I Thought I Was Broken… Then I Bumped Into Him on the Street

I went through Paulie’s process from beginning to end, and I wanted to share what that actually looked like for me, because for a long time I felt like I was one of those people manifestation just wasn’t working for.

I had been trying to manifest for about five years. At some point it stopped feeling exciting and started feeling exhausting. I kept going because I didn’t want to believe I had wasted all that time, but deep down I was tired and discouraged.

What I was really dealing with, more than anything, was anxiety. Especially in relationships. I was constantly overthinking, reading into everything, and feeling like I had to get things right or I would lose the person.

There was also this underlying feeling that something about me just wasn’t enough. I didn’t say it out loud, but it showed up in how I approached everything. Love, money, even friendships. It always felt like I had to become someone else first.

One of the first things we worked on was that. Not trying to fix it right away, but actually seeing it.

I started noticing how quickly I would spiral from small things. A message not being answered, a slight change in tone, anything like that. Before, I would go straight into self-blame. Now I could at least pause and see what was happening.

That alone made a difference. It felt like I had a bit of space for the first time.

The exercises were simple, but they helped me feel more stable. I wasn’t as thrown off by every emotion. And slowly, I stopped being so hard on myself. I had spent years thinking I was damaged in some way. Seeing even small shifts made me feel like maybe that wasn’t true.

At some point, I felt ready to go deeper. Letting go of the old version of me didn’t feel scary anymore, it actually felt like relief.

I started doing emotional revision more seriously, and this is where things really began to change.

What I learned, and this is important, is that it’s not about forcing yourself to think positively. I had tried that before and it only made me more anxious. It’s more about not automatically believing every fearful thought that comes up.

My body would still react sometimes, but I wasn’t feeding it in the same way.

There was a moment that stands out to me. I was doing the process of letting go of that old identity, and what stayed with me wasn’t the image itself, but the feeling that came with it.

For the first time, I had the thought, very quietly, that maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with me. I didn’t feel like I had to fix myself to be loved. That was new.

From there, things started to feel lighter in general. I wasn’t constantly focused on what was missing.

I remember wanting to go out one weekend, which wasn’t something I used to do. I didn’t overthink it, I just followed the feeling and imagined.

A few days later, a friend I hadn’t spoken to in years called and invited me to her birthday. I went, and what stood out wasn’t even the event, it was how I felt there.

Normally I would be in my head the whole time, thinking about what to say or how I was coming across. That night I wasn’t doing that. I was just present. Talking, laughing, not trying to be anything.

That felt like a big shift and it was amazing to see imaginal acts showing up so quickly.

After that, I felt ready to focus on the relationship I wanted. The version of him I had been attached to before didn’t even feel that appealing. I found myself thinking more about what actually felt right for me.

I stayed in that for about a month, and at some point I realized I had stopped thinking about him all the time. Before, my mood would depend on whether he was in my life or not. That just wasn’t happening anymore.

And during that time, other things were falling into place too. I was enjoying my life more. I wasn’t constantly trying to get something from it. I was grateful for the joy I had found and it kept growing.

The way things happened in the end felt very natural. We ran into each other on the street. I hadn’t even noticed him at first, he came after me.

We got coffee, started talking again, and things just moved forward from there.

For context, before all of this, we were just friendly. There had always been something about him, but I also saw him as someone who would only go for a certain type of woman, and I didn’t see myself that way at all. Of course, that’s the reflection that I kept seeing. That belief shaped everything. I felt like I had to earn attention, earn love, prove something.

Now I don’t see it like that.

Love doesn’t come from being good enough. It comes from being able to be seen as you are, without constantly trying to adjust yourself.

That shift didn’t just show up in my relationship. My finances improved too. I’m not constantly stressed about money anymore, and for the first time I’ve been able to save.

If there’s anything I would say to someone reading this, it’s this:

If you’ve been trying for years and nothing is changing, it’s not because you’re doing it wrong. It’s usually because you’re still operating from the same identity, just with new techniques.

Once that started to change for me, everything else followed.

And it didn’t feel like forcing things to happen. It felt like things finally had space to happen.