by Simryn Molina
art by Sydney Eze
I am a powerful manifestor.
If you have TikTok, chances are you’ve stumbled across the concept of manifestation. If you’re unfamiliar with this idea, scrolling through videos under #manifestation can be enlightening and extremely confusing. People are claiming they have the power to get anything they desire, lip-syncing to “I’m So Lucky Lucky” by Lucky Twice, and writing their wishes on paper and putting them under their pillows. While all of this may seem to be a bit disconnected, it actually stems from the same core belief - the Law of Attraction.
According to the Law of Attraction, your thoughts have the power to control your reality [1]. Believing this is true allows you to focus on your desires and turn them into reality. This process of aligning your thoughts with outcomes to bring them into existence is known as manifesting [1].
I am capable of bouncing back after stressful situations.
Before considering how manifestation might change the course of your life, it may be helpful to look at how it can help in everyday scenarios. Take stressful situations, for example. Stressful situations happen all the time. For instance, imagine you have five minutes before you have to hand in your exam, and the answers to those questions you intended to come back to still haven’t magically come to you. Regardless of the situation, you’re left with a palpable feeling of stress. Now that you’re thoroughly stressed out, the question is: how will you react?
In hindsight, you may cringe at the way you respond to whatever stressful situations you encounter. Why did you practically run away from your crush after turning bright red? These quick reactions to stress—as genuinely baffling and maladaptive as they may seem—are actually survival tactics that humans have acquired through evolution [2].
Your body's stress reaction kicks in when one of your senses detects something potentially harmful [3]. This sensory information is sent to the amygdala, a part of the brain that helps process emotions like fear and stress. If the amygdala identifies danger, it signals to the hypothalamus, another brain region that helps control involuntary body functions we don’t usually think about, like heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure [3].
The hypothalamus then activates the autonomic nervous system, which is divided into two main parts: the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches [4]. The sympathetic nervous system prepares your body to respond to stress by making your heart beat faster and speeding up your breathing [5]. When the stressful moment is over, and you feel yourself starting to calm, it’s your parasympathetic nervous system bringing your body back to a resting state. All of these signals are sent through nerves and hormones. Nerves transmit sensory information and commands, while hormones work like messengers to ensure each part of your body reacts as needed [4, 5].
This process may seem complicated, but the reality is that all of this happens so quickly that you can react to danger before you even become consciously aware of it [4]. This rapid response may have evolved as a survival instinct, but it can still be activated even when you’re nowhere near physical harm [2]. What people perceive as dangerous is entirely subjective. For example, the same stress system is activated whether you're dodging a speeding car or stressing about an embarrassing text. In both cases, your heart may race, and your muscles tense as you prepare to face or avoid the situation. Remember that your body’s instinctive reaction to a stressor isn’t something you directly control—this “fight or flight” response happens instantly, helping you get ready to either face a threat or escape from it [2, 4].
While stressful situations are inevitable, and your body may react to them on instinct, there are still ways you can take back some control. For some, learning which stress-coping mechanisms work best can be a highly effective way to avoid reliving stressful moments. Coping varies from person to person, as it is shaped by a range of factors, including mental processes, behaviors, personality traits, and specific cognitive thinking styles, like optimistic thinking and reframing negative events [6, 7]. Together, these factors help shift your emotional response to a stressful situation, promoting a return to your baseline emotional state—the stable level of emotion you feel when you aren’t strongly influenced by specific events [7]. Among these cognitive styles, research suggests that positive thinking, such as focusing on potential solutions or finding benefits in challenging situations, is one of the most effective ways to recover from stress [6]. Positive thinking is the root of manifestation techniques, making manifestation a potential coping mechanism for stress [7].
My positive thoughts lead to positive experiences.
While positive thinking focuses on reframing thoughts, manifestation extends this by combining intention with action-oriented practices. Positive thinking is tied to different cognitive processes, emotional states, and personality traits; you can think, feel, and be positive [6]. When considering positive thinking as a coping mechanism for stress, the primary focus is training yourself to direct your anxious thoughts to more positive ones. Your thoughts exist in verbal (words or voices) and visual (images) forms, with these two types of thinking typically operating together [7]. Similarly, manifesting through positive thinking can also take a verbal or visual form, allowing you to choose which works best. While people naturally use both types of thinking, research shows that worrying—thinking about an uncertain outcome in a negative way, often linked to anxiety—is typically associated with verbal thoughts [7, 8]. Some researchers suggest that verbal worry may be an adaptive way to temporarily cope with anxiety because thinking in words is less vivid than thinking in images [9]. While both are still stress-inducing, visual anxious thoughts may lead to more in-
the-moment stress than verbal thoughts. Other research has shown that verbal anxious thoughts may lead to more persistent and intrusive negative thought patterns, increasing focus on negativity over time [8, 10].
Directing your worrisome thoughts to positive ones is an effective tool [7]. Research shows that while anxiety-provoking thoughts are often verbal, both verbal and visual positive thinking reduces the frequency of subsequent negative thoughts and promotes one’s perceived ability to cope with stress [7, 8]. One study found that while positive thinking may decrease how often negative thoughts occur, the intensity of a negative thought (if experienced) may remain the same [8]. This suggests that positive thinking may help disengage from negative thoughts rather than dismantle them. Over time, consistently replacing negative thoughts with positive ones may buffer their adverse effects [7].
What I write comes into existence.
While manifesting through thought may work for some, you may require a bit more action… perhaps something with some hand and wrist movement? Manifesting through writing is a technique that comes in various forms, ranging from directed goal planning to paper-burning rituals. Regardless of your exact methods, these techniques require repetition, visualization, and positive intention [11, 12]. Whether you use a pen and paper, your laptop, or record your manifestations is up to you [13].
Writing therapy has long been used in psychotherapy practices to promote psychological well-being and aid the treatment of mental disorders [14, 15]. When used in positive psychology practices, positive thoughts are the main focus of writing content [14]. The emphasis on positivity and goal setting makes this practice comparable to manifesting through writing, which employs similar techniques. Research demonstrates that psychiatric patients who practiced positive writing after being discharged experienced less depressive symptoms, a higher ability to manage and respond to emotions effectively, and more awareness of their needs and how to satisfy them [15]. This finding supports that positive writing can be useful to retain and promote the favorable outcomes of therapy and psychiatric treatment. For those experiencing symptoms related to mental health disorders, guidance from a mental health professional is often crucial for writing therapy to have benefits. Further, using self-guided writing therapy as a replacement for professional treatment of a disorder is not recommended [16]. In recent years, there’s been increasing
support for using it as an effective stand-alone practice for those who’ve completed treatment or don’t require direct guidance from a clinician [17, 18]. Depending on the person and their experiences, writing therapy may be advantageous with or without direction from a professional.
Manifesting through writing builds off the practice of manifesting through thinking by putting those positive thoughts onto paper [11]. This practice can be advantageous for people looking for ways to curb their worries, promote motivation to achieve goals, and gain a clearer sense of direction [19]. Research has demonstrated that goal-setting can make distant life goals feel more obtainable and increase the likelihood of achieving specific goals [19]. A manifesting technique that may be useful for making goals more tangible is scripting [11]. This term refers to thinking or writing about goals as if you have already achieved them. If you act as if these desires are already fulfilled, your reality, per the Law of Attraction, will begin to reflect your beliefs back to you [11]. If you’re still warming up to the ideas presented in the Law of Attraction, you can think of scripting as another method to make your goals more palpable. Writing I’m a first-year graduate student at [insert name of a goal-worthy institution] with a [specific name] scholarship that covers my tuition feels much more tangible than getting into grad school without debt.
The literature on goal-setting greatly emphasizes that the practice is most effective when you actively engage with it and write your goals with clear intention and desire; passively writing about goals without much thought will not make much difference [20]. Combining goal-planning, which usually consists of writing down goals in a list format, with manifesting techniques may result in optimal engagement [11]. Some manifestation-through-writing techniques employ active engagement by encouraging writing down precisely why you want to achieve a goal. For example, if you really want to adopt a cat, you may write something like I have a pet cat that’s a constant companion to love and care for [11, 21]. You may also use something like the 369 method, which further reinforces this engagement by encouraging repeated interaction with your goals. This method requires writing your goals out three times in the morning, six times in the afternoon, and nine times in the evening, allowing you to build a consistent, goal-oriented habit [11, 12, 22, 23].
Although manifestation can be a powerful skill, it may not be entirely effective on its own. Writing therapy can help positively direct thoughts, but this isn't its only use. Research on expressive writing, where participants are instructed to write about all the emotions they experience, whether positive or negative, also has advantages [13]. This practice emphasizes writing about upsetting experiences to encourage processing emotions and their causes. Writing positive reflections may be helpful to avoid ruminating on negative thoughts or worries but, on its own, is unlikely to promote processing and acceptance of negative emotions [13]. When coping with trauma or negative emotions, processing and reflection play key roles in self-growth and acceptance [24]. Brain imaging studies have found that encouraging emotional acceptance in participants leads to decreased activation of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), which remains active during repetitive, self-focused thoughts and emotion avoidance. This suggests that emotional acceptance reduces PCC functions that divert attention away from acceptance [25]. Skipping the processing and acceptance stages and jumping straight into positive thinking and manifesting may lead to toxic positivity – the tendency to minimize negative emotions or experiences by masking them with positivity [26]. This suppression of emotions may later result in a negative mood and give rise to distressing feelings caused by pressure to consistently feel happy or positive [27]. Like most self-help methods, using positive writing practices—like manifestation— won’t benefit you if you’re using them as band-aid solutions. Pairing your manifestations and positive writing with expressive writing could allow you to decrease negative rumination or worry and work through your negative emotions and experiences [13, 19].
Listening to music enhances my manifestations.
Positive manifestations and affirmations can even be incorporated into the music you listen to. As with other forms of manifesting, manifesting through music requires being intentional and repetitive. Music can influence your emotional states and get stuck in your head, making it the perfect fit for manifesting [28]. People may gravitate towards songs for different reasons, so when choosing which music to combine with your manifestations, consider the elements of the music that you know make you feel good. Maybe the lyrics resonate with you, or perhaps you’re more swayed by the melody, tune, and beat. Working with your preferences is a good place to start [28].
Once you find a song (or a whole playlist) you associate with positive feelings, you can pair it with your manifestations and goals. Manifesting through music comes in different forms, leaving it up to you to choose the one that feels best. Pairing positive music with positive thinking is one of these methods [28]. So, if your manifestation goal is to feel more positive in your day-to-day life, focusing on the positive feelings that music gives you may be a way to channel it [28].
Music has the power to evoke emotional states in listeners. When you listen to music, your brain takes in the external sounds of a song and creates an internal interpretation of them [29]. This process begins with the exteroceptive systems responsible for processing sensory information such as sound, texture, and color. Once the external stimuli are taken in, these systems incorporate them into your brain’s understanding of the world around you. Similar to how a loud sound can cause you to feel scared, listening to music can make you feel elated or calm. Your emotional response to the stimuli is stored in the brainstem and cerebral cortex [29]. The brainstem, located at the base of the brain, is involved in involuntary actions such as digestion and respiration while the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain, is responsible for higher cognitive functions like perception and planning [3]. Together, these areas contribute to the mental experience of feelings [29]. Research findings also show that insula activation increases when you listen to pleasant and joyful music. The insula, part of the cerebral cortex, plays a significant role in processing emotions and fostering self-awareness [29].
In the same vein of pairing positive thinking with music, you can visualize what you aim to manifest while listening to some tunes. If you don’t want your visualizations to be influenced by the imagery that a song’s lyrics evoke, you could try listening to songs that only have instrumentals or are sung in a language you don’t understand. This way, you can ascribe your own meaning to the instrumentals or vocals and use this meaning to help you envision your goals. Visualization is a highly effective tool when it comes to goal setting and goal achievement [23]. The further in the future a goal takes place, the more difficult it is to imagine achieving it. And the more distant a goal feels, the more difficult it is to muster the motivation to accomplish it [30]. It turns out that how far away a goal seems is actually a matter of perception. If you can focus on what achieving your goal would look like, no matter how far in the future, you’re more likely to internalize it and put forth more effort to make it happen [31]. Using the positivity that the songs you choose evoke, you can try visualizing precisely what it would look like to execute your goal and how it would make you feel [28]. Whether you visualize by closing your eyes or grabbing a pen and writing out a detailed description is up to you. Manifestation through positive visualization and music can make your goals feel more tangible and give you that extra push to take the following steps to complete them [28].
For those who tend to focus on song lyrics when they listen to music, you can even use these to manifest. A quick search on Spotify will lead you to playlists filled with songs with positive lyrics that may resonate with you. Research on positive lyrics’ impact on behavior demonstrates that familiar music with prosocial lyrics can lead to more prosocial behavior, heightened empathy, and increased positive emotions. Familiarity with the lyrics promotes their positive outcome because less attention is being used to process what the lyrics say [32]. Listening to a song with a positive message that resonates with your manifestation goals while reading the lyrics can help you become more familiar [27]. Additionally, more tech-savvy individuals could audio record their own manifestations (or use text-to-speech software) and put them over a song to have a personalized affirmation to listen to wherever they go. Focusing on what the lyrics or affirmations mean to you while listening with intention can make your manifestations more achievable
I influenced you to try manifesting.
So, are you planning on now becoming a full-time manifestor? Or, at the very least, considering trying it out? I’m certainly manifesting that you do (and yes, writing this article has turned me into a regular manifestor). While manifesting is by no means a cure-all for all your anxieties and negative thoughts, neuroscience and psychology research suggest that it can lessen them and help you achieve your goals. Manifesting through positive thinking, writing, and music are ways to incorporate this positive practice into your life and start seeing changes. Steering clear of toxic positivity, giving manifesting a go is definitely worth a shot!
REFERENCES:
1. Mullins, E. (2008). The process of the law of attraction and the 3rd law, law of allowing. Retrieved from https://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/42803
2. Taborsky, B., Kuijper, B., Fawcett, T. W., English, S., Leimar, O., McNamara, J. M., & Ruuskanen, S. (2022). An evolutionary perspective on stress responses, damage and repair. Hormones and Behavior, 142, 105180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2022.105180
3. Ackerman, S. (1992). Major Structures and Functions of the Brain. In Discovering the Brain. National Academies Press (US). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234157/
4. Hannibal, K. E., & Bishop, M. D. (2014). Chronic Stress, Cortisol Dysfunction, and Pain: A Psychoneuroendocrine Rationale for Stress Management in Pain Rehabilitation. Physical Therapy, 94(12), 1816. https://doi.org/10.2522/ptj.20130597
5. Understanding the stress response. (2011, June 15). Harvard Health. Retrieved October 7, 2024, from https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response
6. Bessaraba, O., Melnyk, I., Shakhov, V., Shakhov, V., Mateiko, N., & Ryhel, O. (2022). The Role of Positive Thinking in Overcoming Stress by a Person: The Neuroscientific Paradigm. BRAIN. Broad Research in Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience, 13(3), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.18662/brain/13.3/350
7. Eagleson, C., Hayes, S., Mathews, A., Perman, G., & Hirsch, C. R. (2016). The power of positive thinking: Pathological worry is reduced by thought replacement in Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 78, 13–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2015.12.017
8. Stokes, C., & Hirsch, C. R. (2010). Engaging in imagery versus verbal processing of worry: Impact on negative intrusions in high worriers. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48(5), 418–423. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2009.12.011
9. Butler, G., Wells, A., & Dewick, H. (1995). Differential Effects of Worry and Imagery After Exposure to a Stressful Stimulus: A Pilot Study. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 23(1), 45–56. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352465800017628
10. Williams, M. O., Mathews, A., & Hirsch, C. R. (2014). Verbal worry facilitates attention to threat in high-worriers. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 45(1), 8–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2013.05.006
11. Kress, D. A. (2021, February 19). How to Manifest By Writing. Dr. Anna Kress. Retrieved from https://drannakress.com/how-to-manifest-by-writing/
12. Manifest, B. &. (2023, February 28). How to Manifest on Paper: Writing Rituals for Massive Manifestation. Bloom and Manifest. Retrieved October 28, 2024, from https://www.bloomandmanifest.com/how-to-manifest-on-paper/
13. Pennebaker, J. W., & Evans, J. F. (2014). Expressive writing: words that heal. Enumclaw, WA: Idyll Arbor, Inc.
14. Ruini, C., & Mortara, C. C. (2022). Writing Technique Across Psychotherapies—From Traditional Expressive Writing to New Positive Psychology Interventions: A Narrative Review. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 52(1), 23–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-021-09520-9
15. Suhr, M., Risch, A. k., & Wilz, G. (2017). Maintaining Mental Health Through Positive Writing: Effects of a Resource Diary on Depression and Emotion Regulation. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 73(12), 1586–1598. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22463
16. Reinhold, M., Bürkner, P.-C., & Holling, H. (2018). Effects of expressive writing on depressive symptoms—A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 25(1), e12224. https://doi.org/10.1111/cpsp.12224
17. Allen, S. F., Wetherell, M. A., & Smith, M. A. (2020). Online writing about positive life experiences reduces depression and perceived stress reactivity in socially inhibited individuals. Psychiatry Research, 284, 112697. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2019.112697
18. Gerger, H., Werner, C. P., Gaab, J., & Cuijpers, P. (2022). Comparative efficacy and acceptability of expressive writing treatments compared with psychotherapy, other writing treatments, and waiting list control for adult trauma survivors: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. Psychological Medicine, 52(15), 3484–3496. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291721000143
19. Schippers, M. C., Morisano, D., Locke, E. A., Scheepers, A. W. A., Latham, G. P., & de Jong, E. M. (2020). Writing about personal goals and plans regardless of goal type boosts academic performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 60, 101823. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.101823
20. Koestner, R., Lekes, N., Powers, T. A., & Chicoine, E. (2002). Attaining personal goals: Self-concordance plus implementation intentions equals success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(1), 231–244. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.1.231
21. Klauser, H. A. (2001). Write It down, Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want - And Getting It! New York: Scribner.
22. Manifestation Could Be The Key to Getting What You Really Want in Life. (n.d.). Verywell Mind. Retrieved October 30, 2024, from https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-manifest-techniques-what-to-say-7487045
23. Smith, K. S., & Graybiel, A. M. (2016). Habit formation. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 18(1), 33–43. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2016.18.1/ksmith
24. Stockton, H., Hunt, N., & Joseph, S. (2011). Cognitive processing, rumination, and posttraumatic growth. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 24(1), 85–92. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.20606
25. Messina, I., Grecucci, A., & Viviani, R. (2021). Neurobiological models of emotion regulation: a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies of acceptance as an emotion regulation strategy. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 16(3), 257–267. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsab007
26. Upadhyay, I. S., Srivatsa, K. A., & Mamidi, R. (2022). Towards Toxic Positivity Detection. In L.-W. Ku, C.-T. Li, Y.-C. Tsai, & W.-Y. Wang (Eds.), Proceedings of the Tenth International Workshop on Natural Language Processing for Social Media (pp. 75–82). Presented at the SocialNLP 2022, Seattle, Washington: Association for Computational Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2022.socialnlp-1.7
27. Lew, Z., & Flanagin, A. J. (2023). Toxic positivity on social media: The drawbacks and benefits of sharing positive (but potentially platitudinous) messages online. New Media & Society, 14614448231213944. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231213944
28. Kyle, K. (2021, February 24). Using Music To Manifest: How To Get Powerful Manifestation Results. Kath Kyle. Retrieved from https://www.kathkyle.com/using-music-to-manifest/
29. Habibi, A., & Damasio, A. (2014). Music, feelings, and the human brain. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 24(1), 92–102. https://doi.org/10.1037/pmu0000033
30. Bandura, A., & Schunk, D. H. (1981). Cultivating competence, self-efficacy, and intrinsic interest through proximal self-motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41(3), 586–598. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.41.3.586
31. Cheema, A., & Bagchi, R. (2011). The Effect of Goal Visualization on Goal Pursuit: Implications for Consumers and Managers. Journal of Marketing, 75(2), 109–123. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.75.2.109
32. Ruth, N. (2019). “If you wanna make the world a better place”: Factors influencing the effect of songs with prosocial lyrics. Psychology of Music, 47(4), 568–584. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735618766687
Kommentare