"Next, I want to explain what happens when you change your subconscious belief system. Your subconscious is writing the story that manifests in physical reality."

"Didn't you already explain that, though?" Zac asked. "When you change the role you are playing on the stage, all the props, circumstances, environments, and other actors in the play will change as well."

"Yes, exactly," I said. "But I want you to understand the process by which this happens. The journey can be challenging to navigate if you can't see the order in it.

Have you noticed how some people become adults, and they don't change much after that? Maybe they settle down with a partner or settle into a job. They do the same things over and over again. They express the same version of themself into the world, and their reality more-or-less stays the same?"

"Yep," Zac said. "I know people from school who went down that path. They finished school, and their lives have pretty much stayed the same since then. They live in a small town, do the same things, go through the motions of life. It's like groundhog day."

"And I want to make it clear that there's nothing inherently wrong with that path," I clarified. "It's a completely valid choice to make. I would personally get bored, but many people are perfectly content to live their lives that way. Their happiness is nothing to be scoffed at.

It's when you want something different — something more for yourself — that you begin to get a problem. To change what shows up in your external reality, you need to change who you are at a subconscious level. You need to think, speak, and act differently to play a different role. As you do this, your external reality will probably begin to break."

"What do you mean, 'break'?" Zac asked. "Like, it will start to crack?"

"I just mean that your life may feel like it's crumbling. That's what it feels like to me, anyway. The more powerfully you shift who you are, the more chaos you unleash. Things will suddenly start messing up in your life. You'll fall out of love with people, or professions, or hobbies. You'll break up with partners. You'll experience friction in your business or your living arrangements. Your finances might go haywire. Your car or plumbing might break. The circumstances that manifest will probably test your conviction about your new role.

Most people don't pay attention to these things. They're not very observant. These signs can be subtle and difficult to notice if you change gradually over time. But if you change quickly and drastically, you should be prepared for all hell to break loose. I actually used to track this in a spreadsheet as one of my experiments. There seems to be a clear non-linear correlation between cause and effect.

If you don't understand these patterns, you'll think that something bad is happening in your life — but it's not. 'Bad' is a subjective word. The meaning 'bad' is produced when a symbol — like a breakup or a financial crisis — interacts with your consciousness. Since you control your consciousness, you also control the meaning you assign to these things. Even in my darkest hours, I still deeply, subconsciously believe that everything is always rigged in my favor. Everything is always playing to my advantage, even when I can't see the order in it. I am always walking through space and time towards my vision. Every symbol that shows up in my outer reality is there to serve me on that adventure.

It's difficult to hold that kind of conviction sometimes, especially when all the information entering your senses tells you it's not true. But I have no choice. I have to believe it. If I didn't think this game was rigged in my favor, I'd probably collapse in an exhausted heap and never bother to try again when I fall down. And you know me, Zac — I fall down all the time."

Zac laughed. "I prefer to use the phrase 'derping it up.' I don't understand how one woman can break so many things. I've had to save your life so many times."

"When?!"

"Hmm, let's see..." he mused. "Remember a few weeks ago, when you nearly electrocuted yourself with that electric showerhead that I bought for your ensuite?"

"Well, how was I supposed to know I had to switch it on and off every time I used it?"

"Maybe the big switch on the showerhead was a clue."

I shrugged. "I don't notice details like that. As far as I'm concerned, there is a magical spout in the wall, and glorious hot water emerges from it when I turn on the tap. Electric showerheads are a very South American thing."

"Well, maybe the big black scorch marks on the bathroom roof and the strange buzzing sound coming from the showerhead were not-so-subtle clues that perhaps something was wrong."

"I didn't notice any scorch marks-"

"But they were huge!"

"And I didn't notice any noise, either. I think very deeply about things in the shower. Hot water helps me think."

Zac sighed. "I'm just glad Lenae saw the scorch marks when she was cleaning so I could get a new one installed. Or what about the other night?"

"What night?"

"Remember? You were working downstairs on the dining room table at one a.m. when the doorbell kept ringing-"

"Oh, yeah," I replied. "Well, normally the porteria calls before anyone is allowed into the building, so I thought maybe our midnight visitor had a gun and was here to fuck you up."

"Fuck me up?"

"Yes. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd made it onto someone's hit list."

"And he was just waiting politely at the door for someone to answer it, so he could wander in and kill me?"

I shrugged. "Yeah."

"And where did you decide to hide while I took care of this?"

"The kitchen."

"The kitchen. Quite possibly the worst place to hide if there is an assassin in the house. I found you in the goddamn kitchen, casually fixing yourself a sandwich while I was hypothetically being murdered in the adjacent room by a rotund Colombian man sporting a black shirt, a leather jacket and a fanny pack."

"I was hungry."

"You were hungry." He threw his hands up in exasperation.

"Yes. And if I'm going to die, I would like to depart this world between bites of a peanut butter sandwich. As long as it's the smooth peanut butter, not the crunchy peanut butter. I'm very particular about texture-"

"My God, you're like a child. Do you cut the crusts off, too?"

"Yes..."

"Nikki," Zac sighed as he massaged his temples. "For future reference, do not hide in the fucking kitchen if there is a gunman on the loose in our house. I've already shown you the safe hiding places. I'll put some snacks in there for next time."

"Sorry."

"It's okay," he sighed. "I've learned to live with it. Like I said — you're a lovable derp. I know you're all busy up in your head trying to reverse-engineer the universe, or whatever your latest cognitive endeavor is. But sometimes I genuinely worry that you're going to accidentally derp it up a little too seriously and get yourself killed."

I frowned. "You sound like my parents. Apparently, I'm not very good with 'the practicalities of life.'"

"I feel like that's a slight understatement," Zac said. "You're a safety hazard."

"Well, I guess I'm trying to get better at it, but it's surprisingly difficult. I'm computing very high-level abstractions in my mind, but I can't simultaneously keep the low-level and high-level programs running at the same time. I subconsciously close all unnecessary applications."

"Staying alive is not an unnecessary application."

"Oh, you know what I mean. It's trivia. Detail."

"Actually, it's kinda important. You can't solve the world's problems if you're dead."

"I also can't solve the world's problems if I waste my compute cycles on minutia. I can pick one or the other. I can't do both at the same time. Believe me — I've tried. I appreciate you looking out for me, though. You're an incredible friend. I'm very lucky to have you in my life."

Zac looked at me sideways. "Don't go getting all sentimental on me now. I'll save you from electrocuting yourself or getting hit by a bus, but I'm not good with emotions and feelings and all that icky stuff."

I grinned, looked him up and down, and bowled him over with a sudden hug.

"Are we done here?" he asked after a few seconds. "Can you get back to that thing you were explaining before I made you sad."

I released him from my grip. "Why yes, Zachary. Let's continue. Where were we?"

"You were telling me how reality breaks when you change who you are, and how most people interpret these changes as 'bad.'"

"Ah, yes!" I continued. "So, you have to realize that these changes are not actually bad. In fact, they are an essential part of the reality creation process. Imagine that you are the star of a play, again. You are standing on stage, playing the role of a woman who subconsciously believes she is unworthy and weak. She expresses this belief system into her reality through her thoughts, words, and actions. She has low standards and puts up with a lot of bullshit from friends, family, colleagues, and partners. Now, imagine all the different environments, props, and characters that will materialize on the stage to help her experience herself as unworthy and weak — the terrible dates, money problems, a boss that bullies her, drama in her social life.

Now imagine that one day, she wakes up and decides to change. This frequently happens after a real 'rock bottom' moment. Other times, it's a snap decision one makes, or even a gradual change. This character in the play decides to raise her standards. She begins to express her higher self-worth through new thoughts, words, and actions. She breaks up with her terrible boyfriend and rejects all the other fuckboys who try to enter her life. She ramps up her self-care and starts spending time on a hobby she's always enjoyed but never indulged in — maybe it's dancing. She starts taking control of her finances by paying off debt, saving consistently, and deliberately managing her money.

If she's doing all of these things, she is expressing a completely different set of beliefs into the world — I am strong, I am worthy, I am secure, I am feminine and sexy, etc. But she is also standing on a stage, and that stage is full of props that match the old role she was playing. The stage can't suddenly manifest new props. It needs to clear out the old ones first.

And so, you see, reality must go through a decreation process if it's going to clear out the old and bring in the new. That's why her life will begin to crumble. She might suddenly be made redundant from her job, or start having dramas in her friendship group. Most people interpret these events as being 'bad,' but it's just a de-creative process taking place — like when the crew comes in from the side of the stage and removes the props and backdrops to prepare for a new scene in the play. Her world will look like chaos as the existing props, circumstances, and relationships find ways to exit the stage, and the new ones find ways to enter the stage.

Unfortunately, this is a challenging process to navigate if you don't understand the pattern. For most people, as soon as the chaotic de-creative process begins, they revert back to expressing their old, un-empowering belief systems.

This woman might believe, 'I am worthy! I am in control!' But then she is suddenly made redundant. Many people would interpret that circumstance as a sign that they're not worthy and in control, because the data they are observing seems to reinforce those disempowering beliefs. It takes real inner conviction to see the redundancy as perfect and a sign that you are worthy and in control. You need to train your consciousness to believe the redundancy is a sign that reality is rearranging for you, and everything is always rigged in your favor.

If you can do this, the dust will eventually settle. When you open your eyes, you'll be surrounded by new props and circumstances that reflect your new belief system. The friends, and people, and job that once reflected your low self-worth will be gone. Maybe you'll end up talking to someone at a coffee shop who tells you about a job that allows you to work remotely, and you use that as inspiration to start a freelance gig and travel overseas while working. Then maybe, when you're sitting in a bar in another country, you meet the partner of your dreams who treats you like a queen. Relative to this new man, you feel worthy, sexy, feminine, and secure — all qualities that reflect who you now are.

But remember, you became all those things first before the external props showed up. You expressed a new version of yourself into the world through your thoughts, words, and deeds. Then reality manifested everything you needed to experience yourself in that role. You wrote your own story. You raised your self-worth by raising your standards and taking care of yourself. You created security in your life by taking control of your finances. You began actively saving money, instead of waiting around to win the lottery. You made yourself feel sexy and feminine through dancing, instead of expecting a partner to make you feel that way.

You created the change in yourself first, before all the symbols showed up in your outer reality. You saved yourself, instead of expecting someone or something else to save you. And, ironically, once you changed, your whole world changed. Once you saved yourself, the world saved you. Because you are the world.

Like I said — physical reality is just a language, and you're writing the story with your consciousness. It's like a procedurally-generated computer game, but instead of controlling the player with the arrow keys or a joystick, you're controlling the player with your beliefs. And you can play the game however you choose. You can play any role you want, and reality will create a fantastic experience of that role."

"Oh!" Zac said. "I love this whole computer game analogy. So, you think we're in a computer game right now?"

"I don't literally think that our universe is running on a physical computer in another realm. But I do believe everything is functioning like a computer game. It's the same with any other system — if you understand the rules, you can play the game really well. If you don't understand the rules, you'll run around the game, and a whole bunch of 'random' stuff will happen to you. Sometimes you'll win, sometimes you'll lose — and you'll name this phenomenon 'luck.' Games are much more fun to play when you understand the rules that govern them."