Trauma can be encoded, even in the context of “perfect” parenting. The Still Face Experiment highlights how even a short moment of absent expression on the face of a parental figure can leave a child distressed.
You could be the greatest parent of all time. If a timely opportunity is not provided for the child to return to positive, comfortable interaction with the parent, the formation of a traumatic experience can follow.
With only a partially developed brain, a child can easily blame themselves for this, potentially holding this belief for a lifetime.
This can colour our relationships with ourselves and others, if not addressed in therapy, or meditation, for example.
Such interpretations function just like affirmations. However, they often contain a polar opposite message to the abundance, or confidence, or love you might choose.
So, whether or not you have obtained traumatic experiences, you may have a build-up of existing negative manifestations.
You may, or may not be completely aware of them, or any resistance they present to the manifestation process.
It may be that this can be overcome through committed habituation of affirmations and foresense alone. On the other hand it may be that, significant emotional, or behavioural resistance arises and blocks you from effective manifesting.
In which case, you may choose to seek professional help in working through that resistance. The key here is not to try to push these feelings and interpretations about yourself and others away. As Carl Jung said “What you resist not only persists but will grow in size“.
The key is to learn to remain with them with calmness, to be curious and responsive, not reactive.
When you get help to overcome negative manifestation, you can reduce the fear enough to release its power and control over you, leaving you free to manifest as you would choose.
Do You Want to Start Manifesting?
Check out my free content, a great way to get started with manifesting:
Do You Want Help to Work Through Something That May be Blocking Your Positive Manifesting?
Do you believe you may have acquired negative manifestations that get in the way of the life you would choose? You can learn more about my approach to Hypnotherapy and how it could help you here.
Do You Want to Take the Conversation Further – Ask Questions and Contribute Answers?
In manifestation we use imagination and emotion to become as familiar with a speculated version of reality as possible. We imagine from the assumption that it has already happened, or well on the way to fruition. This imaginative process is repeated daily until it manifests as a new habitual experience, or a new event occurring.
This repetition and layering of a speculated version of reality, often referred to as “visualisation”, is considered fundamental to manifestation. If it is overlooked it is easy to see how one might mistakenly conclude that manifestation does not work.
Science can’t explain why manifestation comes about, whether the law of attraction, quantum theory, an unstoppable mindset, or something else. While science manifests an answer to that question, there is nothing to stop us exploring and taking full advantage of this phenomenon.
Manifestation Requires Visualisation and Deliberate Action
It should be highlighted, of course, that there are no athletes who only use mental manifestation, without physical training. Similarly, you can’t expect your a million pounds, or irresistible charm to fall into your lap with visualisation alone. Manifestation synergises visualisation with deliberate action steps.
“Visualisation” is “Foresense”
Rather than “visualisation”, however, I prefer to use the term “foresense”, since effective visualisation is not only visual. It involves a richly multi-sensory blend, including that which we can see, hear, feel, taste and smell, that brings a speculated reality to life.
Affirmations Describe What you Manifest
Affirmations work hand in hand with foresense. They are emotionally supportive and encouraging declarations that bring new possibilities into being. Affirmations can be declared and repeated as thoughts, or out loud. They are an important part of manifesting because they can conjure foresense, or vice versa, because they become internalised as thoughts, then beliefs and because they can override limiting thoughts and beliefs.
Manifestation is not Magic, but it Can and Should Feel Magical
This is an oversimplification, but let’s say you want a Tesla car. In all likelihood you’re not going to wake up tomorrow morning with the keys to your Tesla in your hand. Would you really want that, even if it were possible? If you have manifested a Tesla, beneath that would be your commitment to believing in the process and yourself. It will be because you have put in the action steps and made waves in the world. You will have flexed your internal locus of control. You will have demonstrated to yourself that you are capable, significant and resourceful. These qualities are worth a thousand Teslas!
If this is what you get, manifestation is working for you. If you miss these cues and your Tesla leaves you feeling empty and unfulfilled, you may be chasing your tail. You may be unaware of your innate and abundant value.
There is nothing wrong with believing the universe is on your side, with a little serendipity, and that when you take yourself and the world on, the universe steps in to lend a helping hand. Think of this as a reward for your input.
Whatever you believe, manifestation works within your understanding of the universe.
If however you know you are prone to delusional thinking. If your understanding of the universe diverges wildly from the reasoned consensus of human thought, I recommend you only engage in manifestation practices with the approval of a medical professional. Manifestation should be a practice that harmonises the relationship between the imagined, or interpreted world and shared physical reality.
What do you Really Want?
Will it give you what you think it will give you? Have you given it much thought? Many people don’t. If you were to perform a survey of all the people who own Teslas, I doubt you would find a significant correlation with fulfilment and life satisfaction.
If you obtain a Tesla (or if you become a millionaire, for example), does part of you feel like it could empower you, give you resourcefulness, significance, attention, approval, love, or contentment? Could it make you feel more worthwhile?
These qualities exist within, or between people. When you become familiar with these qualities within you (spoiler alert: you already have them!), you may simultaneously realise that you are capable of obtaining way more than just a Tesla and your priorities may change completely.
The Importance of Emotion in Driving Manifestation
You will know when affirmations and foresense are working because you will feel it. The more you focus, the richer the sound of the affirmation, the greater the colour and motion of the foresense, the more likely you are to feel something.
This emotion is another important marker. This is the feeling that, when habituated, drives us forward in our deliberate action and helps us to identify opportunities in our environment that are conducive to our manifested outcomes.
The same parts of the brain are active during imagined inner experience and real external events. When these interacting affirmations, foresense and emotions are at play, our bodies are more likely to naturally output behaviours and modes of operating that bring about our manifested outcomes. This reduces the need to push ourselves to think, or feel the right way, or do the right thing, for example.
Understanding Resistance to Manifestation Techniques?
Any internal experience of trauma that may have been picked up during the course of life can replay and loop itself during a variety of different external encounters where it is not needed and not helpful.
The Still Face Experiment highlights how even a short moment of absent expression on the face of a parental figure can leave a child distressed. You could be the greatest parent of all time. If a timely opportunity is not provided for them to return to positive, comfortable interaction with the parent, the formation of a traumatic experience can follow. An event such as this may be generalised by the child as not feeling they are good enough, or not lovable, as caregivers, or people in general being unavailable. This kind of interpretation may be all an infant is capable of, that seems to them like the best way to safeguard their survival for the proceeding moments, or days. These manifested rules can persist throughout a lifetime and colour our relationships with ourselves and others, if not addressed in therapy, or meditation, for example.
Trauma Can Function Like Negative Manifestation
Such interpretations function just like affirmations. However, they often contain a polar opposite message to the abundance, or confidence, or love you might choose. So, whether or not you have obtained traumatic experiences, you may have a build-up of existing negative manifestations. You may, or may not be completely aware of them, or any resistance they present to the manifestation process.
It may be that this can be overcome through committed habituation of affirmations and foresense alone. On the other hand it may be that, significant emotional, or behavioural resistance arises, blocks you from effective manifesting. In which case, you may choose to seek professional help in working through that resistance. The key here is not to try to push these feelings and interpretations about yourself and others away. As Carl Jung said “What you resist not only persists but will grow in size”. The key is to learn to remain with them with calmness, to be curious and responsive, not reactive.
This kind of assistance can reduce the fear enough to release its power and control over you, leaving you free to manifest as you would choose.
I Want to Start Manifesting!
Check out my free content, a great way to get started with manifesting:
I Want Help to Work Through Something That May be Blocking my Positive Manifesting
Do you believe you may have acquired negative manifestations that get in the way of the life you would choose? You can learn more about my approach to Hypnotherapy and how it could help you here.
In this article I aim to illuminate the connection between life-purpose, reduced anxiety and depression, with the wonderful tool that is hypnotherapy, as a means to facilitate this journey through life.
What does it mean to live a purposeful life?
The basis of living with purpose involves having a good understanding of yourself; your passions, your values and aspirations. You can then apply this understanding in consciously choosing to take action, in congruence with these elements and to the benefit of others (service). This action then results in the fulfilment and satisfaction of others and yourself. Purpose is an inter/intrapersonal process of self-understanding, conscious choice, service of others and fulfilment.
Living a purposeful life may, or may not elevate your social status and material success. Either way, status and materialism are not defining characteristics of life-purpose.
How does life-purpose contribute to life meaning?
Kim et al., 2021, Bronk et al., 2009, Park et al., 2010 have linked an underlying sense of purpose to improved physical health and overall life statisfaction. Purpose provides a path to follow and a way to navigate life. When things inevitably don’t go according to plan, you make mistakes and experience setbacks. Your purpose can help you to reorient yourself and get back on track. Your purposeful life can only truly come into fruition when your affirmative action demonstrates it. Purpose becomes effective only when tested through real life experiences that confirm its claims (Park et al., 2010).
How can living your life-purpose help you overcome anxiety?
Anxiety often stems from feelings of being overwhelmed by future possibilities. You cannot control the future completely. Indeed the majority of life is uncontrollable, but a sense of purpose can build in expectations that shine a spotlight on your capabilities, without denying the existence of uncertainties. This is more than enough to empower you and satisfy your need to feel in control. Having a sense of control can indicate that you are moving beyond your anxiety. Research has shown that those who lead purposeful lives are less likely to suffer symptoms of anxiety. The application of life purpose boosts wellbeing and enriches life for people with social anxiety disorder (Kashdan and McKnight 2013). A sense of life purpose helps reduce the development of anxiety and calms responses to emotional stress (Ishida and Okado, 2006).
How can living a purposeful life help you overcome depression?
Feeling purposeful can help us feel more involved and connected with the world and less helpless and depressed. Living your purpose provides a structure to call into action your skills and capabilities for the benefit of others. Involvement and connection with others and the world is an integral part of this process. According to Schaefer et al. (2013), people with a strong sense of purpose in life may be more highly protected against depression.
How can hypnotherapy help you create a purposeful life?
Hypnotherapy increases metacognition, including; gaining a greater awareness of strengths and greater flexibility of cognition. This aids inner vision and stimulating change (Drigas et al., 2022), fundamental aspects in creating a purposeful life. In hypnotherapy, you and your therapist work together to diminish your critical self-talk and unite your conscious and unconscious minds more closely. This can open up a channel for communication, often difficult to achieve in normal waking states. Unfettered by limiting beliefs, it becomes easier to illuminate your personal values and passions, as well as the capabilities you have that add value to the lives of others.
Conclusion
To live your life purposefully is to bring self-understanding, conscious choice, service of others and fulfilment together. Purpose provides stability that guides you in gathering evidence that your intentions are playing out in real life. This evidence then strengthens your purpose, which makes life more satisfying. It empowers you with a sense of control about your future, which can settle anxieties that you may have had. Purpose by its very nature connects you meaningfully with others and the world, which can make it harder to be depressed. Hypnotherapy is well situated to help clear your cognitive and emotional clutter, freeing you to clearly identify your values, passions and capabilities and set them in motion.
