For now, it will be exclusive to paid subscribers who receive access to my personal diary blogs in turn. 

I may find a way to take the lessons in this blog and incorporate it into a more broad blog post later on as there are some very useful insights for those who have endured a narcissist closely.

Without further ado…

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Author Mel Robbins is best known for her motivational speaking, podcast and books. I first came across her name scrolling through Audible's recommendations for my next audiobook listen. “The High 5 Habit,” an Audible original was the first book of Mel’s I stumble upon.

I’ve also listened to Mel Robbin’s “The 5 Second Rule” Audible original audiobook.

Here’s what I enjoy most about Mel’s books that made me excited to pre-order a hard cover of “The Let Them Theory.”

What’s funny is since I’ve listened to her books and podcast, I could literally hear her voice in my head as I was reading the book. Just imagining how she would read it on an audiobook. I opted for a physical book because I wanted to be able to come back to certain chapters and should I ever need to reference back to a specific way of handling a situation.

Her Voice

I like to listen to the 5 minute sample of audiobooks to ensure the author’s voice is tolerable for me. There’s been many of times I did not do that and wasted more time than preferred. Furthermore, some books are just better to be read than listened to.

Mel’s voice is both warm and entertaining to my ears. It’s not monotonous. Nor is it over-exaggerated — you know when someone sounds like they’re trying to hard.

Simple & Practical Advice

The advice and techniques Mel recommends are typically very simple — therefore easy to remember. If the technique has more than one step, the steps are usually very relative and connected to each other.

Research

I appreciate the lengths that Mel goes to confer with professionals to research why her techniques and advice work. She cites her sources very directly. Even though the research can be science-heavy, she articulates it in a way where the average person can comprehend it.

Application

Besides using laymen’s terms, Mel always gives lots of examples of how a technique can be used. Whether she lays out an example from a professional study and/or her personal life (oftentimes both), you’re never left wondering how you can apply the advice to your own life.

The Let Them Theory

This is one of those books where the old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover” rings true. At first glance, you may have your doubts and immediate criticisms based on the title alone such as “Am I supposed to just LET people walk all over me?!” I know I did, but I decided to give it a chance anyway based on my experiences with her other books and listening to her podcast.

The Let Them Theory is not just letting people do whatever they want and get away with it. It’s typically a 2 part process; Let Them & Let Me. This second part — Let Me — is crucial.

Here’s some quote I underlined in the book that may implore you:

True power lies in our response.

Other people hold no real power over you, unless you give them that power

Saying Let Them simply relieves you of the hurt and pain you feel… but only momentarily.

When you say Let Me, you’re tapping into that power by taking responsibility for what you do, think or say next.

If you are someone that sees, talks to or deals with other people whether in person, on the phone, on the road or online, then this book is for you. And that’s pretty much everyone.

This isn’t a new concept per se. Mel acknowledges that this mindset & methodology go back to ancient philosophies and other psychological concepts such as Stoicism, Buddhism and detachment theory.

From family spats, the news rage bait, social media comparison, road rage, office politics, dating, work competition, friendship dynamics, romantic relationships, injustices of the world and beyond; it’s easy to be reactive or get consumed in other people’s shit.

The first section outlines what The Let Them Theory is, conceptualizes each step and walks the reader through why the process works. It’s a general section to get started and to understand the theory.

Each chapter thereafter, addresses different life domains and applies the Let Them, Let Me steps to various situations in short stories. From managing stress, other people’s opinions, dealing with other’s emotional reactions, overcoming chronic comparison and adult friendships; these simple steps help. It’s not just the steps though. The examples provided are stories with dialogue. These are examples of specifically what to do and say.

Complex Situations

Of course there are exceptions to the rule. Mel acknowledges that and doesn’t leave the reader hanging.

In situations where a person who is significant in your life and does not want to change, she has provides a process and dialogue that requires a few more steps and a specific type of communication. You’ll want to bookmark that chapter if it’s something you can use and want to come back to remember.

In situations where a person you love is severely struggling with major issues such as mental health or addiction, it requires even more tact. Mel provides processes for these arduous cases. Yes, I said processes — as in plural — because you want to support someone the right way.

Other Nuanced Situations

Parenting is a nuanced situation. This book is not geared towards raising children. This book is for adults interacting with other adults. However, in the appendix Mel briefly touches on the parenting bit and provides an additional free guide put together with a highly qualified doctor and professor.

Teams is another nuanced situation. We’re talking about workplace teams. Whether you’re managing a team for your business, executive team or other employees team; Mel has also mentions these situations and provides a complimentary bonus guide co-authored with an accomplished executive.

Should YOU read “The Let Them Theory”?

Yes! I absolutely recommend The Let Them Theory. It’s a good balance of story and evidence. There are so many examples provided — I would wager anyone could find a nugget of wisdom applicable to something in their life.

There is a better way of living.

As mentioned before, do not let the cover or title deceive you. There’s so much more to this book than it implies.

You can find the hardcover, audiobook and e-book of The Let Them Theory right HERE.

Happy reading, loves!

Hi my loves,

If you would like to bring in the new lunar year of the fire horse with intention on an individual level, but don’t know what to do — here are some introspective journal prompts.

You can get your pen and paper out now or save this to come back to later in the next couple of days.

Enjoy!

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I listened to episode 841 of the Almost 30 podcast on Spotify.

Their guest was Sarah Elkhaldy. She spoke a bit on rage bait being a major stressor & block in 2025 and how it has caused people’s frequencies to decline.

I’m glad someone finally said it. Not that I couldn’t say it, but the way Sarah put this into perspective was so relatable.

Rage baiting, especially on social media, is a dangerous trend in today’s world. More and more people resort to this outrageous method to gain more views & engagement online in order to further monetize their account and/or fill some kind of psychological void.

The vibe just screams “I want attention and to be the most important person in the room.”

What is rage baiting?

Here’s Google’s answer:

“Rage baiting is a manipulative tactic used online to intentionally provoke anger, frustration, or outrage to drive engagement—such as clicks, comments, and shares—ultimately boosting ad revenue or gaining attention. Creators often post intentionally incorrect, absurd, or inflammatory content to force viewers to react, turning the resulting emotional turmoil into profit.”

You know those people who just try to get a reaction out of you? It’s like that but to an online audience and 100 times worse. What makes it worse is both the wider audience and greedy intentions. These people pick an existing issue and go full spiral — most times with the facts being manipulated or outright lies being told, but presented as fact.

The sad thing is a lot of people fall for this. The amount of gullibility we have in society is mind-blowing.

Because these rage baiters speak with such authority — sometimes even charisma — people believe what they say and don’t even bother to look any further into the matter.

Discernment is truly an underrated virtue. Discernment, objectivity and critical thinking are important now more than ever before. With the plethora of information and misinformation — intentional or not — we have to keep an open mind and watchful eye.

All it takes to verify some times is a simple Google search. Or ask a real person if you personally know a someone in a relevant professional field, location, culture, religion, etc.

I personally know peers in my community who have resorted to rage baiting to gain followers and monetization. Their vibe changed when they began this journey. Maybe it was always there beneath the surface that was visible to me before or maybe something triggered them into this state.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, I’ve lived through rage baiting in real life. My narcissistic father would do this to me. But after many years of this experience and after having children of my own, I’ve learned how to deal with rage baiting.

How do you deal with rage baiting either online or offline?

Don’t fuel it.

The best reply is no reply.

The whole objective is to get you to have a big emotional reaction, ideally immediately. Don’t let them accomplish that objective.

Don’t let them steal your peace. Protect your peace. Your peace is sacred.

Unfollow them. Block them. Cut ties.

What you consume and who you interact with impacts your energy.

Take a second to pause and recognize when something or someone is depleting your peace instead of adding to it.

Furthermore, you can better train your algorithm, the more you unfollow, block, scroll past, report, mark “uninterested” or “show me less of this.”

You do have some control of your feed.

Special circumstances

If a rage baiter creates a situation that will put others in actual danger, report it to any and all appropriate organizations. Law enforcement, platform admin, etc.

I have engaged with a rage baiter I personally knew because time was of the essence and it was a nuanced situation. I did so privately and only stuck to the facts, not feelings. It took some tactful convincing, but they eventually saw my point and removed a particular post. I don’t believe this person meant actual harm, but the their content had the possibility of inadvertently providing sensitive information to others who do mean harm. Through compassion and leveling with this person, my goal was accomplished.

Final note

Rage baiting exists everywhere:

• Online and offline.

• In relationships and total strangers.

• Official news outlets, podcasters, youtubers, influencers and self-proclaimed creators/journalists.

• Every political party.

• ETC.

Your attention is valuable to others. It should be valuable to you also.

Don’t take the bait. It dims your light. We need your light.

Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

This 21-day challenge took me more than 21 days. It took me 34 days!!

Obviously, I did not do this consecutively every single day from January 1st to January 21st. For example, I completed challenge day 9 on January 11th. And I did challenge day 12 on January 19th.

And you know what?

That’s perfectly okay.

I would pick up where I left off and not feel one bit guilty about it.

You know why?

Every time that happened, the lesson was exactly what I needed on THAT particular day for a very specific reason. In the end, each challenge, lesson and meditation all aligned exactly when they were meant to.

Day 21 Journal Entry

Lesson: Your Future Self

In this lesson we were instructed to write a letter to ourselves now, but as ourselves from the future a year from now. It’s better if you just read the instructions below to understand what I’m saying.

Lesson journal prompt:

Imagine it’s one year from today and every desire you’ve been calling in has manifested. Write a letter from your future self to your current self. Describe how your life has changed and how it feels to be living everything you’ve envisioned.

My letter:

Dear Ashley,

It has taken some discipline, prioritization and constant alignment to get here. It might seem impossible now, but you will find your flow. Trust me. Just in the way that you managed to find your flow in formatting each 21-day manifesting challenge journal entry. Look how you found your flow with doing these voice-to-text journal entries and later revising them into full posts.

Take note of how you optimize your time. Notice if each of those optimizations feel easy or if they feel difficult — like there’s resistance. Choose the optimization that creates ease. After all, isn’t that what efficiency and optimization is for?

It’s taken some work to remind yourself that it doesn’t need to be hard — that there can be an easier way especially with all the technology that we are given today. Isn’t it wonderful that thanks to technology we can complete more in today’s 24 hours than we might have been able to do before? Of course, this is all in a “perfect world” theory. The key to that is prioritization. As much as it’s easier to optimize, it’s also easier to get distracted in today’s technology world. It takes discipline to detour from the distractions.

The other key is to have fun. It’s easier to forego the distractions when you’re living in ease, flow & fun.

I’m proud of you.

Keep it up.

I love you.

Meditation: Meet Your Future Self

Today’s meditation was about allowing ourselves to receive and reflect on our future self’s guidance.

Here’s the post-meditation journal prompt:

What guidance or advice did your future self offer during the meditation? Write about how you will apply this wisdom to your manifesting journey moving forward.

My post-meditation journal entry:

My future self told me to take inventory of my use of time. Then reorganize from there.

She told me I’ll need to purge and replace. But how I purge and replace habits needs to be done gradually. I know myself too well that if I try to implement too many changes in my lifestyle at once, none of them will become sustainable.

One step at a time.

I also need to purge and replace what I consume and who I follow on social media. Social media should be a tool and not an endless rabbit hole trap.

Just like anything else in my life, I have the power to choose what I consume. I do have some control over my algorithm. I do not have to be a victim to it.

She also gently reminded me to give myself gentle reminders to return to the present moment.

The end of the challenge!

I really enjoyed this challenge.

I truly believe that each challenge came on the right day for me. With so much turmoil in the world, this was much needed.

In addition, committing to this challenge did help me to connect to the spirit world again — AKA communicate with my spirit guides and angels.

It’s been really hard for me to meditate, and having this consistent-ish practice has aided me with getting into a meditative state with more ease.

By the time you read this, the challenge may or may not be closed.

If not, please give it a try while you still have time.

If it has concluded, save this post and come back to my page toward the end of the year. I’ll keep you updated with the manifesting challenge for 2027.

Thanks for joining me on this beautiful journey.

Much love.

Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

Read more

Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

Read more

Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

Read more

Thanks for coming along with me on this manifesting journey. If you missed any of the previous journal entries, just head over to aligningmom.com

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