Why Your Nervous System Is Blocking Your Manifestation

Neuroscience shows that manifestation is real and that your brain is always constructing your reality. Now, if you're stuck or you have some goal or dream that you are trying to achieve, this video is for you because in this video I'm going to break down my science-backed 4-step formula to manifesting whatever it is that you want and help you take your reality to the next level. But I wanna give you some practical takeaways so that you can leave this episode and actually know how to start to build belief in yourself. And make sure you stick around for step 4 because it is a huge unlock that I don't really ever hear people talk about. And you can be doing steps 1, 2, and 3 perfectly and still subconsciously block yourself from whatever it is that you desire if you don't have step 4. And if you're new here, hi, I'm Emily, also known as Em on the Brain. I'm a trained neuroscientist. I've got 2 degrees in neuroscience as well as plenty of years of research experience in the lab, but I am now a content creator, author, speaker, and coach to people in over 55 countries. All over the world, and I'm here to help you level up and reach your maximum potential, whatever it is that you wanna do with your life. Let's get into these 4 steps. Step number 1 is belief in yourself. My life completely changed when I realized that you don't get what you want in life, you get what you believe. And most people have this backwards. I used to have this backwards. I used to think, oh, I'll believe it when I see it. That's genuinely the way that I thought, but The brain doesn't work that way. It actually works the opposite. Science shows that belief is a self-fulfilling prophecy where belief actually changes behavior, behavior changes outcomes, and outcomes reinforce belief. And actually, research on self-efficacy shows that your belief in your ability to achieve something directly predicts whether or not you will take the actions required to achieve whatever it is that you want. Now, belief also primes your brain. It primes your brain and puts a sort of filter on your reality. There is a concept called confirmation bias from psychology, and essentially what it means is that your brain is always working to confirm the beliefs that you already have. So your brain is always filtering your reality to show you things that match your belief. To take that one step further, you actually get dopamine when your brain confirms your beliefs. Now, that doesn't mean that your— this belief is actually beneficial to you. Your brain is going to reward you with dopamine for proving a limiting belief right. Let's say you're doubting something, or you think something's going to go wrong, and then it does go wrong. You're like, oh, I knew that was gonna happen. Yeah, your brain rewards you for being right, even if it's not what you actually want. And I want to make a quick distinction here, because belief in yourself also includes belief in your worthiness. We can sit here all day long like, oh yeah, I believe in myself, I I can, but do you believe you are worthy of achieving or receiving whatever it is that you want? And this is actually where it gets really, really interesting because this is another one of those situations where the research actually shows that it works the opposite of what most people think. Most people think worthiness is the reward that we get for achieving a goal, like, oh, I achieved it, I feel worthy of it now. But your brain actually treats it as the opposite. You don't let yourself receive or achieve the things that you don't feel worthy of, that you don't believe you deserve. In research, there is actually a worthiness and receiving connection, and it has to do again with your self-concept and the fact that your brain works to keep your reality consistent with your self-concept. So if you don't believe you are worthy or deserving of the thing that you say you want, your brain will unconsciously block you or reject it even when it arrives. This is where so much self-sabotage comes into play. We accept what we think we deserve. Right before I took my business to the next level last year, I actually held a worthiness workshop on myself. I asked myself, do I feel worthy of this thing that I'm trying to manifest? And I realized that I didn't really have that worthiness, that real feeling that I deserved it, and that was blocking me from manifesting what it is that I wanted. Now, I did a little worthiness workshop on myself. I wrote out all of the reasons why I deserved the thing that I wanted, which is definitely something that you can do as well. But also, you can recognize that you are innately worthy because you are alive. Like, you are innately worthy. These two things do mirror each other, which is why I wanted to group worthiness and self-belief together, because they mirror each other. If you don't feel worthy or deserving, then do you really believe in yourself? And all of this comes down to self-love. How much you love yourself plays a huge role in how much you believe in yourself, and also how much you believe you are worthy of. Now, I want to give you some tools here, some practical takeaways is so that you can actually start to boost your belief in yourself. There are really two types of evidence that you need to be providing your brain in order to boost belief in yourself. The first type of evidence is mental evidence. I like to do a little confidence workshop. The first step of a confidence workshop is to list everything you've ever accomplished, all the things that you've overcome. Show your brain evidence that you are capable, whether it be through self-talk, affirmations, visualization, hypnosis. The second type of evidence is physical evidence. Your brain doesn't just listen to your thoughts. It listens to who you are being. You can be doing all of the mental work. You could be proving to your brain that you can do it right. But if you are not following through on your word, setting boundaries, holding yourself to a high standard, if you're not showing up, well, what do you think your brain believes more? Do you think that your brain believes your words or your actions more? We trust people's actions over— we trust their word, especially if their actions don't match their words. When you tell yourself you're going to get up in the morning and do something and you press snooze and you don't do it, that reduces self-trust. And if your brain— if you don't trust yourself, if your brain is learning that your word doesn't match your actions, well, your brain is going to stop believing in you. Doing the mental work, showing your brain the mental evidence is very important. I don't want to downplay that, but that's half the job. Showing up for yourself and being the version of you that you would believe in, that's the other half. Now, step 2 is belief in your goals. If your brain does not fully believe in your goal, it's not going to give you the dopamine to go and drive behavior to work toward that goal. And there's actually some really cool research on goal encoding where your brain actually encodes the goal differently when you fully believe in it versus when it's just kind of like, "Oh, that would be nice, but I don't know." When you fully believe in the goal, you activate your prefrontal cortex, specifically the dorsolateral region of the prefrontal cortex, which is really important for decision-making and planning, AKA moving toward your goals. And when the goal is vivid enough and your brain believes it to be real, rather than just in your imagination, your brain actually activates motor planning systems and starts mapping out the path toward achieving your goal. So your brain literally starts to simulate the actions and the decisions and the moves that you are going to need to make to manifest whatever it is that you want. And when you have both belief in yourself and belief in your goals, they synergize together. And you become unstoppable. So I do want to take a moment to have you ask yourself, like, do you fully believe in your goal? For example, let's say you are trying to manifest a relationship and you have a limiting belief that there's no one to date in your city. You don't fully believe in your goal. And what happens then is that your brain is not going to be filtering your reality for that perfect match because you subconsciously believe that there's no one to date in your city. So what's going to happen? Your brain is actually going to filter your reality to confirm that belief that the people in your city suck or that there's no one to date in your city. Now, I bring that up because I hear that belief everywhere, and I also used to hold that belief. What happened as soon as I shifted? Well, I met my soulmate. So do you have any limiting beliefs around your goal? What is possible and what is not possible is not up to you. All that is up to you is simply to strive for what you want. The first time I ever heard this was from Sadhguru, I'm pretty sure, and I love reminding myself of this. We do not know enough to say that something is possible or not possible. The impossible happens all the time. I love the story of the 4-minute mile because before the first person ever ran the 4-minute mile, they thought that it was physically impossible. Your heart would burst if you tried to run a mile under 4 minutes. And guess what happened after the first person ran a 4-minute mile? All of a sudden, now all of these people could do it. What happened? Physical abilities didn't just magically improve. What happened was they believed it was possible. And that's what can happen for you when you shift your mindset and start to recognize that maybe anything is possible. And maybe you don't need to fully believe that your goal is possible, but you need to recognize that who are you to say that something's possible. Start to show your brain that the impossible is possible. What is one impossible thing that you've already been through, that you've already done, you've already completed or accomplished? I bet there's something, and don't try to tell me there's not. Let's move on to step number 3, which is detachment from the outcome, because you cannot receive in a hand that is clenched shut. Research on Broaden and Build Theory shows that negative emotional states actually narrow your cognitive field. They give you a sort of tunnel vision where you are less open to opportunities, you're less able to generate solutions, and you think more rigidly. You are literally less open to the things that you say you want when you are stressed or frustrated about the how and the when whatever it is is going to happen. When I first went to my PhD to study neuroscience, I researched drug addiction. Through everything that happened, I woke up to this new dream and this new ability to help people that I had. I had to allow myself to pivot. The coolest thing ever is that now in my coaching program, I have helped multiple people get sober. I've helped many people overcome addiction, which is so cool. I mean, it's working out right in a way that I never would have thought possible, but I wouldn't have been able to unlock this new avenue if I would have been stuck gripping, holding on to an old path that wasn't working for me. So I want to now ask you Where are you trying to force a certain path? Where are you trying to force a certain timeline? That maybe you can open your mind, maybe you can relax, maybe you can step into the feeling of, maybe I can just trust that it's all working out according to some divine plan, and move like it's already yours. Live in the feeling state of your desires. Now, step number 4 is really the kicker. Because you can be doing steps 1, 2, and 3 perfectly and still be subconsciously blocking yourself if you don't have step number 4. And if you're struggling with step number 2, belief in your goal, then I call you and invite you into step number 4, because step number 4 might be the reason why. Step number 4 is alignment. Does your nervous system actually want the thing that you're trying to manifest? You can consciously believe in something and believe in the goal, and still be subconsciously blocking yourself because it conflicts with the deeper internal value that you have. I'm gonna give you an example. So there's a client that I work with. He is a business. He has a goal of making more money. What we discovered was that when he would set this goal of making more money, he didn't necessarily have the motivation or the desire or the drive. There really wasn't a strong enough why to move him toward what it is that he wanted. After working through his deep down internal values, what we discovered is that something that he deeply values is providing for the people that he loves. And so we actually shifted the manifestation, we actually shifted the goal. Rather than him having this goal or manifestation of making X amount of money, we shifted it to manifesting providing for his team. By default, he makes more money when his team makes more money, right? Because that's how it works. This new manifestation of working harder for his team so that he could provide more for his team and his business partner completely aligned with his deeper internal value of providing for the people he cared about. So my question to you is, are you trying to manifest something because it's what your soul truly wants, or are you doing it because society society tells you that you should do it. And I don't want to say that any desire that you have is wrong. Maybe the thing that you're trying to manifest, you're just thinking about it from the wrong angle. So if that's something that you want to work on with me, then check the description and the links. There are everything that you'll need to learn more about coaching, and Minecraft will be in the description. But let's recap, because I know this was a lot. Step number 1 is belief in yourself. You have to believe it before you can see it. Step number 2 is belief in your goals. When you fully believe in whatever it is that you are working toward, in what you're doing, that level of dopamine— that dopamine is going to drive you to actually go and do it. And when you don't believe in your goal, well, doubt is a dopamine destroyer, and your brain is not going to filter for ways to help you make it happen. Step number 3 is to detach from the outcome. Enjoy the journey, because life is about the journey. If it were about the destination, it would be called death. And also recognize that as soon as you achieve or manifest the thing that you want, there's gonna be another thing. It's a, it's a never-ending cycle, which is beautiful. There's always more to create in this life, but make peace with that and recognize that there's always going to be more that you're going to want to work towards. So you might as well just allow yourself to feel the way you want to feel right now. And step number 4 is alignment. Is the thing that you're trying to manifest truly aligned with your nervous system and with who you are and with what you really deeply value in life? Because when it is, I swear the things that just start aligning to help make it work, it'll be unbelievable. That is my 4-step formula to manifesting whatever it is that you want. When you have those 4 steps, you will be unstoppable. You got this. I believe in you. I'm rooting for you, and I cannot wait to hear your success stories and hear about all the things that you're manifesting. I'm sending you so much love, and I'll see you next time. Bye.