Bringing Your Dreams to Life though Manifestation is a Process
When an event has the power to uproot and disrupt everything we know, from the social norms of interaction to the rhythms and routines of life itself, it can be easy to feel that nothing is within our control. The months of anxiety we all experienced during the pandemic made many feel powerless, and as the CEO at the helm of a healthy snack food company, I felt this tendency as much as anybody.
When the fate of the business seemed uncertain, I began to focus on my own self-improvement, prioritize positivity, and hold in my mind a vision of the company’s success. Today, I can confidently say that we’ve come out of this year better than we were before. I attribute a lot of this growth, personal and business, to my mindfulness practices, and I’ve come to realize that they were rooted in the power of manifestation. In the past several months, I’ve made manifestation an intentional and vital part of my day, and I want people to know that anyone is capable of manifestation…all it takes is a few minutes before bed!
What is manifestation?
At its core, manifestation is shaping your reality with your thoughts and intentions. It’s hard to think that this is possible when we think about life the way most people do, thinking that we are merely tiny bodies sitting in space. In fact, the opposite is true: you are a container for the universe whose existence doesn’t end at the edge of your body. You’re not as small as you think you are! The real you is beyond the body, beyond time and space, beyond limitation. And when you realize that there is no reality beyond your own consciousness, you realize that you can manifest your own destiny.
Your inner world reflects your outer world. I believe that each of us has an inner guru, an infinite being connected to the universe who guides our thoughts and imagination. If you can imagine something and feel it, then you can create it. But before you can create it externally, you have to create it internally. That’s where the active practice of manifestation comes in.
Manifestation as a Stepping Stone from Meditation
It was only during the pandemic that I began to make manifestation an intentional, everyday practice. But I’ve come to see how it’s truly a natural extension of meditation, which I’ve been practicing since my former days as a bond trader. Back then, I was living a lifestyle that was not conducive to tranquility of any kind, and struggling with stress and anxiety. When I finally decided to try meditation, it was a completely eye-opening experience. The more I meditated, the calmer I became. I started to be able to watch my own thoughts while they were occurring, almost as if there were two separate parts of me. I started to detect patterns, and if a certain unpleasant thought crept in I could catch it– “I’m doing it again!”– and pull myself out of that loop.
The realization that I was in control and had the power to change these patterns became the link from meditation to manifestation. When you realize the power you have over your own mind, manifestation is the next logical step. You have a lot of power; more than you think.
Consciousness and the Natural State of Dreaming
Much of what I know about manifestation and my techniques for practicing it comes from the works of Neville Goddard, one of the great American spiritual teachers and authors of the 20th century. He wrote, “The universe which we study with such care is a dream, and we the dreamers of the dream, eternal dreamers dreaming non-eternal dreams.” It’s a beautiful statement, but also quite a literal one. Your consciousness doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality. That’s why dreams can often feel so real that you wake up confused, as if you’ve actually experienced the events of a different realm. Sleep is the subconscious’s natural state, the state that sees who we really are. It’s in sleep that we are our most real, and that’s why sleep is the best gateway to manifesting the future we want.
How to Manifest while you Sleep
Getting to a place of free-flowing consciousness may sound heady in theory, but my process is actually quite simple. My manifestation practice is the last thing I do before falling asleep, and the process is essentially just visualizing my desired future as I lie in bed. I run my mind down a checklist of the goals, feelings, and overall way of life I want to achieve. I see these things in my mind’s eye. I feel what it would feel like, and see myself as the person I want to be. I don’t imagine these desires as aspirational things that haven’t happened yet; rather, I envision that they are happening in the moment or that they have already happened.
Some things are more concrete. I see, for example, my family being happy and healthy. I see myself in great shape, speaking another language, living in Hawaii, writing a book. I see my business flourishing and sending things out into the world that bring people joy. Other things I visualize are less tangible. I try to feel total oneness with everything, total abundance, and unconditional love for the universe. When I’m manifesting, my favorite word is “limitless.” For me, feeling limitless means that my heart is wide open for energy to flow through without getting stuck. Similar to the way I practice meditation, I start with the end in mind and then let my thoughts flow freely around these images. The process of manifestation can really be this simple. It only takes me a few minutes of mindful thought from the time I lie down to the time I fall asleep.
The trickiest thing, but the most crucial, is to actually believe that what you are envisioning is possible. Manifestation is not just closing your eyes and thinking, “I want to be sitting on the beach right now.” Like meditation, it takes practice to figure out how to convincingly put yourself in this mindset. But by visualizing and believing in the truth of these images and feelings, you’re sending out a signal to the universe that this is what you want, and the universe will conspire to make it actually happen.
How Manifestation is Helping Me Live my Best Life
Since I started my simple practice of manifesting before bed, I have experienced so much more synchronicity in my daily life. By putting myself in a world of positivity and abundance right before sleep, I’m staying in that reality for all the hours that I’m unconscious. Having this momentum puts me in the best position to stay in that zone when I wake up. Then I start the day with some stretching, a 15-minute meditation where I focus on emptying and opening, and some positive statements of affirmation.
Manifestation is helpful in visualizing our long-term aspirations for the future, but I have found that it’s made a great difference in my day-to-day life as well. Solutions to problems appear clearer than ever. Obstacles aren’t barriers, but opportunities to look for a different way. Sometimes it even seems that little things I want appear magically. But it’s really not magic. It’s just that my mindset allows me to be open to possibilities that I otherwise wouldn’t have seen.
Manifestation is all about believing in the truth of our ability to attract good things. When you realize that you have the power to create the world around you, anything is possible.
Charles Coristine is changing the way we think about snacking. As the President and CEO of LesserEvil Snacks, Charles channels his passions for mindfulness and healthy living into creating snacks that inspire those same virtues in others.