I believe in manifestation. I’m saying this right from the start, because I don’t want to give the impression that I regard this whole process as nonsense or just another spiritual fad. Quite the opposite. I’ve noticed many times in my life that it works. Where I disagree is with the way we often present it, as if all you need to do is ask for something very strongly, write it down on a piece of paper, spend a few minutes visualising it, and then wait for the universe to deliver it to you exactly as you ordered it.
For me, manifestation isn’t magic. It’s mainly a mindset. It’s the point at which what you’re asking for ceases to feel exotic, forbidden or impossible to you, and starts to become something you consider a natural part of your life.
If, for example, you spend ten minutes visualising financial abundance, but for the rest of the day you spend thinking that you don’t have enough, that nothing ever works out for you, that you’re lagging behind, that opportunities never come your way and that things are likely to stay that way, then you cannot expect those ten minutes to override the rest of your inner landscape.
However, this does not mean that we should suppress our negative thoughts. If you really do not have enough money, it is perfectly normal to think that you do not have enough money. If you’re afraid, you’ll have fearful thoughts. If you’re going through a tough time, you can’t force your mind to act as if everything is perfect, simply because you’re afraid of «ruining the manifestation».
That’s not positivity. It’s oppression.
Personal development, psychotherapy, self-reflection or whatever process each person chooses are not there to make every negative thought disappear. They are there to gradually begin to change the way we see ourselves, the choices we consider available to us, the things we put up with, and what we believe is normal for us to experience.
Manifestation isn’t just about beautiful things
This is a point that I consider very important and which we often avoid discussing. I believe that there is also a negative manifestation.
Not in the childish sense that if you think about something bad just once, it will happen. That would simply be yet another way of causing people anxiety. I’m talking about something deeper. About the way in which a long-held belief or a way of life begins to influence our decisions, the relationships we choose, the behaviours we tolerate, and the way we perceive the opportunities or risks around us.
In 2023, I experienced something that, for me, became one of the most harrowing examples of this process.
I was in a relationship where there were already very serious signs that something wasn’t right. There was excessive irritability, shouting over the slightest thing, objects being thrown, and gaslighting so intense that I often found myself doubting whether I was seeing what was happening in front of me correctly.
You know something isn’t right, but at the same time the other person has made you wonder if you’re overreacting. Whether it’s your fault. Whether «it wasn’t quite like that». Whether things aren’t as bad as you think they are.
One day, whilst crying, I prayed. And for me, prayer is also a form of manifestation, because at that moment you articulate an intention very clearly.
I said something along these lines:
«My God, if I’m not mistaken and this man really is an abuser, he’s made the abuse so obvious that I can see it.»
I hadn’t asked for something necessarily bad to happen to me. I had asked that I should no longer be able to question what was already happening.
A few days later, the Wi-Fi at home stopped working. I was asleep at the time and got up to help, calling the provider to see if there was a technical problem. Whilst I was speaking to the customer service representative, he was shouting, swearing and constantly criticising me because, in his opinion, I wasn’t communicating effectively enough and so they wouldn’t help us.
At one point, I couldn’t make myself understood any longer. I told the lady that I was grateful and that I would ring back another time, as there was far too much noise, and I hung up.
This made him even angrier.
As I was walking towards the bed to go back to sleep, he pushed me so hard that I ended up about two metres behind it. Luckily for me, there was a sofa there.
It might not exist.
And that was exactly the point at which, for me, any compromise with reality came to an end. In fact, the little cat I had at the time attacked him the moment he pushed me. And I know that animals understand what’s really going on much better than we do. If I’d been the villain in the story, wouldn’t it have attacked me?… I thought….
I told him we were splitting up and started packing my things into suitcases so I could leave. He locked the house, hid the key and took my mobile so that I couldn’t ring my parents for help.
When I managed to find my mobile again, I called the police and made it clear that my partner had locked me inside the house and wouldn’t let me leave.
On that day, the abuse did not arise because I brought it to light. The behaviours were already there, and the responsibility lay solely with the person who chose to act on them.
What had changed was something inside me.
I had asked for it to become impossible for me to continue doubting what I was seeing, and when that happened, I was ready enough to do something different.
The inside must be in harmony with the outside
This is perhaps the most important lesson I have learnt from manifestation.
It’s not enough just to want something. You have to be prepared, to some extent, for the consequences of getting it.
If you’re looking for a different life, you must also be prepared, deep down, to make different choices when the time comes. If you’re looking for a better relationship, you may first need to recognise that the one you have now cannot become what you want it to be. If you’re looking for freedom, you may need to walk away from something you’ve been afraid to let go of until now.
And this is where the problem of being fixated on a particular outcome lies.
If my own manifestation at the time had been «I absolutely want this relationship to work out», I would essentially have been asking another person to change. To stop getting angry, to stop behaving abusively, to become what I needed them to be.
But that wasn’t up to me.
There is free will. There are other people. There are external circumstances. Not every outcome is within our control, no matter how positive our mindset or how much we want it.
What depended on me was being able to see clearly. To believe what I was seeing. To stop giving more weight to someone else’s explanation than to my own experience, and finally to leave.
And if, on that day, I hadn’t already been mentally prepared to do it, I might have turned a blind eye yet again. I might have accepted yet another apology, yet another explanation, yet another attempt to make what happened seem like a minor incident.
That’s why I don’t believe that ’manifestation« means »I’m ordering this and it has to come to me exactly like that’. If you specifically ask for a brown Gucci bag and expect the universe to operate like a shop with a product code, you’ve probably missed the point.
Life can bring you the result in a way you hadn’t imagined, and sometimes that way isn’t even pleasant at first.
You might ask for more self-respect, and relationships in which you constantly had to belittle yourself might start to fall apart. Or you might seek abundance and first need to completely change the way you work, negotiate, charge for your services, or allow others to value your time.
You might long for a healthy relationship, and the first thing that happens is that you realise you need to walk away from the one you’re in.
Manifestation, then, is not a magic button, and the universe is not a delivery app. It is more of a process in which what you believe, what you consider normal and what you are willing to do eventually begin to align.
And that doesn’t mean that everything can be solved with a «positive mindset». There are environments that are not at all supportive, people who make their own choices, and circumstances beyond our control. Believing in manifestation should not lead us either to the illusion of absolute control or to blaming people every time something difficult happens to them.
For me, the crux of the matter lies elsewhere: in observing what you truly believe you are worth, what you have learnt to regard as normal, what reality you recreate every day through your choices and, above all, whether you’re ready to take action when a door appears before you that doesn’t look exactly like the one you’d imagined.
Why is it that sometimes your wish doesn’t come true in the way you expected?.
The change you needed is taking place, so that you can finally make different choices.
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