I Thought Manifestation Was Bullshit—Then This Happened!

Without sounding like a hysterical teenager, I have to admit—I’m completely beside myself at the moment. Something just happened that has freaked me out.

I’ve been searching for a piece of music to use in a breathwork class. Normally, in these sessions, you have people lying down, breathing deeply while music builds, creating an emotional and energetic journey. Years ago, I came across a particular track of music that was so powerful, so moving, that I saved it, knowing I’d want to use it one day.

And then, of course, I lost it.

Yesterday I searched for hours—scouring my laptop, my notes, my playlists. Nothing. I couldn’t even remember the name of it, just the feeling it evoked. It was like chasing a dream you can’t quite remember when you wake up.

Then, this morning, something weird happened.

I was searching the internet for something completely unrelated. I typed in the word great—looking for an entirely different phrase—and up popped Rest in Natural Great Peace. The exact name of the track I had been searching for.

What are the chances? I mean come on ‘great’ is not even the first word! This is just NOT possible, but it happened! I feel really freaked out!

The Rational Mind vs. The Unexplainable

Now, I have to put this in context: I am not one of those people who believe in manifestation. When reading The Secret was all the rage, and everyone was throwing wishes out to the universe, I rolled my eyes. I’ve always been more practical.

I’ve always been the kind of person who believes you don’t get in life what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Hard work, action, and strategy—not cosmic forces—shape our future. But then something like this happens, and suddenly, I’m questioning everything. Is this just serendipity? A happy accident? Or have I been blind to an entire realm of whispers in the wind, small nudges guiding me that I’ve stubbornly ignored?

What if there is another realm that I don’t feed into? What if I’ve spent my whole life ignoring subtle miracles happening around me? What if I don’t even notice them because I don’t believe in them?

The Discomfort of the Unknown

Ironically, this is one of the reasons I started my breathwork program in the first place.

I wanted to access a side of myself that I wasn’t comfortable with—the part that wasn’t purely logic-driven, the part that wasn’t all about action and results.

But I’ll be honest, I’ve resisted hard.

When I saw that one of our assigned readings was Conscious Living, I physically recoiled.

Why?

Because it sounded fluffy and ethereal, and I am not fluffy or ethereal. I’d rather read something like The 48 Laws of Power —a book that feels like a mental workout, full of strategy, historical examples, and ruthless pragmatism—than something called Conscious Living. What does that even mean? (confession I haven’t read either, so much for hard work or action!)

And yet, here I am, experiencing something that defies logic, something that my rational brain can’t quite explain and in actual fact it sounds a bit like “unconscious living” – the irony is not lost on me.

When Science Can’t Measure It

I suppose this is the dilemma people have struggled with for centuries—the tension between what we know and what we feel.

We have always wanted to measure, to quantify, to prove. That’s the foundation of science: if you can’t measure it, does it even exist?

It’s why we can’t scientifically prove life after death—because no one has found a way to measure it. It’s why no one has definitively proven the existence of God. But then again, it also took us an awfully long time to prove that the Earth was round and not flat – and just because it hadn’t been proven didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

So where does that leave me?

Completely and utterly confused. And amazed.

The Manifestation Dilemma

I’ll be honest—I have resisted the whole concept of manifestation for as long as I can remember.

Whenever I hear someone say, “Just put it out into the universe, and it will come to you,” I can feel my eyebrow involuntarily rising in pure skepticism and thinking it’s not a bloody boomerang!

I’ve always dismissed it as being too simplistic. Life, as I’ve experienced it, is complicated, difficult, and full of challenges. Well, these are the stories I have told myself - these are the narratives I have believed.

But then I find myself questioning: What if my resistance is exactly what’s making life feel so complicated?

What if my struggles exist because I believe they must?

A Shift in Perspective

The words in the track which the universe gave up to me this morning says “rest in natural great peace, this exhausted mind, beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts , like the relentless fury of the pounding waves on the infinite ocean of samsara”

Maybe the lesson here isn’t about picking a side—logic vs. magic, action vs. flow—but about allowing both to exist. Maybe the real wisdom is in noticing, in being open, in making space for the things we can’t yet measure. So, for now, I’ll stay here— not forcing, not resisting, just paying attention… and resting in natural great peace.