Skip to main content

Trending Now: What everyone's reading.

10 Months Later. Here's Where I Am

 It's hard to believe it's been 10 months since my accident. It's been quite a journey. I went from the trauma unit to an acute care hospital, connected to more life support machines than I could count. One by one, I was able to come off each machine until I was finally discharged at the end of December. When I got home, I spent about a month in bed. I couldn't do much for myself and had to slowly rebuild my strength. I started going to the gym once a week, and after a couple of months I was finally able to get a caretaker who could take me two or three times a week. That's when I really started making progress. But recovery hasn't been a straight line. My amputated leg had complication after complication, and the wounds wouldn't heal for months. Even though I received my prosthetic leg on February 10, I couldn't safely wear it until the very end of April because the wounds wouldn't close. Just when I started walking with my prosthetic at the gym, I ...

Effortless Manifestation: What Happens When You Stop Trying So Hard



I’m writing this blog because something clicked recently, and I want to share it with you. After studying, practicing, and digging deep into spirituality, healing, and manifestation, I found myself hitting a wall. A wall called effort.

Through the teachings of people like Dr. Leslie Phillips, Dr. Joe Vitale, and even some of what I’ve questioned from Dr. Joe Dispenza, I realized this:

The more effort I put into trying to be more spiritual, more intuitive, more abundant, the more I was actually blocking the very flow I was trying to invite.

Let that sink in.


🌧️ What Does “Effortlessness” Look Like When You Still Desire Transformation?

It doesn’t mean sitting around doing nothing. It means tuning your energy to receive instead of constantly striving to control.

When you’re trying too hard to get something—money, success, clarity—your vibration usually shifts into lack, fear, or frustration.

You’re subconsciously saying:

  • “I don’t have it.”

  • “I need to make this happen.”

  • “I’m afraid it won’t come.”

But the energy of manifestation comes from:

  • “I trust.”

  • “I’ve planted the seed.”

  • “I’m open to receiving.”


🌱 Think of It Like Gardening (Which I Live Every Day)

You plant a seed. You don’t pull it out every day to check if it’s growing. You don’t panic if you don’t see sprouts immediately. You water it. Give it sun. Let it be.

That’s trust. That’s alignment. That’s effortless manifestation.


💭 So What Happens When a Practice Feels Like Effort?

Sometimes we overdo spiritual practices thinking they’ll save us. We chase meditation, journaling, energy clearing, or manifestation techniques like a to-do list. But when they become forced—when they become a chore or a struggle—they lose their sacredness.

I experienced this firsthand with some of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s meditations. As much as I respect his work, the 40+ minute guided experiences of "feeling my body in space" felt like effort. Instead of enlightenment, I felt frustration. Instead of transformation, I felt resistance.

I began to realize: just because a practice works for someone else doesn’t mean it’s right for me.

And just because I want something to work doesn’t mean I have to force myself to do it every day.


✨ When Resistance Shows Up, Listen

Dr. Leslie Phillips teaches that being in effort blocks your heart chakra. The more you strive and push, the more disconnected you become from the very center of your being.

And here’s the truth:

What begins as a ritual can turn into a rut the moment it loses presence and purpose.

So if your meditation, your journaling, your visualizations, your affirmations—whatever practice you’re using—begin to feel like obligation or punishment... it's time to pause.

Your practices should lift you, not drain you. They should expand you, not trap you.


🚜 The "How" Is Not Your Job

You don’t need to know how the miracle happens. You just need to show up for your part:

  • Desire

  • Intention

  • Alignment

  • Openness

The Universe handles the rest.

Just like a caterpillar doesn’t plan how to grow wings, you don’t have to overthink how transformation unfolds. You trust. You cocoon. You emerge.


💫 Want Less Pressure and More Flow in Your Practice?

If you’re finding that your current spiritual routine feels heavy, overwhelming, or disconnected from your real life—you’re not alone. And you’re not doing it wrong.

You just need a more aligned approach.

At Artful Living Coaching, I help people reconnect to practices that feel nourishing, sacred, and sustainable. No guilt. No dogma. Just tools that work for you.

Let me help you:

  • Explore different types of meditation and ritual work that suit your time, energy, and lifestyle

  • Reclaim your heart chakra flow by removing the burden of effort

  • Build a soulful, flexible, and intentional practice that meets you where you are

If you’re tired of being told you have to meditate in a way that makes you want to scream, it’s time to try something that actually fits your nervous system and soul.

Reach out to me at Artful Living Coaching
We’ll create a living practice—one that supports you, centers your heart, and keeps your feet on the ground (not lost in space).


Because your growth shouldn't feel like pressure. It should feel like coming home.

Comments

Popular Posts

Survivor of Ortega Highway Head-On Collision Speaks Out on Life-Altering Injuries, Recovery, and Road Safety Awareness

   PRESS RELEASE  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Survivor of Ortega Highway Head-On Collision Speaks Out on Life-Altering Injuries, Recovery, and Road Safety Awareness Lake Elsinore, California — 6-17-2026  — A California woman is speaking publicly about the life-changing impact of a head-on collision on the  Ortega Highway , calling for greater awareness around reckless driving, road safety, and the long-term human cost of split-second decisions behind the wheel. On September 6th, while driving carefully and allowing extra time on a route she had always approached with caution, she was struck head-on by a driver who crossed into her lane. Her vehicle was sent flying before crashing into a tree, which ultimately stopped her car from going further and likely saved her life. She sustained catastrophic, life-altering injuries, including the loss of one leg, severe damage to the remaining leg requiring extensive metal hardware, multiple spinal injuries, rib fractures, a shat...

Walking Through Fear While My Life Is Still Unstable

  Walking Through Fear Anyway: When Survival Becomes a Daily Choice I’m at risk of losing my housing right now. That sentence alone feels surreal to write, but it’s my reality. I’ve already survived things most people only ever read about. A catastrophic accident. A medically induced coma. An amputation. Metal now holding parts of my body together—including my vertebrae, and my left leg from my knee to my ankle. I’m still learning what all of this means in real time, because even now, no one has fully explained every part of what happened to me. I also don’t remember the accident itself. Not because I’m avoiding it—but because my mind shut it out. The trauma was so severe, and my body was so critically compromised, that everything went into survival shutdown. I had kidney failure and heart failure. My body was shutting down, and my brain shut down with it. What I do remember is the day. I remember my thought process clearly in the beginning. I remember thinking I wasn’t in a...

Why My Ortega Highway Crash Should Be a Wake-Up Call for Every Driver

   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Surviving Ortega Highway: Why Road Safety Can't Wait Lake Elsinore, California – July 2, 2026 — Nearly ten months after surviving a catastrophic head-on collision on Ortega Highway, Jean Marshall is speaking publicly about the crash that forever changed her life. By sharing her experience, she hopes to raise awareness about the devastating consequences of reckless driving and the lifelong challenges many survivors face long after the headlines disappear. On September 6, 2025, Marshall was driving home on Ortega Highway when another vehicle crossed into her lane, causing a violent head-on collision. The crash left her with life-threatening injuries, including the loss of her right leg, multiple fractures throughout her body, broken ribs, spinal injuries, a shattered left leg, and internal injuries that resulted in heart and kidney failure. She spent four months in the hospital undergoing multiple surgeries before beginning the long process of rehabilit...

I Didn’t Ask for This: My Journey After a Life-Changing Accident

I recently shared a post asking for support during a very difficult time in my life, and I received some comments calling me a "beggar" or accusing me of "money begging." I want to clarify something: I am not begging. I am asking for help while I try to survive an unexpected and life-altering situation. There is no obligation for anyone to donate. People are free to scroll past, say no, or simply wish me well. But it's incredibly hurtful when people judge a situation they haven't lived. I was in a catastrophic accident that was not my fault, and it permanently changed my life. I didn't ask to lose my leg. I didn't ask to spend four months in the hospital. I didn't ask for my body to be permanently altered, my car to be totaled, or my ability to work and support myself to be taken away. This didn't happen gradually or by choice. It happened in an instant, and it has taken away my health, my independence, and my ability to support myself in the...