I have been pulling on a thought thread about manifesting and now finally feel it’s the right time to start writing about it.
This thought process came about because I was questioning whether or not there could be any such thing as manifesting. Does manifesting actually happen? Is there really a higher intelligence that changes energy around you in order to help bring to you that which you most want? Even if that is inspired action to take to reach your goals. It got me thinking about all the gurus and the multiplicity of ways to manifest the life of our dreams and how confusing and overwhelming I find all of that. Because it’s become so complicated when something inside me was saying – it isn’t. It’s really quite simple if you really stop and think about it.
All of this made me realise that it was my level of belief in it that was affecting my levels of success with manifesting. In asking this question in the first place, in finding it all overwhelming, I had a fundamental reserve inside as to whether manifesting actually existed. I have constantly looked for proof – and particularly scientific proof at that. While outwardly I expressed my confidence in manifesting, inwardly I had no such confidence and was consistently looking for proof. And now I’ve realised that the proof was always there in front of me. My life.
In a meditation, I went through all the things that had happened in my life over a period of time. When I bought my first house nearly 20 years ago, I decided I wanted a pet. At first, it was a cat because they’re independent but I didn’t know much about having cats and so I settled on a dog. In my mind’s eye I kept seeing a West Highland White Terrier. I’d thought to get a rescue dog and didn’t think I could be that prescriptive though I kept seeing this breed in my mind until, driving to my parent’s house a journey I did very regularly, I saw a sign for Westie pups for sale. Did I manifest it or did I create the reality where those pups existed? Or where I took notice and saw the sign because that was what I was looking for? Who knows. I’m not sure there’s much difference. The end result was, I got two Westie pups. The same thing happened with our chocolate Labrador. He was a friend’s dog and I remember seeing him with our, by then, only remaining Westie and thought – he’s my dog. I never overtly said or did anything, just kept that to myself. Until one March our friend dropped Oscar off for him to stay with us while our friend was in Vegas and…he never returned for Oscar. Oscar became our dog. Was this forethought or was it me creating my reality? I don’t know, I just know that I’ve done the same thing time and again.
I was reading an old diary of mine the other night. It was from last year, a particularly tumultuous year when I was trying to manifest a way out of the mess my life was in. All I brought about instead was the outcome I least wanted. How? Because I was more focused on what was wrong than what I wanted. That could not have been more obvious. The desperation, the fear, the anxiety was screaming at me from the pages. It was heartbreaking to read it, reading it as I was in a rather detached way. In my diary, I was writing about how I was looking for signs constantly that everything would work out. I was writing mantras endlessly trying to convince myself let alone spirit that I was successful, I was a whole raft of positive things. No one believed them, especially not me. And therein lies the crux of manifesting. Belief. It drives everything.
I was watching a skiing championship a couple of weeks ago, and an interview with Eileen Gu. She had performed amazingly which was remarkable given how close it was to the Winter Olympics. What struck me during the interview was her utter belief in herself. She knew she was going to win, there was not a doubt in her mind. The runner-up, however, you could see was thinking ‘I’m up against Eileen Gu, there’s no chance I’m going to win’. That seed of doubt in her mind likely led to her fall on the last run and her decision not to finish it. What you tell yourself, what you are really saying to yourself, is the reality you create. What you believe is what is reflected back to you. The difference between the two athletes was that one was supremely confident while the other was slightly anxious. But what was the same for both was that they had an expectation of the outcome of what they were doing. An expectation that both achieved.
Is it manifesting? I don’t know. Is the brain powerful enough to create a reality where, say, you fall in a championship jump? Yes, absolutely it is. Just like it is powerful enough to create a situation whereby the one thing you dread happening, does happen. The thing underpinning it all is belief. The belief that something – good or bad – is going to happen. And it does. If it’s your health, yes your brain is powerful enough to create that health problem – or recovery. If it’s your career, yes if you have belief that something amazing is going to happen you are going to start seeing those opportunities being allowed into your conscious via the Reticular Activating System (RAS). If you have the belief that something bad is going to happen to your career, you can bet your RAS will show you all the things that prove this until it becomes so. The list goes on. Can you know that someone else is going to do something before there is any shred of evidence it’s going to happen? I know I do at times, and that has nothing to do with my RAS. I know that certain things are going to happen to me, and others (including strangers), in ways that I cannot explain. I just know.
The other aspect to this is living consciously or unconsciously. The RAS is, in effect, the deliverer of the belief system. When you’re living unconsciously, when you are going through life unquestioningly, it delivers the programme your subconscious mind is delivering without interruption. If you believe that the world is bad, the RAS will show you that. If you believe that you are unworthy, the RAS will show you that. Whatever your limiting beliefs are, your RAS will reinforce that for you by showing you a ‘reality’ where they are perfectly delivered for you. I know, I’ve lived this life. I didn’t know to question it. I didn’t even know for the longest time that I had a subconscious mind that ran a programme that my RAS effortlessly and brilliantly mirrored to me in the ‘reality’ I saw. If, however, you begin to live consciously and question that ‘reality’, if you wake up to your soul and allow it to start steering the ship well, at first, things are going to be decidedly rocky. As I also know! But, eventually, you will start to see that you have created that ‘reality’ that is your life. That, actually, there is no such thing as a fixed reality because you can create a different one whenever you want to when you live consciously.
Do I believe that we can manifest something like a big lottery win? I don’t believe we can. I don’t think our RAS can create that opportunity enough to tell us the winning combination of numbers. I do think however, that if you’re about to win, you can know it’s going to happen, yes. But to me, that’s different from manifesting. Yet do I think you can manifest the things you want to do with a big lottery win? Say, get the house of your dreams etc.? Yes, I do. If you believe that the house of your dreams is going to be yours, your RAS will identify the opportunities to make that so. Why? Because we create our own reality through our beliefs.
Does this mean there is no such thing as manifesting? Where does spirituality fit in to all of this for me? Well, there are a series of questions for me to answer here. Do I think there is a greater intelligence in the universe, a benevolent intelligence that created everything? Absolutely, I do. Do I think there is a spiritual plane that our souls go to? Without a doubt. Do I think we are guided in our lives by those in that spiritual plane? Yes, unequivocally. Do I believe in angels and Archangels? Yes, I do. Do I believe in reincarnation? Again, yes I do. Do I believe that we are puppets of that divine intelligence, the spiritual plane and the angels and Archangels? No, I do not. We have free will to express ourselves as we wish – we do not have to open ourselves to anything spiritual if we do not wish to. Do I believe that the divine intelligence manipulates energy to bring to us that which we desire specifically as we ask for it? No, I do not. I believe that it’s already there. That the divine intelligence has always provided it – we just need to open our eyes through our beliefs and consciousness to see it.
We need to believe that there is more than what our five senses tell us.
You create the reality you want when you live consciously. When you believe that anything is possible and you override the belief pattern your subconscious is running. The process you have to go through to get there is not easy, you are changing something fundamental about yourself and that part of you is going to fight back. But when you see the truth, that is when you create the life of your dreams. And the truth is that you have created the one you are living in now.
Louisa Simpson 