Is Manifestation Real?

Happy Sunday and thank you for opening today’s story from #TheLifeofJLOWE!

It’s been a rainy weekend in Miami so far, but that just means good weather for writing 😄. The forecast looks sunny for the rest of the week, so I’m just taking the rain as the blessing that it is.

Aside from the weather, as you can tell by the title, something that’s been on my mind is this word/idea - “Manifestation”.

What is Manifestation?

To me, when I was in high school, the words “manifest” and “manifestation” were kind of a joke. It was something that seemed otherworldly, in terms of trying to will something into being. It was funny to say that I was gonna “manifest a good grade on a test” or “manifest the fried chicken tasting good today” because that just seemed to be how the word was being thrown around in my social circles.

“Manifestation” was one of those things that started out as a joke, and then somehow became real. 🫢 

How I think about Manifestation

These days, I still think the word/concept is a little bit funny to use because it still carries a connotation of being able to will something into being. To be frank with you, I don’t think it’s possible to outright manifest something into being by, say for example, sitting in your bed every day and manifesting great wealth for yourself. I don’t believe that “manifestation” is a passive verb.

I think about the concept of “manifestation” as much more active and more of a starting point than an end goal.

What I do believe in, which may also sound equally otherworldly to some, is the idea of “putting something into the universe”. I might sound a little bit spiritual or astrological here, but time and time again I’ve found that making your goals and desires tangible, or even just verbal, allows you to begin the process of changing your attitude towards those things.

“Putting things into the universe”

I think there’s real power in our words. When I write my goals down, it motivates me to work towards them. If I take an abstract idea and verbalise it, it becomes something tangible. And for me, once an idea becomes tangible, it’s suddenly within reach, and no longer just an idea but a destination.

That’s what I mean by putting things into the universe.

If there’s a feeling that you have about something and you’re not sure what it is, spending the time to think about it and get it out into words will make it much more real.

Take, for example, me running a marathon:

If you had asked me as a kid whether that was something I’d ever do, I’d ask you what the heck a marathon even is and tell you there’s no way I could ever run that many miles. In fact, I didn’t even have any concept of what a mile was, much less 26.2.