Can you manifest the life of your dreams as a military spouse?

[00:00:00] Christine: Manifestation is an idea that’s gained a lot of popularity in recent years with a lot of people trying to figure out, how do I manifest my dream life? It’s gone from this idea that’s kind of out there to a word that’s a little more mainstream, but, what is manifestation exactly? Does it actually work?

[00:00:24] And is it possible to manifest the life of your dreams as a military spouse? That is what we are talking about on today’s episode of the MilSpouse Mastermind Show. So buckle up and let’s talk about what it looks like to actually create a life you. As a military spouse,

[00:00:47] you my friend, were made for more. More than the managing of schedules, keeping up with kiddos and holding down the home front. Welcome to the Milspouse Mastermind. Show the podcast. That empowers you to get unstuck and craft a life with more meaning and less overwhelm. I’m your host Christine, season military spouse, mom of three, and your guide to designing a life you love and growing a purpose fuel business.

[00:01:13] As a military spouse, I believe, You have something valuable to offer, and when you pursue the things that light your heart on fire, you trade frustration for fulfillment and isolation for a life of impact. It’s time to discover who you are meant to be, because together we can change the world. Hey, amazing mill sps.

[00:01:36] Welcome back to the MilSpouse Mastermind Show. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. I am so happy that you are here. We are right smack dab in the middle of the month of March, which means, and if you missed episode 134, we are celebrating the two year anniversary of the MilSpouse Mastermind Show all this month and I am doing a contest for everyone to leave a show review on Apple Podcast.

[00:02:05] I have a goal this year to get a hundred podcast reviews by the end of the year, and I need your help to make this goal happen. Reviews are very important on Apple Podcast because it impacts the algorithm. How many people see the podcast, how it gets ranked, how it gets recommended. In other podcasts, you might like reviews, make a huge differe.

[00:02:30] On Apple Podcasts. So I need your help to make that happen. So we are doing a review contest this month. Everybody that leaves a show review will be entered to win a free coaching session with me and access to my course, the MilSpouse Purpose Playbook, which is your step-by-step guide to discover your unique purpose.

[00:02:52] Reclaim your life and dreams and how to ultimately build a life around what matters most to you and discover who you were meant to be in the process. So I would love to have you enter. It’s super simple. All you have to do is leave a review on Apple. Podcast and then let me know that you left that review either by sending an email or by sharing it on social media and tagging me at Milspouse Mastermind.

[00:03:24] Here’s what Gsem 77 had to say. Christine, wow. Today was the first time I listened to your podcast and wow, I so appreciate your sweet, approachable spirit and perspective. I loved when you talked about how to navigate through the reality that we can’t control our circumstances. Thank you for your ministry and work.

[00:03:44] So important and needed. Keep going. Thank you so much. Not only do these reviews help the algorithm and help us get found by more military spouses, it is such an encouragement to me to keep going when I am just sitting here behind a microphone, drinking my coffee, and hoping that this message is reaching more and more military spouses that need it.

[00:04:09] So thank. For reviewing. Thank you for sharing. Let’s help get this in the hands of more people as we walk through this life together. All right, so today we are talking about this concept of manifestation, and I wanna start with a quote from Henry Ford. He said, whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re.

[00:04:36] Now, belief alone does not guarantee a specific outcome, but the lack of belief, well, that pretty much is going to guarantee us no results. In other words, we miss 100% of the shots we never take, or in this case, belief. So today I really wanted to have a conversation with you about the importance of our thoughts and why changing our thought patterns is so important.

What is manifestation exactly?

[00:05:09] And I wanted to do this by addressing this idea of manifestation because it’s something that I think gets thrown around a lot as it becomes a little more mainstream. But we may not fully understand it, and there’s good reason for that because when you say manifestation, people have a broad idea and there are lots of different definitions out there.

[00:05:35] I would say probably the most common one is this idea that it’s something to do. With the power of your thoughts and your emotions to attract what you want in your life and, and this, it basically boils down to this idea that if you can wish for and believe in something hard enough, it’s going to happen for you.

[00:06:01] but that’s what we’re going to dig in today. Is it possible for us to manifest the life of our dreams as a military spouse? Because here’s what we know to be true, just because we want something to happen. We’ve all had those times in our lives where we wanted something to happen and it didn’t happen.

[00:06:26] or we wished that something would not happen,  but it happened anyways. And so when we look at our lives and we look at how many circumstances and things are outside of our immediate control, we just tend to through throw out this idea that manifestation is just a woo-woo term and it couldn’t possibly be.

[00:06:55] I mean, it does sound a little like an out there term. When we look at what some of the definitions are, according to one definition I looked up, what you do to manifest is you set your manifestation goals, you get yourself vibrationally aligned, and then manifest them into existence. And that’s a lot of terminology that most of us don’t use in our day-to-day lives.

[00:07:23] And on top of that, a lot of people would find manifestation problematic because sometimes it seems to ignore the God question, as if we are the masters of our own universe and we control ourselves and our destinies. And what I wanna make clear is that, As listeners of my podcast, I have listeners from all different faith and non-faith backgrounds.

[00:07:50] What I believe is that God is the ultimate authority in the universe, and anything that I do, first of all, is. Done to honor and glorify him. And prayer is definitely a part of what I do and how I live my life. And seeking his guidance is a part of my day-to-day life. But instead of getting caught up in exactly what manifestation is, what it is, not what it.

[00:08:18] Entails exactly and how it plays out. I, as I was sketching out this episode, I realized I really need to divide this into two parts. So today I really wanna go into this idea behind manifestation, the science behind our thoughts and how our thoughts create outcomes. And then next week we will follow up with part two of this series, and it’s going to be, A much more hands-on, step-by-step approach of what do we actually do to start creating the life we want as a military spouse.

[00:08:57] So that’s gonna be much more hands-on. But before we get into the how do we do this, I feel like we need to have an understanding of why our thoughts matter, because I don’t know about you, but for the longest time, I just had this idea that there really wasn’t any true science behind our thoughts and mindset and manifestation and all of these terms that seem a little out of our reach.

Mindset Matters

[00:09:26] And so once I started, Doing a lot more digging into, okay, why are people talking about this? How does this actually work? What is behind this? And why do so many people say that this is effective? And here’s what I learned as I was researching all of this. There is more and more research as we grow and as we learn, there’s more and more research that actually backs up the idea that our mindset truly matters.

[00:09:57] There have been studies that have been done to show that believing that you can do something, believing that something is possible, makes it more likely that you will successfully do it. For example, our belief in our ability to learn, to grow, to improve, to succeed, which is also known as a growth mindset, impacts how we perform.

[00:10:26] They did these studies of students about to take a test and doing the mindset work to believe it was possible for them to do well on the test versus. Those who had a fixed mindset and did not believe they were capable of growing and learning new material actually performed more poorly on the test than those who believed that they were capable of learning new material.

[00:10:54] If we believe that something is possible, we are much more likely to do the work to make it happen. And it all starts with that belief. Everything we do essentially starts with a thought, and as we think the thought, the thought creates the feeling, which in turn creates more think. In this continuous cycle, this loop, and over time, this loop creates a particular state in the body, the general nature of how we feel and behave or otherwise known as a state of being.

[00:11:37] In other words, Our thoughts impact our feelings, which form our attitudes and beliefs, which inform our actions and ultimately impact who we become and how we show up in the world. So if we want to change anything in our lives, it starts by changing our thinking and when we know how to change our thinking, we began to re.

[00:12:05] Our neural networks in our brain that creates useful, sustainable and automatized actions and attitudes. In other words, our thinking influences the habits. We develop habits that make us happier and healthier. I recently read. 80% of women have self-depreciating thoughts about themselves throughout the day.

[00:12:36] I’m sure that men have these self-depreciating thoughts as well, but I think particularly women struggle in this area. But our self-talk has a dramatic influence. On our level of success in every aspect of our life, in our confidence, in our health, in our happiness, in our wealth, in our relationships, every area is influenced by our self.

[00:13:03] Talk and ultimately what our thoughts are. So if we do not actively change our thoughts, that we change those automatic negative self-talk, then our potential will be crushed and our lives will be limited by our fears, by our doubts, by our limiting beliefs about what is possible for. The good news. Is that we have the ability to reprogram our thoughts.

[00:13:39] No, it is not necessarily easy, but we have the ability to change the way that we think and approach our lives. And when we are able to change our thinking, we set ourselves up for success. We transform every area of our life. We are able to. Overcome those fears, those insecurities, those bad habits, those self-limiting beliefs and behaviors that we have that keep us stuck, that keep us living a life without purpose, that keep us feeling like the life of our dreams is not possible for us.

[00:14:24] And here’s the the kicker, when it comes to really changing our thinking and changing how we. How we live and what’s possible for us. Studies show our thinking, our actions, our behaviors, our attitudes, our feelings. They affect not only us, but those around us. I think we’ve all been in that situation.

[00:14:49] Where we wake up, we are in a bad mood, and that mood starts affecting how we show up, how we respond to our spouse or to our kids. And that impacts how they show up and how they go about their day. There has been actual research that, and this was one of those mind blowing. Whoa moments when I read this, but one person’s happiness can boost that of another for time periods as long as a year.

[00:15:24] When someone becomes happy, the chances that a neighbor, spouse, sibling, or friend would become happy actually increased up to 34%. They were actually able to measure this. When a person becomes happy, The likelihood that those around them will become happier increases as well, and get this one. When I read this, this was like, whoa.

[00:15:52] Living within a mile of a friend that became happy, increased a participant’s happiness by up to 25% just living within one. Including the people that you’re not necessarily connected to, that you don’t actually see. In other words, our moods, how we show up, that is contagious. So our ability to thrive, our ability to believe in what’s possible has the ability to impact not only our lives, but those around us.

[00:16:28] And it all goes back to. What we are choosing to think and how we believe and what we believe is possible. So in summary, our thoughts determine our feelings, our beliefs, our attitudes, our actions, and ultimately who we become. And if we don’t believe that something is possible for us, if we don’t believe.

[00:16:54] That we can change. If we don’t believe that something is a possibility for us, then we’re not likely to take action. We’re not likely to do anything to make a change. We are so much more likely to stay stuck. But when we can begin to change our thinking, to change the way that we approach and to start to look for possibilities to start to change our mindset to.

[00:17:23] What is possible? What would I like? Then we open the door for something to happen. It all starts with our mind and with our thought life. When we choose to take ownership of our life and our thoughts, when we choose to take actions towards who we want to be and how we want to. That is when our lives are transformed, we open ourselves up to growth, to development, to becoming the person we were created to be.

[00:17:57] You have something to offer the world, and when you choose to step into your story, when you choose to do the thing that lights your heart on fire and to use it to serve others, the. World is change because of your choice to step into your story. All of it begins with changing our minds and our thought process about what is possible.

[00:18:24] So can you manifest the life of your dreams as a military spouse? Maybe will it look exactly like you thought it was gonna? Maybe, maybe not. But what truly, truly matters is whether you are setting yourself up for new possibilities and opportunities. If you are leaning into a life that lights you up, and that is something that is possible for every single one of us as military spouses.

[00:18:58] Now, if you want to know more about how the changing of our. Actually physically changes the structures in our brain. Then I’m gonna give you a few resources because I found it fascinating just to see all of the science behind how what we think actually changes the structures in our brain. Now science was not my favorite subject in school, but I still found this fascinating.

[00:19:27] But if you want to do some more research, here are three books that I highly recommend. Number one. Cleaning up your mental mess by Dr. Caroline. Number two, mind to Matter by Dawson Church. And number three, get Out of Your Head by Jeanie Allen. And those are all great resources that kind of unpack our thoughts and why and how we change our thoughts and why it’s so important.

[00:19:56] For our future and for what’s possible and for us becoming the fullest version of ourselves, for us, reaching our potential, pursuing and crafting a life with purpose. Now, I was gonna get into how we go about building. and designing a life we love as military spouses. But I figured that would be a really long episode, which is why I decided to break this into two parts.

[00:20:25] And when we talk about manifesting the life of our dreams, I wanted to give you the science behind this and why. What we think matters and that it is possible for us to change our thoughts, and as we do, it changes the structure of our brains and it opens the door for new possibilities, for connections with other people.

[00:20:51] So part two is next week, and we’re going to dig into what it actually looks like, the exact steps you can take to. Designing a life you love as a military. To actually craft that life with purpose to be able to pursue your dreams and have a life that truly lights you up and makes an impact. So that is what we will be digging into next week.

[00:21:19] I can’t wait to be back with you again. Until then, I would love for you to go leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Let me know what your favorite episodes are, how this has impacted you, and what you would like to see. In the coming days, I hope you have an amazing week. Friends. Until next time, may you live filled, fueled, and full of joy.