On Manifestation
I think I have mentioned it before, but I absolutely devour personal development content. I am trying to be the best, most kind, self-aware human I can possibly be. It’s the fabric of the You Are Important Project.
I had a long talk with a friend yesterday and we were discussing some of the self-development content out there. Some of the self-development ‘gurus’ out there will give advice on ignoring the world at large, just to ignore anything that doesn’t feel good ’--- “just feel positive thoughts, visualize it, vibrate high, and you will manifest.”
How many of you have tried that? I certainly have. It was the beginning of my self-development journey in 2017. I became borderline delusional, believing I was the center of the universe, manifesting everything around me… and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believed small things, like a short wait in line or even a grocery store item that I wanted to get was a ‘manifestation’.
What felt especially horrible was when I didn’t manifest what I wanted. I felt like a terrible human and that I wasn’t doing this manifesting thing right. I wasn’t “vibrating high enough.’ I’d try again. I’d consume more of these talks. Take courses. Read more books. Meditate on my visions more.
I was trying to manifest a romantic partner. (You’ll see this is a common theme throughout my writing throughout the years). It was something I just couldn’t get quite right and it left me feeling defeated. After 3 years of this, I wanted to take a different approach.
Once I stopped the ‘feeling good’ approach to life, this is when I started to see real change.
After being entrenched in the self-development world for many years, I feel the visualization, leaning into what feels good, vibrate-high, manifestation teachings are missing some important key elements.
They do not acknowledge the inevitable truth that life is suffering.
In fact, these teachings borderline make you feel like a terrible person for experiencing suffering when it's a totally normal part of life. Life IS suffering. The Bhuddists have been saying this since humanity was conceived. It’s incredibly inconvenient. Unfair things happen. People leave us. We get rejected. Entire countries are wiped out at the whim of a greedy and powerful leader. To state that people are manifesting this in their realities because their vibrations ‘are not high’ is incredibly dismissive, we cannot control much of what happens to us. Not to mention, it’s incredibly narcissistic to think everything is about us–refer to a ‘Meditation on Anxiety’ // ‘Anxiety Tips’ for a deeper dive into why.They do not acknowledge that we need to uncover patterns that are harmful.
If we just do ‘what feels good’, but not acknowledge the ways we could be perpetuating negative patterns or outcomes, then we are not going to manifest what we want. For example, referring to my last post ‘On Abandonment’, if I didn’t start to do the work on developing boundaries and honoring my needs, then I would continue to manifest partners in my life that perpetuated my childhood wounds that left me feeling abandoned.They do not acknowledge the importance of consistent action.
While I do agree that visualization and paying attention to how you feel are key elements to manifest the life of your dreams, I also cannot stress enough—that is not enough. That is only step 1.
You’re like, wait I don’t feel good. Why? (Refer to points 1 and 2). Oh right, I am a human being and the world sucks 50% of the time. What can I do about this? Is it in my control?
No? Cool. Accept it. Feel it. Suffer. Get some support. Work through it. (You Are Important Project is here for support!)
Yes? What can I do to change it? Take consistent, daily action, even when you don’t feel like it. Identify barriers. Adjust your actions to the barriers. The life of your dreams is going to come from consistency and getting out of your comfort zone. It doesn’t have to necessarily be grinding every day, but you need to show up even when you do not feel like it. Because it’s not always going to feel good even when it’s something you really want.You should never trust your feelings all of the time.
While feelings can be a good indicator that things are wrong or right, they are not always right. Again, refer to the post on ‘Mediation Tips’. The point, ‘Is this true?’ dives more into this. I never would be the DJ, friend, founder, or nurse I am today if I did it only ‘when I felt good’. Motivation is a mindset, not a feeling. Feeling good in this primal world is not normal and we need to feel stress and anxiety to get things done and survive. We are NOT bad for suffering or feeling stress or anxiety, this is completely normal. But we can learn to harness these feelings to make them work for us so that we are able to live the life of our dreams.
It’s nearly 2023 and my manifestation of the perfect romantic partner has not materialized. I have had many good ones, but I can tell you it wasn’t from ‘vibrating higher’, it was from doing the difficult and painful work of developing boundaries. It was from saying no when it would have been easier to say ‘yes’ and ignore that deep, unsettling feeling of what it felt to be abandoned again. If I never leaned into my suffering, I wouldn’t be in the space I am today, where I do not need a partner to validate me.
What the vibrational manifestation teachings miss is that manifestation is NOT about feeling good all the time. The magic happens when we can see the difficult feelings as tools and agents for change.
Here are some of my favorite relationship teachers that challenge this ‘feel good notion’, I highly recommend them:
