To ask if you believe in manifestation?

[Thewal]

I watched ‘The Secret’ today. It seemed to be mostly waffle with some random quotes thrown in, but from what I can gather it suggests that positive thinking and asking for things from the universe is what leads to ‘success’ and essentially getting what you want.

So I’d love to hear if you have ever manifested something into reality? How did you do it and how long did it take? Do you believe in it? And does the banishing of negative thoughts ever stress you out?

I just want to know what day to day life is like for people who practice this and if people have actually had something happen they put down to it?

If you are talking about the wonders of manifestation in relation to people other than yourself (as you did when you compared yourself to your friend) or make sweeping statements like “you don’t need to live your life as a victim to your circumstances” - then you need to be aware of the implications you are making.

You didn’t mean disabled people? Why? Are we not people? Not part of the ‘you’? Children also aren’t part of the “you”? So who DO you mean when you say that?

Because if your theory only works when you take out all the people who are heavily affected and disadvantaged by the structure of society, then you are basically saying “the people with the easiest lives will be able to get the best out of life”, which is obviously true and nothing to do with positive thinking.

Does positive thinking and goal-setting etc work? Absolutely it does.

Does it have anything to do with the "universe" rewarding you or any bollocks like that? Of course it fucking doesn't.

if you decide what you want in life and start thinking about it and talking about it then even common sense can explain that you are on the path to your goal. My cleaners son wants to go to uni to be an engineer - he will be the first in her family to go to uni. Because I know about it if I see uni engineering talks I send her the links. Or if I have some spare gardening work I offer it to him so he can save for uni. She has factored into her housing plans that her son is going to uni. He is studying harder because he knows what grades he needs to go to uni.
if you set yourself a goal and speak out loud about it then others around you will help you

This has happened to me so many times! I once went through a period where very specific amounts of money landed in my lap exactly when I needed them.

But I still don’t believe in manifestation.

So when bad things happen to people who believe in manifestation do they also think it's due to their own mindset? Like a parent dying, diagnosis of a serious illness, a partner having an affair or leaving you? Your child being bullied at school or you being defrauded? That's all due to having a bad attitude?

Yep- hard work, opportunity, support, planning, good luck, natural ability, self esteem and optimism being shown here. Hopefully it will work out for him!

I do in the sense that it’s a positive thinking with a plan of action, I don’t in the sense you can send the universe a wish list and sit back and wait for the goodies to roll in.

@Gidrich are you disabled yourself? If you are independent living and thinking, then yes it definitely applies to you.

My dc was born with a birth defect that will affect their whole life. Its not their fault. Or mine. But we can choose how we view it.
I made a very concious decision very early on to embrace the disfigurement as is and never give them the identity of a victim. Because victimhood takes away our power.

Some fifficult circumstances are lessons for us. Its up to us how we view our obstacles. Everyone faces them. Everything is not 'manifested'. Some things just are.

I saw a documentary recently about a lady who became paralysed with the locked-in syndrome in her 30s or 40s. She has been around the world, with the biggest smile on her face. Sitting in a wheelchair, communicating through eye-movement.

If she has true locked in syndrome then she can not have a big smile on her face.

So you are not actually talking about manifesting, you are talking about the attitude different people take to their own personal situations, which is a different discussion altogether.

I disagree with you in both discussions- I cannot manifest myself out of my physical disability and illness, and acknowledging that I am limited by (and therefore a victim of) said illness and disability does not remove any of my ‘power’.

I fully accept myself as I am (unable to walk/work etc) and make the best of it, which is all anyone can do.

I have no idea what you mean by independent living and thinking… are you saying that only some people are at the correct level of disabled for manifestation? Who gets to decide that?!

@Linning This may seem a strange question, but bear with...are you good-looking?

(Sorry, I quoted your post but it hasn't appeared)

People who peddle or believe in this nonsense are obviously going to say that manifesting things like some dried flowers or a new coffee machine doesn't count, because it's too obvious that this is a case of either you go and buy one or you don't get one, so it makes the idea of manifesting look silly (which it is). It has to be something where you'll be able to somehow attribute something that happened through your own efforts or through complete coincidence to having been delivered by 'the universe'.

"But what I don’t get is, if I manifest say, a new house plant, do I go out and buy one and that is the manifestation successful?"

Let's get a bit more adventurous. A new big house would be great for me. That would mean an increased salary so more work.
I shall start manifesting these steps. Off to research how...

Yes! It’s the same thing that the church uses when people prey for safety/water/not to have cancer/to win the lottery etc and it doesn’t come- you are praying for the wrong things, you should only pray for Gods will to be done and accept whatever happens as being delivered by the divine, not through anything you have done.

No, personally I think bad things are part of life. We all have our lot, some are born with a rougher hands, some have a happy
childhood but miserable marriage, some have everything but a poor health.

The bad will always exist, irrelevant of manifesting or not. But I think how you deal or cope (or don’t with) the bad and your mindset will drastically impact how your life turns out.

I’ll take my brother who is a year younger than me as an example, because we therefore have the exact same childhood (even though he was a little bit more sheltered and protected from our reality for being younger and also frankly being the favorite) but yet, he has let every little negative thing impact him in a way that meant if he ever found himself in a hole he would actually dig a deeper hole for himself , and then moan about how unfair it was and resent the universe and everybody for the fact that some people are happier than him and have more than him. He literally always expected other people to do the work of pulling him out of the hole on the basis that they hadn’t gone through as much hardship as him etc…

Fast forward almost three decades and we have completely different lives, he is the opposite of me, has never hold a job for more than 2 months, got kicked out of every establishment growing up and even managed to get kicked out of the army. He didn’t leave home until he was 26 (because of no work and no ambition) and currently living off other people. I honestly don’t think any of his goals have ever happened, and to me that’s 100% because of his attitude to life and mindset. He could have made a lot of things happen with the right attitude by accepting that the bad comes with life and and that having gone through bad stuff doesn’t mean that good thing can’t happen and understanding that good things do take work and dedication even if you manifest.

When I was heavily depressed due to a traumatic childhood, I was letting people abuse me or taking advantage of me. Some of my abuse I couldn’t control but other happened because I had been made to believe abuse was tolerable and that clearly I must deserve it somehow and so I accepted things I shouldn’t have accepted and knew I shouldn’t accept. When I shifted my mindset and created (healthier) boundaries based on my new mindset, a lot of things changed, and a lot of the abuse and taking advantage stopped, because I stopped letting it happen. Again, it doesn’t mean people are responsible for their abuse. But if someone is an abusive marriage and they patiently wait for the abuser to die they will likely die first waiting for it to happen (though some might be lucky), but if they start thinking “that’s completely unacceptable” and “I don’t deserve to be treated like this” and act accordingly I am pretty positive a lot of things would change for them, they would likely start taking steps they won’t ever take if they think they don’t deserve better or if they mentally undermine their abuse.

There is a reason why doctors say that in Cancer treatment the mindset can do a lot. A positive mindset won’t cure you, obviously, but it will likely make treatment more bearable, it might carry you body through things that would feel impossible to go through if all you feel is despair and I do believe it gives you a better fighting chance. I mean there is a reason also why medical staff don’t give you bad news while you are actively fighting for your life. If they thought it could have 0% impact on the outcome, they would likely tell you that your kids died in the car crash you just had even if you too are in critical condition but they don’t and I am pretty sure it’s because in that moment thinking your kids are alive might be the one thing that make you hold on a tiny bit tighter to life.

Whether that’s true or not we will never know, but for me it’s simple. bad things will happen to all of us and some have a worse hand to deal with than others but your mindset can make it better or worse. It doesn’t mean your mindset can or will change your life or cure you, but I do think it can give you a perspective that might lead to better opportunities or options and to a potential way out, and if not can bring you peace through the bad stuff.

@Gidrich We are talking about manifestation, which is just one concept of spirituality in general. The way the film secret portrays it is very shallow.
If you dont believe in anything that you cant perceive with your own eyes, then the whole conversation just remains shallow. Its all connected.

This. I think it 'works' in the sense that the things you 'ask the universe for' are things that you're proactively trying to make happen, so I think it's the fact that you're proactively looking for a new job that makes that come about rather than the universe just giving it to you. So I don't think you can manifest the things that are completely out of your control like you can't just manifest winning the lottery and it happening. Or things that (probably ) are impossible like a shark with lasers on its head....

It works but not in the way most people think it does.

It's not make a wish and think about it constantly but take zero action towards that thing. That's what most people think it is.

I do also think that there "are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our imagination" but I don't go so far as to think you can manifest winning the lottery. I also obviously don't think that bad things like cancer or war zones are somehow 'deserved' or the fault of the people they happen to.

Well, I am a woman of color, I am also a lesbian (if that’s relevant).

So I would say I am not necessarily bad looking (likely overall average) but me being a woman of color means it’s quite a hard question to answer, because even if I am not objectively unattractive I am also very much not pretty in eye of many who would have a problem with my skin color, and I still think women of color, are overall seen as less trust-worthy or less professional than their white counterparts (not that I let that hold me back but I would assume that in the society we live in and the racism and homophobia still rampant , my looks are unlikely to provide me with much of a step up)

I don’t believe in manifesting but positive thinking and keeping a gratitude journal helped me no end.

While saying that on several occasions I have received money out of seemingly nowhere when I was really short but that was not a conscious manifestation.

I believe in many things I can’t see with my own eyes-£100,000 in cash, wind, tidal waves, the fact the world is round- the list is endless. I don’t however believe that the universe (which is a large group of different types of matter in various arrangements, not a mystical entity with an innate ability to give people things) will manifest people nice things if they will only think positively enough.

@Linning

You didn't have the same childhood as your brother.

You lived in the same house, went to the same school, had the same parents and ate the same meals.

But are you truly so lacking in imagination as to not understand how he could have had different formative experiences? Not anything earth shattered like bullies but just things like:

• parents who didn't understand his needs as well as they understood yours, and maybe his needs were not being met.

• dysthymia caused by chemical imbalance

• a 'friend' who was actually subtly undermining

• a teacher or someone who said something snide which stuck, like "you're never going to get out of bottom set." and he believed it.

Obviously those are random examples. There are hundreds of other formative experiences which could have given him a negative worldview. And a judgemental sister isn't helping, I'm sure.

And you've clarified that he was a POC. Boys who are POC often have racist incidents as core memories.

But no. It's because he manifests negativity that he's not an amazing star like you.

I'm not saying you didn't have negative experiences as a gay POC person, but for various reasons, you did not allow that to destroy your self-esteem.

@Linning you say you had the exact same childhood then immediately point out it wasn’t the same:

I’ll take my brother who is a year younger than me as an example, because we therefore have the exact same childhood (even though he was a little bit more sheltered and protected from our reality for being younger and also frankly being the favorite) but yet, he has let every little negative thing impact him in a way that meant if he ever found himself in a hole he would actually dig a deeper hole for himself , and then moan about how unfair it was and resent the universe and everybody for the fact that some people are happier than him and have more than him. He literally always expected other people to do the work of pulling him out of the hole on the basis that they hadn’t gone through as much hardship as him etc…”

Clearly your experience growing up was not his. No two children experience their parents and family in the same way- for example you each had one sibling but you had a younger brother and he an older sister- the implication of those two things are different. You were a daughter, he a son- that affects how your parents behave towards you, you were the first born- that can be an advantage or a disadvantage over other siblings depending on the family dynamics and parenting. He might be stunningly good looking and you plain, that affects parenting, you might have been a good eater and sleeper as a baby whereas he cried and vomited a lot- everything affects how our parents respond to us. It is never exactly the same.

We are all the product of our own individual experiences. He might be unreliable/negative/lazy/grumpy etc, and he might have an easier time if he changed some of those things- but that isn’t an issue of manifestation from the universe, it’s a matter of circumstance and personality.

There's a couple of billion people living on less than $1/day. Maybe we can just teach them about manifesting a hot meal and stick some pictures on a board, and we can end world hunger!