You are a Badass

Bestie, just manifest it ✨💅

I have found myself a lot on Pinterest lately.

The main reason is that’s where engaged people go to find “inspiration” about how to plan a wedding. If you are planning a wedding as well and have no clue on how to start, some Type-A woman, who also got married and also had to plan her wedding, has made every resource that a person would ever want or need.

Do you need a list of questions to ask your venue? ✅

Do you need a list of items you should have on your wedding website? ✅

How about flower inspiration? ✅

Aesthetic inspiration for whatever niche you’re trying to personify? ✅

Tips, tricks, and guides to get the best photos? ✅✅✅

A round of applause for the women of Pinterest. It has been my doom-scroll flavor of choice at the moment. You know because scrolling this social media feels “productive” at the moment.

But besides the seemingly endless wedding content I’m getting pushed my way because of the algorithm (groans in targeted ads) I’ve been seeing a lot of “that girl” content and vision boards. People trying to manifest what they want whether that be money, love, or a specific physical feature. I can see the appeal and I’ve tried my hand at my vision board which is now my desktop background when I was inspired after reading Miracle Morning back in January.

In my reflection on the book I knew that affirmations is my weakest area. Sure manifestation does work but it feels really alien to me and not that important at the time. But I picked up You are a Badass for $3.30 and decided I would sit down and figure out what manifesting and affirmations can do for me.

Summary:

The premise of this book is that your life is dictated by the attitude you have towards life and what you want out of it. You can wish for things all you want but without actually believing that you can have said thing, it will not come to you. The idea is that there is an “energy” that surrounds all things and we have to match the “frequency” of the “energy” to attract those things into our life. The best way to match the “energy” of all the good things we want in life is by visualizing that you already have what you want, let go of negative thoughts that is bringing down our “frequency”, and working hard and stop being afraid of what you desire.

In general, the book has a very casual voice of a friend who is trying to explain something to you. Know that you will read the word “badassery” more times than you ever thought you would and have to dig around the examples, analogies, made up words, and pep talks to get to the core of the advice. Overall it’s a very easy read.

I think it’s just secularized …spirituality?

To be honest, although this book came highly recommended by content creators I watch and is touted in the self-help space, which makes sense. I found this book similar to Rich AF, which was a book I read for March that was an introduction to all things finance. The tone of both books is light, casual, and approachable. Like the word “chillaxed” might appear in either one of these books and it wouldn’t be out of place. Overall, not a bad read. I definitely want to take a lesson or two about doubting myself, letting things go, and dreaming more about what I want for myself rather than what I feel I “deserve”, which in practice, has been pretty limiting as lessons from this book.

But I do feel like books that talk about manifesting, energy, and frequencies, are just secularized Buddhist and Taoist beliefs and traditions. In the same way that yoga, meditation, and manifestation has been co-opted, sanitized, and repackaged as a wellness luxury product and promoted by the self-help space, I do wish the author mentioned or talked about more the history and background of these ancient doctrines. Also shed light on the fact that they came from somewhere. I don’t think there is anything wrong with finding solace in a belief system. I don’t even think it’s wrong to make a business around it. People do it all the time. But maybe give credit where credit’s due?

I suppose I’m feeling the same way that I felt when growing up being made fun of for drinking tea regularly and now people on the internet who look like people who turned their noses as a kid have found matcha and have claimed it as their “wellness drink”. I know that matcha doesn’t belong to me personally. It doesn’t belong to anyone since it’s just a product. Some Japanese tea grower is giddy with delight that their product has gained popularity far from their coasts. People can like what they like. But still feels strange?

This feels really similar to last week’s entry where I feel like I personally have a difficult time trying to make sense of wellness and self help space. Because the space has helped me and so many others make sense of a secular life. Perhaps the reason why so many self-help books become best sellers and have made life-long careers for so many people is because people want direction, but don’t feel organized religion is for them? People want help. People want direction. People feel lost. But reading a self-help book that popular, maybe that will help? And I find it comedic that what they are reading (if they are reading this book that is) is pop-eastern spiritualism lite™️. Which is kind of like a religion right? It seems like we’ve looped all the way back around.

I do think this book is interesting and I would definitely loan my copy to anyone who wants to take a peruse. Just drop me a line and I’ll send it your way!

I hope you all have a lovely week and I hope (as the end of each chapter in this book would say) LOVE YOURSELF because you all are here making the world better by being in it

Thanks for reading this weeks entry and I will see you all next week xoxo