Transcript

Brian
Hi and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy Podcast. Ani, how are you?

Ani
I’m good. How are you today?

Brian
Oh, so good.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
I’m great. So excited.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
Ready to podcast.

Ani
Okay, let’s do it.

Brian
I love podcasting.

Ani
It’s great.

Brian
I love all things podcasting.

Ani
Great. Why? What’s going on?

Brian
I just do. Okay. Conversations, connecting, sharing, listening.

Ani
Love it. You’ve got so much enthusiasm.

Brian
All good stuff.

Ani
It’s great.

Brian
Yep.

Ani
Well, let’s go.

Brian
We’re storying today.

Ani
We are storying today.

Brian
We’re doing some case studies today that, um, we talk about in the Manifestation for Dummies book.

Ani
Yeah. And hey, if you haven’t pre-ordered your copy of Manifestation for Dummies, you can go to our website, somaticcoachingacademy.com, and do that. One of the bonuses that get when you go to our website and order the book is an event that we have coming up on July 1st, 2026, where we will actually be sharing even more case studies. We’re going to have people join us, um, so you’ll actually hear from the people who are doing the manifesting themselves. So, uh, that event is Manifestation in Motion: Real Stories, Real Results. You’ll get an opportunity to spend some time with us, hear manifestation stories, and we’ll be able to like look at them and look at of the aspects of the manifestation as they happen. It’s going to be really fun. So you get a ticket to that when you purchase your copy, pre-order your copy of Manifestation for Dummies, and go to our site and make sure that you get your bonuses. So this is just a little preview of that today.

Brian
Yeah, a little sampler, little teaser of some case studies that will help your manifestation process as well. I was think about when I started diving into the ideas of conscious creation, manifestation, creating the life that I wanted, it was really helpful to just hear stories and examples of what other people, not only the inspiring results that they got in their life. I mean, I think there’s a lot of value in that. And when you hear an inspiring story and like, oh my God, that sounds so incredible. I’d love to be able to get that result also. But, but what I really liked was also kind of looking at the mechanics of, What decisions did they make? What choices did they make? What mindsets did they have? All those kinds of things in terms of helping them to create what they had intended to create. I always thought that was really fascinating too.

Ani
I like to hear the stories because I like to know what I’m in for.

Brian
Mm.

Ani
So like you were saying, it’s not— I mean, the aspirational quality of it’s one thing, but I also like, I want to hear like all the, all the tea, like all the stuff about the story. I don’t just want to hear, I went from 0 to 60 and yay. Like, I want to hear what happened in the middle. Because I don’t know, maybe that’s part of my female hypervigilance conditioning happening. But like, I want to know like what I’m in for as a part of the process. And maybe so that I can see things as they’re coming down my own path or have a, like, maybe an easier process with it when it’s happening with me. Yeah, I just like to like hear about stuff ahead of time.

Brian
Hmm, that’s interesting. Yeah, it’s fascinating.

Ani
What are you thinking about?

Brian
No, I’m kind of just smirking a little bit because I’m hearkening back to my mountaineering days, you know, mountaineering and rock climbing days. And part of the inspirational stories that people would share when I would go to listen to talks from like famous climbers or climbers who had, let’s just say, experiences in the mountains.

Ani
Like scary stuff?

Brian
Who could be called incidences. And like of suffering and that kind of stuff. And I would— that was really compelling to me.

Ani
That was compelling.

Brian
Yeah. They’re like, wow, there was suffering on that mountain. Like, I want to experience that. What’s that like to like, oh my gosh, caught in the dark or like in a lightning storm or be freezing? And I always like, I just wanted to know what that experience was like. And I always felt like, wow, like what a transformational thing that happens when you, when you have that kind of experience. And I don’t know, is that what you were listening for when you want to hear all the details?

Ani
Well, I mean, part of it, although when I’m listening to you say that, I think part of it’s like, you know, you have— you ever like listen to a really juicy story? And maybe, maybe you and I do not share this idea. So for me, I was just curious what you were listening for. When I’m like reading a good book or whatever, I’m like, oh, I wonder what’s gonna happen next. Or it’s almost like if you pass an ambulance on the highway, you kind of gotta look and see what happened. Like there’s some kind of like draw to human drama that kind of goes on. There’s like that draw to human drama that’s so interesting and intriguing, but also I don’t want it to happen to me.

Brian
So, right. Okay. So yeah, so that’s what I was kind of— so it sounds like it’s the same kind of draw, like the conflict, the drama. Like any good story has conflict and has drama, and that’s what these people were conveying. And so I can remember reading at least these mountaineering books and those kinds of things, and it’s kind of like, wow, that person really had a harrowing experience, and I— and part of me actually wants to have that experience too. Oh goodness. I don’t think— yeah, I Oof. But so that’s where I was kind of asking about. But then I also realized that that was a limiting belief that I had to overcome.

Ani
What’s that?

Brian
In my own manifestation process.

Ani
That you left yourself.

Brian
Is that it had to be hard.

Ani
Oh.

Brian
Is that I had to suffer.

Ani
Okay.

Brian
Like, in order to get a desirable outcome, I had to suffer.

Ani
Okay.

Brian
In some way to earn the outcome.

Ani
I’m just laughing now because—

Brian
You know what I mean?

Ani
Well, no, I don’t. That’s your thing. But—

Brian
No, I think that might be partly your thing too. I don’t think you want to admit it. My own thing.

Ani
I remember years and years ago, like 20 years ago, hearing somebody, Wayne Dyer or something like this, talk about our fears and like identifying our fears. And I remember listening to the man on like a tape, you know, like CD or whatever, and thinking, “I don’t have fears really. Like I don’t have fears.” I think you know me well enough now. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in my mid-40s or whatever, I’m like riddled with fears.

Brian
Plenty. Plenty of fears.

Ani
I’m listening to you and it’s just sparking all of this, like, you know, I don’t want that to happen to me. I’m afraid of that. Like, I could identify so many fears more in my middle age. I think in my 20s I thought I was fearless, but maybe they were just in a closet waiting to have the door opened. I don’t know.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
There is something like really juicy about listening to a good story and human life. Like, I think there’s something in us that innately knows that life has conflict. In it. So I’m not drawn to a story when I just hear the fluffy ending. Like, I want to hear about the conflict. Humans want to hear about conflict. And I think that part is innate in us. We understand that life is both, right?

Brian
Well, it has to be, right?

Ani
But we don’t think that.

Brian
That’s the hero’s journey. I mean, that’s the archetypical journey of life.

Ani
But we think about it sometimes, like, we get polarized in this idea that life can be a fantasy. Like, there’s a place to get to where it’s not like that. You know, but I think that internally we really do know that that isn’t life. So we’re drawn to the wholeness of the whole story.

Brian
Yeah, it kind of makes me think about The Matrix. Remember that, that part of The Matrix, or maybe it was the second movie where the Architect of the Matrix was saying that they had built the first Matrix they built was one that would have no pain and it was a utopian experience. But that the human psyche kept rejecting it. Yeah, that human psyche needed conflict in some way to feel, to thrive, to whatever. And there’s actually some neurophysiological data around that. Yeah, we need both challenge and support to thrive in our life. We need both sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system to thrive in our life. Um, but that is— you’re right, I mean, that’s a part of the human experience.

Ani
Hey, speaking of this, I was thinking about this in terms of this topic about manifestation, which I don’t think we talk about a whole lot. We talk about it with our students at our certification programs, but I want to bring it up real quick. In terms of manifestation and this wholeness of the human experience, we don’t just love manifestation because it’s manifestation. One of the reasons that we love it so much is it is a way to propel one’s life to be the person you want to be in a really amazing way. So what I mean by that is some people try to approach like, let’s say, achievement, like getting something in their lives. And on the way forward, we are— we necessitate that we look back. We need to look at our conditioning, look how we were raised, look at our beliefs, what we’ve believed up until now and what we want to believe going forward. So looking ahead always necessitates in some way looking back. But there is this thing that you and I ran into, and I’ll speak for myself now in the healing kind of the healing arts, where it’s almost like you think you can look back and just look back.

Ani
And you and I found that in our practices when we went out on our own as alternative medicine professionals working in private practice, that it was way better for the clients and for our business when we hadn’t— when we looked not only back but forward with our clients. So our client might come to us with a problem they want, quote unquote, healed. But it was the best approach to say, what do you want to actually achieve in your life? And so it’s a— I think it’s a fallacy that you can look back and just look back, because if you’re just looking back, you’re not going to get complete healing. If you want to look back, but you also are willing to look forward into what you want, who you want to be, what you want to have, what you want to achieve, what you want to do in your life, and you’re willing to have that approach of looking forward to you’re gonna have more complete healing on the back end. So I think it just goes back to this idea of like both sides. Manifestation is so powerful because it can help us to progress in our life.

Ani
It can also help us to look forward when we’re trying to heal something from the past.

Brian
Yeah, yeah. And I would just add to that a little bit too. Some people say, well, don’t look back at all. I don’t want to talk about the past at all. I only want to look forward, right? The problem with that is your present moment experience is a product of your past.

Ani
Exactly.

Brian
And if you don’t understand how you got to where you are, then that— those patterns are going to project themselves into the future and you’re just going to keep getting the same thing that you’ve gotten now. So you also can’t look— you can’t not look back and expect to get a different result in the future because you have to really understand how you got to where you are right now. That doesn’t mean you need to dwell back there, to your point, Ani, but you need to have all those perspectives in the proper ratio of forward, present moment, past in order to really manifest effectively.

Ani
Yeah, exactly. So I think that’s another reason why I love these stories is it paints a picture of all of that stuff and helps us to see manifestation in its completeness rather than its parts. Yeah.

Brian
Yeah. So, um, ready to kick off with some case studies here? Yeah. So my first case study, actually both of my case studies have to do with, um, uh, health and healing. Actually, now that you bring it up, those are the two that kind of came to mind when I started thinking about this. But, um, the first one is a story from, uh, a friend and colleague of ours named Reggie Hubbard. I just love Reggie. He’s an amazing, amazing human being. I hope to have him on the podcast sometime in the future to maybe tell us this part of the story himself and to share his wisdom also. So Reggie Hubbard is a yogi and peace activist, and he’s also a musician. And I met Reggie a few years ago at Kripalu. Actually, we were teaching there at the same time. Reggie was there teaching a program for men of color, how to help them restore, relax, have deep rest. I was there teaching actually our Core Centering Practitioner certification program, and I had a chance to meet with Reggie in the morning, and then we met with him again the following year, actually. So here’s Reggie’s story.

Brian
He had a stroke, and so I met Reggie before he had the stroke a few years ago. He’s young to have a stroke. Yeah, Reggie’s in his, you know, he’s my age, right? So 50s or something like that. And so I had met him before he had a stroke. And then we went back a year later and we happened to be there again at the same time. And so when I saw him again a year later, I said, boy, he’s moving kind of different. And it looks like he had something go on. So we had a chance to connect with him. I said, hey, what’s going on with you? You know, we met a year ago and since then we’ve become, you know, uh, better friends and we’ve stayed connected because of his experience that he’s had. But this is his, this is Reggie’s story. So Reggie had a stroke and his left leg was completely paralyzed. He had a little bit of weakness in his left arm, but his left leg was completely paralyzed. He had a whole bunch of other neurological things that would happen, including intense light sensitivity and also certain sound sensitivities, especially when the sounds were very— I think he described them as chaotic.

Brian
Like traffic and phones ringing, that kind of stuff was intensely painful for him to experience. And so this was a wake-up call for Reggie in a lot of ways, the stroke that he had. And when I asked him about it, I said, what do you think was kind of the cause of this stroke? And being a really active peace activist, he was actually pretty active in Obama’s administration.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
In terms of rolling out a lot of equity issues and those types of things for people of color and minorities. And he really attributed this stroke to him going all out to really be there for other people. And at the same time, simultaneously really embodying the toxicity of racism, living as a Black man in America. And so I really loved hearing Reggie’s perspective and his life and his experiences. Through that lens, but also through the lens of him being a yogi and a musician. Very unlikely yogi, he would say. He’s like the most unlikely yogi. He’s a really big individual, you know, very large guy. And to be a yogi and a really kind of a large guy, he doesn’t fit that typical yogi mold, right? Like a thin kind of lithe kind of person. And so he jokes about that. We’ve talked about that a lot. But he does— this guy does headstands, you know, he’s doing all the yogis, trained for a really long time. And done incredible deep work. And part of his healing was not only doing like a radical diet change, also really going into some deep meditative practices. But the other thing he used was a lot of sound healing.

Brian
And so he used gongs primarily as, as like a primordial sound experience to vibrate, like change the vibrational frequencies of his physiology. And the second time we had met him after his stroke at Kripalu, one evening he did a public sampler and like filled up the great hall. There was 100 people or something with all of his gongs. So he has like 13 gongs or something that he travels with.

Ani
It was wild.

Brian
And he just filled up the great hall with these gongs and did this gong bath. And it was just you could feel—

Ani
Primordial is the perfect word.

Brian
Feel the primordial power of sound.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
And vibrational experience. And so he used this vibrational sound to reorganize his physiology and coupled that again with deep meditation experience to try to cleanse out a lot of that embodied, the toxicity that he had embodied over that period of time. And, you know, now Reggie’s back to traveling full-time, working, teaching, but, but in a whole different way in his life. He’s approaching his life and the world much differently than he had before, you know, not taking on as much stuff. But what I write about in the book with Reggie’s experience is really around the idea of using sound as a transform— transformational medium, especially primordial sound. Which is different than music, which is again, a lot of the conversation that we have with, have with Reggie. And he has, he, when I talked with him, he had this quote for me, um, that I want to share with you. He said, you know, we talk too much as a society. Sound and silence are the keys to deep connection to source, self, and healing. And that’s one of his messages now as he goes forth. And so I think about that a lot. I think about that conversation with him, that message a lot from him in terms of sound and silence are really the keys to deep connection.

Brian
So not so much talking, but being in the silence and the primordial sound experiences too. And so that’s just a story of really inspiring to me around health and healing, not only again using meditative and sound practices, but essentially reorganizing Reggie reorganized his belief systems and his perceptions around health, healing, his body, his relationship with not only himself, his community, his culture, and with the, and with the country has really changed quite a bit.

Ani
One of the things that’s so interesting about health manifestation, as I’ve witnessed it for so much of my career, is this idea that it really is a true co-collaboration with the universe or Source, if we’ll allow ourselves to surrender our own ideas about who we think we are so that we can see who we could become. And I’ve, I’ve so many times seen that as people have navigated health challenges and lent it to, shall we say, health success stories, like health manifestations, rather than getting just completely stuck for the remainder of their lives on that like repeated pattern of victimization of their health, right? Um, the, the letting go that is required to allow— which I think that’s really what manifestation is, it’s like co-collaborative relationship. Like, what, what could happen if I really do allow myself to be a creator, but not in the sense that I create as an individual ego, but like I create and so does everything else around me? I’m— creation happens through me kind of thing.

Brian
Yeah. You know, the other thing, when I think about health manifestation, in the book we write a section on health manifestation and wealth manifestation, and relationship manifestation. So you can kind of, you know, plug into any of the sections of the book that really speaks, speaks to you. One of the things we talk about with the health manifestation chapter is from a kind of like a physiological standpoint, from a point from A to B standpoint, health manifestation actually makes the most sense in terms of explainability. Hmm, right? Because we all know that you change your diet, your body changes. We all know that you change your exercise, your body changes. So it shouldn’t be a stretch to think that when I change something behaviorally, that my body will also change. We also know that you change your outlook on life, your body changes. There’s plenty of research to show that when we practice things like gratitude or optimism, or when we laugh more, our body changes. Now, whether you want to call that healthier or not healthier, um, let’s leave that aside. But your body changes, and that’s— so that’s pretty clear, and that’s manifestation.

Brian
Change your diet, you get a different manifestation in your body. So it’s really interesting that it’s— that’s the most clear kind of— it’s a little harder sometimes to explain, well, how does wealth manifest and how do relationships manifest, because there’s something outside of us. But health is really like uniquely us, inside, inside of us. But it also makes the— it also is the one that is the most difficult to depersonalize from because it’s so personal.

Ani
So personal, right?

Brian
And so you just talked about the idea of a victimization mindset, which is different than being a victim, like being victimized in life. For a victim mindset is different than being victimized in life. And when it comes to health manifestation, it’s not only the one that has the clearest path between cause and effect, it’s also the one that brings up the most stuff. For people underneath, because you’re dealing with, um, cause and effect. And you must realize that you are the cause. Your life is the cause of the effect that you’re getting.

Ani
And one of the reasons people can’t health manifest or have difficulties and stay stuck— and I’ll give an example so you kind of know what I’m talking about here real quick— is, is this idea of not being able to depersonalize it, but instead blaming whether it’s blaming the disease or blaming the, the doctor or the cause or whatever. Like, I— not, not embracing the idea that I’m the cause. Um, I, uh, know a story about somebody who got cancer as a teenager. And I mean, there’s plenty of stories about people who got cancer and then changed their lives for the better, empowerment, created things from it, movements and missions and all of this stuff. But this person that I knew that that got cancer as a teenager blamed the cancer and for the next 30 years of life continued to blame the cancer on the victimization and why I can’t. I can’t because of the cancer 30 years ago. I can’t because I’m broken. I was broken. This happened to me kind of thing. And I think that’s a real delineator that we’ve seen in health manifestations is this. And it just takes a tremendous amount of not taking things personally to come into a relationship with what happened in my life could actually empower my whole life.

Ani
You know what I mean? Like, it’s— I don’t know, I, I have a lot of, um, uh, gratitude’s not the right word. I, um, I just think it’s really impressive when people can kind of get out of their own way enough to embrace their life like that. Yeah, there’s so many stories. I’ve been around so many people, whether they’re going to get better or not, you know, because we talk about that in the book too, the difference between healing and curing, because both of us have been around plenty of people who are terminal and they still heal their lives, you know. Um, it’s just such, such an inspiring and impressive human condition to claim life in that way.

Brian
Yeah. So, um, I have another story around the health. Are your stories that you’re bringing health-focused? Are they?

Ani
No.

Brian
Okay, so let’s do another health one and we’ll bounce it over to you. Okay, that makes sense.

Ani
Sure.

Brian
We’ll kind of compartmentalize what we’re doing. So we’re already on the health topic.

Ani
Love it. Okay.

Brian
So the other, the other manifestation story that I want to share, I experienced— gosh, this is 30 years ago now when I was a young therapist at Craig Hospital. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for any period of time, like you’ve heard that stories around one of my, you know, very first jobs in physical therapy was working at Craig Hospital, which is a world-renowned rehab center for people rehabilitating from spinal cord and traumatic brain injury. And I had a patient at the time who actually also had a stroke. And he was, um, you know, I don’t remember how old this guy was, but it was probably in his 50s. It’s probably in his 50s. Um, and so it’s probably like around my age now that I think about it, sort of thing. And so he had a stroke and it was a pretty severe stroke. And he had a paralysis on one side of his body. I don’t remember which it was, but he couldn’t walk. And his prognosis was pretty crummy. Like, you know, the doctors are like, listen, he’s not going to walk again. Like, it’s pretty dense. It’s a pretty dense stroke.

Brian
Arm wasn’t— arm wasn’t working pretty— wasn’t working well. And I remember when I was first doing my intake with him and asking him, you know, some things about himself and what was important about his life, he basically just said, Brian, just We just got to stop talking for a second. I got to tell you this. Like, my daughter is getting married in a few months.

Ani
Oh boy.

Brian
And I’m going to walk her down the aisle.

Ani
Oh geez. And I’m like, get out the tissue boxes.

Brian
I’m like, okay. I mean, I’m a young PT. The doctors are telling me this character is not going to walk again. I didn’t have the heart to tell him, no, you’re not. But I was like, yeah, all right. He’s like, He’s like, listen, we— I’ve been like, I’ve been talking about this with my daughter since she was a little girl.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
And I’m gonna walk her down the aisle. And I’m like, all right, all right. And so he shows up like every day for physical therapy with that attitude. He’s like, when are we gonna walk? I’m gonna— I’m walking my daughter down the aisle. And I’ve got— he’s counting it down like, this is how many weeks we have left until I gotta walk her down the aisle sort of thing. So, and he’s showing up for every one of his rehab things, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, rehab, you know, recreational therapy, uh, the Mac classes we did, exercise classes. He’s like on time, ready to go every single time. Even if he doesn’t feel well, um, you know, his wife’s there with him and, and he’s like, I’m walking her down the aisle. And he was like committed to this. And nobody really believed him to begin with. The doctor, we’re doing our rounds and the doctor’s like, we need to have a conversation with him from neuropsychology about his un— unrealistic kind of expectations. And, and the neuropsych’s like, no, let’s just kind of like, it’s okay right now, kind of thing. And then pretty soon, like, he’s not like just slumped over in his wheelchair anymore, sitting up in his wheelchair.

Brian
And now all of a sudden he’s helping with the transfers. And I’m like, wow, he’s good. He’s actually, he’s exceeding, like, it’s going. And all of a sudden now people are like, the doctor’s like, you know what, maybe, you know, I, well, I don’t know, we’re not sure yet, but he’s getting some promising results, sort of thing. Yeah. And then so everybody’s now enlisting Now, yeah, as he’s coming down to therapy, like, the, you know, the nurses are going to walk your daughter down the, you know, on the aisle. He’s like, that’s right. Like, so now he’s like on board with him, right? And it’s starting to happen. It started happening. So, um, the, the, um, wedding’s getting closer. He’s still not like— he’s taking some steps. Like, he’s actually like in the parallel bars standing and that kind of stuff, and he’s able to do some standing. Um, and, and it’s getting closer, And I remember the, um, it was time to go discharged home, right? And so he’s gonna be discharged home. He’s still gonna come back as an outpatient. And he still had a couple of weeks before the, um, wedding was gonna happen.

Brian
And I remember wheeling him as he was being discharged. We wheeled him to the front doors of the hospital and he stopped me. He said, you’re not gonna wheel me outta this hospital. I walk outta this hospital. And so we got him a walker. And we walked him out of the front doors of the hospital into the car that his daughter was waiting in to pick him up. And I was like, blown away. I was like, oh my God, like it’s happening. And so he came back for a couple of weeks of outpatient therapy and we started walking with a hemi cane and that kind of stuff. And he walked his daughter down the aisle. And there was not a dry eye in the whole, like, in the whole church, you know? And it was like, so as a young, like, in my 20s, to see that, that possible, that happened, to defy those odds and to be so committed to something that was so important to him. Yeah. And literally his body, his, his purpose was driving his body and his body could not help but respond to that. In such a powerful way.

Brian
And then to have the community kind of rising up and supporting him and being like, just, you know, cheering him on every step of the way, even though it looked like there were some rough days, you know, along, along the path for him. But that was really powerful for me. And that really transformed my understanding of, wow, it’s really about not what other people believe. It’s about what you believe.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
And if you can be resolute, you know, just like resolved in your belief, then you can alter reality of what other people think is possible.

Ani
I think one of the things that’s striking to me about that story is— what an amazing story— yeah, is how much humans are meaning makers. And when we think about manifestation, a lot of the times we think about, I need to change my thoughts. And thoughts are so flimsy. But meaning, yeah, has deep, deep purpose.

Brian
Yeah, meaning and purpose, deep, deep roots.

Ani
I remember I was talking to a client— this is not a full-blown story, but I remember talking to a client who wanted to, um, they hired me to help them grow their business, but they were working way too hard and stressing out a lot, and they knew they needed to exercise more, um, and make time for that in their day, but they were just actually— they were just working working so hard, and I knew family meant so much to them. And by the way, like, the biggest reason they were working so hard is so they could support their family. And so we had a conversation about how if you don’t take care of your body, in 10, 20 years, what kind of dad are you going to be? First of all, what kind of example are you setting to your kids right now? Do you want them to be in your position where you’re just working your ass off and you’re not taking care of your body when they’re in— when they’re in their 50s? And, you know, when you’re 60 and 70 and you’re ailing because you didn’t pay attention to your body, what, what kind of pressure is that going to put on them?

Ani
And that, that meaning around reorganizing behavior, so, so profound. You know, meaning is what drives us. Yeah, my stories are not— my stories are those were like the manifestation stories that they write books about. And the manifestation stories that I brought are more day-to-day kinds of, um, stories. And I think that’s part of the thing with health manifestation too, is health manifestation really can have this, um, Hollywood effect to it. Which sometimes everyday manifestation people can overlook the everyday miracles that happen in their lives because they don’t— they aren’t so, um, sensational maybe, you know. Um, so not naming any names, I’m thinking of a manifestation with a client who again, uh, was working with me to grow their business. People who are in primary partnership which is just about everybody that I work with has some kind of partner, um, and most of the people I work with are women. The conversation about growing business lends itself towards the personal relationship they’re having with their primary partner at some point in our relationship all the time. And I think part of that is, as women— I don’t know how man experiences it, I just don’t experience it the same when I’m working male clients.

Ani
It’s almost like male clients can talk about business and not have to talk about what’s going on at home, but the female clients, female-identified clients, are always talking to me about what’s going on at home because it gets in the way of what they’re trying to do with their business. Is kind of like how it comes up. So anyway, um, was working with somebody who was having trouble with their primary partner at home and really trying to focus on business, but the primary partnership relationship was taking a lot of mental, emotional energy, and what she was trying to do was get the partner to change. And so one of the things that we— that I talk about with my, my clients who are having trouble with their partners is like keeping your eyes on your own paper and kind of disentangling them from how they get really wrapped up in other people’s stuff. And it’s not just partners because people get wrapped up in like the stuff with their mother, the stuff with their kid or their dog or whatever. They get wrapped up in stuff. And so keeping your eye on your own paper and allowing somebody else to have their experience.

Ani
So the partner was— they were having a lot of personal conflict that was, that was getting in the way. And this is more of a relationship manifestation story, even though it has a wealth component to it too. So the conflict was, was really getting in the way of her mental, emotional space, and there was a lot of like blaming that was going on. And the, the conversation we started having was about how he would blame and then she would get defensive, and then the two of them were locked in this drama triangle thing, which we talked about in the Manifestation for Dummies book. We do some work with the drama triangle, which is really profoundly great way to work on relationship dynamics. And so What she started to do was instead of getting caught up in the drama triangle when there was blame, to get defensive and then be in all that drama, was she started to disentangle herself from the drama triangle. And if she was getting blamed, not get defensive anymore. And it was about maybe like 4 days. They had been locked in this cycle throughout their entire relationship, by the way.

Ani
Where the blame would happen, the defensiveness would happen. They get in conflict, they’d make amends, they decide to stay together, you know, and then it would happen again, over and over again. It was a pattern. Um, but what happened was— and this happens all the time too with, with the ladies— like, they wish their male counterpart was doing more personal work for themselves. I hear that all the time, like, I wish they were doing the work that I was doing. I’ve never said that. Yeah. Anyway, um, so she stopped getting defensive, and about 3 or 4 days passed, and what happened was the, the whole dynamic shifted, and he got kind of quiet, and then he came to her and apologized for the projection and said that, um, You know, he was really interested in her experience and wanted to have a conversation about it and had been doing his own work to get to the place where he developed his own insight. And that manifestation was so cool because she wanted to be in a relationship where her male counterpart was doing their own work and then could develop insight and, and her not have to be a part of that process.

Ani
Yes, and that is exactly what happened when she was able to release her defensiveness. So, you know, it wasn’t something she had to do. She had to release the defensiveness and really hold the vision for the relationship, which was a big deal because what had been happening was when the conflict would happen, both of them would kind of get in this place of maybe we shouldn’t be together. And so holding the vision for the relationship while letting go of the defensiveness, and that allowed this breakthrough to happen.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
It was great.

Brian
Yeah. About one of those kind of key things we talk about in a dynamic like that or a pattern like that is if just one person changes what they’re doing, then it changes the pattern automatically, right?

Ani
Exactly.

Brian
And so, yeah, so just that idea of, uh, this dropping the rope, right? We call about— kind of just talk about in terms of tug of war. If you know tug of war, if you just drop the rope, then there’s no tug of war anymore, and it changes the dynamic somehow. And change is on the way to good, right? Change is on the way to better.

Ani
Difference.

Brian
So you just created a difference by doing that.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
Yeah. Great story.

Ani
Yeah, it’s a great story. The other story that I brought for you to talk about today to share with the listeners is a wealth manifestation story that I just think is kind of fun. And like I said, it’s kind of a simple one, but it’s also, you know, it’s definitely been life-changing and super funny. Again, I’m not going to mention names. If you’re listening, you know who you are. It’s one of my favorite stories to tell now. Um, this person also hired me to help them to grow their business, and they had had a lot of resistance to the things that business owners, especially new business owners, typically have resistance to, like reaching out, talking about what they do, connecting with potential clients and having conversations. And so they were working on that, and, um, a lot of programming about perfectionism and needing to do things right And so how do you do things right in business? Well, first you like reach out and then you say the right words and then you have the right conversation and then you move the conversation to a sales conversation, then you sign the contracts and then you write this, this like linear kind of quote unquote right way that it goes.

Ani
So anyway, my client’s doing this great work to get herself to the place where she’s able to reach out and she’s able to host her own events and all of this stuff. And she decides that she is going to go take a vacation. And she’s, she’s had like all of this pre-work, but nothing’s really landed. And so she’s on her way to vacation. I think it was like the way to the airport or something like this. And she gets a text from a client that a deal is going to land. And she tells me, she’s like, oh my gosh, I like, I’m on my way to vacation and this deal is landing and oh my God, why is this happening now? And I was like, I was like, dude, you’re on your way to vacation and a deal’s landing. This is amazing. Like, love it. Like, say yes. Say you’ll send the contract or whatever. Go on vacation. You just closed a deal. Well, now the running joke is she closes at least one deal every time she goes on vacation, right?

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
Every time she goes on vacation, somebody contacts her either out of the blue or somebody she’s been working on and closes a deal. But people have landed out of the blue every time she goes on vacation. So, the running joke is if she needs money, she needs to go on vacation and a deal will close. And then I say, as I tell everybody this story because it’s one of my favorites, like, don’t you wish this was your subconscious pattern? I am working on this one myself. I want this to be my life where every time I go on vacation, a deal closes. I just love it. It’s so great.

Brian
Yeah, cool. I love that one.

Ani
Isn’t that funny?

Brian
Yeah. So, thanks so much for taking some time on this week’s podcast to listen to some stories. Hopefully, they’ve inspired you, got you excited, got you curious, interested, motivated, any of those things to want to learn more about what your manifestation potential is and what your story is going to be. If you were to write your own manifestation story, what would that sound like?

Ani
Yeah. And there’s lots of stories in just the right sections of Manifestation for Dummies. Is that one of those books that you read that you’re reading like like a storybook all the way through with some lessons. It’s like a reference book that you can go through and pick out the right sections for you, and there will always be stories to supplement your learning. And of course, if you haven’t pre-ordered your book yet, go ahead and do that. When you do, you’re going to get a ticket to the event that we’re running on July 1st, 2026, to share more manifestation stories so that you can see yourself through those stories and see how these stories play out in manifestation so you can do it too. Yep.

Brian
So thanks for joining us again this week on the podcast. We’re so grateful that you are here. We’ll see you next week.