Is manifesting for love a load of rubbish?

Manifesting, and the law of attraction, sometime get a really bad wrap. They also gets raved about in glowing terms of magical possibility! How do you feel about them – especially when it comes to attracting love?

I use and teach manifestation tools available to us with great success, so it was a surprise to me to realise that a fair few very established people in the personal growth world find these tools to be unhelpful at best, and at worst even dangerous!

In today’s blog, I want to address that some people feel this way and they liken it to spiritual bypassing. (Spiritual bypassing is a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks" - Wikipedia.)

For me, seeing it as dangerous is not exactly dangerous, but a waste of an incredible tool. I feel sad about the beauty of manifestation being lost for people if they see it in this way! I do understand why, though – some people feel that what manifestation means, is to think carefully about what you want, or pop it on a vision board and voila, it comes true! This is only a small part of the potency of how manifesting practices can help our lives.

Binary thinking –  seeing things as good and bad, us and them gets us to a difficult place. I often look for the gold in things, rather than seeking to tear things apart. There are of course organisations, schools of thought and so on in the world I think we’d be better off without, but I default to finding value and understanding nuances rather than claiming things as either valuable or rubbish.

Manifesting, and other spiritual practices are sometimes described as being ‘woo woo’ (spiritual mumbo-jumbo). Another term I have heard people use in a negative way is ‘magical thinking’. However – even ordinary things can be quite miraculous. Thirty years ago we would never have believed that we would be talking to someone on a video call from a different country and enjoying their voices and connecting with loved ones from a far as we do these days. The paradigm leading up to this point said that things that we can see, touch and feel are real, however things that we can’t see and touch are not real.

I love how they described this in the podcast called the Telepathy Tapes(I think it was in episode 7 or 8). Find the link for the series here: https://thetelepathytapes.com/podcast  It’s about non-verbal people using telepathy with friends, family and each other. I have been in tears several times with the absolute beauty and magic of what they describe. So amazing but to my ears, it’s an ‘of course this is the case’ moment.

While some in the personal development world are against manifesting as a concept or practice, there are many people who most definitely do teach and use manifesting in their own lives. Two of my favourite people in this space are Denise Duffield-Thomas and Christy Whitman. Check them out here: https://www.denisedt.com/

https://www.christyandthecouncil.com/

I love how Denise Duffield-Thomas states that the action that you take when you are manifesting something is 100% part of the manifestation. We have to show our commitment to the Universe by stepping into aligned action! She says that the action of bringing in money for a business owner – the actual, real world action of manifesting - is marketing.

People who claim manifesting is rubbish I am sure have loving intentions, but they may not realise that the simple ideas around manifesting are only half the story. We’ve got to add the commitment piece, the action piece and also coming into a resonance with what we want.

While I’m not oppose to basic form of manifesting being possible - I certainly don’t teach that or do that in my own life either. Recently, I heard a wonderful quote which is to ‘Trust in God, but tie your up camel’. This speaks exactly to how I feel about manifesting for love. When I work with people, we get totally clear on what the client wants in love, and then we set about also doing optimising their mindset, clearing unhelpful thoughts and feelings and the real- world action! All of this in culminations gets them the results they want.

I had a swinging chair on my vision board for a couple of years but it didn’t come to pass. I didn’t put a lot of energy into having it, either - I didn’t imagine myself on the swing, or go to shops to look at swings. I didn’t put money aside specifically. And, when it hadn't rocked up in the first, or even the 2nd year of having it on my vision board, I knew that it was still percolating in the background for if and when I came into resonance with it materialising in my world! I did end up being offered a lovely chair swing that somebody didn’t need any more – so fun to see how the swing had been provided to me! However – this form of manifesting is the exception, not the rule. Wouldn’t it be fun if we didn’t need to do the inner work, or put real world action into place, you really just put it out there energetically and wistfully hope it comes to you?

Another example was when our old flat got too small for us. I wanted to rent here in Noosa, Australia. I put in the real world action and mindset work. We started to save at a different level so we could pay higher rent, I went to open houses and looked at different places. I imagined what it would feel like to be in a street full of friends and families all around us so we could really be part of the community – and did some EFT Tapping about the sadness of leaving the wonderful space we already had. We ended up finding the exact house that provided all of that. That experience was so confirming around manifestation as I did the work to help us get there!

How to use manifesting for love

Step one

Clear negative thoughts and feelings about love that you carry around with you. I don’t mean that this kind of thought is negative: ‘it was so hard that my ex suffered from alcoholism, I am choosing something different this time’. That’s not a negative thought, it is discernment - tuning into what was hard for you and what you’d like to be different. However ‘love is always hard work’ is a thought you may not want to keep.

Clearing out our system first is essential – this is why I use EFT Tapping to help people clear limiting beliefs, thoughts and stuck energy which are not serving them. When we manifest from a clear channel it makes us so much more positive, proactive and regularly looking for the evidence to prove that what we want is possible. Doing this makes sure we are not bypassing the need to work on the inner aspects of ourselves that can inform our outer reality. Refer to my blog about clearing and inner work here: https://www.welcomelastinglove.com/blog/enter-the-shadow-valley

Step 2

Then, write down what you want in love – answering these questions will help. Who do you want to be in a relationship? What do you want to give? What do you want to receive? What do you want to feel? What kind of person do you want to spend your days with? What kind of lifestyle do you want to enjoy together? Check out this blog to help you create your vision: https://www.welcomelastinglove.com/blog/the-magic-of-a-good-vision

Step 3

Get your intentions for love in your life as a visual on paper. This can be a vision board, collage or a couple of images. People do make digital ones and I recommend that as an add on to a paper one, but I don’t recommend it instead of paper. There’s something potent about a 3D representation of what we want. When we do not have a defined goal, we are less likely to progress — just like a race with no finish line. Psychological theory talks about this, saying that this happens because goals act as a direction system for effort and attention — they focus behaviour and persistence. (Info from Wriek .com) A vision board is a defined goal, especially when paired with your written intentions from step 2 – and it helps you take more real world action toward having the partner you want to have!

Step 4

After that, I get people to look at their intentions and/or vision boards regularly and feel the energy of what and who they want to attract. Your vision board is about becoming an energetic and vibrational match for what you want.

Step 5

You don’t simply wish and hope for that person to rock up. You consciously start to take action in the world. You might start to use a dating app – you might go to singles events, or tell friends and family that you want to meet someone. But you certainly don’t hang around hoping that the person knocks on your door. Take the real world actions because not only do they logically and practically get you there, actions helps us grow, so they are part of the inner work required that will help you get where you are going.

Then, go back to step one. These steps are circular, so circle through them regularly. Clear more, deepen your intentions, add or subtract from your vision board, take your actions.

If you want to make manifesting for love not rubbish, and it turn into a powerful practice for living the life you want to live, then follow the steps that I’ve outlined here today. You are totally worth it beautiful being – you are worth this effort, this commitment. You’re worth this loving partner that you’re choosing to welcome into your world.

Please email me how it goes on shannon@welcomelastinglove.com. I would love to hear how you journey with this. Remember to let your love shine!