building your treasure map
how manifestation is actually about letting go, and committing to your unique scavenger hunt.
i’m always thinking about manifestation. it’s 50% annoying and 50% magical and i haven’t quite figured out how to shift that ratio, though through writing this i sure hope to try.
but i think we’re all always thinking about it. we all have goals and ways of being and things and people/relationships that we want, and it’s just common lingo these days to drop in to a conversation what we’re trying to manifest in any particular season of life. i myself have a tendencies, when something spectacular happens in a friend’s life, make a point to let them know “you manifested this!” because i will never hesitate to remind anyone of how powerful their truth really is. i don’t believe in accidents.
for me the annoying part of manifestation is that there is a permaquestionmark hovering over the process of it. like………..what actually is manifestation? and how in the fuck do you it? and why is it so trendy? and how do you not experience shame when you’ve been trying to manifest something for YEARS and it still hasn’t shown up? how do you not immediately suspect you must be doing it wrong (which is funny because do i even know how to do it in the first place?)? and how come sally manifests things within a day and kathy doesn’t even blink before what she wants plops right in front of her and people like me are. always. waiting.
do manifestation and victimhood have some sort of agreement i don’t know about? no? is it just me marrying the two? ok.
anyway.
the answers to all of those questions are complex and varied depending on many factors. i’ve read about it, studied it, meditated on it, paid a lot of money to popular companies who’ve actually trademarked neuromanifestation, and more. and yes, to some degree or another i have benefited from it all, because as long as i learned something along the way about my self - it was useful. but i still don’t feel like i get it.
i’m a generator with sacral authority in human design with a 1/3 profile. this mean i have to obsessively study something, collect data, experience it for my self, research, and really get to the bottom of things, get to the root. so when i feel like i get to the end of the line in something, i know i’ve exhausted all resources in examining it. which is exactly where i feel like i arrived with manifestation when i had an idea.
i decided to sit down and think about all of the times in my life where i feel like magic occurred. times where something showed up that i’d wanted or wished for, but the way it arrived felt completely magical, full of synchronicity, not accidental, completely on purpose. ways that felt like there was someone else steering the ship, course correcting, and driving it home.
essentially, i created a map.
in 2019 i wanted to be nomadic. i had a psychospiritual coaching business where i saw clients remotely, and knew i could fund my travels for a short time with the small amount of clientele i had. i didn’t know if it would work, but my gut told me to take the risk. so i did. everything lined up: i found someone to sublease my apartment with incredible ease. i had a place to crash during my travels. when i was running out of funds on the road, i finally received the deposit back for my apartment, along with more money than i had anticipated. all in just the right timing.
at the beginning of the pandemic i was still traveling around the southwest and, again, running low on funds. my business wasn’t growing as quickly as i had anticipated and i wasn’t sure what i was going to do. then, again with uncanny timing, the government sent out stimulus checks. the government essentially paid me to continue traveling.
as the pandemic progressed, i decided to return home. in a moment of sheer boredom, i downloaded a dating app. i matched with someone who lived on my favorite body of water, who also had been traveling the west and southwest, and had other eerie similarities relating to our prior marriages and the timing of our divorces. our interests and obsessions with the outdoors and northern Michigan were similar as well. we fell in love, continued to travel together, and to this day, even though that relationship has since ended, i look back on it with awe and with reverence. we did not find each other by accident.
for a year i’d been wanting a new laptop. again, i wasn’t sure how i’d “manifest” it due to myriad of life shifts and taking a sabbatical from my business. until one day, my friend gifted me a new MacBook. she didn’t know i’d been wanting a new computer, but she said she knew how much i love writing and couldn’t imagine me someday writing a book on that old piece of crap I was carrying around (were her words, more or less).
also for about a year i’d been wanting a new bike. the bike I had was fine, but entirely to large for my small 5’1” frame. about a month ago, my good friend, not really knowing I was wanting a new bike, asked if she could build me one. it was a new hobby of hers as a long time cycling enthusiast and she’d found the perfect frame. she delivered it to me a week ago, fully ready for all of the bike packing trips i’ve been dreaming of.
so what does this all mean? well, in a nutshell; everything i’ve ever wanted has come in to my life in ways i didn’t expect. not only in ways I couldn’t expect, but ways I couldn’t dream of.
i’ve always been attached to a narrative that in order to buy a new laptop or buy a new bike i’d have to save enough money and purchase it. or to find the love of my life i’d have to go on 50 million dates, and that we’d be together forever [sometimes things come and go to teach you what you need to learn for the evolution of your own heart, but the going part doesn’t make it any less magical]. i thought that i’d have to build my clientele to be able to afford a nomadic lifestyle. i had already decided before i even began how all of this shit was going to go. and NONE of it worked out according to the narrative i had constructed in my mind. none of it. and not only did none of it go according to plan, but there wasn’t really much I had to DO. i really just had to BE in a state of knowing, awareness, presence.
as my guides often say, what’s meant for you can’t find you if you’re not in presence.
so there are a few points here:
1. let go/surrender
2. detach from the how; i only needed to know the what
3. take note of how what I want shows up in my field
4. remain open to the avenues and vehicles and doors with which what I want comes in
i’m not saying that i should go on living my life believing that everything i want is just going to be handed to me. but i’m also not saying that i shouldn't go through life that way either. what i’m saying is that what is most important in manifestation is to be in union with your own heart. and once you know what it is that your heart desires, you have to let it know that yes, you are listening. and that your heart can trust you. and then you have to remain in the liminal, open space between how you THINK what you want is going to arrive and the infinite possibilities of how it actually will. and PAY ATTENTION. make note of how what you want comes to you.
note the patterns. continue adding to your map. let go of the narratives you’ve created of how things will arrive. follow the little messages you receive along the way. surrender to the notion that possibilities are infinite. why can’t someone gift you the car you’ve dreamed of? why can’t the $5,000 you need for that thing just show up in your bank account? why can’t you randomly meet the owner of a publishing company and all of a sudden have a book deal? why can’t you be craving a snickers and find one sitting on the company break room countertop? why do you believe there is so much you have to DO in order for you to manifest?
be open to letting the universe surprise you. create your treasure map. note the patterns. embody the magician that you really are. this is all a game, my friends. might as well play.
tallyho adventurers,
jenny
journal prompts
1. what patterns do i recognize in my treasure map of abundance and manifestation?
2. what makes me believe i have to work hard at making my dreams come true? what stops me from being? from being in presence? where do these beliefs come from?
3. how can i increase my awareness moving forward of the next ‘x’ on my treasure map?
more
i wrote briefly about this on my recent instagram post if you’d like more inspiration.
my friend Chelsea’s tiktok about manifestation rocked my world. you can find it here.