I was 13 years old, bawling my eyes out in my parents’ room.  I just lost my big sister to ovarian cancer and I was screaming, asking God how he could do this to someone.  How he could take away someone so young and special so suddenly. 

After what seemed like years of sobbing, my brother finally came in and picked me up. “I don’t want to see you crying like that,” he said, “come on now, I promise we are going to be okay.” He’s 20 years older than me and at the time, was surely better equipped to deal with loss.  

Growing up, I was always the extremely reactive or overly emotional one. 

I was constantly told to “stop being so dramatic” or “stop being so sensitive.”  Which, now, in my dealings as a lightworker/healer, is something I’ve come to love about myself as it helps me connect with people on a deeper level.  

My sensitivity and shyness throughout elementary school could have something to do with the fact that I lost my sister, or maybe it was because I was constantly bullied.  I would come home crying most days, begging my mom to let me switch schools. 

I’m not being dramatic here, guys.  I distinctly remember being afraid to walk from class to class because I took the same path as the mean girls. 

My appearance would always be a point of contention and rumors about me would run rampant. I even remember one day at lunch, one of the girls hocked a loogie in my drink, which I didn’t found out about until later that day.

Therein began the unsurprising turn in my brain’s ability to trust women. 

This sort of malicious energy was around me for years, so I’ve had to do a significant amount of work to sever those blocks and allow myself the good fortune of having meaningful female friendships.  

I’d like to say I found a new confidence in high school, but the truth is, the bullying got worse and technology was more prevalent.  My name would be thrown into tweets, saying things like “Katie Benford is a slut,” and, “hey kids at (the school I wanted to transfer to), make Katie Benford feel really welcome next year!”

I realize many of these people came from broken families, and while I lost my sister at a young age, my parents were very supportive and loving. Of course, I realize that now, but at the time, I was broken.

So, as one does when experiencing severe pain, I took to vices that would numb it. 

I was smoking weed and drinking pretty consistently, and it escalated to a daily occurrence when I went to college, and it got really out of hand when I was around 22, which is when I decided to move to sunny Los Angeles, positive that would solve my problems and erase the demons I had in Phoenix.  

Naturally, that didn’t work and I found myself in a toxic work environment when I was 23, at a bar which was owned by a… let’s just say sketchy character.  

Also, I managed to manifest a relationship with someone who had his own very real demons, all of which landed on my lap.  He was ten years older than me and while I knew he wasn’t “the one,” my self-worth was so depleted, I stayed for two years, until I picked up and moved back to Phoenix… only to turn around 2.5 months later, back to the toxicity, buying into his manipulation.  

YIKES. 

Fortunately, I was able to leave him five weeks after, though to be real real, I’ve had my slip ups with him over the last few years. 

I think it’s safe to say once I officially closed the door on that, about 4 years ago, my intentional manifestation journey began. 

For me, it’s clear I had to hit rock bottom and lose myself completely before I could be brought back to my soul, and back to my connection with the universe.  

I remember turning on the ‘Manifestation Babe’ podcast when I was 25 and turning it off after five minutes, laughing, like, ‘no one really believes this shit, right?’

As much as I scoffed, though, I had this voice tell me to go back, so I decided what the hell, why not.  I listened all the way through that time, and felt a sense of rejuvenation; so much so that I began implementing some of the practices they’d talked about.  

I started to manifest more positive people, experiences, and things into my life.  I manifested a dream apartment, dream job, and way more money than I’d ever made.  I felt on top of the world, and like anything, really, anything was possible. 

You could say I was on cloud nine for a while, but then, the real spirituality and work came in. 

I’d like to place a heavy emphasis on ‘work’ because it really is, if you want to find contentment and oneness.  

Honestly it can feel so strenuous, some days I ask myself what the fuck I’m doing or why I’m even trying, but that’s part of the human experience – the polarity of thought.  We couldn’t experience ‘good’ if we didn’t have it’s opposite.  

And with that, I’m always reminded, the universe will never, ever give us something we can’t handle.  In fact, it’s always working with us to help form our #bestlife.  

As for manifestation… in a nutshell, it’s just the physical result of whatever the hell’s going on in our mind.  Our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, vibrations, actions, and habits all get mirrored in our physical reality. 

Whatever we believe to be true about the world will be what we create.  

We are surrounded by millions and millions of pieces of information at any given second, but we can only pick up on 126 bits of information in a moment.

Simply put, our mind will either distort a piece of information to match our beliefs, delete it if it cannot be distorted, or generalize it to conserve energy.

So, if we believe the world is a negative, shitty place, then our mind will only pick up on information that supports said belief. Therefore, we will place our attention on the world being shitty and negative, which results in us having an experience that matches. 

Also note, manifestation is not something we turn on or off; we are ALWAYS manifesting. It literally never stops – just like the law of gravity. 

We have to be an energetic match to our desires as well; one cannot manifest something when there is not an energetic match. Every single thing in the universe vibrates at a certain frequency and the way we become an energetic match for our desires is by BEING the version of ourselves that already has it.

For example, if you are trying to manifest more success, but you are living from a place of failure or unworthiness, success cannot manifest into your life. You will need to change your beliefs to match that of being worthy and do things each day to cultivate feelings of success.

Pause for a moment right now and think of what the most successful version of yourself would do each day and start doing what you can live as that person. That’s how you become a vibrational match, by living from the place of already having what you want.

And I get it… this may seem like woo woo if you’re anything like I was when I first started listening to people talk about manifestation, but stick with me – I promise it’s worth the hype.  

The key to going through life at our highest vibration is really to be in complete alignment with love; love with oneself and others, regardless of circumstances. 

Then, when we receive the desire in that space, the manifestation is just a bonus – happiness is not contingent on said thing.  

If you’re sad or feel unworthy, the new apartment, clothes, or money will not turn things around, energetically speaking.  Nothing external will ever make us happy – in fact, it often has the opposite effect, amplifying any negative thoughts swirling inside.  

I’ve had to work on taking a step back from any reactionary feelings that come up and simply focus on living in love and gratitude, at all times, which takes consistent practice. 

Oh, the person you like suddenly ghosted you?  That can surely lend itself to feeling unworthy or rejected, which can lead to a spiral, thus putting a negative film over the way you look at the world.  Instead, focus on the positive – be thankful it happened now instead of weeks down the road; be grateful you can look inward and figure out how to cope with rejection and find out where that stems from.   

As for my daily manifestation routine – it varies.  I don’t have a massive list of rituals I must complete every day, rather, I focus my energy more on who I’m being and how I show up in the world.  

I know I might sound a bit redundant here, but the energy behind why you’re manifesting something is much more important than what you’re actually calling in.  

Also, I know we’ve heard it all about a zillion times but guys, practice stillness and meditation – it’s been one of the most important modalities for me to get to know how I operate and what I need to work on.  

In addition to meditating and sitting with myself, I’ve recently started incorporating my thoughts into my water.  Hang on, I know – sounds like some hippie shit, but water can absolutely be charged with energy and change its structure to match a frequency, so you better believe I’m filling it with love every morning. I literally think about the characteristics of a person or thing I love as I’m holding my glass of water; it’s made such a positive impact on starting my day with gratitude.  

What have I personally manifested, you ask? 

In short, many things… all the time.  Like I mentioned earlier, we’re always manifesting, but I have fun playing little games with the universe in what I bring in. 

I’ll think of something super fucking random, like recently, it was a yellow rose; I just set the intention and let it go, forgetting about it until it pops into my physical reality.  It’s a great way to build believability and not write this all off as a crock of shit.  You just trust so deeply you’ve put the request into the universe and that it heard you, there’s no need to repeat or feel desperate for it – know that it’s yours – know it will come.  

I will talk more about this in my coaching program, Aligned For Bliss (obviously I’m plugging it) so make sure to check it out so you can get your own version of a yellow rose.  

As for bigger things – I’ve tripled my income in the matter of a year; I went from bartending, making shit money to getting a dream job with an incredible company.  Obviously this type of manifesting takes more intentional work which comes with time, so for someone who’s just starting out, I will always stress the importance of beginning with our thoughts.  

Our thoughts literally create neural pathways in our mind; if a thought is focused on consistently enough, positive or negative, it becomes a belief.

Our beliefs then dictate our values, which dictate our habits, and our habits dictate our results. We can only pick up on the information that is in alignment with our belief system. That’s why I tell newbies to start by monitoring their thoughts. It can take a lot of focus but it’s a great way to figure out what’s going on upstairs.  

For example, let’s say you’re about to give a huge presentation and you have the thought, “oh god, I’m gonna mess up; I’m not going to be good enough.” You give a lot of attention to this thought and your mind literally creates neural pathways that will tell your subconscious mind (aka the part of your mind that’s responsible for 95% of what happens) to do just that.  

It’s that simple. 

Likewise, if you’re focusing on a positive thought, the same thing will happen. Your subconscious mind will always always always prove you right, good or bad. So, start by monitoring your thoughts and then get to the root cause of those thoughts by looking at what you believe to be true about the situation at hand. 

Remember, with this intentional manifestation work, you can’t go from 0-100 in the matter of a day – you have to start with your yellow rose and build your way up to the top of the mountain.  

Clearly I love talking about this – it’s my passion, so if you’re interested in intentional manifestation work but need a little boost, reach out to me.  Or start by listening to my podcast, Blissing Out.  

Cheers to you all creating your dream life in full alignment.

-Katie Benford

Podcast: Blissing Out
Instagram: @blissingoutblog