71 Belief Bridging: The Key to Manifesting Your Desires

What if the secret to manifesting your dreams lies in unshakable belief rather than just positive thinking? This episode of Live Life Unapologetically delves deep into the transformative power of belief in turning your desires into reality. Shannon K walks you through the importance of aligning your conscious and subconscious minds to create a coherent belief system. Discover how the subconscious mind, shaped through repetition and emotional experiences, plays a critical role in shaping your reality and how reprogramming these beliefs can lead to profound life changes.

 Shannon addresses the fallacy of quick fixes, emphasizing the need for a sustainable and evolving approach to overcome limiting beliefs. Learn why committing to the process of belief evolution is crucial for manifesting abundance across all areas of your life, from financial prosperity to personal fulfillment, and how repetitive behaviors in thoughts, emotions, and actions are essential to solidify new beliefs.

Finally, Shannon shares her personal journey of financial manifestation, illustrating the power of bridging belief gaps. Transitioning from living paycheck to paycheck to achieving significant financial milestones, she offers practical strategies for aligning your beliefs with your goals.  Tune in for an empowering discussion that could transform your approach to manifesting your desires and start living life unapologetically!

Transcript

Shannon: 0:42

Manifestation isn't just about positive thinking. It's about unshakable belief that bridges your conscious desires with your subconscious mind. Hey there, beautiful souls, and welcome back to another empowering episode of the Live Life Unapologetically podcast. I'm your host, shannon Kay, and I am so thrilled to have you here with me today. We're diving into making manifestation work by changing how we approach the process altogether. Today is the day to understand belief and how to build it.

Shannon: 1:10

If you've been in the manifestation game for some time, or just dabbing your toes in the water, you know the founding premise is what you think is what you will attract. After all, what you focus on is what you're going to attract in your life. How do we know what we're focusing on? Well, that would be what we're thinking about. So it would seem that to manifest the life we want, we just have to be diligent about focusing our thoughts and keeping them hyper, in tune with our desires. If that is the damn simple truth, then why is it that your manifestations aren't coming? They're lagging. Maybe you get some sort of manifestation that isn't exactly what you want, but kind of close. Or perhaps why is it easier for you to manifest certain things and not others? Well, that is exactly what we're going to uncover today, because you don't attract what you think. You attract what you believe and you use your thoughts to transform your beliefs so that you can manifest.

Shannon: 2:03

We're going to get into the nitty gritty about beliefs and how to cultivate new beliefs that serve you. It isn't as simple as just surrendering and believing. Just deciding to believe isn't the best method and, honestly, it isn't how we're built. That is not how humans are made. It's time to grab your favorite drink, cozy up and pull back the curtain on cultivating beliefs that actually serve you, because you can manifest anything you want. You just need more than vague sentiments and surface level advice. Manifesting on purpose means that, even though your current circumstances aren't showing any indication of something, you believe that the universe can make a way to bring it to you, for it to materialize in your 3D reality. You got a shit ton of clarity. You're doing the techniques and you have grand intentions for what's going to come forth in your life, but there's something that isn't clicking. That's because you haven't fully transformed your thoughts into a belief yet. You see, you have a conscious and unconscious mind, conscious and unconscious thoughts. Many times when we're manifesting, we're focused on the conscious thoughts, but the unconscious mind is very much a factor. Your two minds may be in conflict with each other. Belief comes when you merge the two minds that are at work. So they are one.

Shannon: 3:20

Belief is simply defined as acceptance that something exists. It's also defined as trust, faith or competence in something or someone To manifest something that is not tangible. You must believe through and through that it exists, even if there is no current evidence of it anywhere. You can't see anything at all. It's just it's not there. But you believe.

Shannon: 3:43

A lot of times you're told if something doesn't come, don't lack faith. You're just lacking faith and you're not. You must go beyond just thoughts. You have to forge your thoughts, emotions and actions to solidify your belief into your subconscious mind, and that happens over time. My friend, I cannot tell you how many times I struggled in my manifestation journey, in my journey as an adult, because I was told you're just lacking faith, when in actuality I wasn't lacking faith. I just hadn't reprogrammed my brain to a new belief. And it's that simple. It doesn't have to be so mystical that you can't wrap your mind around it. As a matter of fact, you need to wrap your mind around it so you can change your mind. To become a new mind, first you need to understand how the subconscious mind works. I'm going to give you some basics in this episode, because to really understand we need to dive deeper. I'm going to be covering this in my monthly masterclass this month in June. If you want to get an all-access pass to my monthly masterclasses, bonus podcast episodes and more, you can join by going to LiveLifeUnapologeticallycom. Forward slash access or just click the link in the show description.

Shannon: 4:52

The condensed version is your subconscious mind is programmed through repetition and emotional experiences. From a very young age, you absorb patterns from your environment which become deeply ingrained, thus birthing your beliefs. This programming influences your environment, which become deeply ingrained, thus birthing your beliefs. This programming influences your thoughts, your behaviors and, ultimately, what you manifest. The subconscious works by taking these ingrained beliefs and using them as a filter for your reality. These beliefs create your reality and you're like but I want to shift my reality. Great, you can. You just have to first shift your mind.

Shannon: 5:29

You see, the subconscious governs your automatic responses and your habits, operating below your conscious awareness. You may be thinking things that align with your desires in your conscious mind, but your subconscious mind may be saying something else. Alignment occurs when you merge the two and form the belief. Your energetic alignment to what you believe is directly connected to this coherence. The consciousness is your heart, where your desires are swirling. That's one piece. Your subconsciousness is the mind, the place inside that functions outside of your awareness for the most part, that guides you through life. You have to have heart-mind coherence. You have to bring them together to manifest.

Shannon: 6:15

Well, if there are beliefs that do not serve you and if you're trying to believe something new, then you have to reprogram your mind. You have to unlearn or learn something new. You have to figure out what's limiting you from embracing the new belief that is going to elevate you. A limiting belief is simply a part of your subconscious mind that's deeply ingrained into you, that's getting in your way. It's keeping you from the alignment you're seeking. Let's think of it like this you aren't an iPhone, okay. You can't be programmed back to factory settings and start fresh with the click of a button. There is no erasing the programming and starting over. Here's the thing, y'all.

Shannon: 6:55

I once thought it would be so amazing to hit reset on all the crappy programming that was put into my brain as I was growing up in my young adulthood, all that stuff, getting rid of all those limiting beliefs, the things that held me back, so I could just jump into the beliefs that served me, the ones I wanted, the ones that I desire I could manifest with the snap of my fingers. Wouldn't that be glorious not to have to deal with limiting beliefs or things that don't serve you, so that you can just get what the hell it is you want To just think of. It is so nice, isn't it? Wouldn't that be great? There's no work to do, it's just like boop reset, factory setting. But you can't do that because you're not an iPhone and, honestly, that is not how we were built and it's not a bad thing.

Shannon: 7:41

It was truly when I was able to appreciate that humans aren't built that way that I was able to stop looking at the process of reprogramming as a chore and fall into it as an adventure. You see, if you were able to hit that factory reset button, then you would be taking yourself back to being a baby, like fresh in the world baby, just been born. Imagine that for a second. How far would you get to the desires you want if you were an infant? You wouldn't get very far, because you wouldn't be able to feed yourself, talk, walk All of those things would vanish as well. That is why our brains are the way they are. Those basic functions are necessary and our subconscious mind holds that program, so we don't have to learn it over and over and over again.

Shannon: 8:23

Your brain is a storage system for what you learn and that is a huge benefit, because once you put in something that you truly resonate with and that you want or say I want to drive, I want to learn to ride a bike, I want to learn how to sew, I want to learn all these things, your brain stores that for you. That's great. You don't have to keep going back to the beginning. You can become a pro, an expert when it comes to manifesting. You may say well, I don't want to have limiting beliefs that keep me from my desire, and I get that. But I want you to understand that there is a purpose for this and that's keeping you safe, allowing you to live freely.

Shannon: 9:01

Once again, you don't have to start over with things again and again, say you manifest what you desired in a career, but in another area of your life you're going through and you're trying to change your beliefs there. When it comes to friendship, well, if you hit that reset button, all that career stuff you got going for you, it goes away too. So we want to hold on to what is good. We can't just say, nope, move on, I don't want that Now. The more you go through this process, the easier it will become to switch your beliefs, the ones that don't serve you, or to evolve your beliefs as you evolve and go through.

Shannon: 9:37

But do you see why it is a benefit that our brains are made the way they are? And because our brains are made the way they are and that they need that repeated exposure for the belief to take hold, I want you to let go of any judgment that you may have had about yourself, or lack of faith, or not believing enough to get what you want to come to you. That's just not how you were built. You have to program your brain the way you want it to be. Now, growing up, you were programmed with some things that didn't serve you right. Nobody asked you. It just was what it was. Well, that happened over long periods of time. Don't think you're going to go in there and switch it right away and that's okay. That is completely okay. That's just how your brain works and it has a benefit. Here's the great thing about the brain is that it has neuroplasticity. It can change. I talked about that in detail in the Calm series on episode 52. So if you haven't listened to it, go back and check that out.

Shannon: 10:35

Now, when people say just believe, how is that possible? If your brain operates the way it does, you aren't going to get it right away. You have to retrain and reprogram your brain to that belief. If you grew up and always heard the expression nice guys finish last, you can't just unbelieve that and believe something new. That isn't how your brain works. Try it. Say brain, forget how to walk, then try to walk. Guess what your ass is going to walk.

Shannon: 11:01

Just saying to believe in whatever it is you want is superficial. It may feel good for a second and heck, yeah, you may believe it for a second. But what you want is superficial. It may feel good for a second and heck, yeah, you may believe it for a second. But what you need is repetitive behaviors in your thoughts, emotions and actions to make it stick. Your thoughts, emotions and actions solidify your beliefs and your beliefs direct your thoughts, emotions and actions.

Shannon: 11:23

This is the point where your brain is probably going to start crumpling and you're going to get frustrated and you're going to be like wait a minute, if my beliefs dictate my thoughts, emotions and actions, then how can I use my thoughts, emotions and actions to change my beliefs? That's something that we're going to dive into in the June masterclass in detail, and I'm going to use visuals because I believe this needs visual to go with it. But for now, you can start the practice, because a new belief system is simply learning a new skill, a new programmed message for your brain. That's it. So the first step is to decide Now. Just deciding isn't going to change the belief, but you're going to decide that you are ready to embrace the process of changing your belief. You're going to decide that you aren't going to give up on switching, changing and molding what no longer serves you into something that does.

Shannon: 12:09

You see, the vague advice would tell you that you can have as much abundance as you want. Simply believe it and let the universe do its work. The universe will do its work as soon as you believe. The work is not figuring out how to manifest the abundance. The work is the believing that you can. This is easier said than done. The reason for that is because we want quick fixes and miracles.

Shannon: 12:34

I'm not here for quick fixes and miracles. I'm here to help you learn to shift your life in a way that feels good to you, that is sustainable and always evolving. I could give you quick methods that will bring you some quick results, but they won't last and I would feel like I'm doing you a disservice. I want your life to be full, for you to continue to get all that your heart desires. I'm not here for two steps forward and seven steps back. I'm not here for that. I'm here for you to continually increase.

Shannon: 13:02

The way to do that is to learn how to shift your beliefs. Once you get the process of shifting beliefs to ones that serve you and your desires, then you can use the method for any limiting beliefs that may come along as you go. You have to fill the gaps, take it one step at a time and allow the process to unfold. You may be saying, shannon, I don't have time for that. I need change now. I want it now. You will never get to the now if you don't fundamentally retrain the subconscious mind.

Shannon: 13:30

What I will tell you is the longer you work on belief switching or belief evolving, the easier it gets, the faster it goes, because you not only train your brain to follow a new program, but you're also simultaneously showing your subconscious mind that you can manifest whatever you want. So it's a twofold thing. This is where belief bridging comes in. Instead of making a giant leap from where you are to where you want to be, you build incremental beliefs that bridge the gap. This is a way to get closer to where you are ultimately trying to go, and it's going to take you there with the least resistance. The quicker you can get rid of the resistance, the faster you can solidify the belief and the manifestation can come to you. The most effective way to do this is with belief bridging.

Shannon: 14:18

I'm going to use money as an example because, honestly, when most people talk to me, they want to talk about how can I manifest more money, and that isn't bad. I just want you to remember that money isn't the only thing when it comes to abundance. This money example I'm about to give you is a replay of my life and my manifestation journey thus far. So here's how it starts when I am an 18-year-old adult, I don't have enough money to pay all my bills each month. I am on welfare and I'm always robbing Peter to pay Paul. That is a statement I heard growing up from my mom. All the time we have to rob Peter to pay Paul to make it. What that means is this month I'm going to skirt the electric bill and just pay the water bill, and the next month I'm going to skip the water bill and pay the electric bill and I'm going to keep doing it, just in time so they don't get cut off. But no bill is paid on time. That's not even living paycheck.

Shannon: 15:11

However, in my brain I'm saying I want to be a millionaire. However, at this point in my life at 18, with all the programming that I've been through, this is way too far removed from me and I need to reprogram some things. So instead I decide that I don't want to shift money around. I just want to live paycheck to paycheck. I just wanted enough to meet my basic needs every month, every basic need.

Shannon: 15:35

This was still beyond what I had in the moment. This was still beyond what I thought was possible, because I really thought you just had to rob Peter to pay Paul every month. That's what I believed. I had to stretch past that belief and the next step really was just living paycheck to paycheck. Everything's paid. That's not being a millionaire, but that was bridging a gap that was allowing me to look at some limiting beliefs I had about money right there in that moment. So I could get to the next place and believe you know what? I can live paycheck to paycheck. So I went through and that happened. Now I'm living paycheck to paycheck. I'm in the next phase. I've crossed the bridge a little bit more. But you know what? I still want to be a millionaire. It's still too much of a gap, there's too much resistance.

Shannon: 16:20

So I reprogrammed it to I could pay all my bills and have a little money left over each month. Then I went beyond that. Okay, I have a little bit of money left over for activities, but I want to go further. I want to be out of debt. I want more money to spend than my bills. So my bills are less and my income is more.

Shannon: 16:37

To give you an example of how this was working in my life, I decided you know, I'm going to give you base numbers, I'm not giving you my exact numbers. So let's say, my bills were $5,000, but my spending money was $10,000. I wanted my leftover money to be two times the amount of what my bills were, and that happened. Okay, cool. I decided I wanted to have more savings because I was never a savings type person. But then I was like, yeah sure, I'll be a savings person, all these things I keep building up. Well then I decided you know what? Because, honestly, way, way back when I was living below paycheck to paycheck, even though I thought I wanted to be a millionaire, I didn't believe that was ever at all possible. It just sounded like a good fantasy. It was literally a fantasy. That was a fantasy because it was so far removed.

Shannon: 17:24

The gap of the belief was so big that it became a fantasy and not really truly something I believe could manifest. Do you see what I'm saying here? I watch different things. You can watch like apocalyptic type things or, back in the day, indiana Jones type things. I'm rewatching the 100 right now. And there was like the bridge right. It's like the bridge with the wooden planks and the ropes, and think about all these planks. So I started one belief on one side, on the other side is millionaire.

Shannon: 17:51

As I'm going and walking this path, I'm laying down the missing planks that are there. That's getting over my limiting beliefs. That's bridging my belief. This bridge is my belief to get me from one place to the other, but there's some holes, there's some gaps in it as I go and I need to fill those gaps. That's the bridging of the belief.

Shannon: 18:12

Then I get to a place where, as I'm going through this, I'm like you know what? This is kind of easy, I can manifest it. I'm starting to say things like I get a check in the mail every single day and they just start popping in the mail every day, things I never would have thought of before. I get money from unexpected places. I get money I don't even have to work for. And this stuff is starting to happen to me because, as I'm going through this process, I'm bridging the gaps in those beliefs. I'm getting closer to like I can just manifest the money I want. I got to this place where I was like I don't want to just make four figures a month, I want to make five figures a month. I can do that and it happened so quickly. It happened over the span of like a month and a half, because that's the simultaneous thing that's happening. I'm going over my limiting beliefs and I'm also teaching myself that I can manifest and you just keep going beyond and you keep evolving. The more I began to bridge the gaps, the more I discovered my limiting beliefs, the more I was able to move past them and honestly, once again, there were beliefs I had about money that I wasn't aware of until I got to the point where they were actually relevant for me to deal with. I talk about that really in detail in episode 63. So you might be saying, ok, shannon, this is going to take a long time to get me where I want to go and you're like I don't want to do that. But that's what I'm talking about belief bridging. The more you do it, the more you get results, the more you believe that you can get where you desire. That's that simultaneous thing that's happening when you're building that belief bridge.

Shannon: 19:31

So many people say the easiest thing to manifest is money, and I was always like that is not true. For me, the hardest thing to manifest has always been money, always Relationships, hell. All the other areas of my life have always been very easy. For me, money has always been the hardest area of my life. It's based on what has been programmed into you, where you may struggle. But the more I was manifesting money, the more I was like no, it's not hard, I can do this, I can have whatever I ask for. I started to make bigger leaps, like I said when I decided I did no longer wanted to just be a four figure a month earner, but I wanted to make five figures a month. That leap happened in a month and a half but it's been consistent ever since because I simply did the work.

Shannon: 20:15

So when you see people who are manifesting and it seems like it happens to them right away, that's because they've been working on their belief system. It also depends on what the long-term programming you've been exposed to is. So for me, I had a long-term programming about money. That's why it was so hard for me. If you grew up and money came easy to your family or you didn't have money struggles, that's going to be an easy area because there's already programming in there that it's not so hard to get money. Do you see how the programming affects you? As you fill in the gaps in the area of your life?

Shannon: 20:47

You're also reaffirming to your subconscious and building a belief in your subconscious that I can manifest whatever I desire, whether I see it or not, because you start to see the evidence of it in your life and it builds over time. Like I said, this is a very in-depth topic. It really cannot be covered in one show the way I want to cover it in one show, but that's the essence of it. That's the essence of it today is to manifest. You need to have belief. It goes beyond just thinking pretty thoughts. You have to have belief but you can't just say, well, I believe, and it happens, because that's not how your brain works. You do have to have utter faith that the universe can deliver your desires to your door and the only way it can do that is if you reprogram your mind to the belief of what you're seeking. So let's get into the coaching, let's do this week's affirmation. This week's affirmation is I have the power to program my mind in a way that serves me and my highest good. Let's say that again I have the power to program my mind in a way that serves me and my highest good.

Shannon: 21:51

Your action step is to choose one thing. You guys see, I always put action with it, because thoughts, emotions, actions, they create a synergy. To reprogram your action is to choose one thing you want to manifest, you can find something small so you can easily build up to it. On that gap, right? Maybe you're just like I'm going to find $10 laying around somewhere this month from some random place, like I don't even know where, or I'm going to get a call from a friend unexpectedly. Maybe it is you know you're going to get recognized at work for the good job that you're doing. Whatever that is Now to make this effective, in the beginning, I want you to pick an area where you feel you have the least amount of limiting beliefs and resistance.

Shannon: 22:30

So remember I said my struggle area was finances, but everything else came easy. So if I were to do this just starting out, I wouldn't pick money, I would pick health. Mind over matter. Manifestation boils down to mind over matter In my mind. It was very easy. It is very easy for me to switch my belief of health, and so I would pick that area. If yours is relationships, choose that. Whatever that is that has the least amount of resistance, that you've had the most positive programming in your life around. Choose that.

Shannon: 23:04

And then I want you to extend your focus beyond, so your mind will be more likely to get an automatic true desire, like we talked about last week. Let's just say you're not me and it's money. Like money is pretty easy for you. I want you to still be honest, like your mind is going to say you work less and make more. That's your desire. You work less, you make more. This is an example. Okay, that's your true desire. Remember, we're being honest with manifestation. I want to work less and make more. Now, is that far beyond you? If it's far beyond you, you're going to have to break it down and back. I'm not asking you to give up that desire. I want to work less and make more.

Shannon: 23:43

So how can you start to bridge the gap between where you are in your beliefs and where you're trying to go? Remember, the work is the belief. The work is not okay. Well, I'm going to hustle a whole bunch and build a business and work 24 hours a day and once it starts rolling in the money, then I'm going to back away. No, that's you figuring it out. Let the universe figure it out. Work on your belief about that, because right there you'll show your belief.

Shannon: 24:11

That program mind says you have to hustle 24-7 to make money. Right, you have to be in hustle culture. We're so ingrained with hustle culture. That right there will tell you that there is a gap. The gap that you need to fill is not the making of the money. The gap you need to fill is the belief that surrounds how money comes to you. If your belief is money comes to me because I have to hustle 24-7 to make the money, that's where you need to reprogram your mind so that you can eventually get to I work less and make more. So breaking it down. How can you break down the belief? Where is the gap? Where is the limit? The gap is simply the limit. Where is the limit? Identify it and start laying the planks to cultivate the new belief.

Shannon: 24:58

Like my financial story, I'm still wanting to be a millionaire. I know I still can. I'm pretty sure. Technically I'm a millionaire in another country if I do the math and convert it to US dollars. I'm aware of my desire. Honestly, now I'm building my belief and merging it with my mind to that desire. I'm actively working to reprogram my brain every single day. This is what this exercise is about. The important thing to remember is to try not to force it and make it happen. The work is to build your belief, to switch your beliefs and to understand where are the gaps. As we wrap up today's episode, I want you to remember that manifestation is a powerful journey of having aligned beliefs, and you align your beliefs by going through and reprogramming your brain. It is possible. It does take some work, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. You have the power to manifest anything you desire.