Manifest Doing

My manifestation practice focusses on what I want to spend my life doing, rather than what I want to gain by doing it. For instance, if I was a writer I would visualise myself writing rather than visualise myself receiving the money, awards and kudos that I might envisage as desirable outcomes from my writing. I guess this could be described as focusing on process over outcomes, but that still implies that there is one eye on the goal. Some of the things I manifest have no greater goal than the simple enjoyment of doing them.

There are numerous issues that I have experience when focussing on outcomes. Firstly, there is often a long lead time before the desired outcome is achieved, if indeed it is ever achieved. There’s a kind of vacuum period where you have to engage willpower and resilience and motivation. If that period is too long we can often lose belief and stop striving for this goal. Secondly, even if we achieve the outcome we desire it often feels somewhat underwhelming. It’s like ordering your favourite dish not realising there’s a new chef in the kitchen and it doesn’t quite hit the spot. The reality doesn’t match up to the expectation. It might even be downright disappointing. This can have a discombobulating effect because we allowed ourselves to believe so much in the outcome. Our external rewards fail to match up to our internal expectations. Thirdly, there is often a single-mindedness that comes with outcome focus that can be to our overall detriment. Fourthly, most people cannot sustain the effort required to achieve the outcome when the outcome is the primary focus. Outcome focus works for some, but I believe it hinders the progress of many.

By ‘visualising doing’ we very often find ourselves living our visualisation in a very short space of time. Sometimes I’m taken aback by just how much my life looks like my visualisation. It’s often extremely easy to do the things you visualise doing, yet without some form of manifestation or visualisation we somehow find it impossible to do them. It doesn’t matter how we dress up the failure to do the things we want to do, it only matters how we overcome this failure. We call it procrastination or fear or a biproduct of childhood trauma. We analyse what it is we fear. We might cite fear of judgement, or maybe we even cite fear of success as what holds us back. Maybe they are the same thing. We say that humans have a need for homeostasis, that the cerebral desire for change runs counter to an innate physiological need for stability.

Riptides

My usual response to overcome the invisible blockers that stopped me doing the things I wanted to do was to fight. I was my own cornerman telling myself to go out there, bite down on my gumshield and fight. I told myself to work harder, to stop being a pussy. I invoked deathbed scenes where I cried with eternal disappointment at how my life turned out. I put on my headphones and played Goggins at 11 so he was speaking to my very soul. Every single time the result was the same, I tried for a bit, faltered and failed. If only my amp went to 12.

Riptides or ripcurrents are strong currents of water moving away from shore. As I kid I experienced these several times whilst on holidays Spain. They can be terrifying. My natural reaction was to swim or run as hard as possible against the current towards the shore but moving against the current my progress was very slow. It’s exhausting. On one occasion I truly believed my number was up. The harder I swam the further from shore I got. Apparently, the best strategy for escaping a riptide is to relax and swim out of the current by swimming parallel to the shoreline rather than towards it. Once you escape the current you can more easily swim to shore.

I try to adopt the riptide metaphor in my approach to life now. Relax. Acknowledge the issues in my life and circumvent them rather than confront them.

Manifest Gently

For me regular, gentle manifestation/visualisation along with modest meditation and giving gratitude makes the invisible blockers in my life disappear. I don’t overdo the manifestation, five to ten minutes before I start the day seems to suffice.

My Manifestation

There is something about swimming outdoors, either in a pool or the sea that particularly appeals to me. So the first part of my manifestation has me visualising myself swimming in the pool of a Condominium in Bangkok. I picture it in detail, the cold water shock as I jump in, the feel of the wall as I push off the side, the taste of the water, the water bubbling with my underwater exhalations, my stroke, my hand pulling at the water, the feel of the water against my body, my gasping breath.

After my swim I sit by the pool and dry off in the sunshine. I read a book by the poolside. I shower. I feel that wonderful post-swim feeling. I sit in my condo or the co-working space, my laptop on my lap, and I write. I feel the keys beneath my fingers. I witness my story unfurling across the screen. I feel the weight of my laptop on my lap.

Next, I picture myself and my family in a relaxed café or street food restaurant enjoying a meal together. Sometimes we are joking around, other times we are just easy in each other’s company. We sample each other’s food; we react to it. We hear the clatter of the kitchen, we smell the food, sometimes the spices smart our eyes.

I then picture myself enjoying a coffee on the porch of my wife’s family home in the North of Thailand. The sun bathes me. I’m drinking the coffee out of my favourite mug. I close my eyes to the sun. I open my eyes and look out to the quiet street in front of the house. I look out to the mountains in the background.

Finally, I picture myself training in a Muay Thai gym. I’m doing padwork. I can smell the sweaty gloves. I can hear the smack on the pads. My Thai coach is making encouraging noises. ‘Aye, aye, aye,’ each time I hit the pads. I can feel the pads. My front foot is light. I teep. I switch kick. I try to fix my technique if it doesn’t look quite right in my mind’s eye. I bring my hip round more. I feel my shin against the pad. I punch, I elbow, I knee. It’s sweltering in the gym. I’m drenched in sweat, the salt stings my eyes.

For the last month or so I have lived my manifestation so closely I find it hard to believe. Large parts of my life look exactly like my visualisations. The only thing I am yet to do is the Muay Thai training. I almost have the sense that I have to do some Muay Thai training now to comply with my manifestations.

It’s been an absolute blast living this life for the last month. I haven’t had to force any of it. I haven’t had to push myself to go for a swim. I haven’t experience one iota of procrastination when it comes to writing.

Bi-directional Manifestation

One of the things I’ve noticed as I’ve started to live my manifestation is that I am now beginning to enhance my visualisation with some of the reality I am experiencing. For instance our condo pool is a salt water pool and it’s very cold so these real life details are now part of my visualisation. During part of my early morning swim the sun is blazing between two tall buildings and catches my eye as I turn my head to breathe. The exact book I am currently reading is now the book in my visualisation.

Other things that weren’t even in my original visualisations have now made their way in. Most notable of these are our family runs in Lumphini Park.

My manifestations are more real now because my manifestations feed into my life and my life feeds into my manifestations.

Where now?

It’s strange, I thought I would want more once my manifestations became real. I thought I’d want to add more things, but apart from the park runs and some finer details the imagery hasn’t changed much. This makes me feel that my dreams were real. Sometimes we think we want something and when we get it we have a sense of anti-climax, but I have a sense of deep satisfaction. For now, I think I’m happy continuing to do more of the same. Manifesting. Living. Manifesting.