Tiny Revolutions №118: F/ck Manifesting. Build Your Own Fire.

Join me for a 90 day version of The Fire Inside?

Let's talk about fire. Not as a metaphor for transformation or an instrument of ritual—I mean actual flames. The kind that require wood and kindling and knowledge and patience. The kind you have to build yourself.

I’m a minor pyromanic who’s spent countless hours fire-tending, and you know what? It's a practice that will teach you everything you need to know about personal power, if you're willing to pay attention. You provide the fuel, you make the decisions about how and when to feed it, you work with whatever the ambient conditions are. But even though the reins are in your hands, it’s not about control. It's about learning to read the elements and respond to what's actually happening, not what you wish would happen.

The personal growth world is full of techniques for forcing our desired future into being. Vision boards. Affirmations. Perfect morning routines. Wade out into the internet and you'll see people talking about manifesting cars, houses, money, relationships. There are entire platforms devoted to it. In many ways, it's just another way we farm out our agency—placing our power in the hands of the universe rather than taking responsibility for building the life we want. And look, I love crystals. I love tarot cards and oracle decks and sound baths and so many other affectations of manifestation culture. I also believe deeply that there are far greater forces at work than what you and I can perceive.

But after years of practice, I've learned something radical: The deepest transformations don't come from pushing harder or visualizing harder or manifesting harder. They come from treating each quiet whisper of our hearts as an invitation to experiment and discover what's actually true for us.

This is the opposite of everything we've been taught. Instead of willing ourselves into a predetermined future, we follow the breadcrumbs of our curiosity. Instead of forcing ourselves to be who we think we should be, we get quiet and notice who we already are. Instead of manifesting our dreams, we build them—one small, brave step at a time.

I see this truth confirmed again and again in my work. The women I work with typically start small, with things like:

• Carving out an hour for yoga twice a week

• Inviting an acquaintance to hang out

• Releasing themselves from one obligation they always resent

And then they watch. What lights them up? What feels like relief? What wants to grow naturally? Their bodies become compasses. Their energy becomes data. Their curiosity becomes the path forward.

Growing up with six brothers, I learned early on that I couldn't compete with them in certain areas. I could match their wit and do many of the things they did, but when it came to strength, I just couldn't match them. This reality shaped my understanding of power in profound ways.

Somewhere in the wake of second-wave feminism, we took a wrong turn in how we think about female power. While masculine and feminine energies exist in everyone regardless of gender, in our rush to prove women's worth, we started measuring it against traditionally masculine ideals—physical strength, dominance, the ability to overpower others.

Look at our cultural heroines: women warriors, corporate titans, characters who prove their worth by beating men at their own game. But this fixation on matching masculine power obscures something vital: feminine power operates by entirely different principles. Where masculine energy excels at forcing outcomes through sheer will, feminine power thrives on reading subtle cues, adapting to changing conditions, and allowing solutions to emerge organically. Think of how water shapes landscapes not through force, but through persistent, responsive movement. Or how the most effective leaders often succeed not by dominating, but by fostering conditions where their teams can flourish.

I've spent my entire life trying to figure out how to be a woman in the world. These are the questions I ask: What does feminine influence truly look like? Who wields it effectively, and is it ever truly visible? What are we uniquely suited to do that men generally aren't? How can we leverage this for the benefit of all, not just ourselves?

There came a point in my early 30s when I looked at women 10, 15, or 20 years down the road in my career and thought, “I want no part of that.” The conventional path seemed like a way to deny the demands of my body and treat myself like a machine—an approach better suited to the biological rhythms of men. So instead, I got curious about how to do that given my own rhythms.

Which brings me back to fire. Instead of trying to manifest perfectly conjured blazes, what if we focused on learning to kindle them from the spark? My own journey through working on deeply personal projects like The Fire Inside, Angel City Zen Center, and Tiny Revolutions has been exactly this: a series of experiments in discovering what feeds my fire, where and when I burn brightest, and how to protect that energy once I find it.

Experimentation is more powerful than manifestation because it helps us discover what truly lights us up. It teaches us to identify what snuffs our fire, what to shield ourselves from, and most importantly, how to build sustainable lives instead of forcing ourselves to conform to systems and structures that burn us out.

This is why Steve Jobs famously said you can't connect the dots looking forward —you can only connect them looking backward. Each spark of curiosity we follow becomes part of a larger pattern that only reveals itself with time. The key is trusting that these seemingly random explorations will eventually connect into something meaningful. But you have to take the steps first. You have to trust the process of discovery more than the illusion of control.

To start your own experimentation practice, begin with these three steps:

1. Notice your energy patterns: Track when you feel most alive and engaged versus depleted. What activities, people, or environments consistently light you up?

2. Create small laboratories: Choose one area of your life—work, relationships, creativity—and design little experiments. Maybe it’s trying a new meeting format, setting a boundary, or exploring a different creative medium. The key is to keep the stakes low and your curiosity high.

3. Document and reflect: Keep notes on what you try and how it feels. Look for patterns in what works and what doesn't. Let these insights guide your next experiments.

The beauty of this approach is that it removes the pressure of getting it “right.” There are no failed experiments, only data points guiding you toward your own unique path.

This spring, while training as a lay teacher at Angel City Zen Center, I'm following my own curiosity. What will happen when I am endorsed to introduce more people to these ancient teachings and help them apply them to our very modern times?

Alongside that process, I'm running a new iteration of The Fire Inside—a 90-day container for women ready to trade manifestation for experimentation. Force for flow. Someone else's version of success for honoring their own wild intuitions and desires.

Because here's what I know in my bones: You don't need to manifest a perfect future. You only need to trust the fire inside you—that ancient knowing that flickers and glows of its own accord, waiting for you to tend it. Your desires aren't destinations to reach. They’re clues that lead you home to yourself.

The true reward isn't found in manifesting some idealized version of our lives. It's in learning to tend carefully to the life we have, one careful experiment at a time. Because the world needs your particular kind of fire—not some cookie-cutter version, but the one only you can build. The one that lights up not only you, but the exact people who need your warmth.

As I was saying!

For the past year, I’ve been running The Fire Inside workshops, refining a framework that helps women move from paralysis into action through conducting small experiments.

It works. And given everything happening in the world right now, I believe we need more women out there doing the things that matter—both for themselves and for their communities.

While I’m in lay teacher training at Angel City Zen Center this spring (my own experiment in moving from thinking to doing), I’m offering a 90-day version of this program. We’ll start on March 1st with just 10 women.

It’s designed to help you move forward in some area of your life—not by figuring everything out first, but by experimenting your way into what feels right.

You can check out all the details here.

This is a deeply feminine way of operating: not rigid or linear, not obsessed with control. It’s iterative, cyclical, intuitive—responsive to the world as it unfolds.

If something in you is curious, I’d love to chat. The link above will let you book a call directly. (You can also just reply to this email with questions.) I’ve got five spots remaining as of this writing.

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Thanks for reading, as ever. Last time I invited you to run some experiments of your own, so I’m curious: How are they going?

😘

Sara

p.s. If this resonated, like this post or share it with someone who needs it.

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