As the saying goes, seeing is believing. But can believing in seeing yourself succeed lead to that belief becoming a reality?
Proponents of manifesting believe so. New Age philosophy is, by design, a loose amalgamation of alternative belief systems from which believers can pick and choose what they find most empowering (you had to look up amalgamation didn’t you?). There are countless different iterations of New Age philosophy but a belief in manifestation is one of the common threads that ties many of them together. That is due in part to the simple yet elegant idea that belief has its own psychic energy and that believing in something, far from being idle or unproductive, can help make the object of your desire a reality.
But what if your beliefs haven’t manifested yet? There are many reasons why you may not be manifesting successfully and this guide can help you clear some of those hurdles and better discover the reality behind your beliefs.
Here’s six main beliefs that are hindering your manifestation process:
Table of Contents
If you’ve seen The Empire Strikes Back (and if you haven’t, where’ve you been the past few decades?) you know the scenes of Luke training with Yoda to be integral to learning the Jedi’s philosophy. Yoda focuses a great deal on the nature of belief in particular. Luke’s X-Wing becomes stuck in the swamp at one point, and try though he might, he cannot lift it out with his Force powers but Yoda does so easily.
“I don’t believe it,” a shocked Luke tells Yoda, who meaningfully replies “That is why you fail.”
And that might be why your own efforts at manifestation are failing as well — a lack of true, unfettered belief. Star Wars is hardly alone in making this point. From focusing one’s energy chakras via yoga in Hinduism to Galahad achieving the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend by focusing on its holy significance rather than worldly matters, stories and belief systems around the world emphasize the importance of having true convictions and honing in on them with great intent and intensity.
New Age philosophy in general and manifestation in particular picks right up on that. Believers point to Bible passages such as “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrew 11:1) and “As a man thinks, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7) as allusions to the Law of Attraction. Without faith, you lose the “substance” of what you hope to gain and see and so it never materializes. Without properly focusing your thoughts, you will never be able to become what you wish to be.
By building on both Hindu as well as Biblical notions of focus and belief in its Law of Attraction, manifestation modernizes and builds upon ancient ideas of the power of thought, faith, and focusing the two with supreme concentration.
But none of that will be possible without actually wholeheartedly believing in your goal.
Don’t just “wish” it — will it.
May the Force (of Manifestation) Be With You.
Far too often, we are taught to separate our emotions and feelings. It’s something that we find in everything from Buddhism to New Age philosophy to those same Jedi teachings. From a personal health as well as manifestation-centric standpoint, that’s perfectly valid. Buddha teaches freedom from attachment and suffering, which is at the root of Yoda’s “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”
But what is problematic for personal health in general and manifestation in particular is disconnecting yourself from emotion altogether. There is a big difference between facing life’s challenges stoically and repressing oneself entirely. Emotions are powerful things and when you repress them, you not only put a powerfully damaging strain on your psyche but, from a manifestation standpoint, cut yourself off from an inner source of power.
Thought, action, and emotion are key to the Law of Attraction. Without that latter third, your ability to adequately focus on your goals and harness your inner strength will be that much weaker.
After all, what are manifestations in their most basic sense but your ability to “make manifest” your innermost desires and dreams? Aren’t those tied in with your emotions?
There’s also the fact that a lack of emotion can translate, intentionally or not, into a lack of motivation. When you feel very strongly about a goal, you are more likely to do what needs to be done in order to achieve it. Once again, thought, action, and emotion are intertwined. If you don’t have enough emotional attachment to the goal in question, you probably won’t think and focus on it hard enough or take the actions necessary to make it manifest.
Far too often, we tell ourselves that we’re “controlling our emotions” when what we’re really doing is running in fear of them; as Yoda’s quote establishes, that’s a fast track to self-sabotage. When it comes to manifesting and much of life, sometimes you’re your own worst enemy. Fear of failure is a powerful emotion and one that can rob you of your chance to manifest or accomplish your goals.
Sometimes there’s simply a better way to achieve things than the way you’re going.
Maybe the way that you’ve been manifesting is holding you back and there’s a better way to achieve your end goal. Maybe that goal is itself the problem and there’s a better solution out there just waiting. Whether the methodology, goal, or both are lacking, you should not be discouraged if you are unable to manifest. The Law of Attraction may well be pulling you towards something better. You must trust in the process and have an unyielding faith that the universe is working with you to bring about the desired outcome that you seek.
As stated, one of the key influences on the ideology behind manifestation is classical Hinduism in general and yoga’s emphasis on focus in particular. Traditional yoga focuses in part on aligning one’s chakras, which can both put one at peace and, according to believers, release a sort of energy within oneself — both of which are beliefs that are likewise shared by adherents of manifestation.
Just as chakras being out of alignment is seen as a cause of trouble in traditional yoga, so too is a lack of alignment within oneself cause for concern when it comes to manifestation. This can result from a lack of focus; maybe you “want” one thing but your mind keeps wandering and you keep thinking and refocusing about everything but your manifestation goal. Yoga practitioners account for this with breathing and focus concentrating exercises. If a lack of aligned focus is a problem, you may want to consider adopting such strategies as well.
In addition, it always pays to take a step back and ask yourself if your actions are in alignment with your manifestation goal. Make sure that you’re always working for and in alignment with rather than against your goals.
Ask yourself if you are working to manifest and make something happen for yourself or are you really trying to undermine, outdo, or “get back at” someone else? If it’s the latter, you’ll often find your manifestation efforts to be in vain and with good reason. Manifestation works by channeling your positive energy and focused thoughts into constructive action.
In short, negativity need not apply and working against others is typically “negative.”
If you’ve been trying to manifest for some time and feel stuck while all around you it seems as if others are being more successful, you’re bound to start wondering — does manifesting work? What is the big secret behind the methods they’re following, such as The Secret?
Which gets to the philosophical question — does The Secret work? And this hints at an even bigger question — does it work for you? For all the claims and beliefs out there, what matters in the end is what works for you on a personal level and, for many, the Law of Attraction does just that.
Part of the secret behind The Secret is that, for all its dabbling in different philosophical and spiritual traditions, it allows proponents to follow their own paths. Everyone is “attracted” to different things and is compelled to pursue different ends in pursuit of those goals, and so everyone’s experience with The Secret and associated ideas is different.
Trying to follow someone else’s methodology and path will only result in a sense of dissatisfaction with yourself and an inability to manifest properly. After all, attraction is a highly personalized affair. It’s not about where everyone else is being pulled but in what direction the Law of Attraction is pulling you. Tempting as it might be to see someone else achieve his or her goals and try to emulate them, this is in fact a way of acting against yourself and not being focused on your own individual strengths and goals.
Above all, for manifestation to work, you need to tap into your inner energy and strength and make it work for you. For all the “secrets” out there, in order to make any goals come true, you need to determine why you want to achieve this goal in the first place, lay out objectives to achieve on the way to that goal, and then focus hard on those.
Doing that can help you make manifest the better life that you wish to see.
Bob Proctor explains how it’s your vibration that makes the law works.
