Lovely friends,
I’ve been working with manifestation, energy, Reiki, intuition, and Spirit for a very long time, and my ideas about manifesting have definitely changed over the years. I think I used to make it much more complicated than I do now. There were affirmations to say, things to visualize, energy to clear, signs to look for, and all kinds of rules about staying positive enough to attract what you wanted.
These days, I think manifestation can be much simpler.
I still believe our thoughts and energy matter. I believe intention matters. I believe we can work with Spirit, ask for guidance, change old beliefs, and become more open to opportunities that are aligned with us. I also believe we are human beings who have bad days, get scared, worry about money, become frustrated, and occasionally wake up in a terrible mood.
None of that disqualifies you from creating a good life.
That has become really important to me because I don’t like spiritual practices that make people afraid of their own thoughts. If you’re going through something difficult and you’re scared, pretending everything is wonderful isn’t going to make you feel better. I would rather acknowledge what I’m actually feeling, settle myself, and then decide what I want to do from there.
I’ve learned that my nervous system is a big part of this.
It’s very hard for me to feel creative, intuitive, hopeful, or open to possibilities when my whole body is bracing for something to go wrong. When I’m in that state, my world gets very small. I’m looking for the problem, preparing for the problem, and trying to control enough things that hopefully nothing else goes sideways.
So sometimes the first thing I do when I’m trying to shift my energy is incredibly ordinary. I breathe.
I put my feet on the floor. I slow down for a minute. I do Reiki on myself, meditate, go outside, or take a little time away from whatever has my brain spinning. I might ask my angels and spiritual team to come close and help me settle enough to see the situation clearly.
Once I’m calmer, I usually have more choices than I thought I did five minutes earlier.
That is one of the things I wish we talked about more when we talk about manifestation. Sometimes creating change starts with getting ourselves into a place where we can actually recognize an opportunity when one appears.
I also pay attention to what I’m carrying that doesn’t belong to me.
If you’re sensitive to other people, you probably know exactly what I mean. Someone you love is worried and suddenly you’re worried. Someone is having a terrible day and two hours later you realize you’ve been carrying their mood around with you. Then there are all the responsibilities, old stories, expectations, and fears we collect over the years.
I regularly have to pull my energy back and ask myself what is actually mine to deal with.
That doesn’t mean I stop caring about people. It means I remind myself that loving someone doesn’t require me to carry their emotional experience in my body. I can support somebody and still let them have their own journey.
Energetically, I like imagining anything I’m ready to release moving down through my body and into the Earth. I use grounding a lot in my own spiritual practice because it helps me come back into myself. I can release some of the mental clutter, reconnect with my body, and create a little room for something new.
And that room matters when we’re manifesting.
I think sometimes we become so focused on exactly how something has to happen that we miss other possibilities. We decide the opportunity has to come through one particular job, person, amount of money, date, or situation, and then we spend all our energy watching that one door.
I’ve gotten much more comfortable asking for the experience underneath the thing I think I want.
If I’m working with money, maybe what I really want is stability, freedom, enough to take care of my family, and room to enjoy my life. If I’m asking about work, maybe I want to feel useful, creative, appreciated, fairly paid, and interested in what I’m doing. If I’m thinking about relationships, maybe I want honesty, affection, mutual effort, safety, laughter, and somebody I genuinely enjoy sharing my life with.
That gives Spirit a lot more room to work with me.
I can still have goals. I absolutely have goals. I like knowing what I’m working toward, and anybody who knows me knows I love a list and the satisfaction of checking something off. But I’ve learned to leave a little room around the goal for something I haven’t thought of yet.
Sometimes the route changes.
Sometimes the thing I thought I wanted leads me to something else. Sometimes a delay gives me time to learn something I needed. Sometimes I get an opportunity I never would have known to ask for because I didn’t know it existed.
That’s where trust comes into manifestation for me.
I can say, “Spirit, this is what I would love to create. Help me move toward what is for my highest good, and help me recognize the opportunities when they appear.”
Then I have to participate.
That part is huge for me.
If I’m asking for a new job, I may need to apply for something. If I’m asking for more money, I may need to look at my finances, learn something new, make a call, raise a price, find another opportunity, or finally deal with something I’ve been avoiding. If I want to create something, at some point I have to stop thinking about it and actually start creating it.
I don’t expect Spirit to do my part for me.
What I do ask for is help seeing the next step. I ask for ideas, opportunities, resources, courage, good people, good timing, and those little intuitive nudges that make me think, “Hmm, maybe I should look into that.”
Then I follow up on them.
That is probably one of the biggest manifestation lessons I’ve learned. The next step is often very small and very practical. You don’t have to know how the entire thing is going to happen before you begin moving toward it.
I’ve had plenty of situations in my own life where I couldn’t see the whole path. I could only see what was directly in front of me. I took that step, learned something, and then another option became visible. Looking backward, the path makes sense. Standing at the beginning of it, there was no way I could have planned every piece.
That is what co-creating with Spirit means to me.
I bring my intention, choices, effort, intuition, and willingness to participate. I ask Spirit to help with the things I can’t see yet. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, life starts moving.
And sometimes manifestation includes rest.
I think we’ve glorified pushing ourselves way too much. There are times when the most useful thing I can do is stop for the day because I’m exhausted and everything looks terrible when I’m exhausted. A good night’s sleep can change my entire perspective on something I thought was an emergency at nine o’clock the night before.
Rest gives me room to hear myself again.
This is also why I created my 60-minute Manifesting With Spirit meditation. I wanted something that would help us get out of that braced, overwhelmed feeling first. We ground, release some of what we’ve been carrying, connect with spiritual support, and then open ourselves to what we genuinely want to create and receive.
You don’t have to concentrate perfectly through the entire meditation. You can lie down and let yourself relax. If your mind wanders, come back when you notice. If you fall asleep, apparently your body had another plan for you that day.
I’m okay with that.
More than anything, I want you to remember that you are allowed to want things.
You can want more financial stability. You can want love. You can want meaningful work, a peaceful home, better opportunities, more freedom, creativity, friendship, adventure, or simply enough breathing room to enjoy the life you already have.
Bring those desires to Spirit.
Get honest about what you really want and why you want it. Settle your body enough to hear your intuition. Release some of the things you’ve been carrying that are taking up all the room. Ask for help finding the path forward, and then participate when the next step becomes clear.
You may be surprised by how much can change when you stop trying to figure out the entire path and start working with the part that is actually in front of you.
That is how I work with manifestation now.
I tell Spirit what I would love to create, leave some room for something even better than I imagined, and then get on with the business of living my life.
Much love,
Lisa 💜
