The Myth of Manifesting

“Manifesting” is one of the trendiest words in spiritual circles… the notion of crafting boundless wishes and purpose into form. Life coaches on Instagram promise that their process will help you manifest more money, better relationships, and limitless freedom. Of course this message resonates with most: who wouldn’t want a shortcut to live their heart’s desire?

The paradox of manifestation is that the pathway to it is through letting go of desire and expectations, being present in the now, and loving what is. Manifesting does not come from an act of willpower or affirmations… It comes from orienting one’s inner state of being towards surrender and self-empowerment rather than control and victimhood. It comes from discovering, clarifying, and then aligning one’s life to values, which are the codification of our Inner Truth.

The Western way is to want everything, right away. We want to solve our suffering with a pill or find meaning with a shaman. Unfortunately, there is no spiritual lottery for inner peace. No one or thing can imbue one with vision. This must be claimed for oneself by letting go of expectation and perception. When we attempt to manifest before we devote energy to healing, we end up manifesting suffering to set the conditions for our soul to pursue wholeness.

Why do we want what we want? When we want to manifest money or fame, a new car or a promotion, what we are actually craving is the feeling that we believe we will have when we have our desires fulfilled. What we really want is safety, joy, love, and peace. Ram Dass says that when we are “in love”, someone or something is just a conduit to help us tap into this place inside of us that is love. The problem is that we confuse the external thing as the source of our inner feeling when it is really just the gateway. Love, joy, and peace are created from within.

Disappointment is measured by the difference between expectations and experience. When we expect a smooth commute and are met with traffic, we might feel anxiety and frustration. But if the opposite terms were reversed, we might sail through the highway with a smile on our face. The path to peace and joy is to surrender both the attraction and the aversion in service of being present with what is. When we let go of our expectations totally, we can enjoy the gift of life that we experience at every moment.

The key to manifesting anything outwards is to create this experience inwards. We find love through self-love; we create value through self-value; we forgive others by forgiving ourselves; and we create safety when we can feel safe with being with our own feelings. Manifesting is less about creating wishlists and practices; it is more about discovering that everything we have ever wanted is already here, within ourselves.

Thus, the real trick to manifesting is to not want anything at all. It is to follow one’s heart at any given time, to do the work to let go of the grip of our non-forgiveness, righteousness, and beliefs to allow ourselves to feel fully and deeply. In this way, we can feel the essence of our Highest Self, which is the source of the love, joy, and peace that we so desperately desire. In other words, the myth of manifesting that there is nothing to manifest at all: we already have it. And when we truly embody this through inner understanding, then we will have the boundless energy to actually create the value and love externally that reflects the self-value and self-love that we feel internally.