Why Manifesting is for Everyone and How to Start it Now with Alan Lazaros
This week, I had a raw conversation with Alan Lazaros, co-host of Next Level University Podcast. We chat about regrets, breath work, pain, and how to create a new life for yourself. Mental work is the hardest work to do, but it's even harder living in fear of the work. The wonderful news is you have the power to make every loss or hardship a gain if you frame it the right way. Alan’s advice to start your journey to a better future? A morning routine. “Whatever your morning routine is, will set your day. Make it a positive routine, and the whole day just goes on that trajectory.” As morning routine junkies ourselves we couldn't have said it better.
Who is Alan Lazaros?
Years ago at age 26, after being involved in a nearly fatal car accident, Alan questioned everything. His father passed away in a car accident at age 28 when Alan was only 2. So this car accident really shook his snow-globe…
He questioned everything. What if that was it? Did I live a life true to myself? How courageously did I fight for what I believe in? How fiercely did I love? Not liking his answers and filled with regret, he decided to change forever.
Today, Alan’s a Professional Speaker, Peak Performance Business Coach and Consultant, and the Co-host of the Next Level University podcast. Between Speaking, Podcasting, Coaching & Consulting, Alan has clocked and tracked thousands of hours inspiring, motivating and educating others on how to master their systems and design a magnificent life on their own terms. He believes that life is about choices.
He grew up his entire life hearing stories about his father, and he can tell you from experience that how you die isn’t going to matter. What’s going to matter is how you chose to live.
Regrets of the Dying
A book, called The Top Five Regrets Of The Dying* by Bronnie Ware, has changed Alan’s life, so much so that he continues to keep a flashcard in his pocket with the five regrets written on it:
“I wish I had lived a life true to myself and not what others expected of me.”
“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard on the wrong things.”
“I wish I had the courage to express my true feelings.”
“I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
“I wish I had allowed myself to be happier.”
So now, Alan reverse engineers these regrets every day, choosing not to allow them to come to fruition. He swears that no matter how hard your past has been, or your present is, your future is spotless. You can make a new choice right now and change everything. Alan spent five years quitting drinking, but it was the choice and commitment to quit that changed everything.
Emotional pain is guaranteed, whether we like it or not, and it leaves us faced with a choice: use the pain to develop a virtue or let the pain lead you into a vice? Alan’s mother has always said “if you aim high, you’ll have choices.” And life is really all about choices.
Then, Alan got brutally honest: No one is going to change your life for you. No one else can get in shape for you, solve your financial problems. He cites Mark Twain saying “you can never be unhealthy enough to make someone else healthy. You can never be broke enough to make someone else wealthy. So it really is on you.” There isn’t some quick fix to learn how to harness your own greatness.
But understand that pain and suffering are two different things. Does growth always require having a crazy traumatic incident in order to change your life? Not at all. But, according to Alan, emotional pain is both the thing we’re most afraid of and the most powerful fuel. He’s had an extremely painful past, but that pain has led him to have a drive that some people don’t have. Not everyone has been in the darkest of places.
He says, “your adversity is your advantage, as long as you have a growth mindset.” Whatever pain you have, you have to face it. Because then it can be turned into your fuel, your drive.
PMES: A Framework for our Primary Facets
When we hear the word manifestation, most people wonder “what does that even mean"?” Understanding this confusion, Alan and his client created a framework called the PMES System to make it more tangible. Behind the system is the belief that the “human experience has four primary facets, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.” Alan often uses a purple elephant as a visual tool to show how manifestation works. We often process the framework backwards so see an example below:
Spiritual: Close your eyes and imagine a cartoon purple elephant, wearing a cowboy hat and holding a double barrel shotgun. Each of us has our own version, but this is where the spiritual starts.
Emotion: Then we have to emotionalize it and give it meaning. We make it detailed and unique based on our own references and experiences.
Mental: This is where we strategize about how to actually create it. We may get a piece of paper and some crayons.
Physical: Take action. Now we actually draw it out.
Now, you have a picture of something that was only in your imagination and you have manifested it into reality. He says, “Why? Because you emotionalized it, you strategize about how to make it happen. And then you took physical action to actually make that happen. And it's a cycle.”
The Power of Breath Work
Alan went on to share how he got his favorite breath work practice from a former guest on his podcast, Next Level University, Samantha Skelly. Breath work involves the pattern of your breath, so Skelly uses a pattern of two huge inhales and then one long one out. Do this for six minutes. Alan says the chakras open up, especially the throat chakra.
Breath work helps balance your energies because you take a moment not to focus on everything around you, you’re focused on one thing. Do you feel like your best thoughts come while you’re in the shower? That’s because you’re finally alone and not worried about everything else. The warm water and your breathing relax you. “You're mentally not that stimulated. Because finally, you're away from your phone for 30 seconds, right?” You can enter a good emotional state, allowing your brain to bring in new ideas and intuitive thoughts.
Diving even deeper, breath work falls into the PMES system for everyone. When you’re mentally overstimulated, in physical and emotional pain, how is your intuition supposed to get through all the noise? So balancing your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual can put you in a healthy emotional state. Mental is thought, emotional is feeling, spiritual is your intuition.
Even further, the original balance of yin and yang, masculine and feminine. And how do you know if you’re off balance? Fulfillment. A lack of fulfillment is proof that you’re not in alignment. If you feel unfulfilled in your masculine energy, challenge yourself, work harder, do competitive things.
If your feminine energy is unfulfilled, you’ll want to practice breath work, meditation, etc. Alan’s favorite question to ask is “where are you chasing pleasure at the expense of fulfillment? Hmm, Oreos are delicious. They're not fulfilling. You're never going to eat Oreos and be like, wow, I'm really glad I did that. It's just not the way it works.” And vise versa, you won’t go to the gym and wish you went less. Choosing fulfillment forces you to make a decision: the pain of regret tomorrow or the discipline today to stay true to your own promises made to yourself.
Three Daily Disciplines and a Purpose Prayer
Alan says that small daily disciplines make the biggest difference. The three that he says are most important are:
Exercise every day.
He knows this isn’t everyone’s favorite. As a former fitness coach, Alan believes that the body was made to exercise every day. What matters is consistency. Prove that you are grateful for your health with your choices. And from exercising, you’re going to have better thoughts, you’ll be in a more resourceful state.
Feed your mind.
Alan’s biggest recommendation for this: Eddie Pinero, a friend of Alan, runs a Youtube channel called Your World Within. It’s filled with inspirational videos, music, motivational poems and a ton of other resources.
Ask yourself, what am I doing that I’m not telling people?
Alan was able to completely transform his life, but now it isn’t about him. Now he shares his story and telling people about what he is doing.
Another practice Alan has adopted is touching his true north number necklace and stops whatever he is doing. Then he thinks of five things he’s grateful for. So stop whatever you’re doing and think of your five things, take time each day to do this for yourself.
He also has what he calls a purpose prayer. For him, this is the closest thing to his heart, so it took him a long time to share it publicly. It reads:
“This is a letter from my highest self, my spiritual self, to my human self. I and I alone am the keeper of my own happiness and self worth. I shall not allow naysayers to sway me from my purpose nor to deny me of my right to pursue a life well lived on my own terms. My every moment shall be spent in an effort to better the quality of myself and others and to spread the utmost love and goodwill with every last breath that I take. I shall defend health and freedom with all haste and put forth a forever and purposeful effort to balance out that which is clearly evil and malicious in this world. My mind, body, heart, and soul shall be one and of the greatest possible measure. I shall forever take steps to ensure that I always learn from the past, enjoy the present, and focus on a brighter future for all. For I, Alan Lazarus, will exit this world one day, a better place.”
He recites that to himself every day, and it guides him every day. He challenges you: “If you're out there right now, you know, are you in integrity with your highest self or not? Are you fulfilled with your life or not? You can change it, you can do it. I got you. Like, they have you. They can reach out to you. They can reach out to me. You can you can find a mentor anywhere find someone who who is living their dream, and ask them for help. I guarantee you, they're gonna be pumped.”
Affirmation
I am open and non-resistant to attracting what’s meant to be mine and releasing fully what isn’t.
Writing Prompt
When you envision a future version of yourself that seems happy and aligned what's going on in your life now that's taking that possibility away? What's distracting you or making you feel the opposite of what you want?
Resources
Join the Creative Connection Writing Group.
Listen to the Next Level University podcast here.
Follow Alan on Instagram.
Sign up for our daily emails here.
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