The Yin & Yang of Manifesting With the Story You Tell Yourself

Manifesting is all about the story you tell yourself in your mind. Now that the practice is more popular, today we take a deeper look at what manifesting can do, but also cannot achieve and how your personal circumstances and context play a vital role in achieving lasting success. And the best way to make this all clear to you from the beginning, is to look at how both luck and happiness works for Disney characters Gladstone Gander and Donald Duck.

Gladstone Gander & Donald Duck (copyright Disney)

First things first - How you feel about yourself is what you attract

Many of you will probably know the central concept of manifesting, yet I'll repeat it all the same: How you feel inside is also what you reflect outward, which in turn governs the responses of your outside world, increasing or decreasing success in life, depending on whether you feel positive or negative within.

That's the gist.

This of course, is a general rule of thumb. It doesn't always apply and its not a golden ticket to fame, love and fortune, simply because sometimes outside circumstances are overwhelming and you cannot steer those outcomes with your inner feelings. You can manifest the hell out of that love interest coming to your house tonight to make sweet love to you, but if a hurricane is raging, chances are it ain't gonna happen, no matter how many candles you've lit and how many affirmations you've done.

So let's put aside the contexts that are simply too strong for now and focus on the practical; what does and does not work. The practical core of manifesting is what people call the abundance versus scarcity mindsets. This too is relatively simple and I'll give a quick couple of examples just for the mindset.

If you always feel that life is failing you, you are more likely to walk out the door with hunched shoulders, make less eye contact with people in general, speak less clearly, make less of an effort to change things and be less joyful after all. Since human beings are a social species, people pick up on each others emotions, often even copying them. So there you are ordering a cup of coffee, feeling miserable, and the waitress picks up on it, and shies away from giving you that extra cookie. Your mindset basically prevents you from having cookie-abundance today. If however, you feel great, order the coffee and smile, you get cookie-abundance.

That's just one day of course. If you want to manifest something bigger, for instance attracting love into your life, the key is to practice self-love. When you love who you are you 'ooze' that to the outside world, in turn making you more attractive (check out Rachael her meditations for this kind of stuff!). The key here is that you don't have to be perfect, but just have to feel love inside of you.

Donald Duck & Gladstone Gander

This brings us to Donald Duck. He's quick to anger, do foolish things, gets overconfident... you get what I'm saying here: his mindset always translates into stuff that happens, often into hilarious circumstances, giving us plenty of fun for many decades of comics. He is poor, he has tough jobs, gets fired all the time and misses out on opportunities in life. He never gets the extra coockie.

Yet, it must be noted, he is a happy parent with his nephews and would move the world for them. He loves them dearly. Which in the end, always leads to Daisy Duck choosing him over Gladstone Gander; she feels and knows his love, despite all the (hilarious) imperfections.

Gander in turn is rich without ever having to do anything for it. He just walks around in full confidence that luck will provide for him, which it usually does. He is the poster child of manifesting, just walking the streets convinced he'll find a diamond or something, and will be rewarded. Yet he seems not to understand true happiness - true abundance - because he never had to work for it.

The difference here is this: Donald works incredibly hard for it, yet always misses out on wealth, yet he still has abundance in love. Gladstone never works for anything, and thus always misses out on happiness, and experiences lack in that regard, yet always has access to wealth.

I trust you're feeling where I'm going with this... real success in manifesting is doing both the manifesting and the work. You have to feel the confidence in yourself (tell yourself the 'right story') and have the belief that the universe will provide for you. Yet, without putting in the actual work on the dreams you wish to achieve, you will not be able to manifest anything that has true meaning.

This is where often the practice of manifesting fails: either people do too much meditation and not enough work (Gladstone), or they work really hard but never change their mindset into abundance (Donald).

In short, you'll need Gladstone's attitude and Donald's work ethic.

The Yin & Yang of Manifesting

If you dream of publishing a bestselling novel, you have to do the manifesting meditations that gets you in the mindset of success... but you still have to write the darn thing too. If you want to successfully release a song you'll have to ooze the energy of a good musician, yet you also need to master your instrument or vocals. And so and so forth.

Let's call this the Yin and Yang of Manifesting, who both need to be in balance to achieve the manifestation. The Yin part is the mindset - feeling confident enough, good enough about yourself and your abilities. Doing manifestation meditations, or other general practices that calm your mind, will aid you in achieving this mindset. This doesn't have to be meditation literally. It can be surfing, or boxing, or similar things too, just as long as they calm the mind. You choose.

The Yang is the foreword energy of actually doing the work. Without that part, you can meditate all you want, it just won't happen.

Personal context and level of wealth

One of the aspects that plays a role in all of this, is the amount of money you already earn or possess. If you have enough of it, spending time on either the Yin or the Yang side will be easier to achieve than if you don't have the means. Money, however, does not guarantee success, mostly because owning wealth can also take away the 'drive'. Sometimes not having any money will be a driving force behind your success, because you will have the energy to push more, creating momentum.

For those in possession of wealth, who wish to spread the word about manifesting that positive mindset, it is wise to be mindful and empathetic to people who encounter frustrations due to their lack of wealth. Following your dreams is always easier with the backing of wealth than it is without. It is also easier in that context to be positive about life, and reflect this outward. So basically: don't judge people too harshly when they don't have a positive mindset just yet.

This, of course, can also be a trap: because your life is relatively comfortable, you end up not putting enough Yang energy in to follow your dreams and manifest your desires. This is the common cause of many wealthy people being unhappy and envious of those who push harder, or who seem happy despite being poor. This richer folk wished that with all the wealth and chances they already possess, would be chasing after their dreams more, knowing that actually putting in the work, is already a source of happiness.

It's the journey, not the goal that counts.

On the flip side, those without the means to achieve their dreams more easily, would be wise to also hold put on quick judgements on the more wealthy. Many wealthy people understand that their extra means do not equal happiness, as they put in a lot of time soul searching. There are lessons to be learned from their attitudes and practices, which can be emulated. Plus, it is often the wealthier people who provide the free practices one can find all over the internet. Which you can pick up right now.

Manifesting money is not manifesting abundance

And remember that in the end, manifesting money is never the goal. It is manifesting abundance, a life that provides, a trust that the cosmos will have your back, that is one of the primary sources of happiness in life. In other words, even though it is tempting, trying to manifest money in the short term, and acting on it, is usually the perfect recipe for failure on abundance in the long term.

In other words, you'll ooze greed, which in turn is reflected outwards, picked up upon by others, who will disrespect you, since you disrespect yourself with your greed.

You have to ask yourself the question: what is abundance to me? If the answer is more money, than tell yourself that money is a means to and end, not a goal in and out of itself. Some of the richest people in life are also the most miserable, as they lack self-confidence and self-respect the most. Rich or poor, real wealth is understanding you own best balance between being comfortable and happy.

What is it that fulfills you?

The Yin - Calming the Mind - Or 'Pull Energy'

Another term you often encounter in the context of manifesting is the word 'magnetic'. Having a positive mindset and confidence in yourself translates to a 'can do' attitude to the outside world. This energy is picked up by your surroundings, with people becoming more inclined to trust you, to have faith in you and to help you.

To achieve this, it can be beneficial to first meditate on those actual surroundings. If your context is miserable, and the people around you are too, having a positive mindset can actually backfire. If the circumstances, people and surroundings in your life are not positive enough, it pays to work on this first and change them. Ask yourself the question: what can I control in my context? And what can I not control in my context?

Here the concept of 'letting go' comes in handy. Anything in life you cannot control - however frustrating - should be let go. This will not only make you feel better but also creates space for the next steps in what you can control (check out my blog on stoicism for more help on this aspect). In many ways, this is about getting your life in order, or at least make it easier for your manifestations to come to life. It will change your attitude for the better too, having less frustrations with the things you can't control. All in all, it will reflect outward, making you a more wanted person, more 'magnetic', with success 'pulling toward you'.

To give you a practical example, one of the people I've worked with is a fantastic woman, always positive, who was chasing her dreams writing a book on mental health and building up her own practice. Yet, there was one thing that was working against her: her context was that she lived in a wealthy town, surrounded by many women who felt miserable about their - very rich - lives. They had all the money in the world, yet very little happiness. She kept trying to work with them, but for over two years, her own manifestations kept failing.

So here she was, being the happy camper she was inside, reflecting this to the outside world. She had even 'walked the walk'; coming from humble beginnings, facing many hardships and mental problems in life, yet was able to build a life for herself. For her to manifest the success of this next step in life, she didn't need to change the mindset, nor the amount of work. She needed to change her context and her surroundings.

She had already done the Yin (calming her mind) and the Yang (doing the work). She was already magnetic. All she had to do now, was move away from these negative, gossipy and envious women around her. Those she could not control. She did, and her dream came true.

So, the key lesson here is: learn to let go of that which does not serve you. It will make lighter. More positive. And thus, magnetic.

The Yang - The Work You Put In - Or 'Push Energy'

The other side of the same coin is the work you put in. This is not an easy road. It comes down to the motivation you can bring up to achieve your dreams. Here, the surf analogy works best.

Learning how to surf is not the same as learning other sports. There is an inherent danger in stepping into the ocean to begin with. It ain't no tennis court. And climbing up that surfboard will be super painful, super stressful and filled with constant failure the first days and weeks you try it, as the waves batter and bruise you.

Yet when you finally stand, you understand why you put up with the hardship: you flow, ever so briefly, on the forces of nature and the cosmos itself. It is this type of flow that is the ultimate feeling that manifesting can bring you. Put in even more work, and you could actually become good at it. It is fulfilling, abundant, happy energy all the way.

That energy however cannot be reached without the drive to go through those waves first. Here, having a positive, magnetic mindset can help... but so can being angry, bitter and frustrated. Those types of emotions can be the fuel to do stuff. Or to keep it in storytelling terms, quoting Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins: "It's not who you are what defines you, but what you do."

When chasing your dreams, this can be especially hard. Your dreams mean so much to you, that many negative feelings - fear of failure, imposter syndrome and blockages can come up (check out how to overcome writer's block here). For this Yang part to work, it is crucial you allow these negative feelings in, that you don't resist them. Feel all the negativity too, yet give them 'space' in your mind. You'll learn to transform them into 'drive', and celebrate even the smallest of successes. Like the first time you succeed in riding that wave.

Momentum, Flow & The Story You Tell Yourself

I cannot begin to count the times people have said to me: "Ah, you are a writer! I've always wanted to write a book myself!" Little do they know just how strange it sounds when you tell me that.

Writing a book is not a fun thing to do. In the beginning, when your ideas are still fresh and you put them to paper, it is a good feeling. Halfway through however, and it has become a terrible slug, kind of like those waves battering you. Towards the end you'll feel like your going through actual hell: exhausted, confronted with your own thoughts, and your own mistakes hundreds of times, plus the criticisms from others, with hundreds of rewrites, thousands of corrections... with the finish line in sight, all you'll want to do is curl under a blanket. Yet when you do make it through, it can feel incredibly fulfilling, more because of the hardship, than despite it.

So, every time somebody says that to me - "I've always wanted to write a book myself!" I always think that if you really wanted that, you'd have already done it, or at the very least were working towards it. In my example, my writing isn't a profession, it's a calling from my spirit. Despite all the misery, your soul is compelling you to do it. Resist it, and you'll become even more miserable.

That is the perfect description of manifesting: it has to be about what your soul wants. Not your pocketbook, or your social status, or any other shallower goal, it has to be soul-driven. To truly find this you'll need the Yin part, building the calm and confidence, for the Yang part to kick in, building the actual dream and grinding it out.

Then, and only then, will the momentum start to build, and will you reach flow.

Luv, as always,

And if you want to know more about one of my dreams manifesting itself... check out my book The Whole Story - The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling here !!!

The Whole Story - The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling

(And for even more on manifesting, check out my other article here and this blog on the two paths to success here)