In today’s show we talk Law of Attraction, manifesting made easy, yin and yang energy, the idea that unhappy journeys don’t lead to happy endings, why you don’t need to make a crazy leap of faith before you can get this stuff to “work” for you, and a whole lot more!

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Show Notes: Slacker Manifesting

Nathalie: Welcome back everybody.

Nathalie: This is the vibe shifting show. And today we are talking with Jeanette Maw, the Good Vibe Coach. Jeanette is a master certified coach and founder of Good Vibe University.

She’s a full-time manifesting geek on a mission to inspire conscious creators. Her Law of Attraction passion includes publishing weekly blog posts, a dozen ebook credits, weekly group calls, training fellow coaches, and the occasional speaking gig. So, welcome Jeanette, I am so excited to have you here!

Jeannette: Nathalie, you are one of my favorite people to play with so I’m the one who’s happy to be here. I’m looking forward to this.

Nathalie: I’m super excited about this because for those of us who work in this whole Law of Attraction, conscious creation field you are… you’re pretty much one of the first ladies of this whole field.

Jeannette: Oh wow. Hello! Thanks for the compliment!

The “Hustle Hard” Concept

Nathalie: So if you’re in this field you’ve probably heard of Jeanette and her wonderful blog and all the really cool, awesome stuff she does over there.

Nathalie: And today what we are talking about with Jeanette is her concept of “slacker manifesting” which I really, really love. And we sort of set up this interview because one of the things that drives me batty with this whole entrepreneurship stuff is this phrase of “you have to hustle hard” and “you have to hustle ’til your haters ask if you’re hiring.”

And both of those phrases they just feel, and have always felt, just jarringly wrong to me ever since the first time I heard them. And I really wanted to talk to you about this because you literally wrote the book on Slacker Manifesting.

Why ‘hustle hard’ is bad advice. #manifesting #lawofattraction Click To Tweet

So I thought it would be super fun to get your perspective on letting go of this idea that manifesting change or creating something new or something awesome in our lives has to be difficult, has to be painful, something that we have to pay our dues and earn in order to have in our lives.

Conflicting Advice from LOA Teachers

Jeannette: You know where so many people get confused about this, too, is that there are other LOA teachers who also advocate the hustle or the struggle or the effort or the long days.

Jeannette: So some people can end up scratching their heads about OK how does it actually work when some very prominent leaders in the Law of Attraction field will also be talking about how important it is to get to work.

Jeannette: I could not disagree more. And I love that you and I are on the same page and you know what? Here’s the fact of the matter is: it’s whatever we think it is! So if someone thinks you have to get out there and work your butt off in order to make it happen, even using your conscious creation powers, then so shall it be. Everyone gets to be right!

We Get to Choose, So Why Make it Hard?

Jeannette: But if we get to make this up… OK, I’m getting a little fired up here… I’ll tone it down a little… if we get to make it up, why wouldn’t we choose the easy? Why wouldn’t we choose fun? Why wouldn’t we choose enjoyable?

And I love, love, love the reminder from Abraham-Hicks who says unhappy journeys don’t have happy endings. That makes total sense to me because we know we can only get what we vibrate, so if what I’m vibrating, if what I’m experiencing and feeling along the way is pain and struggle and effort, then I’m not going to suddenly have a different experience at the end of that path.

Unhappy journeys don't have happy endings. The way to #happiness is to be happy NOW. Click To Tweet

The only way to happiness is to be happy now. So if I’m not enjoying my way there I’m not going to like it when I get there.

Nathalie: I love that. Unhappy journeys don’t have happy endings. So simple but… it’s just like, as you said that, it’s just like the proverbial light going off. It’s just like, oh my god…

Example: The Job You Hate

Jeannette: True! We don’t even have to take someone’s word for that. Our own life experience is proof of it. I remember when I… this is before I was LOA savvy… I had a corporate job that I hated, when I asked myself why do I make myself go to this job? And I didn’t just hate it, it was literally killing me, I mean my body was doing crazy things that weren’t good. And the answer…

Jeannette: Oh, I’ve been there.

Jeannette: Yeah! The answer was “Oh, you need the money.” So I thought OK well if I didn’t need the money then I could quit this job. So my goal became: pay off all my debt so I didn’t need the money, including my mortgage.

Jeannette: I spent five years making triple house payments to pay off that mortgage early and on the day that I… and it was misery! It wasn’t joyful. It wasn’t like, “Oooo, I’m getting closer.” It was pain and misery every day to make myself go to that job, even weekends were pain and misery because I knew Monday was coming.

Jeannette: On the day that I made that last house payment it wasn’t suddenly angels and butterflies and unicorns and kittens. It was this… I was the same miserable zombie self that I had been for all those years I made myself work a job that I hated, whether I had the debt or whether I didn’t have the debt, I’d been practicing pain and misery. So that’s, even when I was debt free, still pain and misery.

Difficulty is a Cultural Habit

Jeannette: It’s crazy how it works. You know what’s crazy to me, is I’ve lived it so potently and yet I have done it additional times after that, and I think it’s just because of our programming. We have these habits because of our culture.

Nathalie: Yeah. It’s so easy to get sucked into that. And you know what it is? It’s fear. Because there’s so many people out there… even today! I check my Twitter feed every morning and one of the first things I see this morning is: “Rise and Grind.”

Jeannette: [Laughing] Oh no!

Nathalie: I was like: “Ok, unless you’re talking coffee, dude…”

Jeannette: Well that would work, I guess, if it were coffee.

Nathalie: No, he was not talking coffee. But I see this sort of stuff every day. And we come across it all the time, and what is that? Why do we do this to ourselves?

Jeannette: I agree.

Masculine and Feminine Energy

Nathalie: And I think, you know… let’s not get into the whole politics of the world right now… but this whole… I never until recently, and again I’m skirting the edges of the whole political scene right now…

But this whole concept of patriarchy and masculine and feminine energies, I never really paid a whole lot of attention to that until recently. And I started sort of paying more attention to this concept of the whole world, really, needing to take stock of the fact that we’ve been living for so long in this rising masculine energy and mentality about forcing things and pushing things and making things happen and sort of pushing our will onto the world and everything and everyone around us to force it into the shape that we want it to be.

And I think that’s part of the issue that we’re having with this whole hustling hard bit is that we have been in this constant… I guess it would be a very sort of yang energy or that pushing kind of thing.

And I think we’re just slowly starting to realize the problems that it’s been causing for us, not just on an individual level, but on a global level. Whereas when we look at a more feminine energy, it’s less forcing and more flowing.

When we look at a more feminine energy, it's less forcing and more flowing. #manifesting Click To Tweet

Focusing Your Attention Does Take Practice

Jeannette: Well, and I think that’s the challenge for even savvy creators. When we’re used to going out to make it happen or when that’s what everyone expects from us to be able to release that and embrace a different way of engaging life and creating our dreams through a much more yin, a much more flowing, a much more co-operative, a much easier approach. It can take some practice.

Jeannette: I think a lot of people really like the idea of effortless creation through just… I shouldn’t say “just”, I don’t want to minimize it. It is a skill to be able to harness your focused attention. And anyone who has tried meditating knows that it can be easier said than done and it is a skill, it takes some practice. But it certainly doesn’t require the time or the expenditure of calories that we’re used to believing is required or that they’ve trained us to believe is required in order to get what we want.

It’s Not About “Working Hard”

Jeannette: Working hard is not where the juice is. It’s a much… We would serve ourselves and our dreams much better if we would pay attention to our vibration. I know I’m preaching to the choir here because everyone knows this who’s listening to this.

But even those of us who know it, it can be a leap of faith or it can feel a little scary to abandon those old ways, especially when there are those around us who won’t approve or who think we’re ruining our lives.

Nathalie: Yeah.

Jeannette: But a little bit of practice, it doesn’t take long before we get results. And that makes it easier to have confidence in and to practice even more.

Theory vs Reality

Nathalie: What would you suggest for people who are having problems with that? One of the things you mention in your slacker manifesting is that… it’s a book for people who might theoretically understand that working harder doesn’t actually work, but they have a hard time trusting it and practicing it.

Nathalie: And for a lot of people, just the whole law of attraction concept in general, you can sort of feel that there’s something there.

Jeannette: Mm hmm.

Nathalie: That’s why I think it attracts so many people is because there is a… You feel… you’re drawn to it on a gut level. There’s something there that’s important.

But as soon as you start sort of dissecting it intellectually, that’s when all the fear comes crawling in and you’re just like “this can’t possibly work.” The way things are done, the way it’s always been done is you’ve got to… I mean, everybody hates their job. That’s just the way it is. Suck it up buttercup and just, you know, everybody’s miserable. Deal with it. You got to pay taxes until you die and that’s what it is.

Crazy Leaps of Faith Are NOT Necessary

Jeannette: Yeah. You know what, I think that if we ask ourselves to make a crazy leap of faith that we don’t truly believe in we’re not setting ourselves up for highest success. At least, I don’t like that kind of risk on my plate. I’m a rising Capricorn. I like sure footedness, so I don’t like to do anything that feels crazy. So I’m an advocate of baby steps. Practice projects. Play with this in small ways where it doesn’t feel high stakes, where it feels OK to experiment with, and then pay attention to your results.

The more you do that, the more you will learn to trust that this actually works a bazillion times better than us trying to make our lives happen ourselves, you know, through action by trying to move atoms around with our puny two hands.

Play with this in small ways where it doesn't feel high stakes. #LOATips #lawofattraction Click To Tweet

That’s not to say that that action isn’t part of the manifesting process, but inspired action is very different than making it happen action. And when we’re working with the benefit of our Inner Guidance showing us the way to what we want, it’s a completely different experience than us just just trying to do it from our physical perspective with our limited resources and limited understanding of how the world works.

Play in Small Ways at First

Jeannette: So to answer your question, just play in small ways. And I’ve written an article at Good Vibe University on practice projects, anyone can read it. But it’s where you basically just pick a couple of things to manifest for fun, and when you experiment with this you’ll see how the world will bring it to you. You don’t have to go out and find it yourself like a traditional treasure hunt.

We do that at Good Vibe University. We have a monthly treasure hunt with just random items and whoever manifests them all first… Well, everyone gets the fun of playing together in this way, but it’s actually a manifesting skill that we’re building. Because the more that we do this, the more we learn our own best process, the more we learn to trust the process.

And then we can translate that on the big dreams, the stuff that does feel high stakes. So we can abandon the ways that aren’t serving us, that are either destroying our health or our enjoyment of life. And we can engage a process that serves much better for creating this success, however we would define that for ourselves.

Don’t Make it a Big Deal. Just Have Fun!

Nathalie: Awesome. So when you think of these little sort of treasure hunt items that or little play practices, is there something specific that tends to work really well for people?

Jeannette: Yes.

Nathalie: At a beginner level or at an “I’m absolutely terrified to try this” level?

Jeannette: I bet you’ve experienced this before, too. What most people report success with is… and this is why I wrote Slacker Manifesting… Not trying too hard! Not making it a big deal! Think about it for a minute or two and then they let it go! And the next day, they’re you go, so-and-so is talking about exactly what was on the list, or they watch a movie that night and guess what was featured?

Jeannette: It’s the kind of magic that can’t happen if we tried to make it happen. And I think it’s fun for us to play with it in the things that don’t matter too much. But when we learn that that’s the approach that serves us best: don’t make it important, don’t get attached, don’t need it. Just have fun with it. Enjoy the process.

Example: Shower Curtains and Nail Polish

Nathalie: Try with something that isn’t really important. I think it’s really good advice. And I know I have absolute stellar success manifesting things like shower curtains and nail polish colors. Seriously. I just get it into my head. I see sort of the pattern of the shower curtain I want or the colour of the nail polish I want. All I have to do, I walk into the first store and it’s just there.

Jeannette: Oh my gosh.

Nathalie: So, it’s not going to change the world or anything. But it just happens. Without fail.

Jeannette: I like it.

Nathalie: So, just something completely minor and just fun.

Jeannette: Yes.

Nathalie: That’s the kind of thing to practice on, right?

Jeannette: Yes. Because then, once we have success with that, then we have a direct experience with the energy that works best.

Leaving the Muggle Tactics Behind

Jeannette: There are some people who come to conscious creation really excited. They make a big deal of it. They’re going to do it right. And they just translate their old hard work habits of taking action in the muggle world to get results.

And they just… then they make it hard manifesting. They are going to do their focus wheel every morning, they’re going to make a pray rain journal entry every night, they’re going to visualize in every break during the day…

There are people who have success with an intense practice like that. But I know from my own experience with the lighthearted manifesting that what serves me best is to have a very light touch with it. And that’s one reason why I love those practice projects because it will inform us what our best practices are.

Not to say that there aren’t some subjects where we need some serious rehab in our thinking, and that might take a more dedicated approach. But that’s my favorite way to ask someone to step into this world rather than make the crazy leap.

Changing Old Thoughts is a Process

Jeannette: I remember someone sitting in Abraham’s hot seat saying “Abraham, I heard you say it isn’t the food that makes us overweight, it’s our thoughts about the food that makes us overweight. So, I heard that and I decided it’s fine for me to eat cookies. And I ate cookies and I gained weight.” And she was criticizing Abraham’s teaching, saying it didn’t work.

And Abraham’s answer was basically that “Look, you didn’t change your thoughts around this. You still had the same old thoughts that were, the same beliefs that eating cookies leads to weight gain. Changing those thoughts, changing those beliefs, that’s a process. That isn’t something that necessarily happens in an instant moment.

So if we believe that a lot of action is required in order to get what we want, we might not be setting ourselves up for success to abandon those actions if we still believe it’s required. That’s why I think shifting those beliefs gradually, over time, can be really effective by just getting our hands in the clay.

Maybe that’s a bad metaphor. But practicing, playing with the system and learning how it actually does work so that it’s easier for us to have expectation of results without working hard for it.

Choosing “Easy World”

Nathalie: Makes me think of… Oh, I can’t remember her name off hand… Julia something.

Jeannette: Easy World! Julia Rogers Hamrick. Yes!

Nathalie: Easy World, yes! That one. Julia Rogers Ham…. Hammond is it?

Jeannette: Hamrick. “I live in Easy World, where everything is easy.”

Nathalie: Yeah.

Jeannette: Just that declaration, just plugging into the vibration of ease and flow. That in itself can be a vibration shifter for allowing things to come sooner than they were otherwise.

Nathalie: Yeah, that was a good book. I really enjoyed that one. She… I think that kind of thing helps people with that sort of shift in mentality.

It Happens When You Stop Needing it To

Jeannette: Agreed. And we’ve all had those experiences. That’s the thing. If we just look back on our life, whether it was when we knew about law of attraction or not. We know those times when we were trying to get the girl or the guy, we were trying, trying, trying and then as soon as we gave up they were all over us. Or, wanted a job, couldn’t find a job to save our lives. Finally decide to go back to school and the job offers come out of the closet.

Jeannette: It’s like as soon as we stop needing something, or stop wanting it in a yearning, striving way, then we become a better match to it. And some people get frustrated because they’re like “oh, as soon as I stop wanting it, then it came.” That’s the key.

When you want it you’re vibrating lack. And that lack blocks it from coming. So learning how to create that vibrational alignment to what you want, that’s… And that can be an enjoyable process. It certainly does not have to be hard work.

The Shifting Tide

Nathalie: Awesome. That is super exciting. I’m so glad you came on today, Jeannette.

Jeannette: Me too.

Nathalie: This is just… it’s absolute law of attraction gold! And it’s totally all about shifting our mentality and doing, as you said, those baby steps. To keep practicing this shift in mentality away from the making it hard on ourselves to the believing that it can be easy on us if that’s the way we want it to be.

Jeannette: And there are more and more people who are practicing this, so we’re not as lonely as it might have seemed a while ago. More and more people are really engaging these ideas and living them. So the tide is shifting.

Worrying About What Others Think

Nathalie: That is true. So there’s one more thing I wanted to ask you about. What do you do… Do you have one piece of advice for people who are worried about what others will think?

Jeannette: Oh, yes.

Nathalie: If they start trying to make this shift. Because that’s another thing… It’s always this fear stuff. But for a lot of people it’s the fear of what other people are going to think or say when you start playing with this stuff.

Jeannette: And there might be some situations where it feels really tricky to navigate that. Like a boss who believes we need to do it a certain way. I mean, your job could literally be at risk if you aren’t following the protocol. I get that. But my advice in other situations where you do have more leeway is.

Nathalie: What about family? Like family, specifically, is what a lot of people tell me that they’re having a really hard time dealing with. It’s “My family is going to tell me I’m lazy if I don’t.”

You Need to Approve of Yourself First

Jeannette: Yeah. They will. OK, maybe they won’t. But they might! And we have to not care about that. Learning to not care what others think is essential for us to be truly connected to our own inner guidance and our ability to follow it. Because if someone else’s opinion matters more to me than what my inner guidance is saying to me, I’ve got a problem. I’ve got a serious alignment problem.

When we truly approve of ourselves, we really don't care what anyone else thinks. #SelfLove Click To Tweet

And I think one of the best ways for us to release caring what other people think of us is to lavish ourselves in our own self-love and self-approval. Because when we truly approve of ourselves, 100 percent, we really don’t care what anyone else thinks.

Approval-Seeking Interferes With the Aligned Life

Jeannette: That might feel like an unsatisfying answer. But I wrote another ebook on practicing self-love because I think that one is so essential to our true alignment. As long as we are concerned what others think and we’re trying to get their approval, it’s a serious handicap in living the aligned life.

Nathalie: Because you’re tangling your energy in with somebody else’s.

Jeannette: Yes. And, you know, a beautiful thing happens when we stop caring what other people think. They have this way of… They either stop disapproving or they just fall off our radar. But when we love ourselves so solidly, we cannot experience others who don’t feel the same way about us. So either they will change their opinions of what we’re about, or they’ll go bother someone else.

Nathalie: Also very true. Awesome. Thank you so much for being with us today Jeanette. This has been amazing.

Jeannette: You were super fun to play with. Thanks for inviting me and thanks for listening everyone.

About Today’s Guest Expert:

Jeannette Maw is a Master Certified Coach and founder of Good Vibe University. She’s a full time manifesting geek on a mission to inspire conscious creators. Her law of attraction passion includes publishing weekly blog posts, a dozen ebook credits, weekly group calls, training fellow coaches and occasional speaking gigs. You can connect with Jeannette over on the Good Vibe Blog and also on Twitter.