I Attracted People in Lack. Here’s What It Revealed About Me

Last year I met an energetic and charismatic artist, named Talia, in Valladolid, Mexico. I met her through my good friend, Katia. The three of us bonded quickly over coffee and discourses around spirituality and the metaphysical. 

People Come Into Our Lives for a Reason

Talia coined our group Charlie’s Angels. She thought we were angels brought down from the heavens to help shift the collective consciousness. And in a way we were bad**s women claiming our power.

Not long after we met, she expressed her hardships. She told us of her difficult relationship with her family, and how she was used and taken advantage of. Talia ekes out a living selling her embroidery and other handmade crafts. She lives day to day staying at hostels or crashing at friends’ pads.

My heart went out to her, so when she asked for money to buy a bus ticket to Mexico City, her hometown, I didn’t hesitate to give. 

After traveling through Mexico, Spirit guided me to go to Costa Rica.

I followed prompts to go on ecstatic dances, co-living arrangements, temazcal, rapé and marijuana trips. I also lived in the mountains of Uvita, where Spirit carried me through excruciating shadow work. 

All that to unearth a set of janky beliefs and patterns. Beliefs that maintained the status quo, mitigating risks and minimizing situations where I could be in the spotlight or be in heightened discomfort. 

Last year was not only a time of experimenting with the surrender process – where I followed and trusted guidance from the Universe, no matter how illogical it was to the mind – but it was also a time of deep healing. 

As I look at a new year ahead, there are goals I want to achieve, specifically creative work. It feels as if Spirit wants to use me as a channel for creation. 

The journey I went through last year now makes sense given the lofty heights of my intentions this year. I needed to get rid of limiting thoughts that block me from expressing the fullest and truest of myself. 

Sacred Inquiry

Yet there’s still something to look at, as Talia keeps popping in and out of my life. Every time we connect she’s asking for money and groaning about her miserable life. 

So what is Talia reflecting for me that needs to be released?

A friend suggested that I meditate on Kahlil Gibran’s poem On Giving. 

This poem, coupled with the Wayne Dyer quote below, unlocked pandora’s box to what was hidden to me prior. 

Before Talia, there had been a number of people and experiences that should have caused red flags within myself, but I wasn’t ready to do any inquiry on them at the time. I was in denial.

Like the time that Katia and I vacationed in Isla Mujeres, and I paid for our week-long accommodations. Or when I paid for Katia’s apartment in Puerto Morelos for one month. Or when I lent money to a friend who needed to provide for her and her daughter, and money was scarce. Or when I offered to lend another friend money to pay for her credit card debt.

Looking back, Talia and the others represented long-held patterns that informed my decisions, my thinking and my behaviour, that kept taking me off-course and distracting me to know the truth. 

Understand the Intentions Behind Your Actions

The meditation shone a light on certain beliefs, such as I’m responsible for people’s happiness. A similar version to this is the need to please. 

This belief was formed from childhood. My dad was the main breadwinner of the family, and having spent my early days in the Philippines at almost poverty level, he literally was responsible for our survival. I looked up to my father, and I adopted a lot of his beliefs. 

In the current reality, this belief was made manifest by attracting people who needed to be fixed and saved.

I literally attracted people who were broke and broken. 

By helping them fix their problems, I felt I had a purpose. I felt good about myself. I felt needed. I felt loved. I felt accepted. 

I was buying people’s love and acceptance because I gave none to myself.

Also, they showed me my shadows. Subconsciously I believed I was in lack, and that there was something wrong with me. Instead it was a call to accept all those parts of me that I didn’t like, in which I projected out, and onto others. 

And in the acceptance of myself, I can accept others as they are. 

No one and nothing needs fixing.

Another significant belief that surfaced was the lack of deservedness and worthiness. 

This part of the poem offered deep resonance:

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you.

And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

When I was inspecting my relationship with Talia, I realized that my decision to give her money was tied to whether or not I deemed her as worthy. 

Everyone is a mirror for us. And if I’m judging Talia as not worthy, then ultimately I am externalizing my own unworthiness. 

This was a bombshell discovery. 

A key part in manifestation is allowing ourself to receive, and in order to receive we have to trust in our own deservedness. If there is doubt, we will deflect, sabotage and delay what is meant for us. 

I will need to match the vibrational frequency of what I want to manifest.

If I feel that I don’t deserve what I want to create, then there’s a mismatch of the energy I’m putting out and the energy of what I want to call into my life.

Another important finding in this process was that the people pleaser in me couldn’t set boundaries.

It was difficult for me to say no because I didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings. But beneath that there’s a belief that saying no is not loving. Saying no makes me a bad person.

So I gave my time and money to others not because I wanted to, but because I should. This resulted in me feeling resentful and drained. 

Define Your Authenticity Blueprint

I have recognized that prescribing healthy parameters for myself and others starts with knowing who I am and what my values are. 

Understand Your Values

Some questions I asked myself:

• What makes me feel most myself? 
• What lights me up? Excites me? 
• What moves me?
• What makes me laugh?
• Thinking about the people I look up to, what is it about them that I admire?
• What expands my heart?

On the contrary, I learned a lot from asking the opposite of those questions:

• What makes me feel not myself?
• What contracts my heart?
• What am I doing now that doesn’t bring me joy?
• What keeps me safe and stagnant?

The answers to these questions helped to formulate my own authenticity blueprint.

It is my truth code. 

Here are some of my values that make up my authenticity blueprint:

• Connection to Spirit 
• Saying yes to what is aligned to my values
• Doing work that I enjoy
• Spending time in nature
• Healthy mind and body
• Healthy relationships – dependable, trusting, loyal, integrity
• Beautiful, calm, and comfortable home
• Abundance
• Freedom

Help Make Decisions and Set Boundaries

I use the blueprint to help me make decisions. So recently when Talia had asked for money, I said no because giving to her would be misguided. As well, it would violate the healthy relationship value – it’s not the kind of relationship I wanted to encourage.

This experience was evidence that I need to be clear in my intentions. It’s important to understand the motivation behind my thoughts, my actions, and the way I show up in the world. 

Then having the willingness to let go of destructive and outdated beliefs is imperative if I want to live an aligned expression to the essence of what I am. 

A deep knowing of who I am, what matters to me, and what I want to create is integral on this path.

It’s ok to say no to the things that make me feel contracted and icky. In fact, by doing this, I’m saying a big hell yes to the very things I want to manifest and experience.