I’m a little late to the manifesting party here- I know it probably sounds bad to say, but positive thinking and I have a difficult relationship. I grew up around the Enneagram types 2/7/9 faux-spiritual ego trope of defensive positivity and as an adult, it grates on my nerves- the mental habit of pushing actually-felt negative feelings out of the mind’s eye and attributing a smug virtue to the positive thinker’s mindset for attracting positive things and people as a result, when all that’s happened is that the balance of feelings that aren’t positive are just being pushed into the shadows. But recently, I may have found an ontological basis for the practice of manifesting…
Back in 2011 or 2012- two years after I first learned about the Enneagram- I had a phone call coaching session with Don Riso’s personal assistant- I believe her name was Katie Taylor. She was trying to convey mindfulness to me- the idea of being aware of what’s happening in your body in the moment when something arises. At one point when I believed I was on board with what she was saying, I excitedly said, “yeah I’ve been holding ideas in my head and then noticing how my body reacts to them” (for example, imagining money or a big paycheck coming toward me and noticing how my body felt about the imagery) and she corrected me and said “No no, you want to notice how your body feels in the moment to what’s going on around you in the actual moment– that’s being present.” And I got it- her teaching became clear to me and I still understand that practice as the foundation of mindfulness.
But what I didn’t realize would happen over the next 14 or so years was that I would become resistant to this idea of “focusing on” or “manifesting” good things out of nothing because good things coming to me wasn’t happening in the moment. I had to work, sense into the feelings around waiting for it to happen, notice any resistance to the good thing- and insight would somtimes come- that’s why this practice is important!- but then if and when the good thing happened, that’s when that well-honed practice of being present allowed me to sense into the feelings of the good happening. My resistance to holding anything in my mind besides my current sensations was my Type 4 saying, “Manifesting isn’t authentic enough because it isn’t actually happening.”
Then as I got deeper into Astrology over the years and observed the broad ontological split between working with fate (Astrology) and freewill (Enneagram), I started to understand how manifesting was also important because it could leverage the very Saturn that was holding us back. If Saturn is the cruel lord of time, karma, fate, and discipline; and mindfulness is sensing into the various ways that heaviness constrains us, Astrology teaches that we can either be at Saturn’s behest and be disciplined by him, or we can integrate Saturn and become disciplined ourselves. I mean, both approaches agree that integration of the varying un-integrated impulses (“planets”) is a choice and the path toward healing, they’re both rewarding. Sensing into the body’s feelings around being under Saturn’s thumb is powerful to notice the blockages, I don’t dispute that, but by adopting a disciplined spiritual practice AROUND manifesting, we can integrate discipline ourselves (Saturn), and that discipline is appropriating a little of our overlord into ourselves and using that as fuel to bring in new things.
I only say this because I’ve heard enough people around me recently talk about the power of manifesting, so last week, I decided to give it a try, and despite one of my divination techniques saying something wouldn’t manifest, it ended up spending a few minutes imagining it actually happening, and it happened. I found that super curious because imagining good things happening to me definitely hasn’t always worked before! It made me wonder if my thoughts really do have power to create reality if I do it in a disciplined manner (?).
To summarize what I’m thinking, if manifesting works, I wonder if it’s because it’s done with discipline, like focusing the mind on a Bible verse as a nun or monk would do in a disciplined practice, and by being disciplined about manfesting, we are integrating the Saturn that is on our backs, to which we are also attuned with presence. It’s like eating the elephant sitting on you.
I could be overthinking this, I don’t know. I’m curious enough to keep doing both.
