Let Yourself Believe in the Magic

INTRODUCTION: MENTAL MASTURBATION & BAD INVESTMENTS

In 2021, I got sucked into an obsession with the law of attraction and manifestation. I had graduated college the prior year, and recently left Islam, the religion I grew up practicing, and COVID restrictions were still in place. I felt like a failure for not having a “real,” full time job right after get my degree, and I had a lot of other internal messes going on inside of me. I had previously known about the concepts of the law of attraction and manifestation, but didn’t consciously put them in practice towards my goals. Especially being a practicing Muslim prior, I was worried that incorporating these concepts would be going against my worship of and reliance of God. I figured that prayers would be enough to get me what I wanted instead of “manifesting.” 

But now that I didn’t have the restriction of my religious beliefs, I took it upon myself to become an expert on these Western New Age concepts (undeniably appropriated from more wholesome concepts from many Eastern religions). For the first time feeling like I could actually have control over my life, I attempted to master my thoughts, feelings, beliefs and overall mindset about who I was and about how I could change my life. I binged self-help content on YouTube and TikTok, many of which had to do with manifestation. I even spent thousands of dollars I did not have into manifestation courses and coaches. Even though I still got some value from these “investments,” they were not holistic. Most of these were also not worth the thousands to ten thousands of dollars I’ve spent on them. 

I didn’t realize it at the same, especially not in my desperation to “make something of myself” as I felt rushed to succeed in creating my own coaching business and building my own online platform from which I could monetize, but I was being scammed. I was in a vulnerable place where I lacked a lot of internal stability and overtaken by a deep loneliness, and these online investments seemed like a gateway to me healing, my ticket to monetary success that would finally give me the financial and therefore personal independence that I craved. The idea of following my parents’ desired career paths for me where I had little to no say about what I wanted made me feel suffocated, and I really wanted to feel a sense of agency in being able to make my own career choices– even if I made mistakes, at least they would be my own. 

Even though these coaches and courses often did have value to offer, they were ultimately scams, as I realized years later, because of the ways in which they utilized unethical marketing tactics to sell their services. Yes, strategies are necessary to market and sell. No, these strategies do not have to take away potential consumers’ agencies in order to sell, unless advertising your product or service is not good enough to sell on its own. And not unless you are trying to manipulate your potential consumers by fear-mongering them; what a lot of these coaches, or self proclaimed, coaches do is put their audiences and targets in an emotionally triggered space, laden with visuals of a better life, to convince these targets to buy from them. While there is nothing wrong with appealing to people’s emotions and using empathy to convey that you understand their needs, showing how your service or product can help them reach their goals, it becomes problematic, downright unethical and immoral, when you steal their agency in logical and critical thinking alongside their emotions. 

To give an example, the last coach I invested in, probably my worst investment of all, did not take my initial “no” for an answer when I told her I was not in a place to work with her at the time. She appealed to me at an identity level, telling me that I was “a coach for aliens” (my business at the same was called A Space for Aliens) and instilled a sense of fear and urgency in me, insinuating that if I didn’t invest in her now and figure out how to get the money now, then I would be stuck in the same place I was currently in at that time. She promised me that by investing in her, that I would be in a much different place with a much more thriving business. 

Unfortunately, I took the bait, believing that this was a big step for myself. I thought that the fears and reasons for me saying “no” initially were excuses, and that if I was serious enough, I would figure this coaching thing out and make tens of thousand of dollars by the end our time working together. 

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, that did not happen. Unfortunately, I was in a much worse place financially, even years after, for putting myself into debt with the idea that I needed to spend money to make money with this coach. This coach did not deliver the results that she promised, nor did she provide me the structure and accountability that I had asked for– her job as a coach was to help me see the blind spots that were holding me back; unfortunately, nothing she did was transformative. To make things worse, towards the beginning of me working with her, I found out that she was an Andrew Tate supporter. This was especially ironic considering that her entire brand was around women empowerment and healing from narcissistic, sexual and other kinds of abuse. That in and of itself eroded a much needed sense of safety I would need with someone who was working closely with me. 

Fortunately, I had a lot to learn from this experience that shaped me into a much better– much more self and socially aware person– today. First hand, I learned how much images, especially social media and online personas, can be incredibly deceiving. Even someone with an inspiring success story and connections with notable people with wide, popular influence can be far from reputable and honest. Images can go a long way. Of course, we all hear that social media is fake– but how much of that do we truly understand? How much do we still readily believe people’s stories anyway, especially when there is evidence of them telling the truth through pictures and emotionally invoking storytelling?

I learned the hard way to trust my intuition, even when it goes against what seems to be popular. In tandem with other courses and coaches I invested in, these unethical marketing tactics are normalized. Partial truth telling is standard, flaunting the most happy parts of one’s story and either overexaggerating or dismissing the more messy parts depending on what is most convenient for the narratives that will allow coaches and course creators to sell the most. 

I even told that last coach that my intuition was telling me not to invest when I initially told her “no,” yet she pushed me. She discouraged me from trusting my intuition despite being someone who was supposed to encourage me to lean into it– I guess she only wanted me to lean into it if it benefited her. When this same coach was trying to teach me how to market my coaching services using the same sleazy but normalized tactics she used on me, I knew something felt wrong even though she tried to convince me otherwise. 

After I my time working with this last coach came to an end, while I had an unfavorable opinion of her as I realized more and more how our core values were misaligned (if her love for Andrew Tate wasn’t a big giveaway), I still hadn’t fathomed that I had been scammed by someone whose grandiose claims did not actually match up. Part of this was because I saw that she had so many other success stories, and that there were other women who continued working with her a second time. Another part was because I kept thinking that I learned a lot from her, I just had to implement it. 

But it wasn’t until much later that I realized that she was supposed to help me implement in the first place. While she did help me in terms of gaining clarity in certain areas of my personal life, she did not do shit for the business aspect. She, again, did not, provide me what she promised– I certainly did not achieve the results that she promised I would have. 

In the online world of law of attraction and manifestation, given my maturity and hindsight, I now see how prevalent entitled and narcissistic attitudes people have in their individual self perceptions, too often equating that with self love and self worth. Having self love and self worth, while being notable realizations for recovering people pleasers or people who aren’t used to putting themselves first, does not mean that you get to demand and take whatever you want from other people, exercising an agency over their free will through energy manipulation and mind games. Literally, one of the tactics that this last coach wanted me to do was to visualize me working with specific people and to manifest it. While I know that visualization is a powerful technique in achieving goals, given that energy manipulation is possible in the first place, it is unethical to infringe on a specific person’s free will with the intention to get them to do something just because you want them to. Even when I was in the depths of believing in the law of attraction and manifestation, I was against the idea of trying to manifest a specific person, which entailed people trying to get someone they had a crush on or an ex lover to try to communicate with them or get back with them to fulfill romantic and sexual desires. Not only is is wrong to force someone to do something, whether physically or “energetically,” but why would you want someone to desire you through artificial means? It’s one thing to feel into the energy of the kinds of people you want to be around in your life in visualizing, and it’s another thing to pinpoint specific people and attempt to morph them into your expectations of them for selfish purposes. 

AFTER MY MANIFESTATION AREA CRASH & BURN

As you can see, my whole run with my law of attraction and manifestation era left a bad taste in my mouth and gives me a lot of the “ick.” For a long time, I became completely averse to the whole concept of manifestation and law of attraction overall– I wanted nothing to do with them. Despite leaving organized religion and this ick towards spirituality as described or *ahem* appropriated through new age concepts, I still longed to believe in an omnipotent, benevolent God. Even though I’m not a fan of many things about orthodox Islam, there are also things I still love about it– the idea of a morally and ethically perfect, all-powerful, most loving God being one of them. As I held onto Islam, I believed in the concept of soulmates, fate and other mystical, magical things. And while my faith in these things have fluctuated over the years, I find myself again and again, despite bouts of atheism, inclining towards having faith in a God. And if not “God” in the traditional Abrahamic religious sense, that there is truly a source of all the good that is out there, in opposition to the evil. 

Despite being reluctantly spiritual in fear of falling into the delusional, unrealistic spirituality I did a few years ago, I find that I cannot completely let the spiritual part of me go. I just want that spiritual part of me to be with God-consciousness- encompassing of a moral and ethical compass and not having netural attitudes to that like so much of the Western New Age world seems to encourage whether implicitly or explicitly. 

I’VE BEEN RELUCTANTLY SPIRITUAL, BUT WANT THAT TO CHANGE.

Even though I gave up on the idea of “manifesting your soulmate” and have been inclined not to believe in the concept of soulmates in the recent years, I still find myself wanting magical connections and soul-deep intimacy that feels transcendent even if still realistic and imperfect– and not realistic and imperfect despite the magic these connections hold, but I want the magic to become more apparent in these imperfections and messiness; I want to magic to be illuminated in contrast to the normalcies of daily life, the connection between me and another person or among me and others to feel like a miracle. 

I want to have faith in something bigger than myself, and I want find other people who, do, too. I want to find purpose through that– and I want to have people in my life who understand that purpose. Who get it. 

I want magic to be a part of my normal. Even if the connections I make and the desired mutual intimacy I cultivate are rare, I still want that rare beauty of soul deep connection to be something I am used to having, yet never ceasing in my gratitude for it and never taking it for granted. 

Maybe my loneliness is a gift– maybe it is preparing me as I prepare myself to make room for the kinds of relationships I want to have in my life, the kinds I have been praying for, begging for. Perhaps without this loneliness, I wouldn’t truly understand how special connection and relationships and social support and deep intimacy are. Instead of succumbing to my loneliness and cynicism, maybe they are meant to drive me to embracing my vulnerability and alchemizing it for creativity and connection instead of running away from my vulnerability out of fear of being cringe and too much, yet not enough at the same time– ridden my shame and fear of being seen, heard and perceived– struggles that became more and more apparent to me as I’ve taken my creativity, intellectualism and self expression more seriously over the past few years. And I come to find, time and time again, that vulnerability is an integral aspect of these– of connection to both my own creativity and to linking myself with other people. 

If I want to be found, I have got to let myself be seen. Not only must I allow that, but I must be an initiator of putting myself out there– my true self– as embodied through my art, stories, videos. I must be an initiator of my own vulnerability in order to welcome and inspire that of others. And I must lean into others’ vulnerability and let my own feelings be triggered instead of letting those shame self-cringing shame at my vulnerability– at my humanness– take over. 

IF I WANT MAGIC, I MUST BE IT– AND THAT MEANS I MUST BE VULNERABLE

How much magic have I been losing out on because of my fear of being perceived as emotional– even if the single audience of my tears and screams and grief is my own self? How much have I been losing out on my holding back my stories, shrinking into myself with the fear that my narratives don’t matter and are useless and worthless and simply a waste of people’s time let alone mine, and therefore no one will care for them anyway? How many connections have I hidden from in passing without realizing it, by withholding my emotions and ideas and humanness? 

How much magic have I missed out on?

All because of fear? All because of resistance to my vulnerability?

How much have I been holding back on because of my fear of getting hurt (again)? 

And how much has holding me back just been a seemingly safer way of hurting, with an illusion of the pain and dissociation and numbness not being as bad as it actually is, the loneliness not being bad as it acutally is, been keeping me from lover? Been gaslighting me out of the value of my vulnerability? 

The truth is, vulnerability is needed for that magic I crave. Daring to have faith– a vulnerable thing in and of itself, especially when it defies immediate logic and is not readily understood by others– and having a vision you commit to so personally when others don’t make sense of it– is vulnerable. 

Without having faith, there is no magic. 

Without believing in magic, why would you go for it in the first place?

Not only do I want to believe in magic– the idea that there is a reason that we are all here, that we continue to exist beyond our human mortality, that our creativity and art matter and serve a purpose, that soulmates exist whether romantic or not, that true love exists and we are meant to love in various different forms and revolutionize our existence and that of others with that love–  I want to experience that belief with others, too.

I want to be in a lifelong partnership with a beautiful man who gets it too and is relentless yet grounded in a purpose bigger than himself where he exemplifies great character as a human being and is someone I am incredibly proud to be with. Someone who harbors so much depth in his spirituality in a way where it’s genuine and not pretentious, an outcome of him being rather than performing. Someone who gets why creativity and art are important, and cherishes vulnerability, finds so much magic in our relationship and connection. Someone who inspires my belief in God, and deepens my faith that there must be one to have someone like him and a love story as magical as ours in my life. I want to have lifelong platonic friendships with women who are strong and purpose driven; whose relationships and connections with me are safe havens for me to rely on; friends turned family. Women who are so supportive of my dreams and believe in me, driven by their own belief in themselves and their dreams– women who are so in tune with themselves and, like me, are hopeful romantics while simultaneously decentering men. I want to be surrounded by kind people who lead with their heart over their ego, and utilize their brains in tandem with the pureness of and clarity through their souls. 

I want to have vulnerable, brave, genuine, beautifully imperfect, kind people in my life who serve as examples for the kind of character I want to embody. Who inspire me to give to charity and show up for important causes. Who reinstill my faith in humanity and give me strength to show up for those impacted by injustices, to stand up for what is right– being able to do so much more effectively than if I was at it alone. I want people who are relentless in their faith in me towards making my creative dreams happen, making their support vocal. 

If I want to believe in magic, I’ve got to make sure I’m embodying it, too. 

If I want to have faith that the kinds of people who value the same things I do, who are “like hearted” as Austin Kleon mentions in his book, “Keep Going,” as me exist, I must make sure that I’m being the first example to myself that people like whom I desire exist. 

The more I cultivate my own magical spirit, balanced healthily with pragmaticism and potential, the more I can recognize and help cultivate it in others. 

Getting outside of your comfort zone isn’t just about putting yourself out there in the physical, external world– it is also about getting inside of yourself. 

It is uncomfortable to be vulnerable with yourself, diving into your shadows and darkness and demons, let alone putting your vulnerability out there through sharing your stories and art and other ideas for others to see. Just as rejection and failure from the external world can hurt, so can exploring the depths within yourself tied to beliefs of unworthiness, unlovability, incompetence that often result in shame, loneliness, perfectionism, imposter syndrome and self sabotage just to name a few consequences. 

It’s a tough journey ahead, but a welcome one. Because even as you get outside of your comfort zone inside and outside, you also practice the art of self acceptance. With both the messy and the more put together parts, you unconditionally accept your vulnerability. Your humanness. The multifacetedness and different spectrums of you. 

The magic you find through painful things like grief, rejection, self doubt manifests through the love, acceptance, celebration and choosing from other people. 

How are other people going to have the chance to show you they love these parts of you and you in your entirety if you keep them hidden and locked away, impossible to find? Or to know in the first place?

How will they know these parts of you exist?

What kinds of magic will you, I– we– invite into our lives when we get more vulnerable from a place of committing to love that goes beyond our individual selves, way past our egos?

What will happen when we more openly share our stories? Our desires? Our creative ideas?

Not in lackluster, half-assed ways where we unconsciously hope that we don’t get seen yet can give ourselves a pat on the back for trying even though we’re not as deserving of it but want to convince ourselves otherwise– but rather in more bold, unapologetic ways? Even if those ways are subtle, yet firm– being loud can be good, too, but you don’t always have to be loud to be noticed. 

When we let our humanness show– especially the parts that we are often most ashamed of and think will get us shunned or looked down upon, and are the parts that make us feel like we are too much yet not enough at the same time– that is where the connection with others happens. That is where we bring the magic of conveying to others that they are not alone– because that humanness– that imperfection and all of its beauty, the vulnerability– lies within them, too. 

What kinds of relationships await us as we make the courageous tread past the barrier of the shame beyond our vulnerability?

What magic happens when we stop gatekeeping ourselves from ourselves– and then with the rest of the world?

Just as the magic of other people have helped you, how will your own magic help others?

You don’t have to believe in God to believe in this magic. You don’t have to even consider yourself spiritual to believe in it, either. 

The magic is just there. Even if it hasn’t been a part of your normal, or at least not seemingly so– it still exists regardless. You can still embody it regardless and choose it and let it choose you through acts of courage. 

Even science confirms love and the reality of connection, whether people bring it down to evolutionary explanations or metaphysical ones. Same things with creativity and art.

I’d like to believe that these things have a source, and that spirituality and science can aid each other. Yes, there are evolutionary outcomes of heightened human consciousness or at least the potential for it. And yes, it’s a miracle that we are capable of such intellectual and creative and artistic possibilities, as well as altruistic ones and to be motivated by love connected to greater purposes beyond our individual selves. 

I’m striving to believe in the magic and let it guide me; I’m choosing to have faith that even if I don’t have all the answers to everything and even though there are many sources for my cynicism and fear and doubt, good still exists. Purpose and love still continue to exist for myself and others to guide us beyond the oppression and evil and despite it. 

Magic still exists, and so do people who believe in it. And that magic only gets stronger the more people come together in connection of its purpose– a miracle in and of itself.