I Tried a Wishcraft Session and Said Goodbye to My Worst Critic Forever

I had never heard of wish therapy until I met Shauna Cummings, a Brooklyn-based wish coach, hypnosis expert, and author of Wishcraft: A Guide to Manifesting a Positive Future. I tried a session and, as esoterical as it may sound, I have to say that it is closer to a vision manifesting or life-coaching session than a Freudian mystical thing. After meeting her years ago at a press event, I booked a private session with Cummings and was amazed by what I discovered about myself, my goals, and my biggest fears.

Whether it’s getting that side hustle you’ve been dreaming about started, pitching that book idea you have, opening your own business, or even starting to exercise, too many times we get stuck and let all these great ideas pile in the back of our heads for months or years. But imagine how powerful it would be to travel with your mind to a place where you have already accomplished those goals?

During a Wishcraft session, you take yourself there and experience how it feels when you have published that book, launched your new website, or opened your business. The more specific you get the better! “Who is with you celebrating?”, “What are you wearing?”, “How does your daily routine look now?” are the kinds of questions the expert will ask you to help you connect with that moment in which your dreams have become your everyday reality. After the workshop, I felt more empowered, connected, and focused on my goals than I had in years, and I wanted to know more.

“Wishcraft is my method of combining self-hypnosis practice with the practice of manifestation. A sort of special mix of ‘change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change,’ and ‘if you create it, they will come,'” Cummings explains in her manual.

One of the main benefits of this practice is that it not only helps you identify your purpose, but it also enables you to figure out what is stopping you from getting there: what are the limiting beliefs that are holding you back? And, in my case, it was the paralyzing fear of facing my inner critic. During this session, the most potent Aha! Moment I had was realizing my worst critic looks exactly like my 12-year-old self (Wrangler overalls included). I could see me/her in my school’s playground, and I immediately felt so sorry for her. I have always struggled with self-esteem and self-image problems that I thought had started around that age, but until this point, I had never seen so clearly how hurt, angry and insecure my little me felt. It was an eye-opening exercise that helped me understand and physically integrate this information. I just wanted to hold her and kiss her and tell her everything was going to be OK.

This experience felt like lifting off a hefty weight off my shoulders. I could now see clearly how I had been punishing myself and my body since I was a child, and I understood what needed to change to stop feeling that burden. I won’t give away more details of all the steps involved in a Wishcraft session because I think it’s best to go at it with an open mind and not try to compare your experience, goals, and results with others. But for me, the exercise was so empowering that after the session, I recommended it to all of my friends who were feeling lost, needed extra motivation to finish a project or leave a non-fulfilling job or relationship.

The focus of this technique is manifesting your wishes, but even if you don’t win a Pulitzer right away – although you might – it’s OK. After my experience, I can assure you one thing, just the exercise of taking your mind to a time and space where your dreams have already come true is as empowering as taking a 500mg shot of “I’m 100 percent going to do this, and it’s going to feel great!” What’s better than that?