Conscious Creation: Five Steps to Embracing the Life of Your Dreams – An Interview with TJ Woodward

What if creating the life you desire isn’t about trying harder—but about remembering who you truly are?

For TJ Woodward, the journey into conscious creation was not about positive thinking or chasing external success. It was forged through addiction recovery, deep spiritual inquiry, profound loss, and a radical unraveling of identity that ultimately led him back to wholeness. From early experiences of joy and heartbreak to sobriety, mentorship, and a calling into ministry, TJ’s path reveals how healing the past becomes the gateway to an awakened life.

In this conversation, TJ shares why making peace with the past is essential for true transformation, how unconscious beliefs quietly shape our reality, and what it really means to live—and create—from a place of alignment rather than effort. He introduces his five-step Conscious Creation process, explores the difference between manifesting and embodied visioning, and invites us into a deeper understanding of service, presence, and awakened living. Continue reading or listen in by subscribing for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or YouTube to discover how TJ Woodward’s insights can support your own journey back to wholeness.

You have a very interesting journey and have developed a great deal of experience in addiction recovery, speaking, and helping people with mental health challenges. I’m always curious about the motivation behind that—the trajectory, the path that came before making those decisions to invest your life in others in that way. So maybe you could start by sharing a bit about your story and how it led you to help others in these ways.

TJ Woodward: Well… yeah. Do we have about three hours?

I like to joke that it takes about that long to tell the whole story, so I’ll give some highlights. I usually start with my earliest memories—because they’re actually of being absolutely happy, joy-filled, and in awe of the world. And the reason I start there is because, through the long journey I’ve had, I’ve come to realize that this is innate to the human experience. Joy, happiness, connection, openness—that’s what it truly means to be human.

I came into this place called Planet Earth, and through a series of events and some traumatic experiences, I closed my heart. I actually remember a moment, David, when I literally felt like a wall went up around my heart when I was seven years old. Looking back, I can see it was a form of protection. It felt like something coming in from outside of me. And of course, it worked to a degree—but it also protected me from the love and connection I truly desired.

Not that we need to go into it, but was that a traumatic experience—some sort of trauma that caused that?

TJ Woodward: Yeah, I’m actually happy to go into it. Many different things were happening.

For one, my parents were in a loveless marriage. I understand that now. Someone in our church actually told my dad that he would marry my mom, which is really interesting. They stayed together for 20 years, but there were a lot of addiction issues on my dad’s side—not substance use, interestingly enough, but around sex and sexuality. That caused me to be very afraid—very afraid of men, very afraid of becoming an adult. There were so many layers to it.

And then there was growing up in Indiana and realizing at a very young age that I liked boys, not girls, in a particular way. That was somewhat accepted in my home, but at school, it definitely wasn’t. So there were a lot of different things happening. It wasn’t just one event—it was many experiences layered together.

As you grew up and went to high school and college, what were the things you were interested in?

TJ Woodward: It’s interesting—I actually didn’t go to college right away, and that’s an important part of my story. Around the age of seven, I made some really big decisions about myself. One of them was that I somehow decided I wasn’t smart. I also decided I was unlovable and unworthy.

I remember when my nephew turned seven, I looked at him and thought, Oh my gosh, he’s just this innocent child. And it really struck me—that was the age when I decided I wasn’t smart enough, I wasn’t good enough. So high school was an interesting journey for me. I started drinking pretty young, around fourteen, and in the beginning, it actually helped me. But ultimately, it kind of turned on me. I got sober at twenty, but high school and the years right after were a pretty difficult time in my life.

So instead of going to college, you entered the workforce—or what did you pursue?

TJ Woodward: Well… I pursued drugs. That was a big part of it. But I did jump right into working. I actually left home when I was seventeen and was on my own, and that came with a lot of different layers, I’ll put it that way.

I just remember feeling so lost, David, and trying so desperately to plug into anyone or anything that might help me feel whole and complete. That was a huge part of my journey and ultimately led me to getting sober just before I turned twenty-one. And that’s really where my spiritual journey began.

Through your sobriety—was it through AA, quitting cold turkey, or what was that process like for you?

TJ Woodward: I did go to 12-step programs back in those years, and they really saved my life. It was something that truly turned my life around in the beginning—especially because it was so nice to have community and an authentic connection.

And ultimately, I met a woman there named Mary Helen, who became my mentor. She was this beautifully spiritually alive, awakened human being who, quite frankly, took me on a journey of deeper healing.

Did you enter into a Christian faith path? Was that part of your upbringing, or were there other ways you were exposed to spirituality?

TJ Woodward: I’m actually very grateful for the way I grew up. I was raised in the Episcopal Church. I sang in a very traditional men’s and boys’ choir, went to England, and even sang for the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was a really beautiful experience.

So when it comes to religion, I hear a lot of people—especially in the LGBTQ community—talk about the trauma they experienced around it. I don’t have that, and I’m very grateful. When I got sober and was introduced to Mary Helen, I went on a spiritual journey that looked very different. I discovered New Thought communities, traveled to India on a spiritual journey, and started exploring Eastern philosophies.

I was really looking at many different forms of spirituality—not so much religion, though some of that too—just kind of dabbling, exploring, and seeing what resonated and fit for me.

I know that you ultimately became an ordained minister through Agape with Michael Beckwith. My understanding is that this falls into the New Thought category. For people who may not be familiar with that term or that way of connecting with the divine, what is New Thought? How would you define it?

TJ Woodward: New Thought is a movement that began in the late 1800s, emerging alongside an existentialist shift that was happening in human consciousness at the time. Several organizations grew out of that movement—Unity, what we now call Centers for Spiritual Living, and the Church of Religious Science.

Unity, for example, was the first place I went, and it really served as a bridge for me—from Christianity into a more New Thought perspective. At its core, New Thought teaches that there is one power and one presence in our lives—God, the good—and that this power is not separate from us. It is who and what we are. We are all sparks of divinity.

Many expressions have grown out of this understanding, including Agape, which Michael Beckwith founded in the 1980s. That’s the lineage and origin story of New Thought.

What was it about that path that pulled you in or made you feel like, “Yes, this is my path. This is what resonates most deeply for me”?

TJ Woodward: It’s important for me to even remind myself of this. As I’ve shared, I felt so broken and damaged for much of my early life. When I got sober, I met Mary Helen at about eighteen months into recovery, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay on the planet at that point.

I felt completely broken. I carried so much shame, and I was using anything outside of myself to try to fix what felt so damaged within me. So when I walked into a Unity church in 1988 or 1989 and heard them say, You were born whole and complete—and that’s still who and what you are, something landed very deeply for me.

Because I felt so broken, that message resonated deeply. There was a part of me that understood that my belief in my own brokenness was actually creating my reality. Unity teaches that we create our reality based on our thoughts, but even more deeply, based on our point of view—on the frequency we’re holding about ourselves. And at that time, that frequency was incredibly painful.

When I heard that teaching, I felt like I had come home.

Contrast for me what it feels like to live life from shame—experiencing yourself as broken—versus the realization, “I’m not broken. I’m whole.” What does that shift feel like?

TJ Woodward: It’s truly night and day.

At the time, I couldn’t have articulated this, but what I now understand is that the shame core is a vibration. I wasn’t just believing I was broken—I was vibrating at that frequency in the world. From that place, I found myself constantly asking, Why does this keep happening to me? Why do I keep choosing these relationships? There were so many “whys.”

And not wise questions—just endless whys.

The journey back to wholeness wasn’t an event; it was a process. But the difference is profound. To understand that I came into this world as an infinite being—and that this is still who and what I am—changes everything. Recovery, or any genuine spiritual journey, whether it happens through therapy, spirituality, or other forms of support, is really about returning to that truth.

It’s about unlearning the beliefs we’ve picked up about ourselves. At its deepest level, it’s a frequency shift—and that’s the best way I know how to describe it.

So when I enter into life—my work, relationships, partnerships, money—from the perspective of being whole and loved, what’s different? What’s the result of living from that place?

TJ Woodward: Everything is different.

In our culture, we talk a lot about the Law of Attraction—deciding what we want, holding that frequency, and attracting what supports it. And while that’s true on one level, something much deeper is happening.

If I believe I’m broken, that frequency causes me to unconsciously keep choosing experiences that match it. When I begin unlearning and returning to my true nature, that vibration creates a completely different reality. It’s not so much about what gets attracted to me—it’s about the choices I’m able to make.

I remember someone once said to me, and I was not happy about this, “If someone showed up who was completely ready to love you, you’d probably reject them.” I was so offended by that at the time. But looking back, it was true. Some people wanted to offer me love, but it wasn’t congruent with my vibration.

When I’m aware of the infinite being that I am—when that spiritual sense, that effervescence, that true nature becomes real for me—I naturally choose experiences that support that truth. We hear the phrase “hurt people, hurt people.” Well, healed people heal people. Tuning into that frequency doesn’t just change one thing—it changes everything.

At what point did you decide you wanted to start helping others? People had helped you, and now you wanted to give that back. What was that shift?

TJ Woodward: In the material world, it didn’t really shift until I was around forty. Carl Jung says we spend the first half of our lives developing a healthy ego and the second half dismantling it. I don’t know if forty is exactly halfway, but it’s somewhere around there.

That was when everything in my life collapsed—and I received a clear calling to do spiritual work. But the truth is, the desire was there much earlier. At one point, I went back and read old journals from my early twenties, and I found an entry where I wrote, If I could do anything, it would be to help people awaken spiritually and move beyond addiction.

Fast forward to when I was forty. I attended a Unity church in San Francisco, served on the board, and was very active in the community. And I started to feel this inner knowing—not just that I wanted to be a spiritual teacher, but that it was my calling. When I said yes to that, everything collapsed—and the doorway opened. That’s when I went back to school.

You said everything collapsed. What do you mean by that?

TJ Woodward: I mean everything.

There’s a term in New Thought called chemicalization. It refers to what happens when we receive a divine idea or a call to higher consciousness—everything unlike it begins to dismantle. Now, I want to be clear: I don’t think everyone has to go through what I did. But I’ll be transparent.

My ego was holding very tightly to the life I had built. I had a business, a nice house, a car, a partner—everything on the outside that I thought would make me happy. And underneath it all was this quiet question: Is this all there is? I knew there was something more.

When I said yes to that calling and decided to go back to school at Unity Institute—without knowing exactly what that would look like as a minister, spiritual teacher, or author—everything that was no longer aligned fell away. I lost the business, the partner, the house, and the car.

Around the age of forty, I reached a point where I had the opportunity to live in a completely different way.

You’ve written a book and developed a methodology called Conscious Recovery, and you’ve helped so many people through that work. But today, as we enter a new year, I want to focus on your book Conscious Creation: Five Steps to Embracing the Life of Your Dreams. What is conscious creation—and how is it different from what we usually call manifesting?

TJ Woodward: At the beginning of the year, we collectively agree to make New Year’s resolutions. We do it all the time, but especially then. And in my experience—both personally and through years of working with clients and spiritual communities—most people want to start with intention-setting.

They want to figure out what they want to create, set goals, build vision boards, and practice the Law of Attraction. But what I’ve discovered is something very simple, and it goes back to my own story of collapse.

Conscious creation is different. It’s about moving from unconscious creation to conscious creation. As we’ve discussed, unconscious beliefs and ideas often run the show. So no matter how much we work on our thinking—changing thoughts, visualizing, setting intentions—those unconscious beliefs are still creating our reality.

That’s why I developed a five-step process using the acronym MOVIE—because we’re creating a new movie for our lives. But the first steps are what I call clearing steps, so that we can consciously create not from old, limited programming, but from truth.

So would you say that with manifesting, the starting point is often intention or goal-setting—whereas conscious creation begins somewhere else?

TJ Woodward: Yes, I think that’s true. It’s not that people don’t want to do deeper work—it’s often that they’re not aware of how important it is.

I can make vision boards. I can use affirmations. I can work with my thoughts, check my frequency, and even manifest certain things. And that does work on some level. But what my model invites us to do is go deeper.

There are really a couple of things at play. One is learning how to access our deeper desires—what we truly want from an intuitive level—and that comes later in the process. But first, and most importantly, there’s the clearing.

I like to use this metaphor: if I’m trying to paint a new portrait for my life, but I’m just painting over the same old one, eventually that old image is going to seep through. So before we create something new, we need a blank canvas.

Before we go into the five steps—the M-O-V-I-E framework—you talk in the introduction about four levels of consciousness and how they shape our lives. That section really stood out to me. Would you walk us through those four levels?

TJ Woodward: The first time I ever spoke at a New Thought center, I think it was around 2007 or 2008, my talk was called Beyond Metaphysics. Afterward, someone came up to me and asked, “Do you know who Michael Beckwith is? Your framework sounds very similar to his.”

I hadn’t met him at that point, and what struck me was how consciousness works. We tap into ideas, and sometimes they arise simultaneously through different people. I had developed what I call the four levels of consciousness, and later realized how closely they aligned with his work.

I named them all with words that start with the letter M.

The first is Martyr—where life feels like it’s happening to me.
The second is Magical Thinking—where I believe I make things happen.
The third is Metaphysical—where things happen through me, or I allow them to happen.

And then there’s a level beyond that, which was the focus of my talk: Mystical—where things happen as me.

And that metaphysical level—that’s the highest level for most people, right?

TJ Woodward: Yes, for most people, that’s where the journey stops.

Let’s slow this down a bit, because this framework is incredibly helpful for self-awareness. Starting with Martyr—“things are happening to me.” That’s where many people begin.

TJ Woodward: Exactly. That’s the place of Why is this happening to me? What’s wrong with the world? It’s a very common state of consciousness, especially before any kind of awakening.

And the shift many people try to make is from “things are happening to me” to “things are happening for me.”

TJ Woodward: Right—and that’s already a meaningful shift.

Then, at the second level—Magical Thinking—I start to embrace my power. I realize I have agency, divine energy, and creative ability.

TJ Woodward: Yes. This is where affirmations come in. This is where vision boards come in. This is where we start becoming aware of our thinking and how it shapes our experience. It’s an important step.

And I want to be clear about something—we don’t permanently graduate from these levels. At any moment, I can find myself in any one of them.

For me, it really comes down to three things: awareness, awareness, and awareness. I might be scrolling through the news and suddenly feel like the world is happening to me again. When that happens, I notice it. I pause. I take a breath. And then I remind myself that there’s another way to see this.

There’s nothing wrong with being in any of these levels. Being in the Martyr level isn’t “bad.” Being in Magical Thinking isn’t “better.” They’re simply different states of consciousness we can access at different moments in life.

But we do know what each one creates. If I believe the world is happening to me, that belief will shape my experience.

One of the things I really loved about your book was how permission-giving it felt. Wherever I am—it’s okay. This is where I am right now. But can I raise my awareness of it? Do I still want to be there, or is there another option that would be more supportive of my life?

And I appreciated your perspective on these levels of consciousness. It’s tricky, because even though you note the difference between “steps” and “levels,” there’s still a sense of hierarchy—like a linear path—and it’s hard to avoid that. So let’s recap. First is Martyr. Second is Magical Thinking. Third is Metaphysical, which means…

TJ Woodward: Things happen through me.

I also like to look at this through a framework I work with called the four rooms of existence: physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. I use the acronym PIES, like slices of a pie.

At the first level—the Martyr level—we’re mostly in the physical. The world is happening to me. What I can see feels like reality. My experience is rooted in what’s happening in my body and my external circumstances.

When I move into Magical Thinking, I shift into the intellectual realm. I start noticing my thoughts. I try to change my thinking. I use affirmations. I work with the mind to shape my experience.

At the Metaphysical level, we move more into the emotional and spiritual realms. When we talk about God, the Source, or a higher power, we say things like, “God is working through me” or “Source is guiding me.” Channeling often shows up here. It’s a beautiful phase—and I’d guess that many people in your audience are already living primarily at this level.

This is also where tools like runes, oracle cards, and other divinatory practices come in. They’re all ways of working with energy flowing through us. But there is another level beyond this.

Which is…

TJ Woodward: The Mystical level.

Okay—take us there. I want to feel that.

TJ Woodward: At the mystical level, things happen to me.

This is where we realize that our primary focus is Spirit itself. We move beyond the idea that we’re spiritual beings having a human experience and begin to recognize that everything is spiritual. Everything is happening for our highest evolution. There’s no separation between another person and me, and there’s no idea of a God “out there” somewhere.

We’re all part of the same whole. We’re all sparks of divinity. And that’s very different from the idea that there’s a source I need to learn how to channel.

I’ll be honest—that doesn’t sound very motivating to me. The Martyr level has urgency. The Magical level has empowerment. The Metaphysical level feels affirming—like God is on my side. But “things happen as me” sounds like I’m just sitting there. Where’s the motivation?

TJ Woodward: That’s such a smart question—and I completely agree with you. What is the motivation?

I’ll answer this from my own lived experience, not just theory. When I tap into the mystical level, I stop fighting. I’m no longer against anything—and I’m no longer for anything either. That can feel deeply disorienting, especially for those of us who are action-oriented.

It’s like realizing, Everything is perfect as it is. And people often push back on that immediately. They say, “What about suffering? What about injustice? What about politics, harm, and violence in the world?”

So here’s the paradox: when I arrive at the mystical level of consciousness, there is nothing to do. And that can be uncomfortable. But what emerges instead is a depth of awareness, curiosity, and love that is far greater than anything I could personally manufacture.

That’s why I begin conscious creation here. Because when we create from the mystical level, it looks radically different than creation from any other level.

So if I’m operating from the mystical level—as a conscious leader, healer, coach, or business owner—what does that look like in practice? If we’re all one, how am I motivated to take action?

TJ Woodward: I love these questions, and I want to acknowledge that most people don’t go this deep, so I really appreciate you taking us there.

At this stage of awareness, we can really only speak in paradox. There’s nothing to do—and yet, I’m called.

Let’s look at it through the lens of a counselor, therapist, or coach. In other models, we’re here to give answers, ask the right questions, or provide guidance and frameworks. At the mystical level, something shifts. We understand—at a very deep level—that the answers already live within the other person.

I’m not here to do anything. I’m here to be something. I’m here to see the highest possibility in the person sitting in front of me.

That might sound intangible, but it’s profoundly life-changing. I’ll return to my own story. My mentor, Mary Helen, did teach me things. We did trauma work. We did empty-chair exercises with my parents. All of that mattered. But more than anything, she saw the divine spark within me. And because she saw it, I began to see it in myself.

That’s what quantum physics is beginning to show us now—that observation changes reality. We’re living in a time where science and spirituality are converging around the same truth.

As a coach, counselor, or therapist, I’m not here to do anything to anyone. I’m here to be with them. Their journey becomes a journey of self-discovery—and my presence supports that unfolding.

Let’s come back to the paradox. There’s nothing to do, and yet I feel called to do so many things. How does a leader live inside that paradox on a day-to-day level?

TJ Woodward: This is where we really begin creating in a completely different way. And you named it so beautifully when you spoke about presence.

What I don’t mean by presence is simply being in the moment—although that’s part of it. What I mean is Presence with a capital P. It’s tapping into this frequency, this source energy that we actually are. And when I tap into that, that presence isn’t just healing—it’s transformational.

I remember in my early twenties meeting Amma in southern India—the hugging saint. I walked into the room, and this was early in my spiritual journey. The presence I felt from her was overwhelming. I broke down crying. It felt like years of trauma were melting away simply through her presence.

And what you’re pointing to is something that can be hard for the human mind to grasp, because so many of us have been programmed to believe that everything is about doing. Even when we receive a divine idea, we often jump immediately to how we’re going to do it. But this level of beingness is something entirely different.

In some ways, it’s intangible. We ask, How do you be in that? And yet, when we feel it, there is nothing like it. There’s no drug, no medicine that compares. Interestingly, you mention medicine, because someone once read Conscious Recovery and asked me what plant medicine I had worked with. When I told him I hadn’t done any, he said, “Then how did you come to all of this? This is exactly what I experienced in my journeys.”

What medicine can offer—at its best—is a temporary stripping away of the ego, allowing us to be fully present. I had a moment in India where my ego dropped away entirely, and it radically changed my life.

It’s interesting, because when we talk about someone’s presence—like with Amma—the analytical part of me wants to say, “Well, of course it felt powerful. There was expectation. There was a reputation. Everyone around you believed in her presence, and that collective belief created the emotional experience.”

But then there’s another part of me that, once I’ve actually experienced something like that, knows that explanation doesn’t fully hold. It’s not just expectation—it’s real presence.

TJ Woodward: And you know what? Both of those things are true. That’s the paradox again.

Yes, there may have been an expectation. And at the same time, I didn’t really know what I was walking into. I felt it like a wave when I entered the room. And it wasn’t only her—it was the collective consciousness of everyone present, all attuned to that frequency, creating that vibration together.

When I went to stay at her ashram in southern India in 1992, that same wave of love hit me as soon as I arrived. But this time, something different happened. I recoiled from it. It was too intense for where I was in my journey.

I had already experienced opening and melting in her presence years earlier—but at that point in my life, there was still so much unhealed pain that I couldn’t receive that level of love. Everything in me wanted to escape from it. I ended up staying for four or five days, largely because I couldn’t leave—but internally, I was resisting that direct, unconditional love.

Looking back now, I can see clearly that I simply wasn’t ready to accept that depth of presence yet.

My partner, Mandy, and I have talked about people—especially celebrities—who seem to have this magnetic presence. I’ve wondered whether that magnetism is nature or nurture, or maybe some combination of both. There’s just something about certain people that draws others in.

And the real question for me is: what’s actually being radiated? Is the attraction about me—“Look at me, I’m amazing”? Because that can be magnetic. But there’s another kind of magnetism that feels very different. I felt it the moment we got on together. I even feel a little emotional saying that.

You have that magnetism, but it doesn’t feel self-centered at all. It feels like you’re embodying love, embodying grace, and offering people a different framework for understanding life, recovery, and mental health. I can genuinely feel that.

TJ Woodward: Thank you. And what I want to say is—we all have that.

The difference is whether or not we allow it. I love that you used the word radiation, because Michael Beckwith uses that same language. We shift from the Law of Attraction to the Law of Radiance. The Law of Radiance recognizes that each of us is magnetic—not because we’re trying to be, but because we are energy.

Even saying we’re “part of” something isn’t quite right, because that implies separation. We are this energy.

In my own journey, fear closed my heart. I was taught to stay small, not to radiate. I believed I was broken. As I’ve healed enough of that—and I say enough because there’s no finish line—I’ve been able to release layer after layer of protection and return to what you’re pointing to: our true nature.

I didn’t realize until four or five years ago that my heart was closed. When you speak, I hear my own story. I had people telling me they loved me, and I genuinely didn’t understand why. I thought, There’s nothing here to love. I assumed they were either lying or didn’t really see me.

My heart is now more open than it’s ever been. And it feels profoundly life-giving.

TJ Woodward: You’re touching on something so important—something we don’t talk about enough in spiritual spaces: the dark night of the soul.

It’s a crucial part of the journey. I once gave a talk on the winter solstice—the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. We often talk about returning to the light, but there’s something incredibly rich about honoring the darkness too.

In my own life, around the time I turned forty—when everything fell apart—I made a conscious decision to take responsibility instead of blaming anyone else. It was a major moment. There was a seventy-two-hour period where I knew that if I didn’t fully enter the dark night of the soul, I wouldn’t be able to consciously create my life.

That was actually when the five steps were born.

I unplugged everything—turned off my phone, shut down my computer, closed the curtains—and went all the way in. This was around 2006 or 2007. I had already gone back to school and had already lost everything. I was living in a tiny apartment, and I chose to surrender completely. I was curled up, feeling everything move through me.

That experience culminated in something that happened earlier in India, which I feel is important to share.

I went to India around 2005, right when I turned forty. I traveled to Varanasi—a city many Hindus believe clears karma if you die there. It’s said to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, over ten thousand years old, sitting on the banks of the Ganges.

Every evening at sundown, there’s the Aarti Festival of Lights. A friend told me, “If you’re spiritually sensitive, you’re going to feel this place.” I didn’t know what to expect.

As we entered the city, I felt a tingling move up my arm. My heart began opening. We went out onto a boat on the Ganges and watched the Aarti ceremony from the water. Suddenly, the power went out—which was common there at the time—and the only light came from the ceremony and the funeral pyres burning along the river.

In that moment, my heart opened completely. Everything became pixelated. I knew—without question—that there was only love. There was no separation between us. We drifted closer and docked near the cremation grounds. I stood six feet away from watching a body burn, and my ego dissolved.

Now, I wish I could say my ego never returned. But the truth is, something permanent shifted. Years later, I understood that what we call ego—or personality, or the “doer”—is not who we are. It’s something we have.

The truth of who we are is this energy, this frequency. And the personality becomes a delivery system for it.

That understanding, combined with my later dark night of the soul, allowed something to settle permanently. I had to feel all of it—fully—so that the shift could truly last.

Thank you for sharing that. It’s beautiful. Okay—let’s move into the MOVIE framework. The first step in conscious creation is Making Peace with the Past. Why is that the first step? If I’m trying to create something new, why wouldn’t I want to move past the past instead of focusing on it?

TJ Woodward: Simply put, if I don’t heal the past, I bring it with me everywhere.

This goes back to the earlier metaphor of the painting. If I don’t make peace with what’s already there, I’m trying to create something new on top of unresolved layers. For a long time, I called this step ‘forgiveness’—but ‘forgiveness’ is loaded. It implies good and bad, right and wrong.

What I mean by making peace is this: Can I acknowledge what happened without needing to decide whether it was okay or not okay?

We’ve created a paradigm where healing depends on the other person acknowledging harm, apologizing, or taking responsibility. But that doesn’t work. I’ve worked with people who are still waiting for forgiveness from someone who is no longer alive. That apology is never coming.

So how do we make peace? If I don’t, the unresolved past continues creating my present because it’s still alive inside me.

I’ve heard people say, “Nothing is right, nothing is wrong—it just is.” And because of my Christian conditioning, there’s resistance in me. I think, No—there is right and wrong. Horrific things happen in this world. How do you reconcile that? Especially when something horrific has been done to me—or something horrific that I’ve done to someone else?

TJ Woodward: You’re naming something incredibly important. In my experience, the only thing more difficult than making peace with what was done to me is making peace with what I’ve done.

We’ll talk more about that when we get to the O step, so let me bookmark that for now.

The only way to speak about this is through paradox. If I’m in the “things happen to me” level of consciousness, of course, I can’t make peace until someone makes it right. Of course, I can’t move on from the harm I’ve caused.

But as consciousness shifts, something changes—and I want to be very careful here. This is not spiritual bypassing. I would never say to someone, That trauma was the best thing that ever happened to you. No. It was painful. It was harmful. It mattered.

We tend to the wound. We acknowledge the pain. And then we make peace.

Making peace doesn’t mean saying it was okay. It doesn’t mean letting someone off the hook. It means recognizing that true healing doesn’t come from the event itself—it comes from what I absorbed, what I decided about myself, and what I can now heal.

It almost feels like perspective. Like I’m looking at the same object from one angle and seeing something entirely different from another. But that shift requires something real—therapy, healing, or a profound change in consciousness.

So the first step is Making Peace with the Past. The second step is Overcoming Core False Beliefs. What is a false belief—and how do I even recognize one when it feels completely true?

TJ Woodward: That’s exactly why I call them core false beliefs. Many people talk about core beliefs, but I want to name them as lies we’ve absorbed about ourselves—often before our brains were fully developed.

As we’ve discussed, my seven-year-old self decided I was unlovable and unworthy. That wasn’t just a thought—it became a frequency. Something I lived from.

I used to say we needed to remove or let go of these beliefs. Now I say we overcome them by seeing them clearly for what they are. So how do we know they’re false?

At the mystical level of consciousness, we don’t even ask whether the belief is wrong—we ask, What does it create?

I’ve caused harm in my life. And when I look honestly, it’s clear: when I believed I was unlovable, I acted from that belief. When I believed I was broken, I acted from that belief. As I began to remember that love is who I am, my behavior changed naturally.

It becomes profoundly simple. Anything other than love—anything other than source, presence, or infinite life—is a false belief about who we are. It’s a limitation we learned.

Rumi says we’re not here to seek love—we’re here to uncover the barriers we’ve placed over it. That’s exactly what this step is about.

Powerful. Let’s move to the third step: Visioning. In manifesting, we’re often told to visualize what we want. How is visualization different from what you mean by visioning?

TJ Woodward: It’s completely different—and I always want to give credit where it’s due. I use Michael Beckwith’s Life Visioning process, which is absolutely incredible and life-changing.

Visualization is about deciding what I want to create and then holding that image in my mind. That’s what vision boards really are—they’re visualization boards. Visioning, on the other hand, is about emptying the mind as much as possible and moving beyond preconceived ideas.

That’s why it’s so important to first make peace with the past and overcome core false beliefs. If I still believe I’m broken or unlovable, I might unconsciously put the “perfect partner” on my vision board, thinking that the relationship will finally heal me. That’s unconscious creation.

When we’ve done the deeper work, we can become—if you will—an empty vessel. From that place, visioning allows a divine idea to arise from deep within us. And while there could be an entire conversation about how we distinguish intuition from thought, I’ll simply say this: we usually know it when we know it.

Visioning is about becoming receptive. I don’t mean forcing the mind to be quiet—just letting it be what it is while listening deeply. The process involves a series of questions, and I use Michael Beckwith’s questions, which I outline fully in my book and workbook. You ask, you listen, and you let intuition guide you.

Beautiful. So we have Making Peace with the Past, Overcoming Core False Beliefs, and Visioning. The fourth step is Intention Setting, which you said is where most people usually begin. How do you distinguish intention setting from goal setting?

TJ Woodward: That’s a great question. I’ll be honest—the “I” works better than the “G” for the acronym.

But beyond that, the word ‘goal’ is a loaded one in our culture, much like ‘forgiveness’ or even ‘God’. Goals often carry the energy of I’m going to make this happen. That can place us back in magical thinking.

Intention setting has a different energy. It’s about listening intently to inner wisdom and letting that guide us. We sit with the vision first, and then intentions arise from that place. Even if it sounds like semantics, the energetic difference between goals and intentions is significant.

Yes—goals often feel like “grind it out, make it happen,” while intention feels more spacious. And that leads perfectly to the final step: Embodying the Vision. What does that actually involve?

TJ Woodward: Before I answer that, I want to say something important about intention setting—because this is where the process becomes very practical.

Around the time of my dark night of the soul, I reached out to a close friend of mine, Gregory Spencer, who had built a very successful business. I wanted to understand how he did it. He shared a simple but powerful system, and I’ve been using it for about fifteen years now.

Once we receive a vision, we set intentions that are specific, measurable, realistic—but still a stretch. This isn’t unique to me; many people use similar models. The key is that the intentions come from the vision, not the other way around.

For me, I usually set one overarching intention for the year—this time of year is when I do that. Then each week, I create ten action steps that directly point toward that intention. I have an accountability partner—Gregory—and every Monday, I email him what I completed. If I did seven out of ten, I roll the remaining three forward and create seven new ones.

It’s simple, but it’s profoundly life-changing. It takes something from I should do this to I did it. That level of practicality has completely transformed my life.

Now, the final step—Embodying the Vision—goes even deeper. Many of us are familiar with the Law of Attraction: holding the energy of what we want to create, acting as if it’s already here. But this is more than that.

We’re talking about life as energy and frequency. When we embody the vision, we tune into the infinite possibility of what we’re creating as if it already exists. From that place, we’re not just magnetic—we naturally make different choices. And those choices are what bring the vision into form.

That’s incredibly powerful—embodying the vision. For me, when I’m creating something, I can already see it in the world. I see people interacting with it. I see them enjoying it. I see their lives being changed by it. And the clearer that vision becomes, the stronger the knowing is—this is going to happen. I may not know how big the impact will be, but I know it’s real.

TJ Woodward: And something you just said is so important—this is what has worked for me when everything else hasn’t. It’s remembering the purpose and how it serves others.

When I tap into the mystical level of consciousness, it always comes back to service. You asked at the very beginning how I came to devote my life to helping others, and now, for me, service feels like oxygen. I want to make a difference on this planet. I’m not here to save the world—but I am here to serve the paradigm of possibility.

So, embodying the vision means returning to that purpose again and again. Who is helped? Who is served? When I’m writing—any of my books—I imagine someone reading a page and experiencing a shift. When I tune into that, I move out of the mind that’s trying to control how it’s all supposed to happen. I come back to the why. And that frequency is what we radiate.

One of the biggest shifts I’ve made in my own life—and something I share often—is moving from performance to service. If I’m thinking, I hope TJ likes me. I hope I ask the right questions. I hope this goes well; that’s performance.

But when I set that aside and say, I’m here to serve you. I’m here to serve our listeners, something relaxes. Of course, there’s preparation, but when it comes from service, people can feel the difference. It’s a completely different energy.

TJ Woodward: Absolutely—and I want to thank you for saying that, because I feel that from you. That felt sense is exactly what we’re talking about.

And it’s twofold. Yes, people feel it—and people want to engage because of that intention. But also, we make very different choices from that place. When I’m performing, I’m often still operating from a core false belief—trying to prove something.

I’ll speak personally. Because I believed I was unworthy, I worked very hard to look worthy to the outside world. That ego-based reality isn’t wrong—but it is limiting. And for me, it created moments where I thought, I finally got what I wanted—why doesn’t this feel different?

When I move into service, everything changes. Just a few days ago, I spoke at an event in Sonoma. A woman there—who now helps others herself—was once my client in a treatment program years ago. She came up to me and said, “You saved my life.”

Now, I know that isn’t literally true—she saved her own life. But what it reminded me of is this: presence matters. That presence made a difference. And we don’t always get to see the impact we’ve had—, but when we do, there’s a deep knowing.

Ah. This is the deeper why.

And that’s what sustains everything.

I think the word that comes to mind for me in those moments is alignment. It feels like, Oh my gosh, I’m so aligned right now. It feels really good.

You write in Conscious Creation: “What is the most rewarding result of the conscious creation process? It is living an awakened life. Awakened living is fundamentally simple. It is our natural state. Awakening, in its simplest form, is waking up from the illusion of separateness. It is waking up from the misconception of fear and scarcity and returning to our original perfection. It is experiencing absolute presence and living in a state of awe and wonder.”

So my question is this: Is it actually possible to live in that state—not just in fleeting mountaintop experiences that come and go—but as an ongoing way of being?

TJ Woodward: I once had a client ask me, “Do you really walk around seeing love everywhere, feeling connection, awe, and wonder—like everything is a gift and life is beautiful?” And I said, Yes, I do. Sometimes I forget. And when I forget, I remind myself.

I’m not sure we came to Planet Earth to live in that state every single moment. Maybe we came here to experience both—those moments of awakening and the moments when we forget—and then gently return.

There are stories of great teachers like Jesus or the Buddha living in that awakened state, and yet even they had moments of emotion. Jesus overturned the tables. So maybe the invitation isn’t to eliminate the ego or to stay in that state permanently.

What I can say is that I live there far more often than I ever have before. And it feels wonderful. It makes a real difference in the people around me. So yes—it’s possible. And maybe part of being human is learning to dance with that seeming duality.

We’ve mentioned your book Conscious Creation, the Conscious Creation Workbook, and your online course. For someone who’s listening and wants to go deeper, where would you suggest they begin?

TJ Woodward: All three are great entry points—it really depends on how you like to learn. I usually suggest starting with the book. If you enjoy writing and reflecting, the workbook is a great companion—you read a chapter and then work through the exercises.

Some people learn best visually or auditorily. I’m one of those people—I’d learn more from a conversation like this than from reading alone. That’s why I offer the online course, which is hosted on wholehearted.org and also accessible through my website. The course is a series of talks on the five steps, followed by exercises pulled directly from the workbook.

So the workbook and the course are very similar in content—it’s really about choosing the format that resonates most with you.

Beyond Conscious Creation, what are some of the other ways people can work with you?

TJ Woodward: Conscious Recovery is a big one—for anyone in recovery seeking a wholeness-based approach. There’s a book, workbook, and course for that as well.

Conscious Being was my first book, and I often think of it as the third part of a trilogy. It delves deeper into how consciousness creates reality and explores the four levels of consciousness.

I also do speaking events, workshops, and may be offering retreats in the coming year—those will be announced soon. If people follow me online, they’ll stay up to date on all of that.

That may come out of your visioning process.

TJ Woodward: Exactly. I haven’t done my visioning yet—I’ll do it on the 30th. We’ll see what my intuition has to say.

What’s the best place for people to connect with you online?

TJ Woodward: TJWoodward.com. You’ll find links to everything there—my work, events, courses, and social media.

I also want to encourage people to follow you on Instagram. I really love your content—the imagery, the reflections, the questions you pose. You alternate between still images and video, and both are incredibly insightful. Your videos are especially powerful. What’s your Instagram handle?

TJ Woodward: It’s @tjwoodward_ 

Before we close, I have one final question. As we enter a new year, there’s this collective feeling that we should be doing something—setting goals, making resolutions, planning. What is one truth you’d invite people to hold as they step into this new season?

TJ Woodward: I would say—if you find yourself on January 1st feeling like you have to come up with New Year’s resolutions, pause.

Reflect on the five steps we talked about. Is there something from the past you’re being invited to make peace with? Is there a belief about yourself that you’re ready to overcome?

Are you willing to spend some time in silence?

I’m a big proponent of spending at least an hour in silence around the beginning of the year. I use that time to do the visioning process—to ask my intuition what wants to be revealed in the coming year. That gives us very different information than trying to figure everything out with the mind.

You don’t have to do anything. But there is an invitation.

I love that. TJ, thank you for what you’re doing in the world. I really appreciate you—your work, your presence, your beingness. What you offer goes far beyond words. So thank you for all that you share. It’s been an honor to be with you.

TJ Woodward: Thank you. And I want to say thank you as well, for Awakened Magazine. I’ve been following it for some time. My friend Sue Morter has been featured, and several others I deeply respect. I know what it takes to hold a vision and follow through, so I want to thank you for saying yes and for the beautiful work you’re doing in the world.