Wanting to bring something new into our lives is what creates and changes the world. We all do this constantly. When we state a clear intention, it ignites the living manifestation engine of the cosmos on our own behalf.
But it can be challenging to be conscious and intentional about what we want. It can even be hard to know what we want. And sometimes, even when I know what I want, I can feel a resistance to asking for it. It is as if some part of me doesn’t know that it is OK to reach big.
I saw a TED talk in which the speaker, a researcher into the effects of our own body language on ourselves, suggested going into the restroom before the job interview, or the presentation, and spending two minutes standing there with your head thrown back and your arms reaching up and out in a V shape, repeatedly saying enthusiastically, I AM _____ (your name)!
Try it! How do you feel? She said her research showed that this act alone can dramatically change the way you present yourself, and change the results. The point is not to “fake it until you make it,” but to fake it until you become it. Because, deep inside, you are it already.
Manifestation is really about letting who you really are to grow and bloom.
So–what stops the manifestation process from just being this simple?
We have unconscious thoughts and behaviors that confuse the universe (and the universe really only desires that we succeed in expressing our goodness).
When what I want isn’t manifesting in my life and I don’t know why, here are some specific things I have learned to watch for.
• Am I feeling it is hard to ask for what I want?
• Maybe what I am asking for is not what I really want…
• Am I asking for something someone else wants me to want?
• It is hard to receive, and that is muddling my asking.
• I am praying for a miracle…but… maybe there is something that I should be doing to make it possible for the miracle to appear ?
We tend to manifest what we already know because it is familiar.
Change tosses us into the unknown. Change can be scary!
Maybe we are thinking of what we need or want right now. But if we could see forward in our lives, we might realize that what would be useful later on is something quite different.
Or, we ask for way too little.
And try this one on…do you ever ask yourself, “Who am I to want that?”
Just the act of wanting itself can trigger our unconscious strategies that can close the doors to becoming what our embodied Self innately knows that we are.
When you want to manifest something new in your life, how you think about who you are is everything.
Like lots of people, I grew up in the shadow of this question. As a child I felt invisible. I felt that the people around me didn’t see or acknowledge who I really was. So to feel seen, I tried to be who other people wanted me to be. I grew up feeling that what I wanted might be less important than what others wanted.
Even the initial act of focusing on bringing something new into our lives can bring up this conflict inside. It might trigger an internal voice that says, “I can’t have what I want…I don’t deserve to get what I want…I won’t get what I want…This is too much for me to want…I am greedy for wanting this…” For many of us, it seems, it is just not OK to want, at all.
Go ahead, be Self-ish
We are taught not to be selfish. Many of our cultures and religions treat wanting something for yourself as close to a sin. Desiring something can trigger a feeling of unworthiness.
I can still find myself sometimes falling into old programming from childhood feelings of not being seen, not being acknowledged or encouraged to be who I feel myself to be inside.
The old stories from our past can create an eddy or vortex of dysfunctional mental and emotional energy, a kind of shape or field where someone can get caught without realizing it. It took me a looong time in my life to realize that my feeling of being invisible was not that other people didn’t see me, it was that I didn’t truly see myself. That was a huge revelation to me, and it changed everything.
For long time I have been exploring and learning to experience a conscious awareness of how to bring good change into my life.
I have learned that opening to something new means beginning to take on—now—the more fluid, expansive shape of who I will be when I have already learned how to embody what I want. I have found that it is really energizing and exciting to let myself go there in my imagination. Imagining being a “new me” helps me to make the choices that this me would make, and that shapes my life in new ways.
I like to think of “selfish” being spelled Self-ish. The capital S stands for the Soul. Each of us is the best nourisher of our own Soul. We are the best source of approval, the best noticer of ourselves. We are the inner land that our Soul most needs to connect to and stand on. When I can stand in this place of Soul Care, then I know how to choose what to allow and grow in my life.
Here is my equation:
Caring about myself = Soul-care = Self-ish.
So it is a good thing to be Self-ish!
I make the best choices for my life, all day long, when I am consciously caring for my Soul.
Manifestation is a deep form of soul care.
If you are interested learning more about all this, check out the 6 week class that I am teaching with my friend Freya Secrest. Maybe you have heard me in past teleclasses talking about the Incarnational Spirituality principles developed by David Spangler. Freya’s and my new class emerges from this spiritual work that both of us have done for many years. It is not a tapping class (though we might end up doing some tapping). The class won’t be right for everyone, but I wanted to let you know about it. It might be intriguing for you to check out.
On Thursday this week we are doing a free introductory teleclass to explore what the 6 week class is about:
FREE INTRODUCTORY TELECLASS
How to Shape a Life You Love:
The New Practice of Manifestation
September 3, 11 AM Pacific, US
