.

Secondly we can operate from a place of Ego or from a place of Higher Wisdom, or what I will refer to as Soul. I am going to keep this explanation of Ego in its most simplistic form and purely from a spiritual rather than psychological perspective. The Ego is the ‘thought’ part of you, and its voice is made up of society’s conditioning and past experiences. Its default state has evolved to being fear, and more often than not our Ego voice becomes rooted in irrationality. The Ego creates an illusion based on your human experiences and negates the fact that there is a part of you that isn’t rooted in the physical world. As we go through life, we believe its voice to be the truth because it is the loudest in our mind. The description given by Sogyal Rinpoche in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is a brilliant explanation: ‘Two people have been living in you all of your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to.’

Back when I was at university I lived in a student house with my best friend. She made me laugh, always made me feel good about myself and loved me just for who I was. We decided to get a new housemate, and someone we knew jumped at the chance to live with us. But things took a turn for the worse pretty quickly. The new housemate was negative and always seemed to focus on the worst aspect of things. She lowered the vibe and we always felt on edge around her.

We used to chip in for obligatory household things like toilet paper. On one particular occasion, this obnoxious housemate made some pretty serious allegations about my best friend’s excessive use of toilet paper. She accused her of using too much and insisted that she cut down to just one or two sheets per session! Of course, we found this hilarious that our housemate had such a scarcity mindset that loo roll rationing became a thing in our house. However, her constant irrational demands made us feel like we had to go around treading on eggshells.

Ego is the loo-paper police in full action! The Ego has you running from pillar to post convincing you that happiness is to be found elsewhere outside of you. It likes to talk about wanting material things and will convince you that going out and acquiring material objects will bring you happiness. Ironically, once you have acquired the ‘stuff’ it will then then tell you it isn't enough. It will often also consider the worst-case scenario, look to blame others for personal unhappiness, and judge all those around. The Ego voice always likes to be right, hates being questioned and loves to feel victimized. The Ego convinces you to be selfish and only look out for yourself because life – according to the Ego – is for working, suffering and then dying. It has you running around life like a headless chicken on a mission for success that it has no intention of letting you complete. The Ego will tell you that nobody likes you, that you aren’t good-looking enough and that your bottom is too big. In short, it’s a bit of an asshole.

At this level of being, we simply go through life with our thoughts guiding us on autopilot without ever questioning what our real purpose is or truly tapping into our true potential.

We must transcend this rudimentary level of living if we are to feel true happiness and manifest our dream life. At the next level, we become conscious and we start to realize that thoughts are just thoughts, just data being pushed out of our brain (which is an operating system), and that we can change our thoughts at any given second, if we start to become aware of them. This then allows us to start running from a very different level, the level of Soul.

The majority of people are on the Ego setting and my job is to help you flip the switch to the Soul setting. At this level, you begin to realize that you are connected to the Universal Intelligence and you have the power to manifest. When your Soul switch is flicked on, instead of going through life with fear, you begin to recognize that you have unbounded potential and life is full of limitless possibilities. Your Soul, if you like, is the divine part of you that is connected with the Universe. It’s there to look after you spiritually and emotionally, and often communicates without words. While the Ego voice is strong and authoritative in your mind, the voice of your Soul ‘speaks’ more softly and quietly. It may often communicate in subtle ways at first but can also become persistent or nagging. When you are connected to this divine part of you, everything seems to make sense and there is a feeling of inner knowledge. Soul sees life only through the lens of love and is proudly opting to go through life with a spangly pair of rose-tinted glasses.

Your Soul knows that you are amazing even without any of the material things that the Ego wants you to work your butt off for. It gently hugs you and nudges you with intuition and inspiration to let you know that your ideas matter and that you have big things to do on this planet and it will guide you with your best interests at heart.

For much of your life, the Ego, like that obnoxious housemate, has made all the noise and has had you going through life on eggshells. As you grow older, your Ego becomes stronger and an even bigger loudmouth. It dampens out the voice of your Soul.

In order to clear that blackened tunnel and reignite your connection to the Universe, you need to become totally aware and determine who is running the show at any given moment in your life. There is a constant battle between Ego and Soul, but once you move on to a level of conscious awareness (something most humans never ever do), your life will regain an incredible sense of power.

When our lives are led under the leadership and guidance of our Soul, our energy will automatically skyrocket. We learn to stop judging, comparing, criticizing and start loving, forgiving, being grateful and living with joy. When ruled by the Ego you will swear at the dude who cuts you up on the road instead of letting him pass with a smile, knowing that a moment longer waiting doesn’t matter. The Ego will be forever telling you stories of how you aren’t ever going to be a success (so don’t bother with that new venture!), yet your Soul, just like your best friend, will keep nudging you with inspiration the whole way and cheer you along the journey. When you lead your life with love, you are leading from your Soul. When you lead it through fear, that’s Ego’s bullshit.

People often ask me how I have manifested such amazing things, and I will be sharing the exact process of how I myself changed throughout the book, but it all started with my becoming aware of my thoughts and choosing to lead with love and to ignore that pesky, menacing Ego. Once you start recognizing who is running the show, you can begin adjusting your energy to ensure that you are running on the high-vibe energy of love. I began to observe my thoughts and realized that I could choose to change them at any given moment. Humans are lucky because we are capable of training our minds so that we become consciously aware of the energy and information that we want to create or un-create in our lives. We are energy: everything we manifest is just energy.

But let me tell you, changing things can feel really hard. Changing our mindset, becoming acutely aware of our thoughts and actions, is probably one of the most difficult things we can do, but it is the secret to unlocking the power of long-lasting transformation and allowing happiness to infiltrate our lives. I know now that by eliminating hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness and cynicism, and by developing a love for even the most annoying person, and most importantly, for myself, I can achieve what I want because this is me tuning in to UniverseFM.

I know that a negative attitude towards others can never bring me the success I desire, and I want that success. The question is: how much do you want it?

Let’s say you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, moaning that it’s Monday morning and that you have to take your booty back to the job you hate. This immediately puts you in a bad mood. This energy is not conducive to attaining anything you want in life as it is low frequency – you’ve tuned in to ShitFM, but at that moment you have the choice to change it. You can put some Beyoncé on, dance around the room like a looney, and remind yourself that you are amazing and have the power to change your life. By changing your thoughts, you change your emotions, which in turn shifts your energy and guides your actions. Now you can focus on your 9–5 escape plan instead of dwelling on the situation you are in right now.

As you can see, changing your mindset is crucial if you are to activate the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction encourages you to see that you have the freedom to take control of how your future develops, shaping it in the ways you choose. That is pretty exciting stuff.

But whether you totally buy into it or not, in essence, the big message here is that, when we feel good, we can make so much more happen in our lives. When we choose to stop seeing life through a negative lens, we open up a world of possibility. And the crux of this is, you can choose. You can choose to think differently and feel differently. What this means for you is that you can have total control of your life, if you want it. That you no longer need to have any sort of belief that you are stuck where you are or destined for a life that is run by your childhood conditioning.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

• When you manifest, you have brought into reality something that you once thought of.

• In order to manifest you must be tuned in to UniverseFM and vibrating at a high frequency.

• In order to be ‘high vibe’ you must be aware of how you feel and learn to control it.

• Ego is the fear-based part of you that has been created from childhood conditioning.

• Your Soul is the loving and powerful part of you that is directly connected to the Universal Intelligence.

JFDI!

Role-playing with the Universe

This is a hack to changing your energy. When you can tune in to the energy of the biggest bad-assed version of yourself, you can shift your vibration. The quickest way to manifest is to make sure that your energy is now in alignment with that of UniverseFM even if your situation doesn’t quite match your desired reality. Thinking and acting in accordance with your future instead of your current reality may seem mind-boggling but will immediately teach you how to think about things differently.

Take a moment to imagine yourself ten years down the line with everything you desire: the money, the partner of your dreams (or living the singleton life), a fit and toned healthy body with no illness, a family that loves you, friendships that fulfil you, and let’s throw in a private jet for good measure.

I want you to imagine yourself as really, really happy, feeling emotionally, mentally and physically fulfilled. That ‘future self’ you can see in your mind will be vibrating at a really high frequency because it is the best, happiest, most fulfilled version of yourself. Feel the energy inside you shift as you see yourself in your mind’s eye stepping into your biggest life.

Now write down five things you would feel, five things you would believe and five things you would think if it was done, if you were the person you dream of becoming. You can use the note section at the end of this book to write this down.

That is the vibration you need to bring into everyday life.

You can hack your manifesting by summoning those five feelings, five beliefs and five thoughts into the present moment. When you do, you will become a magnet for the positive energies of the Universe, helping you to realize your ideal future self.