As I had promised in my last post, this one will be about the actual art of manifesting. Now we know the advantages of desires, we also want to know how to make our dreams come true. Obviously, also this is a topic which is difficult to put in just one single post. But I will share with you my basics thoughts and some of my experiences.
Ok, let’s get started! You’re probably not surprised to hear that one of the most essential parts of manifestation is rooted in consciousness. If we want our desires to be fulfilled and have a positive effect on us, we need to be aware of what we desire, how we desire and why we desire.
What?
Many people think they know what they want. But if they are not living with awareness, this is oftentimes not the case. A common example is when a person seems to attract a lot of drama in his life. He might tell you how horrible he feels and how much he would want to lead a normal life, but deep down he actually needs and craves the situations his drama bring to him. And not because he enjoys the drama, but he needs to drama in order to fully understand what he really wants.
Unfortunately, most of us don’t understand this way of the universe to communicate with us. Instead of focusing on our true feelings, what is underneath all the drama, we only focus on the drama. Instead of focusing on what we want, we start focusing on what we don’t want. From a survival point of view this makes sense, but in order to manifest a wonderful life, it’s a burden.
In order to get a better idea of what it truly is you want in life and to stop being enslaved by your unconscious and fear-induced thoughts it’s so important to create more awareness via meditation, yoga and mindfulness in general. From there we start to understand our underlying (often limiting) beliefs. Once we get to understand what we really think, we will start to understand what we really want. This is the beginning to manifesting positive desires into your life.
Why?
This part is closely linked to previous part. In order to know whether a desire is seriously positive, we need to understand our underlying motivation for the desire. Wanting to be in a relationship, for example, seems to be a very positive desire. But in order to make it truly positive you need to understand your own underlying motivation for your desire. Do you want to be in a relationship because you feel lonely? Because you think you are undesirable if not? Or you think society will think so? Because you need someone to validate your worthiness? Or do you want to find someone with whom you can grow spiritually and emotionally? Someone to share your life with as long as both are happy within the relationship?
Make sure your desire comes forth from your true inner being and not from you ego. And if your ego dictates your desires, you can make it your desire to heal yourself and get in touch with your true inner being. Also in this case, healing comes about via consciousness and through practices such as meditation and yoga. Once you are clear what you really want, you can safely proceed to the next step.
How?
Trust in the universe
Truly knowing yourself and being conscious of your real desires are very important aspects for having positives desires. These are undoubtedly crucial prerequisites you couldn’t do without. There is one other aspect which is equally important: trust in the universe. If you consciously know what you want, but you don’t trust the universe (or any other higher power), you probably won’t get what you desire. When you lack trust, you are subconsciously always sending messages to the universe that you probably won’t get what you want.
Everyone who has seen “The Secret” or has heard of like minded films or books, will know what I mean. These theories have many opponents who label them as naive and unscientific. To me, the scientific value does not matter that much. My experiences are what matters most to me and in this post I just want to share with you what has worked for me. Since I have developed more trust in the universe, things have just “happened”. I know there are still many things I am subconsciously holding off from myself, simply because I didn’t get to the core of my inner being yet. But I know that once I am conscious and clear on a subject, the universe always grants me that which is best for me. And often times it happens in the most beautiful, unexpected ways which feel like the situations are guided and not forced.
My experience
This year, I witnessed again how I was guided into a specific situation which I had obviously manifested. For over a year, I had been saying that I really wanted to live in nature. I frequently went on holidays, not because I wanted to run away from home, but because I was running towards nature. At a certain point I was even thinking of moving a little bit outside of Amsterdam in a caravan, somewhere on a meadow. But I gave up on the idea. I just enjoyed whenever I was in nature and I knew that one day I was going to be in nature. But I didn’t want to control things anymore, especially not into something as suboptimal as living in a caravan on a Dutch meadow.
Then I visited my sister in Switzerland end of January. We went to Iseltwald, a small village along the Lake of Brienz, one of Switzerland’s most beautiful lakes, surrounded by mountains. I intensely enjoyed being there and wished I could live in such a place one day. Suddenly, I realized I actually had the freedom to come and live there! I already had eight years of experience in gastronomy, so finding a job for the summer season was no problem. Besides, being half German, I also speak German fluently.
I told my sister that very same day I really wanted to come and stay for a couple of months. She reminded me of her friend who was working in a hotel in Grindelwald, another magnificently beautiful village in the midst of the mountains. My sister called her friend that day and not even two weeks later I had the job and two months later I started working. I can’t really describe how it all went, but it all went very quickly. My sisters friend (who had never met me before) even offered me to stay in her house for free. How much better could it have been?!
The months in Grindelwald were an amazing experience! Especially nature wise, I couldn’t have wished for more. Grindelwald is in the midst of the Jungfrau Region which is one of the best known Swiss hiking regions. I was thinking of a caravan in the meadows and than I got this!
The view from my balcony
Let go of attachments
Receiving guidance from the universe also entails giving up on attachments. If you are still overly attached to something, you still don’t trust 100%. It means you doubt the intelligence and benevolence of the universe and you would rather want to control the situation. Even if you think a certain desire is what you really want, the universe might still think of it otherwise. It might as well have other ways of bringing these things into your life. Give the universe the chance to work on it’s own way and let go of attachments. Even if it looks like everything is going wrong, this might be the universe’s way of bringing about your desires. Those negative emotions are often the ones we can learn from most as they point us in the direction of what it is we truly desire. So, receive also these situations with gratitude and start asking yourself what the life lesson of it might be.
But if I should stop controlling, does that mean I shouldn’t take any action anymore?
No, you should definitely stay active and do the things which bring you closer to your goal. More important is the way in which you do those things. Are you holding on to something? Do you get stressed by the thought of your desire? Does is demotivate you? In that case you might indeed try not to act on your desire. Try to focus on something which is emotionally not so loaded and makes you feel at ease. Go back to the first steps and try to understand what it is exactly that you want and why you want it. Once you are in touch with your higher self, you will automatically be more at ease. With a relaxed soul it’s easier to take action. You will be less driven by fear and will want to control less. Your energy will be focused on the action itself (and not on the fear) which will give you hope and positive feelings.
Let go of negativity
Oftentimes, when we are too attached to a certain outcome, we also focus a lot on the negative outcome. We are attached because we are afraid of what might come when we don’t get what we want. It’s important to know that the universe will give you whatever you pay attention to. Whether it’s positive or negative. The universe can’t distinguish between positive or negative. All it knows is the attention you give to it. Imagine you desperately want to have a specific job, because you are afraid of being poor. Most probably your fear is going to be stronger than your desire and all the universe will hear is: “poor”. And it will make you poor. This does not necessarily mean you have to be poor in financial terms, you might as well end up poor in social contacts, energy or lust for life.
Watch your words!
Generally, you should be aware of what you desire. The universe can take things pretty literally. Before my last relationship I was single for quite some time. I didn’t want to be in a relationship and was happy being single. But after three years, I slowly started to befriend the idea of being in a relationship again. I realized how much I had learned from my last relationship and I noticed that my spiritual development had stagnated. There were barely any triggers anymore. So, I slowly started to wish for a relationship in order to grow on a spiritual level. A year later, my wish was granted. And indeed the relationship made me grow a lot on the spiritual level, but not because my partner was an angel who walked the spiritual path together with me. To the contrary. He triggered me to a point where I had to grow spiritually in order to not succumb to the pain. This was not what I had originally meant when I said I wanted to grow spiritually within a relationship. But obviously, this is what I had needed and I am more than grateful for the entire experience!
In the end, all our experiences are part of our learning process. Sometimes these experiences appear to be a seemingly never ending journey. And that’s good, because in the end the journey is the reward! The more aware and conscious you are of yourself, the more you embrace the negative parts of it, the more positive and amazing things will happen on this never ending journey.