Designing Spaces For Wellness
Spatial artist and designer Nike Onile shares how mindful design can offer a new perspective on life indoors.
Q: Could you share how you discovered your unique power of manifesting?
I was an actress and a model when I was 17, and I was so broke. And so I did what I think a lot of artists do- I tried to look for ways I could control my reality, because you never know as an artist when money is coming through. We had a family intuitive that said, 'if you read this particular book on manifestation, and you follow it to a T, you would manifest everything you want'. So I listened, and I did, and nothing happened. But I really stuck with it and I got into The Secret and you know, the Law of Attraction and all of these things. I would manifest like a $300 apartment in Echo Park - it was crazy. I could tell I was a really good manifestor, but never when I was doing those practices.
Q: How does the practice of manifestation work?
I started to figure out that it's not about being positive. It's all about being in your subconscious. So I started to notice that we don't manifest from our thoughts. We manifest from our subconscious beliefs. So everything that was imprinted into our subconscious from birth through to adulthood, everything we were witnessing-parental modelling, societal modelling, the media, all of that is imprinted onto our value of worth. On a subconscious level, we manifest very easily. But where we feel pain, shame or feeling simply not good enough is where we actually have gaps. So I started to develop my formula, which is really kind of rooted in very simple psychology and neuroscience.
Q: What is the formula that you developed from this?
With my energetic gifts I was born with, I realised that I have the gift of being able to know when things will follow energetically. So all of that allowed me to figure out the formula of The Pathway. The Pathway is just a really grounded step by step process that actually tells you how to manifest. It's not “think positive”. It's just very simple psychology- a form of getting into our subconscious mind. Because when we go into that theta, or delta-alpha state, our subconscious comes forward. It is everything we're manifesting from and it can't tell the difference between what's real and what's not real. So we're able to use neuroscience to literally, do brain surgery. We shift where we have limiting beliefs, we shift our low self worth, and that's when we start to manifest.
Q: Now that's really interesting because you’re confirming what is often been said - that our subconscious has the ability to effect and change our surroundings.
Yeah, basically our whole reality. And if you look at psychology too, it's kind of what it teaches. For instance, look at the the modelling we witness between our parents. We tend to attract that same dynamic over and over and over again. In relationships we reflect the particular parent that caused us the most pain, or whom we needed something from the most. We tend to attract that in partnerships over and over. It's really just our subconscious that's playing out our reality. So if for instance, if we grew up knowing that our authentic self is an artist, but we grew up around only people in finance and we never saw a successful artist’s career reflected back to us, this means that we need to go out and do the work through expansion. That's one part of The Pathway's formula- magnetism. That's very important. It's where we use our mirror neurons. So that's why I don't think visualising works. Like I would visualise till I was blue.
We need our mirror neurons, which are the first processor. We literally have to show our subconscious somebody who has what we want, to believe that it is possible. When we see a couple of those, we have space for our manifestations to come through. So all of it's just our limbic subconscious brain that we're dealing with. It’s the same idea that we study in psychology. In areas where we have high self worth, and where we witness things that were possible growing up, those are the things we can manifest very easily. The things we aren't manifesting means we need to go out and expand. We need to get rid of the low self worth that was imprinted where we felt we weren't good enough, or we were not pretty, and remove that. That's when we can connect with our manifestations.
Q: So what you're saying is that the simple practice of visualising doesn’t actually work unless it is put into practice.
Yeah, and I'll give you like another little part of manifestation that's so key and important. I believe when we're born, we're all whole and totally worthy. We're totally conscious. And then we start to get this onion from society- the labelling; what is beauty or culture, we start to receive all of that. So it creates kind of this ego- shell around us. I believe that the only intention for the universe is to get back into our most whole, authentic, worthy selves. When we're in our pure authenticity, that's when we're the most magnetic.
Q: What does that process of connecting with your authenticity look like?
First, it would be getting into a place where you understand who you are at your core, and what it is that you’re seeking in life. I mean understanding what your core wants when it's not using exterior validation. Once you have that clarity, then you'll go and find expanders that reflect that. They may look like you, or have a similar background, or are in the same profession that you can identify with. Once you see their success, it's very simple for you to manifest. But a huge important component is to get out of all of the ego.
Q: And what is the difference between your formula and say, The Secret and all the other manifesting programmes out there?
I did them for years and years and years. The difference is that most of these programs are all spiritual bypasses. Alot of them don't deal with any of the deep rooted pain, or shame, or programming. The messaging around it is if you think positive, if you visualise that, it'll happen. Staying in a positive state at all times is what is creating the magnetic flow.
But the whole message of The Pathway is to do the work; to embrace your negativity, because that's actually the clue to where the blocks in your subconscious are. When you get down there and remove those, you get into your more worthy self. It's actually your self- worth that's pulling what you want to you. There’s no real spiritual bypass. You have to do the work. You have to go out and expand.
You need to look at your programming, and you need to switch your programming around. You need to get to your worth and actually go find people in the real world that represent you and that have what you want. It’s not like fairy dust. It's more like digging in and controlling it. Whether you get what you want at the end of the day, all depends on how close you are to your authentic core essence.
Q: What does a “good" manifestor look like?
It’s somebody who's living primarily intuitively. They're not looking for outside validation to make them feel whole. They've found it within themselves, whether it's through this work or whatever work. They do what's really pulling them- they're fully unblocked, they're fully expanded and they're totally free. So there's another really big element to this - I believe that the universe tests us when we are manifesting. And this is huge. This is something nobody ever told me when I was doing this.
Let's say I was dating emotionally unavailable people, and I started to call in a partner who was everything on my list and totally emotionally available. I believe the universe tests your worth, because this whole objective is to get back into your whole, most worthy, authentic self. So the universal starts to send people that are a little bit emotionally unavailable and it gets harder and harder. And then eventually, once you pass the test, that's when you connect with your person. What you're being tested on, is whether you are not willing to settle. Are you ready to fully be in your worth? That is being free. Authentic and free. Being able to say 'no' to absolutely anything that doesn't serve you. What we're talking about is finding full expansion and be integrated so fully that you’ve gotten rid of all of your shadow selves and all the things that you're fearful of. So those are what makes you very magnetic. And that's what a “good manifestor” is - somebody who's purely in their magnetism.
