I first came across the Law of Attraction ten years ago, when I was going through a very hard time in my life. I was depressed and living each day like it was my last, with no clear vision of a hopeful future. As far as I could see, life would always be a struggle in every sense. I could not get my mind around the concept of inner peace, let alone imagine that I would one day feel it for myself.

One day my friend surprised me with a book (The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne) which was my introduction to the Law of Attraction and the beginning of my journey towards learning the art of manifestation. Since it was released in 2006, The Secret has sold over 30 million copies globally and has been translated into more than fifty languages.

Although the Law of Attraction has been around since the beginning of time and mentioned by many early philosophers, The Secret was the reason it became mainstream and much has been written on the subject since. Rhonda Byrne believes that the Law of Attraction was deliberately kept a secret, in order to keep the power from the masses.

I read the book three times, memorising its teachings, and as a result I have experienced seemingly magical occurrences beyond my wildest dreams. When you use the Law of Attraction to change your current reality into a better reality, this is called manifestation. It is the process of materialising your dreams into three dimensional reality.

No matter what circumstances you find yourself in, you can learn to use the Law of Attraction to change your life around completely.

What is the Law of Attraction?

The Law of Attraction basically means that your thoughts determine your reality, and that any situation in your current life can be traced back to your thoughts and emotions – conscious or subconscious. Therefore by simply learning to control your thoughts, you can change your life. The Law of Attraction is a force that acts like a magnet, manifesting situations into your life based on your thoughts and emotions.

Of course, the idea sounds kind of crazy at first. You may wonder why you have attracted certain things into your life, especially if the experiences were traumatic or heartbreaking in any way. Likewise, you will begin to question the validity of the Law of Attraction whenever bad things happen in life. According to The Secret, all experiences are a result of your thoughts and feelings on a conscious or unconscious level.

However this is only partly true, and manifestation is a little bit more complicated than that. While we do have the power to change our realities with our thoughts, there are certain events that occur which we have no control over. The only explanation for these unwanted events and catastrophes is that they are the result of negative karma carried over from a past life. But no matter what fate befalls you, you can use the Law of Attraction to manifest the best destiny you can imagine.

However, in addition to using your thoughts and emotions to attract your dream future, you need one more ingredient to successfully manifest a new reality. You have to have faith that you will manifest what it is that you desire. Faith is defined as “complete trust in someone or something, without proof” and it is the magical ingredient that turns hopes into reality.

Many religious people believe that their prayers have been answered by a higher power, but in actual fact, it is the law of attraction at work. No matter which Gods or Goddesses you believe in, the common factor is faith. Therefore it doesn’t matter what exactly you believe in, as long as you believe, your wishes will come true. In addition to believing that your desires will manifest, you need to believe that you deserve to have whatever it is that you want. If you don’t believe you deserve it with every fiber of your being, then it cannot match your energetic frequency.

How does Manifestation Work?

The Law of Attraction works by aligning you with your thoughts at an energetic level. The law responds to your dominant thoughts and emotions by manifesting the things that vibrate at the same frequency. So if you are thinking negative thoughts, you will attract negative experiences that match those thoughts because you are on a negative frequency. The Universe, God, or The Source can sense your thoughts and feelings, and objectively matches you with experiences that are aligned to your inner world without fail.

This is why we sometimes have “bad days”, and not just bad moments. It all begins with one negative thought, and before you know it the perspective with which you view the world has taken on an unpleasant tint, leading to more bad thoughts and resulting in a string of bad experiences. Likewise the same principle acts in reverse, and can bring on a “winning streak” or a series of positive experiences. Some people refer to this as luck, but the fact that they believe they are lucky is what is contributing to their good fortune.

At every point in existence, we have the choice of what frequency we choose to send out. Good vibrations are sent out whenever we are happy, excited, loving, peaceful and grateful. These feelings are reflected in our thoughts, words and actions. When we are kind and we send out good frequencies, these energies are stored up by the Universe and returned to us in time. The return could be immediate, or years later, but your frequency always finds its way back to you.

Due to the fact that the Universe can sense our true thoughts and feelings, this means that if we perform an act of kindness with ill intentions, only negative energy will be returned. It’s not just what you do, but your intentions behind your actions that count. Your thoughts, words and actions should always reflect your gratitude to the universe. The more you express gratitude, the more it aligns you with your desires. Being grateful is a powerful signal to the universe that you are ready to receive your dream future.

You never know when your desires are going to manifest. You could even be trying to shake yourself out of a negative mood, and suddenly you stumble across the coffeemaker you have been dreaming of for years, at a second hand store. Thrift stores are magical places for manifesting your desires. If you are new at the Law of Attraction, try visiting your local charity store and you will soon find that the things you thought you could not afford are indeed within your reach. It will prove to you that manifesting is real because what are the chances of the exact item you have been dreaming of, being in that store the exact day you visit? With the law of attraction what you may have thought of as a coincidence in the past, is actually an example of manifestation.

How to Manifest – Techniques to Manifest Your Highest Good

“Acting As If”

There are many tips and tricks that can help you to manifest the life of your dreams, but the basic principle is that you need to get on the same frequency as your desire. To do this, you need to keep it in mind and believe that you already have it, or that it is on its way to you. This principle is known as “Acting As If”, meaning you literally need to act as if you already have what you want or are expecting it to arrive at any moment. This means there is no room for negativity or doubt whatsoever.

For example, if you want to attract a new partner into your life, you need to make sure that there is space for them. Clear out the old to welcome the new. Arrange your house in such a way that you would be able to share it with your partner by literally clearing space in the cupboards, the garage and wherever else you can. Sleep only on your side of the bed because they will be arriving soon, so you need to be ready! By taking physical actions that reinforce your faith in a desired outcome, it sends a powerful message to the Universe.

Pay Attention to the Signs

Additionally, you need to pay attention to the signs that the Universe has heard your request and act in alignment with your dream. Only you can tell when the universe is speaking to you. It could be the lyrics of a song that plays on the radio, an image that you find meaningful, or a situation not panning out the way you had hoped, but in each scenario the Universe is guiding you towards your dreams so you need to listen and follow your intuition.

Let Go of Expectations

Letting go of the outcome is another important point that serves to fast track your manifestation. The thing about letting go is that you need to be happy right now, in the present moment, without your desire. The best example of this is with weight loss. It can be incredibly hard to “act as if” you are already skinny, especially when you look in the mirror and see that you are not. However, if you want to master the law of attraction and manifest your desires you have to surrender control of the timing of your gift. Instead, focus on gratitude and fighting unwanted thoughts with mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Mindfulness is the art of learning to acknowledge your thoughts and emotions, allowing them to flow through your mind without identifying with them. Emotions are transient, meaning they come and go like the weather, and as long as you are not wallowing or obsessing on negative thoughts they will leave soon after they have entered your mind. This technique helps with manifestation because it keeps your mind fresh and clear so that you can focus on attracting your desires. By combining mindfulness with CBT you can learn to shift your negative thoughts to positive ones and rid yourself of repetitive thought patterns, thus clearing the way for successful manifestation.

Affirmations

There are a lot of great techniques for manifesting, but practicing affirmations and creative visualization are perhaps the most powerful. Affirmations are positive statements about yourself that you can either write down or say out loud in front of the mirror. The idea is to repeat the same statement (or series of statements) as often as twenty times, three times a day, so that they sink into the subconscious mind which is the part of the brain that is responsible for manifestation. You should spend at least ten minutes a day repeating your affirmations for success. The statements must only use the positive, for example “I am aligned with my desires”, and should avoid statements such as “I am not going to give up”, because the brain doesn’t hear the negative words and instead only hears “I am going to give up”.

Visualization

Visualization acts in a similar way to affirmations in that it also speaks directly to your unconscious mind through images. There are a number of ways to use creative visualization, ranging from vision boards and meditation to hanging pictures around your home of your future dreams. The idea is to picture yourself how you want to look, or doing an activity that you dream of, in as much detail as possible. By meditating and consciously visualizing yourself having already achieved your desire, you can plant the seed in your subconscious mind that will bear the fruit of your manifestation in reality. You can even use emoticons, symbols and sigils to visualize. Sigils are a magical symbol that you design to represent a desire and align with it.

There are so many ways to enhance manifestation in addition to the techniques mentioned here. If you want some more ideas, just take a look at the blog and enjoy the powerful journey of manifesting your dream life.