The Truth About Manifestation: 6 Myths and Their Corrections
It’s called different things in different circles: Law Of Attraction, manifestation, reality creation. Regardless of the term, though, they all relate to the fundamental principle idea that our beliefs and feelings shape our reality and largely affect the kind of life we experience.
Due to the pervasive misinformation out there and misapplication of certain teachings, these terms have been associated with witchcraft or just plain charlatanry.
Mainstream manifestation teachings promote certain major falsities, including:
Manifestation is all about getting your desires.
You “manifest” your desired life through certain exercises.
You are in control of your entire reality, including the timing of your desires.
You can have anything you want. If you don’t have it, it’s because you aren’t aligned with your desires in your beliefs and feelings.
All desires you have are moral and good.
Your desires can come to you without any effort.
Myth 1: Manifestation is all about getting your desires.
It’s understandable why people would believe this because the word “manifestation” is associated with receiving (manifesting) a desired outcome in one’s reality.
However, those who are interested in the spiritual mechanics of things (i.e. metaphysics) understand that manifestation simply relates to the relationship between our inner life and our lived experience. In that sense, reality creation may be a more accurate word since it pertains to how we are shaping our reality all the time through our intentions, beliefs, habitual thoughts and feelings.
Myth 2: You “manifest” your desired life through certain exercises.
This brings us to the second misconception, which is: You “manifest” your desired life through certain exercises such as positive affirmations, visualization, and scripting.
These exercises are not evil in themselves—it boils down to intent and how they are used— but they are not necessarily enough to transform one’s life if they are operating in a negative state the rest of the day or spiritually bypassing subconscious blocks they need to address. I also do not believe one needs to engage in these exercises to create the kind of life experience they want.
Disclaimer: There are some practices that are not so innocuous, though, namely opening oneself up to supernatural influences in order to get their desires. This is different than practices like focusing on the positive, which are simply about rewiring the mind—unless, of course, a person is trying to force or manipulate outcomes that they shouldn’t.
It may sound simple, but something that really helps is to feel your feelings. This isn’t about feeding the negative stories in your mind but placing your awareness on the parts of your body that are experiencing negative emotions, being curious, and being present with them. You will usually find that you experience some release, although you don’t need to force it either. It is a good idea to do this in a safe place where you have no distractions.
Interestingly, attuning to your emotions is a much better way of accessing a brighter reality than trying to psych yourself up with positive thinking all the time because it releases the inner resistance which is in the way. When we try too hard to be positive, this is actually because we are resisting a lot of the inner suffering going on.
Myth 3: You are in control of your entire reality, including the timing of your desires.
Perhaps the biggest myth of them all, and the most alluring to our ego selves because it makes us feel we are in control.
This is a really unhealthy myth perpetuated by many spiritual teachers and influencers because it hinges on some other deeper false beliefs.
It supposes that God is the Universe and we are god. And that since we are god, we have the ability to bend reality to fit our desires.
Now, it’s true that some people who liken God to the Universe do not think there is no higher power other than themselves. They still leave room for providence and understand they are not in control of everything.
But unfortunately, many people who subscribe to manifestation teachings and believe God is the Universe think they are god themselves.
The confusing part about this myth is that there is some truth to it: we do have creative control over our reality—and actually, a lot more than we are often conditioned to think—which is ironically why manifestation teachings exploded in the past 20 years. It is a reaction to the purely 3D way of approaching reality, which doesn’t take any of the metaphysical aspects of our thinking and energy into consideration.
However, it is a mistake to think everything is in our control. Some things are just not for us or other things must fall in place for them to occur. We also cannot control everything going on in the external world, such as losses, natural disasters, world events, and so on and so forth.
Some people think, “Well, if I’m in a positive vibration, I can avoid X, Y, Z!”
This is another fallacy, which rests on wishful thinking, the belief that we can experience a life devoid of any suffering. Again, I think we have a lot more influence over our reality than we realize, but the belief that life is always meant to go our way is another extreme.
Myth 4: You can have anything you want. If you don’t have it, it’s because you aren’t aligned with your desires in your beliefs and feelings.
I believe that life is full of possibilities and limiting beliefs are illusions. Life can be a lot more joyful, abundant, and interesting for people than it seems.
However, I don’t agree that we can have anything we want.
This can sound like a limiting belief on the surface, but it is about acknowledging the individual’s soul path and circumstances, which impacts their overall life. These circumstances often correspond to the lessons they are learning along the way, including “negative” experiences which some may deem as “bad.”
And though it can seem like everything being in our control is a good thing, it is actually a relief to find out God is ultimately in control. This doesn’t mean we should be passive in our lives, however, this allows us to focus only on our part and surrender the outcome to God, including whether something is within His will or not.
This also prevents you from needlessly blaming yourself up if something didn’t go your way. You may be able to see this if you look back at your life and didn’t get something you wanted, such as a particular career direction. Sometimes the issue is that you were not ready, but other times it may have been God protecting you. That is the blessing of trusting in God instead of ourselves.
As we mature, we can gradually develop more sensitivity to the Lord’s leading, knowing when to apply ourselves more or back off. When we try to push a closed door, this doesn’t work well for us either.
Additionally, it’s important not to compare yourself to people who got things they wanted through seemingly questionable means. For example, manifestation gurus who try to sell you a secret hack they used to manifest a large sum of money in 10 days. The reason it is questionable is not because money is bad or because earning money has to be hard, which are forms of scarcity programming.
Rather, it is because these strategies often negate the importance of a person earning money in a way that is in integrity with their spirit. Instead, they push this idea one should just manifest a bunch of money for no reason, basically getting “something for nothing.” This doesn’t mean one has to be grinding hard and struggling; it simply means there needs to be an even exchange of value.
Myth 5: All desires you have are moral and good.
This is a big myth in the New Age community because they often subscribe to moral relativism, or the belief that there is no such thing as right or wrong.
Why do they believe this way? This again goes back to the idea that God is Universe (i.e. nature). Since the Universe has no moral nature, then it is suffice to say that morality is a human construct and only basic morals (like don’t kill or steal) apply. To be clear, I know not all people who believe God is the Universe think like this but am talking about the ones who do, which are sadly many.
Of course, the truth is that not all desires we have are moral and good.
And even if it may not be immoral or evil per se, it may not be in our highest interest, which is another reason why it is good to accept God’s sovereignty in human affairs.
Myth 6: Your desires can come to you without any effort.
Receiving our desires does not have to be strenuous, painstaking, and overwhelming.
In fact, many times when we receive things we were hoping for that we feel is a good fit, they came in spontaneously and easily.
However, it is not true that we don’t have to put any effort to get what we want in life.
If that were the case, we wouldn’t have to work another day and could all just harness the power of our mind to attract what we want.
I think where people get stuck is they equate effort with willpower alone, which can get in the way if a person’s beliefs and vibration is in a low place, though this isn’t really a problem if a person is naturally energetically aligned. (It’s easier for some than others simply due to how they are wired.)
The reality is, the necessary effort is needed for our desires to come about, even if it is not excatly related to what we are focusing on. For example, say that someone is interested in meaningful work that stimulates them. By being in the flow of that work, they could attract a life-changing opportunity or their future spouse even if that’s not what the were directly looking for.
As the saying goes, “God helps those who helps themselves.”
