I recently received a comment from someone who asked a very insightful question about emotional management and personal transformation. They explained that while traditional methods like working out or journaling had once been helpful, they had discovered that working directly with energy felt far more potent and effective.

They then asked what I think is one of the most common and important questions people encounter on the path of manifestation and inner transformation: Does the technique of ignoring a problem actually work? In other words, in the way that many manifestation or law of attraction teachings describe (if I ignore my current problems and no longer give them energy, but instead direct all my focus toward what I desire) will that alone transform me and bring about the reality I want?

This is a truly excellent question because it touches on a core challenge that many practitioners face. On paper, the idea sounds perfectly logical: since energy flows where attention goes, then surely the best thing to do is to remove attention from anything negative and focus entirely on the desired goal. But, as with most techniques based on energy and consciousness, the truth is more nuanced; and the effectiveness depends on the underlying structure of belief and energy that already exists within you.

Let’s explore this in depth, because understanding why “ignoring” sometimes fails, and what to do instead, opens the door to real transformation.

Why Ignoring the Problem Doesn’t Free You

Ignoring the problem only works when the problem itself doesn’t have enough energetic charge to keep itself alive without your attention. Energy is the substance of creation; it animates your inner and outer worlds. If a problem has received a significant amount of energy from you in the past (through repeated thought, emotional reaction, or focus) it becomes an active energetic construct that can sustain itself independent of your conscious will for some time.

In addition, certain issues continue to draw energy not just from you, but from others as well. They become stabilized by collective energy flows: shared beliefs, social interactions, and emotional feedback from the people around you. That’s why some patterns feel impossible to ignore, no matter how much you try to direct your attention elsewhere.

You’ll know this is the case when the problem keeps resurfacing; showing up as recurring emotions, discomforts, or negative thoughts in your present moment. When that happens, it’s a clear signal that something deeper needs to be addressed rather than brushed aside. The energetic pattern is still active, feeding on your system, and requires conscious engagement, not avoidance.

When this occurs, there are two main ways to engage with the energy: belief work and energy work.

The Two Primary Approaches: Belief Work and Energy Work

If you want to explore belief work through language, you can start right here by typing the keyword “beliefs” in the search box on this website. I’ve written a number of articles that guide you through recognizing and transforming limiting beliefs using language pattern techniques.

For a more complete system and step-by-step process, I recommend my book How to Create a Servitor Journal. In that book I have a chapter that lays out the entire methodology of uncovering and reshaping beliefs (using written language, symbols, and structure) to consciously alter the filters that shape perception and, as a result, reality itself.

The energetic path, on the other hand, bypasses cognitive symbolism entirely. Instead of changing thought through words, you work with pure energy: re-absorbing, redistributing, and refining it. Energy re-absorption allows you to call back emotional charge that has become scattered or stuck in past events, memories, or attachments, and merge it back into your central current of awareness. Redistribution then allows that same energy to be directed purposefully toward your desires. You are, in effect, reclaiming and reallocating your own life force.

I explain this process step-by-step in The Magnum Opus: A Step by Step Course. That book serves as a manual for energetic self-transformation and includes detailed instructions on how to perform re-absorption and redistribution safely and effectively.

From energy to matter through the focus of attention

The Two Camps of Thought

Throughout my experience, I’ve seen that most practitioners of consciousness work or manifestation tend to fall into two main camps.

One group believes that beliefs shape everything. For them, language is the primary creative tool; because the words, images, and concepts we hold define the boundaries of perception. By changing language and thought structure, they believe we directly shift reality.

The other group maintains that energy is the core substance; the raw field from which even thoughts and beliefs arise. They prefer to work directly with energetic currents, seeing the mental layer as secondary or derivative. By adjusting energy directly, they aim to bypass distortions that language and thought can introduce.

From my own experience, I find that working with energy directly is indeed the best course of action, and I will explain the reasons for that below. However, reaching that level of direct energetic work often requires a foundation built through language. For many people beginning their journey, questioning and exploring their beliefs through language is an essential first step. It allows them to understand how energy moves and manifests within their thoughts and emotions without pulling them too far beyond their comfort zone. In this sense, language becomes a bridge; helping them grasp the mechanics of energy until they are ready to engage with it consciously and directly.

Why Inner Alchemists Favor Energy Work

While both paths have their merits, inner alchemists generally find working directly with energy to be far more powerful in the long run. The reason lies in understanding what I call The Screen and its connection to the Archon.

The Screen is the constant stream of information, imagery, and suggestion that floods our awareness: media exposure, social interaction, authority figures, commentary, and sensory input. This continuous “circus of information,” as I often call it, shapes much of the symbolic framework through which we think and speak. It is the Archon’s mechanism for managing collective belief.

Because of this, working through language alone can sometimes prove limiting. The very symbols we use to reshape belief have already been tinted or influenced by the Screen itself. In other words, the tool of transformation (language) is operating inside a system already designed to manipulate it.

Energy work, however, moves beneath that level of interference. It dives beneath symbols and into the root current of awareness. When you practice re-absorption and redistribution, you are dealing with pure substance; energy before language, emotion before definition. This allows you to bypass external programming, reclaim power, and direct your life force consciously.

Through consistent energy work, the inner alchemist begins to dissolve the artificial influences of the Screen, reclaim personal sovereignty, and transform obstacles at their root rather than their surface expression.

Integrating Both Paths for Complete Transformation

While energy work often produces faster, more visceral results, belief work still holds great value. The process of personal evolution is most complete when both approaches are used in harmony in the beginning. The energetic and linguistic systems are reflections of one another, and transforming one will invariably influence the other.

When you change your beliefs consciously through language, you open clearer channels for energy to flow and stabilize. When you re-absorb and redistribute energy directly, limiting beliefs lose their power and naturally begin to shift on their own if your energetic prowess is not at the moment anyway, optimal.

The key is to begin where you feel most comfortable. If you gravitate toward understanding and reflection, start with belief discovery and language transformation. If you tend to feel energy strongly or sense subtle movement in your body or emotions, start with the energetic work of absorption and redistribution. Over time, the two paths will merge naturally, forming a cohesive practice of complete transmutation. And in time you will see that symbols will fall away, slowly, until all you will have left is just energy.

Experimentation and Direct Experience

Inner alchemy is not theoretical; it’s experiential. The real mastery comes only from direct experimentation and personal observation. No teacher, book, or teaching can substitute for your own lived realization of how energy moves through you.

So, practice. Try both belief and energy work. Watch what happens as you shift focus. Notice which patterns dissolve through awareness alone and which require energetic intervention.

As you practice regularly, you’ll see patterns that used to dominate your inner reality begin to lose strength. What once triggered you emotionally will start to feel hollow, distant, or neutral. This is the sign that you’ve reclaimed the energy sustaining that pattern. Each success builds momentum for the next, until you find yourself flowing with clarity and focus.

Eventually, instead of constantly trying to “ignore” certain emotional patterns or external conditions, you’ll realize that you no longer need to; they simply no longer hold enough energetic power to matter.

From Yearning to Becoming

Ultimately, ignoring a problem doesn’t bring transformation; it only postpones it. Any issue that continues to arise is one that still holds energy, and that energy must be reclaimed before it can be transmuted into something new.

If you continue to practice awareness, belief transformation, and direct energy work, you begin shifting from a state of inner conflict into one of conscious creation. Over time, you move from being the person who yearns for a different reality to the person who creates it deliberately through balanced, calm energetic flow.

That is the essence of inner alchemy. Through awareness and action, belief and energy, you turn the raw material of emotion into the gold of transformation. You stop fighting the shadow and start using it as power. This is the process of becoming: evolution from reactive existence to conscious creation.