“Manifesting.” I know you’ve heard it. It has become a hugely popular buzz word in our current, self-help genre. “I am going to manifest that.” “You should just manifest that.” “Why did you manifest that?” It’s everywhere, and while the term does have some roots in truth, it is quite misunderstood.

You may be familiar with the movie The Secret. This insanely popular 2006 book and movie really made the idea of manifestation more mainstream; even trendy. The Secret was great in many ways; it opened our eyes to realities bigger than ourselves and to the fact we had real accountability for what shows up in our lives.  This is really good news actually, because it suggests while we might be part of the problem, we are also part of the solution.

Yet, there is often a misalignment with what we want and what is actually showing up in our lives. Why is that?

It is because The Secret omitted a critical truth. While we are indeed co-creators of our experience, we do not create from a place of “want”, but from a position of what we “believe”. For example, we may want a nice shiny new car, a new job, a new relationship or a new body, but deep down, at the truth of our being, do we believe we deserve it? Might we have lack somewhere in our minds or limiting beliefs based on fear? 

You see, we have a huge part of our mind on automatic pilot; it’s called the unconscious or subconscious. The unconscious mind holds all awareness not presently in the conscious mind. This includes our past memories, conditioning, experiences, feelings, habitual beliefs and thought patterns.  It also holds much more information than our conscious mind. You can think of the mind as an iceberg; the part you see is the conscious mind, and the huge mass underwater is the unconscious mind. When we think about how this applies to manifesting, we must note that we do not animate what we consciously desire, but what we unconsciously believe.

Enter “affirmation”; another popular metaphysical buzz word. Affirmations can be a type of reverse psychology for the psyche, as they attempt to convince us we believe something other than we really (deep down at the core) believe. For example, you could be thinking positive, wonderful things; the most uplifting, powerful and dynamic affirmations you can string together. Yet no matter how you direct your surface thoughts, if you do not access and change beliefs at the core, it is just smoke and mirrors.

Do affirmations really work as agents for change?

Yes, if two conditions are present:

• They are fully in alignment with our core beliefs (See above for explanation)
• We don’t believe them at all.

Affirmations we do not believe can be huge catalysts for change? What? How? Because they allow us to bring deeply held beliefs and feelings to our conscious awareness. For example, if you desire to release weight, perhaps you choose the affirmation “I am light and free”. What really arises when you say/think that thought? If it is a working affirmation your first thought will be, “No way!  I am huge and enormous. I am the opposite of light and free. I am huge and trapped,” and you might have uncomfortable feelings matching that thought.  This is your chance to go deeper.* Is there be some shame, trauma, pain or outdated belief that requires integration? Might there be a story that needs challenging? The power of an affirmation we do not believe does not lie in the rearranging of the words, but rather in uncovering and undoing the belief at its core.  

Only then, when our beliefs and intentions are in alignment, do we have the ability to co-create and manifest the destiny of our very best selves.

*Want to learn how to use affirmations in this powerful and life changing way? Check out Aleka’s podcast The Truth About Positive Affirmations.