Our manifestation efforts aren’t working because we aren’t dreaming big enough. 

Yes, we are imagining big numbers in our bank accounts, large sales, and huge houses—but this is not how we need to go big.

We need to go big with our true soul work.

Our manifestation efforts aren’t working because we are scared. Not scared of not having enough, but scared to feel sad or feel bad or have things not work out. All of our wishes become nothing more than a desperate plea to feel better.

Our souls don’t care about feeling better.

Our souls need to grow.

Our souls need to rise to the challenge of life each and every day.

This can only happen through the flow of things coming together and falling apart. And for that we need courage, and a brave heart, and to stop feeling like a victim of the universe.

Much of our manifestation efforts come from a poor-me attitude. An attitude that encompasses the idea that everyone has it better than us, and our life will never really improve, but we kind of hope maybe one day it will. So we say a little prayer as our manifestation effort and then go back to worrying profusely.

Maybe you have noticed that this style of manifestation doesn’t work.

We just want the million dollars to drop on our doorstep without having to open our hearts an inch further. Or we just want the perfect relationship to show up without spending any time exploring our own darkness. When we want these things, we find ourselves stuck in lonely emptiness.

Wanting more is not manifesting. It is whining.

The word “manifest” holds within it the energy of the divine relationship between the universe and the individual soul.

Manifesting is a vibrational delight that comes from joy and expansion, not worry and fear.

When was the last time we looked to the sky and said, “World, I am ready for everything you want to throw my way, because I am here to learn authentic strength and wisdom through experience”?

That type of manifesting statement is true expansion.

Our manifestation efforts don’t work when we try to micromanage our wants and desires. “Please give me sunny days with no rain,” we ask the universe, and then wonder why we get cloudy, grey days all the time.

Instead, we need our manifestation efforts to be big and broad, and not try to control the outcome with our limited mind. We need to be brave and ready for the lows as well as the highs, because the lows allow us to develop self-love and inner strength in the midst of the sh*t show that is this human life.

And by experiencing the lows, we have a gift when the highs come—we can savor them with the gratitude and joy they deserve, instead of just tossing them aside with a took-you-long-enough attitude.

None of us have incarnated to gain money and power.

None of us have incarnated to be complacent.

We are all here to grow our hearts, our joy and our own sense of being in the light.

So, when working our manifestation and vibrational efforts, we need to stand in that true open-heart space that is filled with light, and partner the powerful souls that we are with the universe, and pray for guidance bigger than a million dollars, a mansion, and a sexy partner.

We need to ask for evolution, to be of service, and to heal our karmic wounds.

This is the manifestation effort that works, and that will bring true fulfillment to our soul’s embodiment of the human journey.

Author: Ruth Lera

Image: zoë biggs/Flickr 

Editor: Emily Bartran