Manifestation & co - creation

*BEFORE READING: The word “God” is used a lot in this blog, so if you do not believe in God, this may not resonate with you (but feel free to read anyway if you’re open to seeing things from a different perspective). These are my personal thoughts and opinions, so this isn’t right or wrong - just something that the universe put on my heart to think about and share.

It’s Wednesday night and I’m in deep thought - but that’s nothing new. Okay, so just a backstory if you don’t know this already, I am not religious (anymore). I am on my own spiritual path; however, I do still believe in God (I use the words God and Universe interchangeably - sometimes I say “spirit”) and I still pray often. Yesterday I prayed for something and it happened today. I was thinking about how that happens for me all the time, which led me to start thinking about prayer and manifestation. Are they really the same thing? And what’s the difference? Because before today, I always said that prayer is a form of manifestation, but what does manifestation REALLY mean? The literal definition of manifest is “clear or obvious to the eye or mind”. It makes sense because in the spiritual world, our definition of manifesting is basically “setting intentions and telling the universe what we want in order to create our desired reality” and we have to be clear on what we want, right? So what’s the definition of prayer? It’s a “solid request for help or an expression of thanks addressed to God.” We’re going to go with the first part of the definition though - a solid request. Prayer is ASKING the universe, manifestation is TELLING the universe. Some may say that prayer isn’t as strong because since we’re asking, we’re leaving room to get a “no” - that because we’re asking, we’re not as confident. Personally, I don’t agree with that because when praying (asking) we ONLY get a “no” if it isn’t in alignment (which isn’t even really a “no”). Y’all know I love to say that God only has 3 answers: “yes”, “not right now”, and “I have something better”. So when we pray we’re basically asking that it come - if it is vibrationally aligned. If it doesn’t, what is vibrationally aligned, will. So when praying, it doesn’t mean that the person isn’t confident in their request. With manifestation, we can tell the universe what we want all day long and one of three things will happen: you’ll get what you want because it’s in alignment, you don’t get what you want because it isn’t in alignment (and as I said before it’s either not the right time or there’s something better), OR you’ll get exactly what you want because you were so persistent in manifesting and demanding something (or someone) that wasn’t for you, but since you told the universe instead of asking - over and over, you get it even though it isn’t in alignment and it doesn’t work out. So no - I no longer think of prayer and manifestation as being the same thing. They’re VERY similar and both EQUALLY as powerful, but not the same. So that brings me to the next question I had. With prayer, clearly God is helping us. So what about manifestation - when we tell the universe what we want and get it, did we do that all on our own? Or was God involved in that too? And to answer my own question, I feel like God/the Universe is definitely involved when we manifest. The reason why is because back to what I said earlier, you’ll either get what you want, you’ll get something better, or you’ll get what you want and it won’t work out because it wasn’t for you. The fact that we can be so clear on what we want and in some cases we either get MORE than what we clearly asked for - or get it and watch it disappear before our eyes lets me know that the universe plays its part when we manifest, just like when we pray. And when we’re praying, we’re asking the universe. When we’re manifesting, WHO exactly are we telling what we want? Because we’re not sending that stuff out into the unknown. It’s the universe. This has all brought me to the conclusion that I want to remove the word “manifest” from my vocabulary and replace it with “co-create”. Manifesting is a beautiful thing and it shows you how powerful you are because don’t get me wrong, it takes a ton of work and energy to become great at manifesting. But manifesting can be a negative thing when we’re constantly trying to manifest things that aren’t in alignment or when we’re being demanding and not giving the universe much flexibility to edit our order to best fit our needs. Because a lot of times we do get whatever we said we wanted and when it isn’t in alignment, it can cause unnecessary pain and inconveniences because we were working AGAINST the universe. To me, co-creating has to do with working WITH the universe to create your desired reality. Meaning you tell the universe what you want, but in your heart - having intentions that it only come through if it is in alignment with you and your path. So with co-creating, you’re still “manifesting” in a sense, but you’re a little more open because you’re allowing spirit to do its thing too. I feel like once we get in the habit of co-creating and working with spirit instead of “manifesting” and being stuck on what we think is best for us, it will allow us to have a smoother reality. It’s more flowing and less forcing.

If you made it to the end of the blog, thank you for reading my 3:00 a.m thoughts. I hope this made sense to you, and if it didn’t - that’s fine too, you can at least appreciate a different perspective.

-Jae 💛✨