It's all the rage in certain, mostly affluent circles: manifesting. For some, it's a holy grail. For others, pure nonsense. The truth lies as always, somewhere in the middle. So today you will get the brutally honest reality about something that is real, and that really does work... just not always in the way many people will tell you. Ready? Now let's start by calming your mind...
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The premise of manifesting
The basic premise of manifesting is this: the way you feel determines what you attract. Simple example. Grumpy, after a long day's work, you walk into a bar. And because you feel that way, you're likely to be annoyed by all these people in this bar. You probably just wanted a quiet drink. But the noise is terrible. You moan. You growl. You frown. You chuck your drink. You're in a fowl mood. Then somebody walks to the bar, oblivious to your mood, and orders some stuff. That person is happy, and wanted to say something nice. But one look at your storming eyes and they think the better of it. They turn away from you, physically and with their eyes. You pick up on it. And get your confirmation: the world hates me. My grumpiness is justified.
Now, the next day, you had a major unexpected win in your work. You feel great. You go into the same bar afterward. You smile. You laugh. You hit people on the shoulder. You throw a round for the entire bar! Everybody laughs and smiles at you. You feel awesome. Same person comes up to the bar. Smiles and thanks you. You get your confirmation: the world loves me. My happiness is justified.
See what's happening there? Let me spell it out for you...
Input is output.
That's manifesting, at least, in its most basic form: what you give out is what you receive. The way you felt determined what you got back. You 'manifest' or 'make real' what it is you feel inside. How and why this works is also simple. We're social animals. We copy each other feelings. If someone comes at you angry, most of us will be angry back. If someone smiles at you with great love and conviction, tough cooky who doesn't immediately smile back. So far, so natural.
It's all about the story you tell yourself.
How manifesting works in connection to your emotions
Now the idea of manifesting really starts to work when you think of this input-output dynamic as a way of steering your emotions, actually not that far from the philosophies of Marcus Aurelius and stoicism. For example, you want to win a sports match. What you do is imagine the emotion of winning. You feel the win. Even before you've played the match. The theory is that you when you already feel the emotion of how it would feel if it were manifested, you get into the exact mindset that subconsciously and consciously starts to steer your actions into achieving the win. In that sense, you've 'manifested' or 'made real' the win before the match started.
You can apply this to other subjects as well. A lot people wished they had more money. The theory of manifesting tells you that you need to conjure up the 'feeling of being rich' or 'feeling fulfilled'. You're not actually focused on the money itself. It asks the question: how would it feel if you were rich? And then your mind doesn't focus on getting money... it focuses on the feeling of richness. And having this feeling, makes you feel nice inside, which you then exhume to others. Plus, something psychological happens: you start to consciously and unconsciously make decisions that promote becoming wealthier.
You will feel, as they say, abundance. And so the abundance comes for you.
Same goes for success. All of us have insecurities. When we are in an insecure mindset - essentially a story we tell ourselves that we can't do it - the way we talk, move and interact is affected by that, making us come across as insecure, and lowering our chances to get what we want from others as a result. Yet, if we walk into a situation or context feeling really sure of ourselves, others will notice our shoulder stance, our chest in a forward position, our clear eyes showing determination, our voice demanding attention. And as such, people will be more inclined to follow you. That feeling usually results in more success.
Or love for that matter. You want more love to come into your life? You meditate until you feel a lot of love in your body, up to unconditional love, and then you go out and everybody will see it on your face, in the way you walk, talk... everyone will know: 'This person is open for love'. You'll smile more, you'll be more relaxed... hell, even the hormones you spread out will be different. People will turn their heads on the streets. No joke. I've been there and done it. It actually works. I was as surprised as you are right now. Again, it's about the story you tell yourself.
So that begs the question, what exactly is the story you tell yourself?
First, the good stuff
All right, we're off! Storytelling to help manifest your desired reality! First, let's get to the good stuff. The first subject we need to discuss is that you'll have to learn how to deal with the negative in your life. Your insecurities, your anxieties, your bad traits. But also negative influences around you in your friends and family life. And negative stuff related to your career, whatever they may be.
That's the good stuff. I'll explain why the bad is the good stuff in a second.
Mind you, I'm not saying you should resolve all of it. That's impossible. What I'm saying is that you need to change your mindset to them. Everything that is negative can be refrained as a 'challenge to overcome' or a 'negative energy to let go'. It's a spiritual challenge, a challenge of the mind. Either you overcome the challenge, or you walk away from it. You either win, or let go.
The reason this is so important is because the story you need to tell yourself in order to manifest stuff needs to be genuine, truthful and from the heart, since we 'ooze' out everything that is on the inside. Stuff like fear or anger will always seep through if these emotions haven't landed within you in a good place. Remember, we are social animals. We can pick up on emotions, and people will feel it when you're trying to convey something that is coming from the wrong intentions.
Re-framing this in your mind isn't easy. It can take a long time, sometimes years even, to re-frame the story you tell yourself about adversity in your life. It really depends on so many factors... is there unresolved trauma in your life? Are you prone to stress? And why or why not? What is your natural disposition to begin with? Sunny? Gloomy? Indifferent? Thrill-seeker? Introvert? Or is that just something you've told yourself, and there is a different, stronger you underneath?
There is so much to cover, so much to know about ourselves...However, it should also not be seen as unreachable or impossible. There's a Jedi mind trick to it. In essence I'm saying that the story you tell yourself doesn't have to change, just your attitude towards it. A good example to use is when it's raining. We can sulk about it and leave it at that. Or we can sulk, yet think to ourselves: 'It's good for the plants and flowers in the garden'. Or even 'after the rain comes sunshine'.
You see what I'm doing here? I'm not avoiding adversity. I'm just changing my mindset towards it. I'm not avoiding the emotion at all. Not in the least. I'm actually acknowledging it. Yet, my mindset towards it changes from mostly negative to mostly positive. And my mindset is what I 'ooze' out.
So, don't feel discouraged. I have a very, very helpful thought that will get you going instantly in the right direction: without adversities, trials and tribulations, challenges, obstacles, frictions and conflicts... there would be no storytelling. Storytelling is a tool to pass on relevant lessons and information in order to survive and thrive. This instrument only functions properly as an information teacher, when the story is recognizable enough for your memory to fire its neurons and capture it on your mind's hard drive.
And the key to a story being recognizable is adversity. Friction and conflict are the most crucial elements of all storytelling.
I even encourage you to seek it out. If we go all nutty here, and fly high as a kite into the spiritual realms, than we can take this blog for instance, which is the 66st article I wrote on the website. And I waited with it until I got to that number, purposely seeking out the friction of it.
Why is this so important? Well, for survival purposes, the older, primitive part of our brains excludes information that does not have a form of conflict, obstacle, adversity or challenge in it. Life is so full of challenge, that our minds' hard drive just doesn't store what it deems irrelevant for survival or to prosper. Aka: anything that doesn't hold friction. Crucially, without adversity, there would be no story to tell yourself.
So all of those insecurities and anxieties and bad traits... they are your fuel for the story you tell yourself. Without them, you wouldn't have a journey to overcome.
Boom.
Don't believe all the hype around manifesting
Now that this is out of the way, let's have a look at the caveats and obstacles that can stop manifesting from working. Because down here on Earth, or as manifestacios like to call the '3D realm', there are a lot of practicalities we need to understand. Allow me to phrase it so that I make myself abundantly clear:
Manifesting is not something magical that makes all your dreams come true. It is something normal and and natural that is influenced by how well you have your affairs in order, and how healthy you are emotionally.
That's why it is a hundred times easier to 'manifest' your 'dream life' when you are affluent. For most people, life is just too much of a challenge to even think about doing a manifestation meditation of sorts. Sure, sometimes someone lifts themselves out of poverty. But that's the one-in-a-million exception, not the rule. This means that manifesting is a trend that is really only available to those who already have good chances in life. Which in and out of itself makes it easier anyway to achieve your dreams: if you already have the money and the network, why bother meditating and trying to manifest these dreams in the first place?
Mind you, I'm not attacking affluent people or dismissing the practice of manifesting itself! Not at all. I think it's a good thing, and I feel walking out there every day with the best possible feeling in your underbelly and the best possible disposition is great. What I am trying to do with this article is debunk the hype around it, because I believe that hype is damaging. Especially since there are a huge amount of scammers out there who offer 'manifestation courses' for many a hundred (or thousand!) dollars, promising you'll have your dream life in two weeks time.
No joke, that's what most actually promise.
So, let me give you a sneak peak of how it actually feels to truly manifest stuff... once you know the secret (yes, pun intended), you would never in your life dream of scamming people out of their money with a manifestation course. You'd be aligned with what they call your 'higher self'. And higher-selfs tend not to scam people. Or promise them the world. Higher-selfs would actually be more inclined to share this type of knowledge for free, and give you the honest low down, including the challenges.
So that the story you tell yourself, stays honest.
How the universe can have different plans for you
Which brings me to the last insight I want to share with you today (there is a lot more, but that's for a different article!), and that is when you take this higher road, when you walk this more spiritual path, in the real world, the cosmos tends to give you what you need, and not what you want. This has to do with underlying motives that you may have. For instance, you may feel like a particular love interest is the exact person you should be manifesting. But when in reality this person is different from your expectations, the intense love you 'ooze' out might attract the person that is in actuality much more aligned with your relationship wishes.
Just like your disposition walking into that bar, it is all about what you feel inside that comes back to you. Yet what you feel inside may be a lot more complex than that meditation you just did, and may require a bucket load of stuff you still have to figure out... or it may even be that the universe had a different plan all together.
That's why the advice is to focus on the feeling. Not the outcome.
And that's my two cents on the manifesting trend, and the role that storytelling - in this case that crucial story you tell yourself - influences this. As someone who does both storytelling and focuses on creative health, I'm all for it. I'm cool with the trend. I just want to bring the whole damn thing back down to Earth. I mean, I myself am such a dreamer, and can go way to deep into this stuff... so I'm here to make it land -very practically - on that simple manner on how you walk into that bar.
And in the end, it all comes down to this... You control very little in life, and the cosmos and friends and family and colleagues around you might behave very differently than your manifestation wanted them too... yet even it may take years to master... and many tough moments overcoming the challenges that life throws at you... you, and only you control the story you tell yourself.
So, if you want to do this manifesting mindfulness spiritual magical thing successfully, I'd start there.
Love, as always,
Rogier
And check out the books Restart - Burnout Recovery From a Patient Perspective and of course The Whole Story - The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling.
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