It is important to start out with effective affirmations, so they support and charge your manifestation work, rather than inhibit it.
What Are Affirmations?
Affirmations are declarations. We are stating observations about ourselves, others and the world. They do not describe how we would choose for ourselves and the world to be, they describe ourselves and the world as already being how we would choose them to be!
This is a subtle, yet important distinction.
Two, or More, ‘Already Trues’
We may need to hold two paradoxical observations in our consciousness simultaneously.
For example, we may at first need to hold the following two truths and open our minds enough to see them both as simultaneously true:
“I feel insecure, anxious and frightened by social situations”
“I feel secure, confident and delighted in social situations”
If we deny the negative truth and pretend only the positive truth is true, the one we deny (or resist) can become more persistent.
We do not always consider the possibility of having two (or more) selves. Two or more realities and truths
Even for someone who has objectively high social anxiety, it is very rare to be anxious in every single social situation, with all people. There are nearly always exceptions, where we feel secure and confident. So for most people, there are already two, or more already trues. The difference is that these exceptions may not have been part of the story we tell others and ourselves.
Create your affirmations intuitively. Ask yourself what would really bring you fulfilment.
Design it to help you feel something you want to feel (“acceptance”, “fulfilment”, “gratitude”, “love”, for example). If the affirmations are what you enter into the satnav, the emotions are the fuel that gets you there.
Design it so that it sparks your emotion and imagination to see, hear and feel yourself having accomplished it
Design it so that what you affirm can be seen as true every day that you affirm it, as well as the day that you have accomplished it. Are you already a millionaire? If not, would you affirm, that: “you are a millionaire”, or “you have the abundant mindset of a millionaire”?
Speak in the present tense (“you accept”, rather than “you will accept”). You are creating the conditions of your desired outcome here and now.
Refer to yourself in the second person, as “you”, not “I” (“you joyfully help others live fulfilled lives”, rather than “I joyfully help others live fulfilled lives”). Imagine telling yourself “I love me” and see how it feels. Now imagine someone else telling you “I love you”. Which is likely to have more impact? We tend to believe and take seriously positive messages from others over ourselves.
Keep it simple. Aim for somewhere between 1 and 25 words. As you become more adept at the manifesting process you can try adding more complexity and see how it works for you.
Imperfect affirmations are perfect! Just get going with something that is good enough. If there are improvements to make they will come to you as you progress.
Begin Crafting Your Affirmation
Here is an affirmation that works for me. If you are unsure where to begin, you can take this and make it your own:
“You joyfully help others live fulfilling and satisfying lives”.
“You graciously accept the abundance that, hence, cascades into and flows through your life”.
Put some initial ideas for your affirmation in the chat now.
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?
If what you are getting from life is not really doing it for you, you may not be clear about what you really want.
What Will Having That do for You?
There’s nothing wrong with material wealth. If you offered me a million pounds, with no strings attached, I would take it.
What do you imagine having millions would do for you?
Bring you status?
Bring you security?
Bring you freedom?
Where do these qualities exist and how will you know when you have acquired them?
Free chick image, public domain animal CC0 photo. More: View public domain image source here
Can status come as a result of making millions? Can millions come as a result of your status?
How about security and freedom? How do they relate to making millions?
Which is More Valuable, The Resource, or the Resourcefulness?
Let’s say you want to manifest a fancy car. Are you going to just wake up tomorrow morning with the key in your hand? (A)
How much would you appreciate it, even if it were likely?And if you had invested a great deal of yourself into manifesting that car? How much appreciation would you have? (B)
Let’s say you manifested this car through scenario B:
What would you have invested of yourself?
What would you have learned?
How would you have grown?
By combining deliberate action with manifesting, you could come out of it with three things that no one can take away: significance, capability and resourcefulness…
… and one thing that CAN be taken away: a fancy car!
The Harmony Between the Imagined And Shared Physical Reality
Manifestation should be a practice that harmonises the relationship between the imagined, or interpreted world and shared physical reality.
If one’s understanding of the universe diverges wildly from the reasoned consensus of human thought, I would recommend only engaging in manifestation practices with the approval of a medical professional.
Do You Want to Start Manifesting?
Check out my free content, a great way to get started with manifesting:
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.
