Episode 6: How to Understand Manifestation and the Law of Attraction

[00:00:00] Erin: Hi, welcome to Grounded Love podcast, episode six. This is a podcast where we explore conscious living and loving. We are your hosts, Erin and Garrett. Today we're going to explore the topic of manifestations and what we attract. How would we like to get started on that Garrett?
[00:00:50] Garrett: Well, first we're recording on our anniversary. I want to say happy anniversary to you.
[00:00:55] Erin: Happy anniversary to you as well.
[00:00:57] Garrett: Love you baby. We're always manifesting no matter where we're at in our life and what we think we are manifesting or not. We're constantly manifesting. Because that's what's creating the energy that's going out into the world and what the world is responding to.
We need to also talk about how consciousness works in terms of being an energy plane. So we can understand that no matter where we're at and what we're putting out into the world, energy is interacting with us. Did you maybe want to explain? Consciousness and that energy field?
[00:01:36] Erin: I see where you're going with this, and I think you should keep running with it and I'll ask questions as you go.
[00:01:42] Garrett: Okay. In our experience, consciousness itself is energy. Everything that exists in our world is energy. The table that we have our mics hooked up to, the floor that we're standing on, the sky, everything that's in our nature, is energy. And that's what ties everything together.
Consciousness itself is not energy. It is separate from energy because it's its own thing that is not relatable to anything else. But when you have the interplay of energy and consciousness, that's what creates form.
[00:02:29] Erin: Okay. We know from scientists of old Einstein and further back and further forward that is true about energy. That is a scientifically proven thing. Everything is energy.
I think people may not quite understand that interplay between this consciousness that you're saying and energy. Can you go any more into how that looks? Because I think it just needs a little finer tuning.
[00:03:06] Garrett: Consciousness itself is not relative to anything. There's no way for me or anyone else to explain and define what consciousness is.
Unfortunately, there's no way to explain consciousness in words, but it's essentially the presence, the being, of all the space in between everything. The space in between your thoughts, the space when you're meditating, that peacefulness that you feel is part of that consciousness.
But consciousness is also everything else. Consciousness itself cannot manifest itself. It needs something as a conduit so that it can manifest in form. And that's what energy is. Energy is the conduit. And when you put them together, that's what creates form. Physical form or any other form that's in our environment that we can perceive.
[00:04:05] Erin: Yes, as we described in episode one, consciousness is everything, nothing, and… I think that's it. Just everything and nothing anyway. To be very clear, okay.
What then does it mean to manifest something? Are we ready for that question?
[00:04:27] Garrett: I guess we can say we're always manifesting something. When we are having thoughts in our mind, no matter what they are, those thoughts are being translated into energy and that energy is being put out into the world.
Now I didn't do this disclaimer before we started. But some of this talk may sound really woo-woo and wonky. It may be kind of hard to perceive if you haven't had experience with meditation and consciousness.
Basically, beyond unconscious thinking. Or above the line thinking versus below the line thinking. Where above the line would be more conscious thinking and below the line would be more unconscious thinking.
If you haven't experienced that, then this is going to all sound just really crazy in a lot of ways.
[00:05:22] Erin: And if you want to refer to that above the line and below the line thinking, I believe that was Joseph Campbell who came up with that circle with a line in the middle. And he's got a lot of coverage and information out there about that kind of thing.
[00:05:37] Garrett: When we have this conscious talk about manifestation, we understand that there is an energy out there that we can't perceive per se. That we can't think and rationally understand.
The energy that we're talking about that we can sense is what we experience again in the form or in thought. Our thoughts are energy, and when we put our thoughts out in the world, they create things, and it attracts things into our life. That we think we want or don't want.
[00:06:15] Erin: How come when I think I want a piece of chocolate cake, why do I not have a piece of chocolate cake sitting in front of me?
[00:06:22] Garrett: If you were very conscious, it's possible that you could manifest things that would be perceived to be unbelievable.
In fact, the Yoga Sutras and a lot of Hindu texts talk about the ability for some of these saints, or other very conscious people, to do things that most people can't do.
[00:06:46] Erin: Maybe towards the end of this episode, we can circle back to this point and I don't know if you want to go there, but talk about how some people believe the heaven on earth, that sort of thing is in our future where we can actually manifest. I mean, we will be conscious.
[00:07:04] Garrett: That's a big thing right now in spiritual circles. If you listen to spiritual talks, most people are talking about fifth dimensional thinking. And fifth dimensional thinking is unity-consciousness and love consciousness.
It's what we are ourselves trying to manifest through this podcast. Is getting more people on board with this idea that life doesn't have to be such a struggle.
In fact, we can enjoy our life much more. We can love much more. We have much more within us to give the world than what we currently are bringing to the table.
[00:07:40] Erin: Again, maybe we can circle back to that, but I want to go to how we believe manifestations can work or how they work. Meaning why are the things happening in my life that are happening?
[00:07:56] Garrett: Most of the time you think you want things in your life to happen and they don't happen. That could be direct evidence to say consciousness and manifestation are false. It doesn't work how we think it does.
But the issue is we have things we think we want, and we have things that the universe brings to us. And sometimes those can be very different.
Because we can think that we want certain things, but somewhere inside of us, we believe we want something different. A great example of this is when we feel low self-esteem, and we want to say achieve something and have some kind of success. But really, we're scared of achieving that success.
And we subconsciously often limit ourselves so that we never reach the thing that we think we want. There are different layers of what you think you want and what you actually want. Because there are different layers of consciousness.
One is more prevalent in your life, always thinking in your mind. And one is more subconscious, deeper inside of you.
[00:09:18] Erin: If I was actually receiving the things that I am thinking I want, then it's most likely because there's nothing in me that's blocking it. There are no deep-rooted traumas that would block that manifestation from happening.
[00:09:37] Garrett: People do this with money all the time all the time. People block themselves from feeling like they should have some semblance of wealth or some kind of comfort in wealth. Because they feel like they don't deserve it. Or they believe deep down inside that if you have money, you're evil.
People will block themselves from having any kind of wealth because a) they don't deserve it or b) they say people that have money are evil. And both of those things aren't true.
But that same person might also say I'd really like to be out of debt. It'd be nice if I didn't have any debt. Yet they continue to be in debt because they are manifesting this idea that's what they're supposed to have.
[00:10:25] Erin: They might truly believe inside that they're not worthy of having the money. Or that they're in a negative thought cycle of I'm never going to get out of this. Like this is just so hard. And I just keep messing this up. Or whatever negative thought cycle that is there. Not even subconsciously, but consciously.
[00:10:45] Garrett: Exactly. And now take that and apply it to every part of life.
You can apply it to your relationships. Why do you stick with an abusive relationship? Why do you stick with partners that consistently treat you in a way that puts you down or makes you feel a certain way? You may not believe it right now hearing these words, but you're manifesting and attracting these partners into your life.
Because the energy that you're sending out into the world is basically saying, I have these insecurities inside of me and these insecurities are talking to the world subconsciously through energy. And you're attracting other people that will fill those energies with their own energy. With their own deficiencies. They need validation from whatever you're deficient in.
And that interplay of energy, our subconscious energy, is always talking to other people in the world. That is where we see manifestation and attraction meeting together.
[00:11:48] Erin: I was going to say, this is where we talk about what are we attracted to and what is attracted to us.
And this is also where we've become very unpopular and we apologize for anything that we're saying that may bring discomfort or, pain to you. Because we know it can be really hard being in these situations. And we're not so much victim blaming as just trying to help.
[00:12:26] Garrett: There's no victim shaming. It's more so if you find yourself in these relationships, know you don't have to have them anymore. There's power within you to stop having these types of relationships. And the power comes from knowing your self-worth. Which is inherent to you.
Nobody will give that to you. That's inherent. It's part of you. It's inside of you already. You have the power to say I believe it. And that's what will start manifesting these people that are more loving and more conscious into your life.
[00:13:02] Erin: Right. We would be remiss if we didn't mention the book The Secret.
[00:13:07] Garrett: The biggest manifestation, cult manifestation book, that came out. When did they come out? The 90s?
[00:13:13] Erin: I think, I don't know. Yeah. That's all about the law of attraction and there are, huge believers and huge skeptics.
[00:13:24] Garrett: You can, again, believe whatever you want. But energy is real. That's our entire form. If you want an answer to something, go to energy. Energy will tell you the answer.
It's a balance of energy, and it's always prevalent in our universe, especially in this physical form.
[00:13:41] Erin: In physics, like I mentioned earlier, the area of quantum physics and all the scientists these days, or a lot of them, are truly seeing this as…
[00:13:54] Garrett: A field of energy. And I think most scientists agree on the field of energy, quantum physics. I think scientists are trying to understand consciousness. Because what they can't quite understand is what is the nothingness in this equation.
Because there's nothing to energy sometimes. And they can't quite understand that through a scientific perspective. Regardless, energy is a real thing. You can believe it or not, but it's there, and it's going to be real.

[00:14:24] Erin: Why does energy attract like energy? How does that work?
[00:14:32] Garrett: I think in scientific terms, there are polarities to energy, right? There's positive and negative, and there are these attractions that go on between these different energies.
I'm not a scientist. I can't tell you all the science behind energy. All I know is that when you have a certain belief inside of you and you truly feel it and believe it, that energy is going out into the world and will attract things back into your life.
That's the secret. It's basically talking about this energy that we have, where we can manifest things into the world just by believing in them. And as we believe them more and more, and we tell ourselves that these things will happen more and more, then those things show up into our lives.
I think the secret is that you can manifest anything in your life that you focus on. You can manifest it. But it misses the point of where that manifestation is coming from. Let's say you want to be really wealthy so you can buy super expensive cars and then finally people will see you as a worthy person. Because you have this big house and fancy cars and a beautiful wife.
Well, you may manifest that, and we see celebrities and people that are wealthy all the time manifest this through various means, their creativity or their businesses. But once they get to the top of that mountain, their perceived mountain, they find themselves, after enjoying the fruits for a little while, they find themselves very unhappy again.
And a lot of them wonder why, and a lot of them go turn towards spiritual people, healers, teachers, to understand I have everything I want, I manifested it all, why can't I manifest happiness, why can't I manifest the belief that I've done enough and I don't need to do anymore. Why do I keep manifesting this idea, this perpetual belief that I need more?
And these are all the answers to the conscious side of manifestation. You can manifest from an unconscious place and you'll manifest unconscious things. You can manifest from a conscious place and you'll manifest conscious things.
Just like relationships. The more conscious you are, the more you attract conscious relationships into your life. The more unconscious you are, the more you attract unconscious relationships into your life.
[00:17:06] Erin: I think one of the biggest critiques about The Secret and the law of attraction is that it's creating narcissists. Is that kind of what you're talking about?
[00:17:22] Garrett: Yeah.
[00:17:22] Erin: And if you're manifesting more from a conscious place. You're not trying to manifest things. You are already everything you need. You have all of that within. And we think we have holes within us we need to fill. Because we're not good enough the way we are.
People who are manifesting unconsciously are usually trying to manifest things because they don't feel like they're good enough for some reason. And whatever they're going to manifest is going to make them good enough.
[00:18:01] Garrett: Yes. Validation.
[00:18:02] Erin: That would be an unconscious manifestation and it's not going to ever get them what they really want because those external things will never make you feel good enough. It is something you must come to on your own.
Let's say you are consciously manifesting. You're already happy or, you know, potentially.
[00:18:24] Garrett: You find joy and happiness and peace at times.
[00:18:29] Erin: Without having to have all this stuff, but, for whatever reason, you want, something to happen. You want a new job in your life, and you manifest that.
Is it easier to manifest at that point then?
[00:18:43] Garrett: Yes, it's easier to manifest.
But there's another point. That's another layer to this, which is surrender. But we're talking about manifestation.
But there's a big key to this. Which is you also must surrender to the energy of the universe. We will not talk about this today because it's a whole another topic, but you can manifest and manifest and manifest, and you might get to a place.
But if you were instead manifesting in things in your life will come to you. That you don't have to go out and get them. If you were at peace with just knowing that things in your life will come to you. And all you need to do is see them instead of achieving them. Then the universe will start to make things much easier for you because you're surrendering that energy of doing and achieving. To faith and love in the energy that already is.
It's an important distinction.
I think we can take manifesting to mean we're going to just start doing stuff and doing stuff and doing stuff and achieving. And you can. And there's not anything inherently wrong with that. But their universe might have easier paths for you that you can listen to it.
[00:19:59] Erin: Not only easier, but probably better because the universe is always going to know more than you do.
[00:20:08] Garrett: Right. Because in our human body and mind, we are limited and separated from a lot of intelligence that's out there in the universe.
And we can't perceive that unless we are deep in meditation or perhaps aided by psychedelic drugs or some kind of enhancement to get you to this vibrational state of consciousness.
We can't always do that in our lives here. We don't have access to the intelligence that the universe has. And anybody that believes that they are as intelligent as the universe is limiting themselves to only believing in something that the human can perceive. And there's so much more than that.
[00:20:54] Erin: That reminds me of a point. If you really want something, let's say you're thinking, I want to manifest this. And then something completely different happens. Along the way, even if it's crummy, that may just be the universe getting you to either that manifestation or that thing that you want in a different route. That is going to somehow work out better.
Or it's taking you on a different path. That is taking one that in the end will also be for the better. Sometimes I think you want the result to be something. But maybe the actual thing that gets you there is very different than you ever imagined. And you don't really connect the two or think that is how you got from point a to point b. But really, it was that thought and that need and that want that got fulfilled.
[00:22:02] Garrett: Right, exactly. There's lots of different paths to get to something.
And we, with our limited intelligence here, cannot see every path that can get you to somewhere that you are trying to manifest. Believing that if you get off track is now a failure or an obstacle of some kind is completely not true.
It's just the universe directing you in a different way. To get you to the same place that you're trying to go.
And listening and surrendering to the universe is very important. Michael Singer talks about this in The Surrender Experiment.
He talks about how he likes to play games with the universe. He likes to say, okay, universe, if I'm supposed to do this…show me. And he has a kind of binary decision.
And sometimes the universe shows him exactly what he's supposed to do. That may be true or not. We don't know.
But he believes the universe is pointing him in the direction that he's supposed to go. And because of that, he's manifesting that in itself.
[00:23:09] Erin: Right? It's whatever you believe.
[00:23:13] Garrett: It's whatever you believe. Your whole life, we've said this before, is a manifestation of everything you believe. About yourself, about others, about the world, about your relationships, about what is supposed to be and what's not supposed to be. That's your whole life.
[00:23:29] Erin: Yeah, so try to believe. The best you can.
[00:23:34] Garrett: That's what you're manifesting!
[00:23:36] Erin: right? Even if you don't believe that, why not think that?
[00:23:40] Garrett: Every little thought matters. No matter how small. No matter how insignificant you think it is. Every thought makes a difference because it changes the energy of yourself and the entire energy of all consciousness.
It might be a small part of it, but it changes it. Every thought matters.
When you think in a more loving and accepting way, that little thought matters. And it changes the world that you see. It also changes the world that is attracted to you. The world becomes a more loving place when you love more.
The world becomes a scarier place when you are more scared of the world. You will attract and see whatever you believe because you are manifesting it.
It is a cycle. It is circular. You put it out there and it comes back to you. You put it out there and it comes back to you. So put the things out there that you want to believe. Like you just said.
[00:24:44] Erin: All right. Do you have any more examples of manifestation or what you attract?
[00:24:52] Garrett: I like to think about podcast itself. We started this and we had no listeners. We're not promoting it to people. We're putting it out there and I'm surrendering to the universe to say people that want this and need this in their life are going to find it.
And they're going to resonate with it. That's all we're doing in this podcast. That is what I'm manifesting on my end.
And in some ways you are manifesting you don't want everyone to listen to the podcast.
[00:25:31] Erin: I'm a little shy.
[00:25:33] Garrett: There's some, there is a belief in you that you're just not smart enough? I don't know what it is. Only you could know what that is.
But these are two energies that are opposite of each other. I say, put it out in the world and let people find it. And you're like, let's put it out in the world and I hope nobody listens.
That will manifest as it does. And I think it's important to make sure, even for us, that we're manifesting what we want.
And what I want is a more loving world and I want people to feel better about themselves and love themselves more.
[00:26:13] Erin: I want that too, guys. I hope that desire in me overcomes my self-worth issues I have and I hope people listen.
[00:26:29] Garrett: And they already are.
There are people that are finding this and listening to it. But that's an example of some manifestation.
One day, I'd like to manifest interviews with people that are in this space so we can bring other conscious perspectives and ideas to the table. Where they have a platform to share their message with our audience. And we have a platform to share our message with them.
And that could be any conscious people: youtubers, Instagram influencers, it could be conscious businesses, it could be anything. People that also believe that there's more to this world than just accumulating stuff. And there's more to take care of with others than just ourselves.
[00:27:16] Erin: Yeah. And there's a whole different way we can look at our unity with the world.
[00:27:22] Garrett: Yeah. It's already there. The unity is there through the consciousness we just talked about. Let's talk about creative people and very creative artists.
They are perfect examples of being able to take something from within that has no existence and take that energy and turn it into form. A piece of art, a sculpture, anything that could be creative. And they are experts at marrying these two things. The consciousness and energy of bringing something new into the world.
Many of them are very connected. They are connected to consciousness in a way that other people are not. They're not aware of it. They're not always conscious of this fact. But they allow that conscious energy to flow through them which brings these new amazing things into form.
They just allow that energy to flow through them.
[00:28:35] Erin: I love that they a lot of times don't even know that they're just so connected and open to it. And the more conscious we are, the more we can see the conscious work coming out of people, too.
You can see that it has divinity in it. It has the ideas; it has the beauty or whatever it is of just pure consciousness.
[00:29:04] Garrett: Sometimes it comes out as consciousness, pure consciousness, like real truths. But it is then mired in some ego that gets in there sometimes. Not every artist is conscious, and not every piece of creative work is a conscious piece of work.
Just watch any type of show that's on Netflix or anything. A lot of the shows are built from an ego perspective because that's what relates to people. But it's still creative. It's still something that didn't exist before.
I think it's important to realize that these artists aren't always aware of it. But when you become more conscious, you can discern the difference between what's divinity, as you said, and what's coming from the ego.
[00:29:48] Erin: Yeah it's really beautiful. I wish I could use some more of that creativity.
[00:29:55] Garrett: We're all creative in our own ways. We really are.
I think the key points of this episode, to summarize, are we're always manifesting. We're always putting energy out there, and that energy is attracting things back into our lives.
The more that we say, why do I keep having these poor relationships with my significant others? Why do I keep finding these people? Whatever that could be, that's all because there's something in you that's speaking to the universe and the world and energy itself. That’s what you need for some reason.
The first step is to understand you're always manifesting. Start to manifest things that you want in your life, like love, to feel you're good enough, to feel like your presence is just perfect.
Believe those things. And the belief starts with telling yourself over and over again that these things are true. As you tell yourself that, you start to believe it. And as you believe it, you start to attract it.
That's what The Secret talks about. And then remember that as you go down this path, there are lots of different paths to get to the same place. To get to consciousness, there are lots of different paths and you don't have to be on any particular path to get to the feeling of joy, peace, and love in your life.
[00:31:20] Erin: Right. And that may look like you're on a path that you aren't liking at the time. But surrender to it and keep up with the positive thoughts about yourself and about what you want. And you'll get there.
[00:31:34] Garrett: Absolutely. There's not really an obstacle to anything. It's just a way to go that is not the way you thought you needed to. And it's just a different path.
[00:31:45] Erin: For some reason. For whatever reason. We don't know. There is for sure a reason.
[00:31:50] Garrett: Absolutely. I think that's it.
[00:31:52] Erin: Well, thank you again for listening.
[00:31:55] Garrett: Yes. Thanks again.
Rate the podcast if you have not already. If you have friends that this might help, share this episode or share this podcast with them.
We like to have more questions come in so we can talk about them on the podcast.
[00:32:12] Erin: Thank you!