Stop Ordering the Universe Around

It happened again. After yoga class, I struck up a conversation with an almost, oh-so-close, would-be friend. After waxing philosophical long enough for us to roll up our mats and slip on our Birkenstocks, she saw an opportunity and pitched me her rebranded Course in Miracles/Super Attractor/Manifesty workshop with the stealth of a used-car salesman.

Making friends in adulthood sucks.

I won’t lie, the fact that the manifestation industrial complex is currently getting ripped into by the backlash of a world that’s tired of being shamed for its own suffering delights me. It’s about time. The lack of empirical evidence is an obvious problem, but the deeper issue is that Law-of-Attraction, manifestation teachings tend to sow seeds of blame when people don’t manifest what they want. There is pretty much zero acknowledgment that much of life’s circumstances are outside our control.

These teachings also borrow scientific language: quantum mechanics, energy, vibration, without any unbiased research, to create an illusion of legitimacy. Positive thinking can certainly help mood and motivation, but when taken to extremes, it leads to self-blame, denial of problems, and toxic positivity. They promote individual responsibility so heavily that they ignore systemic inequality, structural barriers, and frankly, dumb luck.

Delusional Positivity and the Illusion of Control

In his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck,* Mark Manson calls this “delusional positivity.” The idea that you must never doubt yourself, never imagine failure, and suppress all negative thoughts. He argues that this denial of reality feeds magical thinking. Part of why this dogma seems to work in these circles is simply confirmation bias. Of course, when you focus on a goal, affirmation, or desire, you start noticing things in your environment that align with that focus. It feels like manifestation, but it is mostly selective attention.

In and of itself, that is not necessarily bad. My best friend is an acupuncturist, and when told by western medicine practitioners that her craft only “works” because of the placebo effect, she affectionately responds, “well I guess if what I do helps people to heal themselves without unnecessary medical intervention, I call that healing” If the placebo effect of all your manifesting leads you to a healthier mindset, naturally, that is a good thing.

Placebos are still medicine; they’re just honest about it.

Ordering Off the Manifestation Menu

Unfortunately, the Promethean complex is too powerful; we can’t help ourselves and build an entire religion out of our goal map. Before we know it, we’re ordering off the manifestation menu like Psyche is our short-order cook.

Movements like The Secret, vision boards, and mindset magic too often promote a will-centered, ego-driven philosophy of “you can create anything you want if you align your vibration.” It’s a fantasy of control dressed up as spirituality. Time and time again, I have observed this pattern in my clients. After they buy the online course, book, or weekend workshop, they find out it’s a spiritual pyramid scheme, gaslight themselves, and invent a reason things didn’t work out the way they had planned based on their astrology chart.

It’s a fantasy of control dressed up as spirituality.

Then I get to be the bad guy and remind them that Psyche wants a collaborator, not a customer.

Do you create your reality? Sure. And you should definitely take responsibility for the parts you do play. But you’re not the only cook in the kitchen. Shaming yourself for not manifesting a six-figure income if your sous chef (Ego) sucks at his job just skips over the beautiful mystery of the whole magical process. Psyche’s kitchen is communal, not catered.

Plus, the unconscious runs the kitchen; you’re just on dishes.

The Problem Manifestation Can’t Solve

There is also a little conundrum that manifestation coaches never have a neat answer for: what about when tragedy strikes? There is no way around the implication that every misfortune is somehow a manifestation failure, that suffering means you didn’t visualize hard enough.

“It sounds like there’s still a limiting belief you haven’t cleared.”

Or “Some part of you is resisting abundance.”

Or “Your subconscious hasn’t fully aligned yet.”

Sound familiar?

From a depth-psychological view, magical thinking isn’t about controlling outcomes; it’s about entering into a relational conversation with the soul.

Shakti Gawain writes,

“Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart truly desires must come to you.”

It’s an enchanting idea. I can even get on board with the part about “life being filled with infinite creative potential.” The trouble begins when it turns into a physics formula: imagine clearly → request boldly → receive effortlessly. What’s missing is any acknowledgment of limitation, power, shadow, and the fact that Psyche doesn’t always serve Ego’s agenda. Within the doctrine of unlimited creation, we must ask:

Which “you” is doing the manifesting?

I’d bet one million bitcoin it’s the egoic mind.

Participation, Not Domination

The task, then, is not to compulsively manifest Soul’s agenda but to participate with it. The ego must learn to cooperate with the Soul’s nudges rather than imposing its own. We do this by listening to patterns that are already showing up in our lives before handing out instructions to Psyche about what should leave or arrive. True soul work is not manifesting your Christmas list. It’s living with a sense of wonder toward the much better Christmas gifts Soul already had wrapped.

You don’t create your reality through sheer will. Yes, you create how you perceive the reality you exist in, but you don’t create the reality itself. Sorry, you’re not that powerful, sweetheart.

You can, however, participate in it. Which brings me to one of my favorite stories about participation — the day the universe trolled me into buying my retro RV named Iris.

Synchronicity: How I Got Bullied Back Onto The Highway

My favorite synchronicity story is how my 1998 Lazy Daze Motorhome, Iris, came into my life. After my marriage of seventeen years ended, the thing I missed most wasn’t companionship; it was camping. My ex and I had owned a few travel trailers over the years, and the kids had grown up roasting marshmallows and riding bikes with weekend campground friends they knew they would never see again. Now, living in California, surrounded by endless coastal vistas begging for weekend escapes, I longed to do it again. But I couldn’t imagine doing it alone. The thought of backing a trailer into a tight campsite with an audience, and only a twelve- and eight-year-old to guide me (because sadly, vehicles from 1998 don’t have backup cameras), sounded like humiliation followed by insurance claims.

Then one day, the collective unconscious of the Facebook Marketplace served me an algorithmic miracle: a retro 1998 Lazy Daze at a fair price, all sun-faded and soulful, clearly loved, clearly alive. I fell instantly in love. “If that were mine,” I thought, “I’d name her Iris, she looks like an Iris.”

I messaged the owner, arranged a test drive, and started imagining coastal campfires. But the night before my scheduled trip for a test drive, my ego launched a coup.

What are you doing? It hissed.

You can’t do this alone.

It’s irresponsible. Financially stupid. Unsafe.

The world is full of psychopaths living in KOAs.

You should be saving for nursing home insurance, not living joyfully!

I was one phone call away from canceling when I reached for my phone in the pocket of an old jacket I never wear, but for some reason pulled on that brisk morning. My fingers brushed something small and plastic. I pulled it out and froze. And then gasped. And then laughed so hard I scared the neighbors.

It was a purple Croc charm that said “Iris.”

When the universe trolls you that hard, you listen. And buy a retro RV that your ego thinks is irresponsible, but your Soul knows will bring endless joy for the blip of time you are here on earth.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

Photo of Iris belongs to author (obviously)

What Synchronicity Actually Is (and Isn’t)

So let’s unpack this term synchronicity that has become the darling of manifestation culture. The synchronistic element of this story wasn’t that Iris showed up on my social media for no discernible reason, or that one of my kids’ toys was in my pocket, or even that I chose a jacket I never wear. Those were ordinary events. All decisions or behaviors within my control, shaped by longing, will, and dumb chance.

The man credited with coining the term “synchronicity,” C.G. Jung, was very explicit that synchronicity is not cause and effect, not wish fulfillment, and not “I thought about tacos and then saw a taco truck.” It is the meaningful intersection of an inner state and an outer event. What makes Iris a synchronistic event is the psychic wink that appeared in my moment of doubt: the “Iris” charm in my pocket, a tangible communication from the unconscious through the material world. It was the meaning and connection that took place in the pause I took during my Ego’s tantrum. Yes, I showed up and participated in it, but it was a rollercoaster I was not the captain of.

Synchronicities are the liminal places where your insides show up in your outsides, doing cartwheels in your bathrobe. So like, it’s really hard to ignore them. I didn’t manifest the charm or create the coincidence through intention. The part we play in these moments isn’t to engineer meaning, but to enter it. In fact, the millisecond you attempt to will or manufacture meaning, you destroy it.

Synchronicity demands being in receptive mode. You gotta shut up and listen. These mystical moments are not evidence of “you creating your reality”; they are evidence that your life was already in dialogue with images, myths, and patterns larger than you. So prepare yourself for a camping trip, cause whether you want to go or not, you’re pitching a tent!

Synchronicity comes from the resonance between worlds — not from the ego’s hunger, and not from fate dragging you by the hair. And before you protest, yes, of course, you have a role in this choreography, and it does matter. When life asks you to dance, it’s wise to say yes. But absolutely do not literalize it. Imagine with it! Keep the creative flow moving instead of grasping at the specialness of it.

Why limit the phenomenon?

Noticing as a Spiritual Practice

All I did with Iris was notice. And that noticing bridged two worlds. That is how we live our way into soulful living. Simply slowing down enough to be a notic-er of what is right in front of us. My ego wanted safety and logic; my soul wanted aliveness and risk. The universe, as usual, sided with Soul.

The Iris charm didn’t make me buy an RV (my checkbook did that). It simply reminded me that my life is a conversation. That soulful living doesn’t only happen through manifestation coaching, dramatic initiations, or dark nights of the soul. Sometimes it speaks in something small. Or plastic and purple. We must not overlook the ordinary in our endless chase for the extraordinary.

For all my ranting about our chronic over-interpretation of every last spiritual ego-project, one of my favorite practices is still noticing angel numbers, for this exact reason. It’s an everyday noticing practice. A simple act of attention that has the power to root us back into life.

It isn’t about decoding — why did I see 1:11 just now? what is the universe trying to tell me? It’s about presence. A quiet smile, a small pause, a reminder that it’s a miracle you’re here at all. There is no “why” you saw the numbers. Your daily life: laundry, oil changes, errands, the whole of it, is a living, breathing ecosystem inside the pulse of Psyche.

The smallest moments contain an infinite universe of meaning.

No vision board required.