Manifesting the WHAT — not the HOW
Are you attempting to micromanage the Law of Attraction, limiting the Creator’s ability to deliver all the abundance you desire?
Do you attach conditions to the requests you make of the Source? Do you have a bad habit of negating your invoices to the Universe as quickly as you make them?
I’ve been working with a self-published author over at my day job Spiritual Blogging, but the lessons in Manifesting I’ve explored with him have universal applications.
Chris wrote a book about surviving the suicide of a loved one. He struck up a conversation with me one day at the cafe where I go to write in the afternoons, asking me what I was working on. I told him I was a writer and professional blogger. His eyes lit up as he began telling me about the book he’d written and was looking to publish.
“I’m not looking to get rich off this book, but I do believe the message is important. I just want to put it out there, but that’s not going to happen until I can scrape together about $5,000.”
“Why do you need $5,000 dollars before you can put your book out?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s going to cost that much for the printing. I’m hoping my brother will pay me back some money he’s owed me for the past few years, and if I combine that with the money I could get if I sell my motorcycle, I’ll be able to pay the printer.”
Hurdles of How’s and Why’s
During the conversation, Chris expressed an awareness of the Law of Attraction, the Secret, and he presented all the “right” vocabulary regarding manifesting techniques. Yet every time he mentioned a desire, dream, or goal — and even though he used all the popular, optimistic New Age terminology — his sentence structure betrayed a serious problem. He limited, negated, and unraveled What he desired with destructively detailed Hows and Whys.
“Tell me again WHAT you require to put your book out there?” I asked.
Chris repeated that his “book is totally ready to go, but before it can be printed, I need to…” and he recited an even more detailed laundry list of things that must occur before his book can be published.
“So, you need the book to be printed. That’s WHAT you need, right?” I prompted.
“Yes, but…” and again he launched into all the But’s.
I stopped him. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I’m trying to show you something here. Indulge me. Tell me WHAT you require — just a simple statement of WHAT it is exactly. No if’s, no and’s, no but’s. Again, what does the book need to be realized.”
Simply State WHAT You Require
“My book needs to be printed,” he said, “so it can… well exist. So people can actually read it.”
I showed Chris that his ability to manifest THAT did not require any further conditions or circumstances — that there were all kinds of variables and possibilities he was dismissing. He was misinformed about self-publishing — the information he had was relevant about fifteen years ago. His idea of HOW a book could be published was locked in his (mis)understanding of all these requirements with limitations and details that were not even current or accurate.
What’s even worse — he was actually defining all the reasons his book would NOT be published — in the very same sentence, the same breath. He was basically attempting to manifest something by declaring all the things that would keep it from ever happening.
“What if I told you that if you have written a book, you can move straight to producing, marketing, and selling it, without investing a dime in printing overhead? What if I removed that hurdle — that printing price tag — from what’s keeping your book from being published?” Chris looked at me like I was about to tell him he’d won the lottery. I immediately brought Chris into 21st Century Book Publishing by introducing him to the wonders of consumer generated media and Print-on-Demand publishing.
I explained to him that What he had asked for was a way to get his book printed and bound, and that the Universe was delivering that to him — not in a check, not in money — but simply in the form of information that made his hurdles irrelevant.
The Creator has access to so much more than you may be aware of. Let the Universe do its job. Don’t define HOW it must answer your requests for assistance.
A month or two passed and Chris found me in the cafe again one day. I asked him how the book was coming along.
“It’s gonna happen, man!” He was very optimistic — BUT… “The only thing holding me back now is finding someone to edit it. All the proofreaders want a really high feed to read it. So as soon as I can get a little extra money saved up to pay for having it edited, I can publish it through Lulu.com or Amazon BookSurge.”
“Hold on. Wait. Let’s edit your intentions first. WHAT do you need? No but’s. No circumstances. No money conditions. What do you want? What assistance do you require, without any limiting factors?” I prompted. “Think carefully — it’s not money you need, it’s a person, right?”
He was ready for me this time. “Okay, okay. I see. I need the Universe to send me an editor to read over my book.”
“Give it to me, then,” I said. “I will Red Pen it for you.”
“But, how will I pay you? How much would you charge?” I could hear Chris’s fear of its NOT happening beginning to pen a list of more hurdles to overcome. If he’d given me permission to talk to his spirit guides, there can be no doubt I would’ve heard them groan and throw their hands up in the air in frustration.
“You can pay me by recommending me to anyone who asks you how you got your book published,” I said.
It never occurred to Chris that such a service could be bartered, or that there could be a value placed on it in a form other than dollars.
I edited the book for him. The next time he saw me, he was beaming. He whipped out a perfect bound copy of his book and gave it to me. I congratulated him and told him how proud I was of his accomplishment.
“Yeah, man, the only thing I need now is $2500 to put up a web site to promote the book so I can sell it,” he said.
“WHAT?!” I almost came out of my chair.
“Well, yeah, that’s what Web Developer X wants to put the site together. And I also guess I need a blog, like you have. I found a college student who said he could set up the blog for $250. So, once I sell a few copies of the book to people I know, off-line, I can pool the money from selling it and put up a web site.”
Here we go again… “WHAT do you need, Chris?”
“I need a web site to promote my book. BUT — I know that I could learn to do it myself, I just don’t have the time to learn all the HTML, and all that. I mean, I could pay to set up a blog, but then I still wouldn’t know how to actually use it. I’m setting a goal for six months from now.”
“So, WHAT you need is a blog and someone to teach you how to use it yourself?”
“And at least a few hundred bucks to pay for it!” Chris just HAD to add that in.
Mother of God, give me patience, I silently prayed. “As before, WHAT you need is information. What you need could also be a WHO,” I suggested.
“Exactly. But, man, I have to admit something — I asked around. That dude over there told me you charge $3000 to set up a professional blog.”
“Didn’t you just tell me that you wanted to learn how to do it yourself?” I reminded him.
“Yeah, that would be ideal.”
Chris had not up, until that time, even explored my blogs (that I know of). I handed him a card with the link to my D.I.Y. Problogging Tutorial. “I do charge $3000 to develop a web site. And I’m not taking clients right now, either. But what I can do is give you the information to do it yourself. That’ll cost you about $60. You can accomplish everything you want this weekend, if you really want to badly enough.”
Chris had set up round after round of specific, narrow scenarios that he believed had to occur in order for What he required to be taken care of. He placed hurdles of How’s and Why’s in front of all his goals. He presumed limiting factors like X amount of dollars — he even over-stated HOW the financial assistance he thought he required would come to him, from what source, and in what time frame.
None of his assumptions were accurate. All he really needed to ask for was the assistance to see his book realized. That was the WHAT — and it didn’t come in a form he could’ve ever predicted. Who knows, if he hadn’t met me, maybe he would’ve met a printer who would’ve read the book and believed in it so much he would’ve printed it for him for free? Or maybe he would’ve met a design student looking to build up his portfolio, willing to work on the web site for the experience?
Maybe, maybe… There are so many maybe’s. So many potential variables that you can’t predict. There are so many serendipities at work in the world…
Miracles don’t need you to manage the details — they just require you to notice and receive them, and to act upon the opportunities that present themselves to you.
The next time I saw Chris, he had been reading my tutorials, and my articles on Spiritual Blogging, and this site. He said he’d read every article in the Shift Your Spirits Archives in basically one marathon round of surfing.
“Man, can I ask you something? About my spirit guides? Everything I wanted to do for this book — you just handed me all the answers. None of it was about the money I was attaching to it. It was all information. Do you think maybe my guides led me to you, in response to what I was trying to manifest?”
What do you think?
Angels are messengers. We are called to be one another’s angels, every day. Obey the impulse to speak to a stranger. It’s not always about you…
It wasn’t about me. I just acted as the cosmic delivery man. Chris’ enormous accomplishment was well within his reach. I was uniquely positioned to simply point it out to him. Hey, I even made $60 for my trouble.
Seek Wisdom — Practice Love
Contacting Your Spirit Guides - 101
Free resources for Shift Your Spirits readers:
- Read the ebook by Slade Roberson especially for beginners who want to know who/what spirit guides are and how to communicate with them
- Listen to the mp3 preview of the Spirit Guide Attunement portion of the Talking to Your Spirit Guides class by Slade Roberson
- Try the meditation to Meet a Guide contributed by Jeff Lilly of Druid Journal
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23 Responses to “Manifesting the WHAT — not the HOW”
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Wow! You get a huge congratulations for breaking through all of the objections Chris kept throwing up while getting him to understand it in the process. My brother is far worse than Chris was and I quit beating my head on that particular brick wall last year.
Lexi
Shift Your Spirits » Blog Archive » Manifesting the WHAT — not the HOW…
This is an impressive real life story showing how objections can be overcome to allow immediate manifesting of a dream….
Slade! Another wonderful post! I was laughing heartily at points, as I was reminded of how I put limits on my own manifesting with the big “HOW’s”.
Kawabunga! Time for a “reality” check.
Thanks sooo much!
Genevieve
Had to read this a few times to get it, ahhh my little resistance goblin was at work. I knew I should ‘get’ it but I wasn’t. So a few reads and awarenesses later got. Made me realise sometimes the what for me gets so watered down in the hows = resistance that I see why I am not manifesting. This is why to me LOA/The Secret needs some more explanation. The more aware you are of yourself and the little games you play with yourself the more you can put those games away more consciously and start playing with conscious creation. Slade love your posts like this, blessings and love to you! Lise xxx
Brilliant.
And again.
Brilliant.
Loved the real life example - great way to SHOW a story, rather than tell it. It don’t matter how well you know the law of attraction… knowing something intellectually is not the same as doing something.
Now I want to go back to all my manifestations and make sure I’m not micromanaging (which I probably am…) I think I’ve actually been trying to manifest the HOW all the time… instead of the WHAT. DUH!
You the man Slade.
Lexi,
I must admit, it’s much easier to observe the problems someone else is inventing for himself — I’m sure if you shine a light on anything I’m personally manifesting, you’d find many similar examples — all things that I would have trouble seeing, of course!
Genevieve,
One of the reasons I wrote this post was truly because it was such a great lesson for ME. For months I’ve been holding my own up against this example and looking for comparisons — and believe me, I find them.
Changing your behavior or altering the way you process thoughts is a lot like dieting — you start with an overall awareness, but the shift in consciousness is not one action — it’s a constant policing of your own thoughts.
It’s very daunting to think of it as an ongoing objective that really never ends. Every single little choice is an opportunity — thousands of them every day — and over time the changes accumulate.
KL,
Thanks for the writing critique aspect — I’m amazed at the impact of personal specific stories and how much more they accomplish than the Big General ones.
It’s so much harder to write for a Universal idea, anticipating every potential expression — it’s infinite. To show the specific in a really literal way hopefully gives everyone a chance to de-construct the dynamic in the story and create their own custom applications of the principles.
This may be the most effective way to present intangible lessons. I am certainly on the look out for working examples like this one.
Lise,
I love your use of the “gaming” metaphor. Yes, yes! We play games with ourselves, and the idea that it might be a “game” implies that we can actively participate and apply different strategies.
Plus, I like that the word “game” makes something so important, serious, overwhelming, and daunting seem less of a threat somehow.
Games are also typically how we learn to play at conscious creative decision making. Within the context of a game, we view ourselves as more powerful, flexible, and safe — we come out of the game into something we perceive as “real” and that perspective flies out the window — right when it would serve us most.
The Secret has secrets within secrets — every one of them as varied as the breaths we take.
Slade,
What a well presented story - Thank you.
Pray tell what your take is on my situation.
I understand the principles and have been working on manifesting a new home for my family (the 5.5 of us are cramped in a very small rented house) but my partner doesn’t understand the concept and insists on setting her targets too low (micromanaging).
SO…..
Surely her approach to manifesting is counter-productive to mine and how do we deal with that? Apart from manifesting a new partner which seems a little extreme at this stage
Much Love,
Damian
Slade, great stuff! I’m also curious as how “wide” is too wide? Broadly stated, my intention is to make it as a pro blogger, or even wider, have lots of passive income doing something I love. That’s about as broad as I can make it. So what do I actually manifest? I was stuck in trying to manifest lots of subscribers and stuff like that for my blog.
UrbanMonk,
You bring up a good point — the distinction between General and Specific. I think it’s beneficial to be as specific about the What as possible — you can be laser-focused and still simplify the What.
I’ve addressed Damian’s question in a lengthy email which he has granted me permission to publish as an article, so some of the points I made to him apply to your situation as well.
Most notable is the declaration of your limitation — who says you’re “stuck”? You do…
You also use the conditional “trying to” — trying is simply not doing. Check out the article
Are You TRYing to Fail
Your goal of problogging, like the author in this story, is perhaps better suited for a conversation on Spiritual Blogging — I am excited to move my articles there beyond pure How To and Marketing Techniques to address more spiritual aspects of writing and blogging.
Blogging itself is a manifestation technique — it meets many criteria for attaching thoughtforms to language that carries your intentions out into the world beyond you.
So what do you actually manifest? See that the “pro” in problogging references a return on your actions in the form of money, and that money is a value system that follows… well, what we value.
By focusing on creating the value first, money comes as only one form of abundance and a by-product of your highest intentions. But money directly related to your blog can be more broadly defined to include opportunities that indirectly lead to money.
See that part of what you manifest in terms of success as a direct or indirect result of your writing may take a variety of forms — you impact other people, establish your talent and expertise, and some opportunities for financial compensation may come as something like a job offer. Or it could be an expanse of your reach — others impressed with your work may ask you to write pieces for their publications — all impacting your authority and building on the value you create which can be leveraged in any number of ways.
Why not focus on manifesting the greatest possible impact of your work, for the good of all, and let the Universe choose whether that is donations, job offers, more subscribers… etc. You may make an impression on ONE reader who could open up a world of possibility — perhaps it’s someone who invites you to guest author for their site, which will bring you more subscribers.
That’s a general approach, with as few conditions as possible. With writing and blogging, you can simply focus on producing the greatest possible work, and be open to surprises of the opportunities that may come as a result of that.
See that all forms of abundance follow value, and some of those forms of abundance may not be directly attached to a price tag, yet they may lead to other opportunities that DO have a financial impact.
All of them can be traced back to one thing — creating a kick-ass blog that consistently offers value to your readers.
You may also pray for the support to continue this work, or pray for the additional assistance you need, but don’t specify exactly how that must come to you.
You never know, you could be focusing on selling a product, when there’s someone out there who would make a donation that’s worth several times that in dollars. Certainly create the vessels for monetization, but let the Universe surprise you in which ones are activated.
Sometimes, I’ve been focused on selling a particular product which doesn’t perform as well as I like — then I back away to simply asking for financial assistance, and am surprised when it comes in the form of an amazingly general donation that has nothing to do with the product. Or even a windfall gift of money from an unseen source, like a relative winning a lottery and sharing some of it with me.
All of these kinds of things have happened for me.
And one other thing — have you had a conversation with your Money archetype? Ask Money what it needs from you.
Jessa of Clairvoyant Guidance and I discovered that we each receive the same response from our guides — and it’s an incredibly simply one –
“WRITE.”
Some of my favorite articles on Shift Your Spirits that address Manifesting Techniques, Abundance, and even Money in particular may be older posts buried in the archives.
Best of Manifesting/ Law of Attraction Posts on SYS:
Um… Slade, I think that was a whole new post you just used in replying to UrbanMonk’s comment.
Sneaky way to get an extra post in for the week!
And again though, brilliant. You really have hit your stride with this, I am SO glad the Virgin Mary came calling on you a few years back.
KL,
Girl, I didn’t even bother pretending my response to Damian’s comment could be anything but a separate post. Lordy, that was a mouthful.
: )
If you only saw the amount of private correspondence — the sheer word count of my emails — you’d understand why I don’t post more often than I do. 90% of the real work is in the follow-up, off the blog.
Once in awhile they make a cross-over and become articles.
I’ve started to treat each week as a series of conversations that are initiated by my weekend article, spawn some comments, generate a lot of behind the screens correspondence and requests for Readings… It’s hard to say where one communication ends and another begins, at this point. But there is definitely a weekly cycle or rhythm.
It’s bizarre how much of Shift Your Spirits doesn’t even exist on this blog at all. I see that MOST of the work that begins here is just a jump-off point.
See you behind the screens, Mizz Prolific!
: )
Albert don’t use the ‘trying’ word - Slade quite rightly busted me big time a while ago for doing that but I moved on to the ‘working on it’ phrase and you’ll soo see where that got me
Slade - so many thanks heading your way with angel wings for this article, the follow up emails and for ‘nudging’ me to a ’shift’ that finally clicked into place today.
Simply put - I’ve totally manifested everything that has appeared in my life!
But now I know how I got here I now know I have to feel and love the future me in the Now. In fact, the minute I had the ‘click’ it all started falling into place and I refer to the current place Im at in the Past tense.
I can literally feel the old me falling away by the second as I move forward into each Now.
Are you sure that you are in Human form and not another one of the energies I work with? Has anyone on here actually met Slade?
Love to you Man, you are an inspiration whatever you are.
Damian
I’m starting to understand this back-end stuff that goes on… when I first fired into my blog all gung-ho, this wasn’t happening…
Now that it is, I’m GLAD I’ve cut back my posting to 4x a week… and who knows, in future it may even drop to - gasp - 3x a week.
In the meantime, Slade you are an angel.
Damian, I suspect you’re right about Slade. Here’s something I wrote to him back in April:
Yesterday evening, as I settled down for my 7 pm nap, I decided to meditate to help me sleep. Probably because I had been thinking about you so much today, I found myself rowing a boat … and you were sitting in the boat with me. You were very busy, completely absorbed with manipulating something in your hands — a little ball of sparkling interconnected energy. My impression was that this was your web site — organized electrical energy. I began to drift off, wondering about what kinds of reflections computers make in the Other World…
Then suddenly I had another vision of your face — much closer now, with a very clear sense of your eyes. Generally in my visions, people have normal eyes, but there are exceptions:
* Apollo has black eyes flecked with swirls of stars.
* My anima usually has normal eyes, but when she acts as a medium, she gets those same black eyes with stars.
* My anima has told me that whenever she sees me, my eyes are, again, black with stars. I suspect that the black-with-stars motif is a symbol of a connection to Spirit/Source.
* Cernunnos has normal eyes, but they change color depending on his mood.
And then there’s you, Slade.
You had normal eyes, but they were edged with brilliant sparkles, and there were more sparkles scattered and swirled across their surfaces — absolutely striking.
I suspect it means that you’re in both places at once — both in the “normal” world, and connected to Source, simultaneously, mixing them.
Then I fell asleep.
[...] In response to the article Manifesting the What — not the How, my friend and esteemed British colleague Damian of SoulTerminal left the following comment. I replied personally by email, and Damian has graciously given his blessing to share our conversation here, publicly, as we agreed that many of you may relate to his situation. [...]
[...] Books to Blogs Most of the authors I work with offline already have books they want to promote using blogs. Several of them are self-publishing or looking for a publisher; a few of them have publishing deals and have been told by their editors they need a blog to help promote the work. [...]
Okay, okay, Universe, I hear you. I got the message: write my story. The details (& courage to share) will fall into place later.
Thank you, Slade…. Even if I didn’t want to hear it again!
[...] * Are you attempting to micromanage the Law of Attraction, limiting the Creator’s ability to deliver all the abundance you desire? [...]
I emailed this to my friend