Manifestation: What Do We Actually Mean by It?

I have a relationship of love and not-so-much-love with manifestation. It is not that I do not believe in it, because I do, but I am cautious about the way manifestation is sometimes presented. For me, manifestation is not about sitting down, asking the universe for something and expecting it to appear because you have repeated the right words enough times. There has to be more to it than that.

In my personal understanding, manifestation is about the words, thoughts, behaviours, intentions and actions that you create for yourself to develop a positive pattern within your life. It is about what you are projecting towards your future, but it is also about what you are prepared to do between where you are now and where you want to be.

I like to think about this as Point A and Point B.

Point A is where you are right now. You might be frightened, confused, overwhelmed, uncertain or completely unsure about what you are going to do next. Point B is somewhere in your future. It might be an examination, a new job, a relationship, a house, a business, a difficult conversation or simply a different version of your life.

Manifestation, for me, is what happens between those two points.

You cannot simply stand at Point A, describe Point B beautifully and expect the distance between the two to disappear. There is work in the middle. There are decisions in the middle. There may be fear, disappointment, mistakes, learning, prayer, writing, rest, changing direction and starting again. There also has to be responsibility.

Manifestation Does Not Remove the Work

As I have been building Thrive Forward Coaching, I have been manifesting constantly, although I did not always stop to call it manifestation.

I created TFC while completing my LLM because I wanted to build something bigger than what I was already doing. I wanted something different. I wanted to support people in a more focused and concentrated way, using the areas in which I had experience, knowledge and the ability to help.

Before TFC, I had already supported people professionally and had been paid to do similar work, but I was working within somebody else's organisation and therefore within somebody else's rules. Eventually, I asked myself: why don't I do this myself?

That thought was a manifestation, but the thought did not create the business.

I had to create it.

The last twelve months have involved building the business, making mistakes, changing things, learning, writing, reviewing my services and constantly questioning what I wanted TFC to become. Every few months, I have sat down and reviewed what I have done, what is working, what I no longer want to do and what I want to do next.

More recently, one of my manifestations has been around speaking. I have been praying and asking for guidance towards speaking events because I realised that I had spent so much time inside the office building the business, writing books, creating guides and developing my work that I also needed to think about how I wanted to communicate this work outside the office.

Again, I cannot simply say, “I want to become a speaker,” and then wait.

I have to prepare myself to speak.

That, to me, is manifestation.

Manifestation Does Not Mean Pretending You Are Fine

This is where I sometimes disagree with the way manifestation is discussed.

I do not believe that positive manifestation means denying what you are genuinely feeling. If you are frightened, you are frightened. If you are grieving, you are grieving. If you are overwhelmed, then something is overwhelming you. Repeating positive sentences while refusing to acknowledge what is happening inside you does not resolve the problem.

When I was completing my LLM, I struggled enormously. There were periods when reading and writing were extremely difficult for me, while at the same time I had the responsibilities of ordinary life, caring responsibilities and everything else that did not simply disappear because I was completing a Master's degree.

I could have projected all of that fear directly into my examinations.

Instead, I had to tell myself: I am going to sit these examinations. I am going to study. I am going to understand what I am studying rather than simply trying to memorise everything. I am going to do the best that I possibly can.

And if my best is not enough this time, I will have a break, regroup and do it again.

That was extremely important.

I was not manifesting a guaranteed result. I was preparing myself to face the result.

I allowed myself to experience the emotions I was experiencing. Sometimes I cried. Sometimes I went walking in nature, took my shoes off, walked on the grass, sat beside a tree and allowed myself to feel everything that needed to come out. Then I returned to what needed to be done.

I was essentially telling myself: I know that I am frightened at Point A, but I do not want today's state of urgency travelling with me all the way to Point B.

There are things I can do between the two.

What Are You Projecting Into a Future That Has Not Happened Yet?

This is another reason I find manifestation interesting.

We normally associate manifestation with things we want. A house. Money. Success. Love. A new career. A holiday. But we also spend an extraordinary amount of time mentally projecting things we do not want.

Imagine that you desperately want a romantic relationship, but your previous experiences have left you feeling rejected or disposable. You start thinking about the relationship you want while simultaneously telling yourself:

I am not attractive enough. I am not successful enough. I am not educated enough. I do not have enough money. Nobody stays with me. I will probably be hurt again.

The future relationship does not even exist yet, but emotionally you have already begun preparing yourself for its failure.

This does not mean that thinking negatively causes another person to mistreat you. Other people remain responsible for their own choices and behaviour. Your vulnerability does not make you responsible for somebody else's harmful behaviour.

What your internal beliefs can influence, however, is how you approach situations, what you expect, how you respond, what you tolerate, the boundaries you establish and the decisions you make.

That is why I am interested in what we repeatedly tell ourselves.

Your Body Is Coming With You

There is also a nervous-system element to this conversation.

When we repeatedly imagine a future situation as threatening, we may experience very real emotional and physiological responses in the present. When something resembling that imagined situation eventually happens, our previous expectations and associations can influence how we respond.

This is why I do not want people to use manifestation simply to create fantasies about the future. I want you to pay attention to what is happening inside you now.

What are you scared of?

What do you believe is going to happen?

Can you do anything about it today?

Is the problem actually happening now, or are you experiencing today's emotional response to something that might happen later?

You are allowed to be scared. You are allowed to think about the possibilities. You are allowed to acknowledge the worst thing you think might happen. I would rather you recognise those thoughts than pretend they do not exist.

The important part is what you do next.

Sometimes the Manifestation Changes

For years, I have said that I would love a house in the countryside where my next-door neighbours are cows.

I can see it. I can describe it. I know exactly what I mean when I say it.

Then, at some point, I asked myself: do I actually want to live somewhere surrounded by cows with nobody else around me?

Maybe not.

What I realised was that the house itself was not necessarily the most important part of that manifestation. I was describing a feeling and a lifestyle. I wanted nature. I wanted peace. I wanted space. I wanted comfort. I wanted to be able to walk outside and feel connected to an environment in which I feel well.

Perhaps I will eventually have the house with the cows. Perhaps I will have neighbours and nature will be five minutes down the road.

The manifestation can evolve because I evolve.

That is why I do not believe we should become so attached to the exact picture in our minds that we fail to recognise something good when it arrives in a different form.

The Universe and Personal Responsibility

I pray. I use affirmations. I speak to God and to spirit. I ask for guidance. I put my intentions into words, and I believe there is value in putting those words out into the universe.

But I also work.

Those two things are not contradictory to me.

If I manifest a particular future but do absolutely nothing that could move my life towards it, I have removed my own responsibility from the process. If I want the house, I need to organise my life towards being able to have the house. If I want to speak professionally, I need to prepare myself to speak. If I want a healthy romantic relationship, I also need to look at myself, my expectations, my boundaries and what I am bringing into that relationship.

And sometimes I may do everything within my ability and still not receive exactly what I asked for.

That is also part of life.

My spiritual belief is that the universe listens, but I do not believe that gives me control over every outcome, every person or every event. Sometimes what comes next may not look anything like what I originally imagined.

So, Do I Believe in Manifestation?

Yes.

But I believe in manifestation with responsibility.

I believe in putting words around what you want. I believe in writing things down. I believe in prayer. I believe in positive affirmations. I believe in asking for guidance. I believe in examining the fears you are projecting into a future that has not happened yet.

I also believe in getting up and doing the work.

Manifestation, for me, is not pretending that everything is wonderful. It is not denying fear, pain or uncertainty. It is acknowledging where you are at Point A, deciding where you would like Point B to be, and then taking responsibility for what you do in the space between them.

You may reach Point B and discover that it looks completely different from what you imagined.

You may even discover that you no longer want Point B.

That is okay.

You have moved. You have learned. You have changed. And perhaps that movement was part of the manifestation too.

In the next blog post, I will share some of the manifestation exercises I personally use, including my “I am” practice, writing by hand, affirmations, deliberate pauses and the way I use these exercises to slow down, become present and think more carefully about what I am putting into my future.