How to manifest

...for those that think it's b*llocks

by Rebecca

Firstly, let me caveat this ‘probably quite marmite’ post by being clear about something: I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. Mostly, they are made panickedly as the year draws to a close and more often than not we focus our attention on what we aren’t doing currently, what needs fixing, what’s wrong with ourselves, what’s missing.

We tend to set excessive objectives that prove totally unattainable. Generally it’s because they require another 2 hours in the day (i.e. get up at sunrise, become a runner), or because our desires are at odds with what our bodies actually require (i.e. lose two stone but it’s cold and I have no energy therefore need to eat more food).

Far from feeling hopeful about the year ahead, New Year’s resolutions tend to be about denying, abstaining or striving. They’re shrouded in this negative, ‘grabby’ energy. I must, I will, and if I don’t I fail.

But as a wise woman once said to me with a smile: ‘We don’t chase baby - we attract’.

Which is why I don’t make resolutions - I manifest.

I am not a knob though

Please, please do not get me wrong. I also eat grated cheese from the fridge in my knickers. I’ve sat on my arse and watched so many episodes of The Chase over Christmas I had a dream I was at the pub with Bradley Walsh. I cannot think of anything I’d rather do less than sell all my worldly possessions and live a simple humble life, not when I’ve got an unopened Neighbourhood Botanicals ceramide body oil winking at me from the bathroom shelf.

But I also believe in the law of attraction: that all thoughts eventually become all things. I have seen for myself that if you think positively, positive things will come to you. I also believe that if you are not clear about the things you want, anything good that happens to you will be a coincidence, and I prefer the idea of taking things into my own hands rather than surrendering the whole course of my life over to the Universe.

So for the curious or even the skeptical - let me present my guide to New Year Manifestations: what they are, how they work, and how I’ll be doing it later tonight.

What is manifesting?

Manifesting is thinking aspirational thoughts with the purpose of making them real.

That’s it really. That can look however you want it to, and there are thousands of practitioners, Balinese retreats, TikTok accounts, podcasts and books dedicated to it. They will all tell you contradicting things, but - and this is really important - none of them are right. Manifesting can be a ritual that takes total silence and an hour every morning, or it can be a reminder you set on your phone just so you see your intention in front of you once a day. I know people who write it down, take a picture, then simply have it as their phone background. No ommm-ing necessary.

What manifesting isn’t

A list of wants that if you wish hard enough you will eventually get despite having made no personal effort.

This only results in blind positivity, which leads to complacency. By assuming you’ll throw your wants out there and they’ll just appear, you’ll only get further away from them.

Manifesting isn’t delusion. It’s actually about getting more realistic.

How to define manifesting

For me, it’s a contract with a force outside of myself that reads:

‘These are the things I desire. I trust that if I do the work, you’ll open the doors’.

It’s a two way bargain that requires exertion of effort on the part of the person manifesting. There has to be an understanding that, as with most healthy things in life, you get out what you put in.

At its very base level, for me manifesting is reminding myself daily what it’s all for. Why I’m putting the work in, what my eventual aim is.

What needs to be understood

Successful manifesting relies on some kind of acceptance that there is something non-tangible that exists outside of the human experience. An outside energy, some reason that the natural world exists (and is so gorgeous). Some call it the Universe, some call it spirit, Mother Earth, Great Creator….and at the risk of putting a few of you off, some also call it God (not in a man in the sky sense).

No decisions have to be made about what that thing you believe in is. It’s more a generic concession that yeah, maybe there’s something bigger than us. That maybe it’s benevolent, and that maybe if you call on it then it’ll be glad to help.

It’s also scientific

Repeated manifestation rewires the brain. It takes approximately 66 days to form a new habit, like going to the gym or stopping smoking, because that’s how long it takes to create new neural pathways that lead your brain to want to do things automatically. The same can be said for manifesting - repeated positive thinking encourages the brain to form neural pathways in exactly the same way, creating new behaviours even when you’re not consciously aware of them.

Before you know what’s happening, all that believing in yourself and in your dream comes as second nature. And when it does, the decisions that you make in your life subconsciously all begin to support that dream and lead you closer towards it.

My New Year Manifesting Guide

(that you can of course do on any date)