How Manifesting Is F*CKING Up Your Life...

In this self‑help video Aaron Doughty argues that the popular “think better thoughts” approach to manifestation is superficial and actually keeps people stuck. He shares personal anecdotes—such as using a Photoshop‑edited YouTube subscriber count as a screensaver and a breakup that triggered deep emotional work—to illustrate how suppressing emotions while only focusing on positive thoughts leads to hidden, stored energy that eventually sabotages reality. Doughty explains that true transformation requires feeling and releasing suppressed emotions, often through breathwork that can uncover inherited family trauma. He presents a conceptual model where beliefs shape meaning, which creates feelings, which then generate thoughts, emphasizing that thoughts stem from emotions, not the other way around. He differentiates desire (a lack‑based, outcome‑focused want) from intention (process‑focused, being‑the‑person), urging viewers to commit to the identity they wish to become rather than merely visualizing outcomes. Practical advice includes learning skills outside one’s passion, confronting fear, and consistently practicing a meditation that cultivates a sense of worthiness. The video concludes with a call to use a 21‑day guided meditation to feel whole, complete, and worthy, promising a profound shift in one’s life when the core emotional work is done.
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Thinking better thoughts is bullshit. If you've ever seen Paul Saladino, this guy that goes around talking about carnivore, he goes in like through Whole Foods and he'll look at like kale and he'll make these videos. He's like, "Kale, it's fricking bullshit." And in the same way, I'm talking right now about how bullshit it is to be just thinking better thoughts, how this actually does more harm than good. This actually is what's keeping people stuck. This is actually what's keeping people in a reality they don't wanna be in. And in many ways, it keeps people trying to manifest from sitting on their couch because they might be thinking better thoughts, but there's core parts of the element that aren't going into it. And let me first off say, for like years, I was trying to manifest my dream reality by thinking better thoughts. I would think about what I wanted. I would visualize what I want. My screensaver on my computer was me on my YouTube channel with 100,000 subscribers. I remember one time my sister came into my room 'cause I lived at my dad's house. I was at my dad's house trying to manifest my dream reality by thinking, but it wasn't fricking happening. But the screensaver was a Photoshopped version of somebody that had 100,000 subscribers and I Photoshopped my face and put it there. And put it on my screensaver. And one time my sister walked into my room and she saw it on my screensaver and she thought that that was actually my YouTube channel. She was like, "Oh my God, you have 100,000 subs, that's crazy." And she was all excited. I was like, "No, this is my manifestation. Don't you get it, Liz? I'm thinking better thoughts." But that was something that was there. And then there was, if I would've known what I know now, and instead of thinking better thoughts, focused on what I'm gonna be sharing with you in this video, I would've gone full-time on YouTube way faster. My life would've changed way faster. But no, I was stuck in thinking better thoughts. And one of the main core problems with thinking better thoughts too, and this is the thing that irritates me so much about the process, is people are then not feeling the emotions that come up. And the thing is, is once you feel it, that's when you heal it. But there's this belief in spirituality where if I feel anxiety, if I feel guilt or shame, if I feel anger, then I'm going to manifest something bad happening. And I don't wanna manifest something bad happening, so I'm just gonna stuff these emotions and repress them inside my bodies and suppress my emotions because, doing that, then I don't feel it, and then I don't have to manifest it. But instead, I can etherically mentally think better thoughts. But you see, the thoughts is one part of it. There's also the body. And if you don't allow yourself to feel it, you're not allowing yourself to heal it. And this was the same mistake that I made. I remember meditating with my candle flame back in 2012 when I learned meditation. And I remember that at first, it was so hard for me to meditate because I was trying to control my thoughts. I was like, I'm not gonna think a thought. And then I'd sit there and I'd feel more resistance. And funny enough, then I would think many thoughts about how I didn't wanna think thoughts. But then eventually what happened is I learned how to observe my thoughts. That was a game changer. But the other thing is when I allowed my thoughts to be there, there was less resistance. And then also I remember thinking at certain points like, oh, I would almost like have this naughty perspective where like, ooh, What would happen if I thought a bad thought? What would happen if I thought a negative thought? And I would start feeling this like edginess. My mind has this like rebel mentality where you tell me the one thing I'm not supposed to do and I'm like, ooh, I'm gonna do that. It's like a naughty, naughty boy. But guess what? That was kind of the mentality that I had. And what I had to learn is how to let it go, how to observe it, What eventually happened though is I just suppressed all my emotions. No big deal. You know, I suppressed everything, just stored inside my body and was just focused on thinking better thoughts. But it does, so the thing is, is even if you think better thoughts, but you're storing inside your body repressed anger, repressed shame, repressed guilt, and suppressed emotion, guess what ends up happening? It's going to come back to you regardless. People are going to feel that inside of you. Have you ever had somebody that you've met and you just kind of get weird vibes from them? Or have you ever met somebody that you met that's like really nice to you in person, but they're kind of like the Hello Kitty, what was that, My Little Pony or Hello Kitty from Lego Movie, where it's like, "I'm doing great, I'm just so positive." But on the inside, they're just getting ready to like, just explode with emotion. Well, guess what? People, you can feel that, and I can feel that in other people when I meet them. They're like, "I'm doing great, how are you?" And you could just kind of tell there's this crazy suppressed energy on the inside. Well, here's the thing, it's gonna come out regardless. So instead of letting it come out subconsciously through a whole bunch of manifestations for a long-ass time, what you could instead do is you can allow yourself to feel it. And by allowing yourself to feel it, it leaves your body, it's no longer in your field. And then you have the ability, you have space to then tap into who you actually prefer to be. So what I had to learn, and I did this recently, I know I've shared this in a couple other videos, but recently I went through a breakup that kind of spawned from a certain level of growth that I made within myself. That growth came from using and practicing something called breathwork. Where I was breathing very deep, a lot of oxygen in my body, and I was able to release a lot of sadness that I hadn't allowed myself to feel in years. Never have I felt that much sadness than in this breathwork ceremony where I was crying and releasing energy that I thought was my own, but wasn't even my own. It came from my mom's side of the family because my mom went through so much childhood pain growing up and she didn't allow herself to feel. And what happened is, I realized in a moment in breathwork ceremony that I was releasing my mom's energy that I was storing inside my body because we came from our mom who came from her mom. And there's like past, an energy that could be passed on. And by releasing it, I felt so emotionally free afterwards. I felt like a new version of myself. I was more sensitive and am more sensitive to people in like a very powerful, deep way where I'm able to connect with people at an emotional level that prior was very, challenging for me to do. I would just kind of like suppress it. And when I went through this breakthrough, that's when my relationship that I was in, things started coming to light and things started to happen to where I realized, wait, this actually is in alignment. It came through my own breakthrough and my own body. And the reason I share that though is because some people can look at like breathwork and it's like, oh, people are angry, they're yelling, they're, They're crying, they're laughing, they're feeling this emotion. That must not be good 'cause they're gonna manifest something bad. But they, here's a common saying that we say in the breathwork 'cause I got certified in that breathwork. So I'm kind of a, I kind of know a little bit about it. I'm just joking. Well, not really. But basically if you like, the reason we do breathwork ceremony is because then what happens is you're able to express the emotion that's been suppressed and repressed. So that you don't then have to express it in your daily life. How does that look? If you're a people pleaser and you're storing all this emotion that you haven't allowed yourself to feel and you're just pretending to be nice, but deep down there's like rage that's probably on the inside of there, then what'll happen is you'll turn into a passive-aggressive person. Where somebody doesn't do something, instead of telling them, a significant other, like, "Hey, I didn't like the fact that you did this," and being vulnerable, instead of telling them, be like, "Okay," and then being passive-aggressive. And then doing things that like, where you're not communicating what you want, but you do it in a passive aggressive way. That's what happens if you don't express it. So thinking a better thought is a surface level thing. Even think about reality and how, you know, I believe we create our own reality. What I'm talking about in this video is getting to the core, not the surface level, the core, and healing at a core level and at the core level healing, you will then notice that your life begins to change as an outward reflection because the only thing reality is doing is reflecting back to you that which, who you believe you are. Who are you being? And if you're being maybe surface level thinking better thoughts person, but not feeling the depths of your soul, emotion that you haven't felt before, then what'll happen is you're gonna have this pressure cooker inside of yourself and it's gonna come out in different ways in your reality, whether you're consciously aware of it or not. So thinking better thought is surface because let's look at where thoughts are in the equation, all right? I'll do a little chart thing. You have, let's go at the very top, beliefs. What do you believe to be true? That's the first level to this identity transformation that you're about to go through, that you're about to realize. And this is where you're gonna get to the core. You're not gonna be thinking better thoughts anymore. I'm gonna give you step by step what to do to really transform your life, okay? From beliefs, we have meaning. Everything in our life, like from beliefs, it goes to feeling. But here's the thing, you cannot have a feeling without first off believing something to be true or feeling into something. For example, if I said, how do you feel about rainy days? You might say, I love rainy days. Or you might say, I freaking hate rainy days. Or you might be more neutral on rainy days. And what happens is depending on the meaning you give to rainy days and your past prior experience, that's going to be the effect you get out of it. Now imagine you're in a drought. Like I know California was, or maybe is going through a drought or something like that. I remember that when it would rain, or something, people would like, people freak out and they would love it, right? 'Cause there's water, there's like, they can then like have nice looking lawns or whatever their reasoning is. But if you maybe hate the rain and then it doesn't rain for a long time, you might then be excited when it finally does rain because you haven't had it. So based on your reference experience and based on the meaning is the feeling that comes from it. Now from feeling, then stem thoughts. You feel an emotion, there could be thousands of thoughts that are stemmed from one emotion. Here's another thing neuroscience shows us that I find interesting. When you're in a certain feeling, it is very easy for you to remember other times in your life when a similar situation happened to you because literally the neurons in your brain are easier, it's easier for them to connect to the past memories. So for example, if you've been betrayed recently and you feel betrayed or you feel abandoned, it's gonna be easier, literally your brain, it's gonna be easier for your brain to remember other times when you were betrayed or other times you felt similar because that's the way the brain is wired. So the interesting thing is when you feel in a certain emotion, thoughts stem from that emotion. Now, the old school mentality is, well, just think better thoughts. Well, what about the feelings? What about the emotions? Because thoughts stem from emotion. You'd have thousands of thoughts connected to one emotion. That's why what I'm proposing to you is to feel it, is to let it be there. Allow yourself to feel it and express it because as you feel it and express it, you release it from your body and you begin to then raise and elevate your vibrational state of consciousness. This is getting deeper. The thing is, is we've been taught in society that emotions are not good, that feeling shame or feeling guilt or feeling anger is a negative thing. Even as a kid, imagine as a kid, little kid feels anger. What do parents commonly do? Oh, just go in your room. If you're gonna cry about it, you might as well just go to your room. If you're gonna feel emotion, "you might as well just feel shame and feel like there's something wrong with you." Think about the message it sends to the kid. Rather than letting the little kid express that emotion and let it clear it, there's a tie into like how that's happened because we were maybe shamed as a kid for feeling emotion, for feeling anger. I know at a certain time in my past when I was experiencing like either mental or physical like abuse from my ex-stepmom from 7 to 15, like periods of time in between then, there were times where I know I wasn't allowed to stand up for myself. There was a couple moments where I remember that I wanted to fight back, but I wasn't allowed to. So instead, just anger, I just hold it inside myself. And then I do breathwork now, like, you know, I've been doing breathwork this last year or two, and I've been able to express an incredible amount of anger and that's really helped me to like let go of that emotion that was stored inside my body for so long. Now you might say, okay, Aaron, well, what's the, how do I manifest what I want then? If you're saying like, I just feel the emotion, well then what do I do? What I propose you do is you commit more to who you are becoming. Everything changed in my life when instead of being, I realized that I was being how I thought, felt and acted was equal to back in the day, a 9-to-5 job goer. Everything changed when I made the choice to be a full-time YouTuber. Be it not because it's gonna escape me from the reality I was in, be it because it's who I choose to be. It's an end of itself. That's the key to this process. I'm rereading a book right now that I read a long time ago. And one of the things it talks about is it talks about the difference between desire and intention. A desire is a wanting that comes from a place of lack that wants an end result. And the problem is that when you desire something or you want something, you infuse a sense of lack and you're making something very important. And the more important you make something by putting it on a pedestal, the more you energetically separate yourself from that reality. And the more you then yearn. Wanting doesn't actually help. Sometimes wanting can lead people to take action and then the action mitigates the desire because they're being it. But the other side of this is called intention. Intention is focused on the process. It's focused on, it's an end of itself. I set an intention to be a full-time YouTuber because it's who I choose to be. It's an end of itself. Wanting is a means to an end. It's just attached to the outcome. Intention is action. It's being it. It's focused on the step in front of you, not just the end result. It's focused on enjoying the process. And what I encourage you to do is to focus on being this version of you. What are the values of this new version of you? And it's not always, I know people say, well, just focus on your passion. Just focus on what you love. Here's the thing, I was focused on my heart my passion of making videos, I had to then learn things that were outside of my passion a little bit. I had to learn marketing. I had to learn how to make thumbnails. I had to learn how to edit videos. I had to learn how to grow an email list. I had to learn how to like grow, have courses and shit. I had to learn how to do things I didn't enjoy. Now I enjoy them, funny enough, in some ways. But at the time, it was something that like, I was like, well, aren't I just supposed to focus on what I love and you'll never work a day in your life? I had to focus on the full-time version Aaron that I chose to be was a version of me that knew how to like make money, knew how to grow an audience, knew how to learn new shit, learn how to market. Like that was the version of me that I preferred to be and I just committed to learning it. I read books, I surrounded myself with other people that were doing it. I'd mastermind with other people that were doing it. I would just focus on being that version of me. The moment you decide to be that version of you and also When you start being that version of you, emotion's gonna come up, feelings are gonna come up, the self-sabotage is gonna come up. It's gonna say, this isn't who I am. I'm not just, I'm not, there's sabotage that comes up. Instead, what I recommend you do is you start, you start now, and the stuff will come up. And as it comes up, you allow yourself to feel it and understand that there'll be self-sabotage that comes up. There'll be fear that comes up. Even now, as I do different aspects of my business or live events and stuff, Sometimes there's fear that comes up, but the fear, it's what helps me grow. Courage is not transforming and like releasing fear and immediately feeling confident. Courage is feeling the fear, but doing it anyways. For me, that was making the videos, even though back in 2017, I was really worried about what my friends and family thought. Even now, it's me doing live events, it's me, you know, like stepping into different areas of my life and just in really being this vulnerable version of me. So understand that thinking a better thought is the surface. Instead, focus on who you will become. Focus on releasing the emotions that are tied to the past. Focus on stepping outta your comfort zone and being in the unknown. Focus on following your passion and also learning the other things that might be tied to this new version of you. And as you focus on all of these things, you're gonna find that your life changes in a very powerful way because you are being it. You are being it. You're not just at the surface level. You are focused on the core. You are feeling it to heal it, and feeling it to heal it changes so much in your life. Now, I do have a meditation that will help you to feel this energy. It's one of my most popular meditations. It's feeling 100% worthy, whole, and complete. Listen to this meditation for 21 days. Watch how much it changes your life. Check it out right here. This video, I'm gonna be sharing with you the most powerful meditation that you can do for feeling 100% whole, complete, and worthy. By the end of this video, you are going to feel like a completely new person.
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