STORYTIME: When I gave up, I manifested

Everything I chased ran from me. Everything I released found its way back.

Hotties, I need to get something off my chest.

But first, happy Tuesday to us! How are we feeling?

Me? I just got back from spending eight hours at my local library working on my next blog post (yeah, your girl was feeling creative today 😂), and now I’m settling in for some dinner, courtesy of my sweet mother.

But on my way home, I got to thinking. You know how it goes. Thinking about the past, thinking about the future…

I usually make a conscious effort not to get too caught up in either, because worrying about things outside your control is practically a one-way ticket to Anxietyville. But this time was different. I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t overthinking.

I felt…

Nostalgic.

TWAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END

In May of 2023, shortly after the break up that almost sent me to the insane asylum (can’t explain here, I’ll write about it later), I took the bold step of moving out on my own for the very first time.

Well, not entirely on my own. I had roommates.

But you get the gist.

And fine, maybe moving out of your mom’s apartment at the ripe age of 25 isn’t exactly a revolutionary act of courage. But please understand: I had spent the previous six months tied to a man who covertly hated me, who I let strip me of my individuality, and who somehow managed to leave me in a worse condition than he found me!

Now here I was: single, unemployed, carrying 3 boxes full of shoes I had absolutely no use for because I’m a SHOPPING ADDICT, about 3$ to my name and a 1 year lease with my signature on it.

As bad as that sounds, it doesn’t even come close to capturing how miserable it was to live through.

This was my rock bottom.

I distinctly remember sitting on a park bench one evening, wondering how the f*ck I had gotten to this point. My life wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. Or was it? For the first time, I allowed my thoughts to shift from victimhood to responsibility. They sounded a little something like this:

“Actually, this IS supposed to be happening to you. This is the natural accumulation of every decision you’ve made.”

Damn. Talk about a tough pill to swallow.

“And what exactly have you done over the last year to change your circumstances or move yourself forward?”

If you want the brutal truth?

Nothing.

And lastly: “What was I gaining in that relationship that I allowed myself to be so devalued just for the sake of being in love”?

EVERYTHING!!

And that’s exactly how that stupid boy got me.

While he gave me everything, I gave myself nothing. When he took it all away, it was inevitable that I’d be left with, you guessed it: nothing.

In that moment of realisation, embarrassment and I became one. How could I have been so stupid?

It had been almost a decade since high school. TEN WHOLE YEARS. Not only did I have nothing to show for it, but I knew I was the only one to blame. This god-awful version of myself that I had clung to for years had failed me yet again. It was becoming clearer and clearer that I could no longer be her.

I had two options.

1. Kill her and start fresh as someone new.

2. Keep her alive and relive the same misery over and over again.

And let me make it abundantly clear: I would rather swallow a vintage Levi’s jacket WHOLE than choose option two.

So murdering the old self it was! There was just one problem. If I’m no longer the people-pleaser, emotional shopper, approval-chaser, and the girl who built her entire identity around everyone else…

Then who the hell am I?

B*TCH, AM I INNADEQUATE?

The #1 negative pattern that’s been the toughest for me to break is the habit of not finishing what I start (I know this sounds contradictory to the title of this story, but I promise I’m going somewhere with this, lol).

Yes, I have been a quitter. I’d even go as far as saying I’ve had a reputation for being one. Ask anyone who’s ever known me. I start projects I don’t finish, make promises to myself that I don’t keep, and talk about doing things that I never actually do.

But I’m not doing it on purpose. Baby, I’m scared!

And for you to understand why, I have to take you all the way back to where I think this pattern really started: my childhood.

1. Just Keep Swimming, Justin Keep Swimming

When I was in 1st grade, my aunt Dida noticed I had all this pent-up energy with no outlet to direct it towards, so she signed me up for swimming lessons at our local YMCA (rest in peace, auntie. I miss you every day). But when it came time to attend the lessons, my mom didn’t exactly disclose that they were “lessons.” She just asked me, “Wanna go to the pool?”

Now what 7-year-old child would say no to an offer like that?

And yes, I understand it’s not like she HAD to tell me they were lessons, but doing so definitely would have managed my expectations about what exactly I was getting myself into. Like any new hobby, you don’t immediately start off as an expert. Practice makes perfect! And it takes patience, consistency, and determination to see improvement in your skills.

But for me, it only took one lesson to know I wasn’t down to put in the work.

Oh, why, you ask? BECAUSE I DROWNED. Yup. First class. I didn’t even float. I just sank like a damn rock.

I was so bad that the instructor would regularly isolate me to spend one-on-one time with me. “I’m helping you because I want you to improve,” I remember her saying. Yeah, I was embarrassed, but I’m not going to lie, knowing somebody believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself felt really good.

In a matter of three months, I went from being the worst swimmer in the class to one of the best. I even went on to win 2nd place in our end-of-summer swimming competition. Which, considering I almost died drowning when I started, was kind of a big deal to me. Haha!

But after the competition, my mom and I never went back. Just like that, swimming lessons were over. I never asked my mom why, and honestly, I don’t even remember questioning it much at the time. I was 7 and I just moved on to the next thing.

But every now and then, I still think about it. I wonder what would have happened if I had kept going. Where would I have been a year later? Two years later? Five??

I guess I’ll never know.

2. Nastya Liunkin 2.0

Ok, who else was obsessed with the Olympics growing up? Specifically the gymnastics category?? Specifically, Team USA???

One thing about me, I’ve ALWAYS been drawn to strong, magnetic women. And one athlete who I thought embodied that brilliantly was Olympic gymnast and five-time medalist, Nastia Liukin. I first found out about her during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, and to say I was mesmerized would be an understatement.

Gymnastics as a whole has always been so impressive to me. You’re telling me these girls are flipping through the air, twisting their bodies in ways that frankly do not look human, landing on a four-inch beam like it’s a sidewalk, and somehow making all of it look effortless? It’s amazing! The strength, flexibility, coordination and sheer mental focus it takes to do that blows my mind. I think it is the most beautiful sport in the world.

And Nastia specifically just so happened to stand out to me. That’s not to say the other gymnasts weren’t just as gifted. They were. But Nastia… I don’t know. She was Nastia. And in my little 11-year-old eyes, she shined the brightest. I feel like you can always tell when someone is deep in their element. They’re not forcing it. They’re not trying to convince you that this is what they’re supposed to be doing. They’re just doing it, and somehow, it looks like they were born for it.

That same summer, I begged my parents to sign me up for gymnastics. And when I say begged, I mean begged. I asked. I asked again. I brought it up whenever I could. I wanted the leotard. I wanted to learn how to do a backflip. I wanted to be in a gym doing all the things I had watched Nastia do on my TV.

But my parents never signed me up.

They didn’t really see the point. In our immigrant household, school came first. School came second. And just to really drive the point home, school came third. Anything outside of academics was kind of treated like a distraction. I know they weren’t coming from a bad place. They wanted me to do well and to have a future. But while to them, gymnastics was just a hobby, to me, it represented something much more: an opportunity to become an expert at something challenging that I loved.

I wanted to know what it felt like to walk into a room and think, Oh. I can really do this. This is where I belong. To have my talent meet my skills and almost feel it radiating off of me.

And honestly, that’s a feeling I’ve always been after.

3. Retired Beauty Guru

Ahhh, the good ol’ 2014–2016 Beauty Guru era.

Were you there? I know I was 😂

I think I was about 13 in that video. This was before sponsorships, 4K cameras, and 17 ads per video were a thing. Things were so simple back then that all you had to do was sit in front of your camera and press record.

I think it’s safe to say that this era is solely responsible for my beauty and fashion obsession. There was already so much content out there, and I was eager to learn it all! The world of influencing has come a long way since then, but this era will forever have a special place in my heart. It taught me how to curl my hair, how to wing my eyeliner, and how to put on lashes without gluing my entire eyelid shut lol.

When I started making videos, it had very little to do with becoming famous and everything to do with having fun. Finally! I had found a hobby that I genuinely enjoyed, that cost me nothing, and that I was actually good at from the start.

My only problem? The people around me.

I don’t want to sound like a perpetual victim, but I also want to paint a clear picture so you truly understand where I’m coming from. Never being supported or encouraged in the things you love, in the things that make you you, does something to your brain. Especially when you’re young and impressionable and still trying to figure out/create who you are and what you want out of life.

This is why I’m such an advocate for self-love and building an unshakable sense of self-worth. Because when you know who you are, other people’s opinions lose their power over you.

When I told my family I started making videos online, I got a million reasons why somebody like me could never make it.

When I told my friends, I got a million reasons why I’d be the embarrassment of the century.

So I stopped.

I took the fact that the people closest me didn’t approve of what I was passionate about as a reason to give it up. Instead of asking myself whether I actually wanted to stop, I started questioning whether there was something wrong with me for wanting it in the first place. Over time, these remarks chipped away at my confidence in my ability to get what I want.

And that’s the thing about being young. You don’t always know how to separate someone else’s opinion of you from your own opinion of yourself. When the people whose approval matters to you keep making you feel silly for wanting something, eventually, you start to believe them.

Do you understand the pattern now?

WHEN THING FINALLY GET BETTER

“What if I just give up?”

“It’s never going to work out.”

“I can’t take this anymore.”

This is the inner dialogue of the girl I used to be. A girl who struggled to believe things could get better because of what was happening outside of her and who would let circumstances and people in her life dictate what she believed was possible for her.

“I’m going to keep showing up.”

“Anything is possible.”

“I’m strong enough to make it.”

This is the inner dialogue of the girl I am today. A girl who understands that she a whole life ahead of her, and that her current circumstances, no matter how horrid, aren’t the final chapter of her story.

It’s all about learning to believe you can do better, not because you have all the evidence to prove it (chances are you don’t), but because you trust yourself enough to keep going, even when the evidence hasn’t appeared yet.

You see, there are two types of girls in this world: those who live from the outside in, and those who live from the inside out.

Let me explain.

When you live from the outside in, you allow what’s happening around you to determine how you feel about yourself. Your confidence depends on external validation, your circumstances, and how well things seem to be going. You get rejected from a job, and suddenly you don’t feel good enough. You try something new and don’t get it right the first time, and you start questioning whether you’re capable of doing it at all. Your own people reject you, and you wonder whether there’s something wrong with you. You put your heart into something and watch it fall apart, and suddenly you’re questioning whether you’re the kind of person who can ever make anything work.

Notice the pattern? In every one of these scenarios, you’re using what’s happening outside of you to determine what’s true inside of you.

But when you live from the inside out, you learn to see things differently.

You don’t get the job? It’s okay! There are still plenty of opportunities out there. You don’t get it right the first time? It’s okay! Failure is only final if you allow it to be. Learn the lesson, adjust your approach, and give it another shot. Your own people reject you? Then maybe they’re not your people. Not everyone is meant to understand you, love you, or come with you. And that’s okay, too.

See the difference?

Of course you still feel the disappointment, but you don’t turn every disappointment into a reason to doubt yourself. You don’t treat every closed door like the end of the road and every setback like confirmation that you’re not good enough.

You learn to separate what happens to you from what you believe about yourself.

And the more you do that, the more you begin to notice something interesting: how much of your experience of life is shaped by what you choose to focus on.

When you have been conditioned to believe nothing ever works out for you, that’s what you look for. You notice every rejection, every delay, every little thing that goes wrong, and use it as further proof that you’re right. Meanwhile, you overlook the opportunities, the lessons, the progress you’ve made, and the doors that are still open.

But when you learn to believe that things can work out for you, little by little, you start looking for those possibilities, too. You notice the opportunity in the rejection, the lesson in the failure, and the potential in a fresh start. You become more willing to take chances because you’re no longer convinced that everything is going to end badly.

Your circumstances might not have changed yet, but your relationship with them has.

And that matters, because the girl who believes nothing ever works out for her will experience life very differently from the girl who believes that even when things don’t work out, she can find another way.

One sees a dead end. The other looks for another route.

One sees rejection as proof she’s not good enough. The other sees it as a natural part of life.

One gives up because she believes she’s destined to fail. The other keeps going because she knows failure doesn’t have to be the end of her story.

Same world, different perspective. And sometimes, that perspective is what determines what you do next.

You can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can decide what meaning you give it, what you learn from it, and whether you allow it to convince you to stop trying. And no, this isn’t about pretending everything is sunshine and rainbows when your life is falling apart. It’s about understanding that your current circumstances are not the only possible version of your future.

You have a say in how you move forward. You have a say in the person you become. And you have a say in whether you meet life’s disappointments with the belief that you’re doomed or the belief that you can figure it out.

YOU have the power. Use it wisely.

AND THEN… IT HAPPENED

Now that we’ve got the heavy lesson out of the way, let’s get back to the point of this story: when I gave up, I manifested.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not telling you to abandon all your dreams and aspirations and expect them to magically show up at your doorstep. That’s not how it works, hahaha!

But remember that evening I spent alone at the park a few years ago, wondering how my life had gotten to such a low point? I didn’t know it then, but that moment marked the beginning of a major shift in my life. Because for the first time, I was simply too exhausted to keep fighting.

I’d spent so much of my life either daydreaming without taking action or pouring my heart into projects only to watch them fall apart. I felt like a failure. I was a failure. Or at least, that’s what I had come to believe about myself.

And the worst part wasn’t even the failure itself. It was the feeling that no matter how desperately I wanted things to work out, I somehow always ended up right back where I started.

So as I sat alone at the park with my three boxes of shoes, I thought, this was it. Things literally couldn’t get any lower than this.

And in that moment, I gave up.

I gave up on trying to fix what was already broken. On changing people’s opinions of me. On saving my failed business and salvaging my reputation. On proving my worth to people who had already made up their minds about me.

I gave up on control. On forcing my life to look the way I’d always imagined it would.

This was pretty difficult for a girl who had spent most of her life measuring her worth by what was happening around her. But I had no fight left in me. As far as I was concerned, this was the end.

I gave up on everything.

And do you know what was waiting for me on the other side?

INSTANT. FREEDOM. 😉

Because when you hit rock bottom, the only way is up, baby!

It’s so easy to cling to what’s familiar, even when it’s making us miserable. We stay in situations that have run their course because they’re all we know. We keep chasing the same outcomes because we’ve already invested so much time, energy, and emotion into them. We convince ourselves that letting go means admitting defeat.

But sometimes, the very thing you’re afraid to release (in my case: negative mindset, bad friends/influences, poor worldview, and low self-belief), is what’s keeping you from discovering everything else that’s possible.

The longer you hold on to a life you’ve outgrown, the longer you delay discovering what else life has in store for you.

For me, giving up meant I could finally stop obsessing over everything that had gone wrong long enough to consider what might go right. I wasn’t spending every waking moment trying to prove that I could turn my failures into successes. I wasn’t putting my life on hold until I could finally show the world that I was doing well.

For the first time in a long time, I could just be. I could breathe. I could figure out what I actually wanted, rather than what I thought I needed to prove.

And when I was ready to try again, I wouldn’t be starting from scratch. I’d be starting with everything I’d learned, everything I’d survived, and something I hadn’t had before: the inner dialogue of a winner.

The worst was behind me.

Looking back, the girl sitting alone in that park had no idea she was standing at the beginning of a completely different chapter. She thought she’d reached the end of the road, but her story was nowhere near over.

At the time, all she could see was what she’d lost. She had no idea what she was about to make room for.

When I gave up, I manifested.

Not because I’d cracked some secret code of the universe, but because I stopped trying to control every outcome and finally allowed myself to move forward. I couldn’t see it then, but what felt like an ending was actually the beginning of a life I wouldn’t have known to ask for.

Everything I chased ran from me. Everything I released found its way back.

Not necessarily in the same form, or in the way I’d originally imagined. But somehow, by loosening my grip on how I thought my life was supposed to unfold, I found myself moving towards something better. Better circle, better job, better mindset and self esteem.

Remember, you first have to let go of the old to make space for something new.

You are allowed to start over. You are allowed to unlearn what the world has taught you if it doesn’t align with you. You are allowed to believe in you even when “friends” say you shouldn’t. And you’re allowed to believe that there’s more waiting for you, even when you have absolutely no evidence of it yet.

Sometimes, you let go. Sometimes, you begin again. And sometimes, life surprises you with a chapter so much better than the one you thought you wanted that you’re grateful things didn’t work out the way you’d planned.

Because you never know what might be waiting for you on the other side.

Oh! And if you’re wondering what I manifested exactly…

Let’s just say I got a whole new chapter. And, baby, it was an upgrade. 😉