Inner workings of manifestation that no one talks about, how our physical bodies bring us closer to God, why life is an open-ended game, and finding more play through make-believe
I’m not sure what gave a girl the confidence to go all in with Ace High, but the commentary inspired by this move is what won me over: “This is the kind of fearlessness you play with when you realize that no matter what happens here, you’re still going to be really, really, really good-looking.” This was announced in an episode of Shark Cage, a TV show where celebrities and poker pros compete for money. I love this quote because it encapsulates the essence of manifestation. Let’s dive into why.
We have all been taught the same things about manifestation. Thoughts create reality. Words manifest as things. Visualization has been the go-to technique for those wanting to shift their reality, and I use it for specific occasions; however, it does come with certain limitations. The first is that you’re creating with your limited, human mind, which only knows what it’s been taught, as opposed to your Superconscious Mind which has knowledge of realities that could be way better for you. Secondly, by visualizing your future self having a better time than your current self, you solidify the belief that the feelings you want only occur in the future, a place that doesn’t exist.
Thus, the real meat of manifestation is fulfilling the desire right now without causing any change in your external circumstances. The Law of Here and Now says that if it cannot be found in the present moment, it cannot be found anywhere. Like many Asian parents, mine believed in the idea of sacrificing present-day happiness for the sake of future prosperity. The problem is that you cannot create happiness from unhappiness. The Law of Attraction forbids that. It doesn’t matter how hard you work or sacrifice; you cannot create high vibrational experiences from a low vibrational state. This is why it’s important to get into vibrational alignment first before taking action.
It’s not that you won’t be able to manifest by working against the Law of Attraction; it’s that you’ll get the thing but not the feel-good feeling. You’ll get the relationship but not the love. You’ll get the success but not the satisfaction. That’s strange. Isn’t the whole point of working towards your goals to feel good? And if you know how to feel good without the manifestation, haven’t you already manifested?
In the book “The Psychology of Money,” Morgan Housel shares the story of an investment banker who went to prison for insider trading because to him, having $100 million was not enough; he needed to be in the Billionaire’s Club. The Law of Here and Now says that if you don’t have enough right now, you never will. The secret to having the perfect body is to realize you already do. The key to becoming wealthy is to recognize that you already are. What you appreciate appreciates. Lack is directly proportional to time spent thinking about what you don’t have. The game, then, when feeling a sense of lack, is as simple as asking, “What is it that I need at this moment?” and, as a result, “In what ways do I already have this in my life right now?”
The ability to find happiness, joy, and satisfaction in every moment and every situation is the true meaning of abundance. We’re so used to letting our environment dictate our emotions we forget that we are here to create. The world is an open-ended game. How you interact with the game is up to you. Maybe you grew up being told that school is for learning and offices are for working, but that doesn’t have to be the case. As a kid, every restaurant outing was a magical experience. I loved discovering what was behind closed doors. I loved seeing what other people were eating and occasionally stealing food from their tables. Even to this day, when I go to a new hotel, I pretend that I just moved into a new brand castle, and I want to run around and see who else lives there. When you explore the world on your terms, you realize that most of the things you thought were true were just stories made up of people no smarter than you.
Many people want money for the freedom it provides while not fully exercising the freedom they have. We are the only species on the planet with the ability to influence our autonomic nervous system. We can choose how we want to feel at any given moment. If you’re reading this, you live in a country with freedom of speech, which means freedom of thought, which means the freedom to shape your reality. Asking for more freedom is the equivalent of asking for more air. Herein lies the paradox of manifestation: to receive more, you must love what you have. The scientific explanation is that when you appreciate what you have, you raise your vibration to the point that you automatically become a vibrational match for more. Satisfaction is the only thing that begets more satisfaction. Not visualization. Not affirmations. Not complaining about how life isn’t fair and how others have it easier. The side effect of focusing only on what feels good is that you now become a vibrational mismatch to what doesn’t, so the problems that you were trying to resolve through force disappear without you having to do anything about them. Maybe the noisy neighbor you were about to call the police on suddenly moves out, or the deadline you were trying to meet gets pushed back. Physical reality isn’t as solid as it seems. All matter is vibration. By shifting our vibration, we alter the physical structure of our reality.
When we uphold the image of health, wholeness, and vitality in our minds, disease has no room to exist. Many modern doctors are fixated on disease. In healing modalities such as Reiki and cranialsacral therapy, there is the notion of “the midline”. That is the vertical column running down the center of the body, known as Sushumna in yogic traditions. It’s the hole in the middle of the human toroidal field. This is believed to be the source of every expression from the body. That means that if there is a weakness or an illness in the body, it is rooted in the midline. Osteopathy was founded on the principle that divine energy cannot flow properly when the vertebrae are misaligned. Therefore, by “strengthening” this part of the body, we strengthen all aspects of our health. When I feel like my emotions are spiraling out of control, focusing on my midline helps bring me back to neutrality.
Some say that God is love, and some say God is power. I believe that God is my body. The body is the liberation from the mental prison that many of us have created for ourselves. The body is not an obstacle on the path to enlightenment; it IS the path. Divine proportion is written all over the human body. The ratio between the top and bottom half of most Christian crosses is the same as that of the human body above and below the navel. The body is the final and total expression of the soul. When I worship my body, I worship the stars, galaxies and myths of creation that uphold our humanity. Alan Watts said, “Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature.” To the trillions of cells in my body, my voice IS the voice of God. The body serves as an analogy for how we operate through life. A flexible spine is a flexible mind. Stable joints mean stability in other aspects of life. Being able to land on both feet brings about a sense of self-assurance in knowing that we can play without worrying about getting hurt. When we trust our bodies, we trust life itself.
When you feel good, the universe feels good; nothing is more important than taking care of how you feel. As selfish as it may sound, it’s like putting your seat back on an airplane - if someone chooses not to put their seat back and gets mad at you for doing so, let them. According to Esther Perel, “Female sexuality is deeply narcissistic.” Contrary to popular belief, loving yourself doesn’t make you gay. The more I love my body, the more compliments I get, the more serendipitous encounters I have, and the more likely I am to receive what I need without asking for it. It’s wild how we live in a society where it’s normal to spend hours watching videos of other people online, yet it’s considered vain to spend 10 minutes adorning ourselves in the mirror every day. The vow “til death do us part” should be taken as a declaration of self-love.
A while ago, I started shedding an excessive amount of hair. I came across a video of Abraham Hicks talking to a guy who wanted to know how he could grow his hair back. She told him that whatever feeling he associated with having hair, e.g. beauty, admiration, confidence, etc., he had to find a way to feel that without the hair because “the only way to be free is to live unconditionally.” Going back to the story at the beginning of the blog post. You manifest the fastest when you stop caring. When we put our attention on the things that bring us joy, we get shown more of it. EN-joy. In-joy. The word “fun” comes from the Middle English word for “fool”. To have fun is to make a fool of oneself.
I was at brunch the other day at this open-kitchen restaurant where I could see how the food was made. It was like watching a livestream of the game “Overcooked”. There were four stoves going at once, each ingredient got cooked separately before assembled together, and there was a list of ongoing orders that was kept track of. I couldn’t help but wonder, “Do the restaurant workers know they’re playing one of the most famous couch co-op games of all time?”
Some people play games to distract from real life. I think there is no better game than real life. Getting dressed in the morning is like picking out my character. Getting ready to move apartments is like playing “Unpacking”. Going home after a long day is like returning to “The Farmhouse” in “Stardew Valley”. Being married is like playing house.
Make-believe isn’t just something little kids do. I use it to get through the mundanity of everyday life. When I’m in a workout class, and my muscles are burning, I pretend that I’m playing a tennis match and need to give it my all to win the point. When I sign a receipt, I pretend I’m signing autographs. When I go shopping, I pretend I’m Cinderella, picking out a gown for the ball.
It was found that the biochemical and neurological opposite of trauma is not love nor safety but rather play. The Bible says those who are most childlike are most welcomed in the Kingdom of Heaven. In his book “The Inner Game of Tennis,” Timothy Gallwey talks about the different subconscious games that people play underneath the guise of tennis. One of them is the perfectionism game - to reach a certain level of expertise they deem worthy. Another is the status game - to be the best amongst their friends or social circle. The last is fun - this one’s self-explanatory. The key is to know which game you’re playing and to find a game worth playing. If you’re playing a game without a finish line, you will always feel unfulfilled. If you play a game where you only feel good when you win, you’ll be happy half the time and miserable the rest. If you play a game where the goal is to have fun and make a fool of yourself, you unlock the same processes of creation that went into the making of the universe.
Having acne taught me self-love. Experiencing hair loss taught me to stop comparing myself to others. Knee pain taught me to surrender. There is a Zen saying that goes, “That which hinders your task is your task.” When I couldn’t play tennis for a week, I was devastated because that was the only thing that brought me joy. Little did I know, the joy was always within me. My insistence on it only coming in the form of tennis made the pain so much worse. As I’m finishing up this blog post, the pain has dramatically subsided. Life’s too short. You can’t wait until everything is perfect before being happy. Everything is perfect now. So what if you haven’t showered or brushed your hair today? It’s okay. Me neither.
