Wellbeing

What Happened When… I tried manifestation

Liz Frost has a go at being her own fairy godmother

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had the power to make all our dreams come true, just by thinking about them? Not since reading Cinderella as a child have I believed in The Fairy Godmother, but according to Law of Attraction practitioner Emma Mumford, we all have the ability to grant our own wishes.

In her book Positively Wealthy (£7.99 Watkins Media), she explains that we are constantly speaking and thinking things into existence – so wherever our energy goes, it will manifest into our reality.

I feel like I’ve stumbled upon a supernatural phenomenon, why wasn’t I taught this in school? “Think back,” says Emma, “have you ever said something will happen and it did or you may have asked for a new job, car or house. Did it appear exactly how you asked it to?

Whilst I don’t recall an abundance of cars and houses in my past, there have been times where I’ve bumped into the ex I was just daydreaming about, or found the one final coveted dress in my size, hidden deep in the sale rail. There were also times I conjured up just the person I’d been avoiding, or walked white-dress-first into a spilled jar of beetroot. Could I have manifested these moments into existence? Absolutely yes, according to Emma. I’m dying to give it a try, consciously. Before I begin, my mind races away with itself. Just what can I manifest? Endless cash, Ryan Gosling, a pony…? Surely, if this were true, we’d all be millionaires with a stable of unicorns out back.

According to Emma, to the universe, asking for a million pounds is the same as asking for 10. “It’s us as humans who believe that a million is a large amount to manifest.

The key with money is to see it as energy just like any other manifestation,” she says.

However, like all good fairy tales, there are caveats to this sorcery. “You can’t make Tom Hardy fall in love with you just because he happens to be on your vision board,” advises manifestation expert and business guru, Sarupa Shah. (That’s a shame, he was next on my list). “Manifesting is a personal journey and not about making others be where and who you wish them to be – if it is meant to be, the change begins with you,” she continues. In other words, you need to wish for something for your highest good. If something isn’t meant for you, it won’t happen, however hard you wish for it. A sort of universal safety net.

I know what I’d really like (a ‘forever home’, Victorian, high ceilings, a garden with a tree big enough to build a treehouse in), but it feels like too much to ask for, for my first try, so I start with something small: yeast.

Ever since the start of lockdown I’ve had a yearning to bake buns with my little boy. I want to see him kneading proper dough for the very first time in his little life, I want to witness the joy on his face when he sees how much it grows as it proves. I want him to sigh at the smell of the freshly baked buns in the oven and lick sticky icing off his fingers as he plops a ripe red cherry on top of each one. It seems that everyone has had the same idea though, there’s no yeast for sale anywhere. I’ve been searching hard for weeks. My local supermarket actually laughs in my face. ‘You’ll be lucky!’ they say. Well, now maybe I will…

From now on, I will live and breathe buns, I decide. I draw pictures of them, glistening on a china plate, my son and I pretend to bake and knead them out of playdough, serving them up to my husband and watching in delight as he yums them down the front of his T-shirt and away. We imagine the smell and the taste; we talk about them, sing about them, I even dream about them… But nothing.

Not a whisper of yeast anywhere. Did I miss a step? “It’s vital to let your desire go and surrender it in order for the universe to get to work and deliver.” Emma explains. “If you’re desperate or feeling a ‘lack’ guess what is being mirrored back to you…” Sarupa has a great analogy for this: “Think of a seed you might plant,” she says. “You don’t dig it up every few minutes to make sure it is okay. You leave it, water it when it needs to and let it do its thing.”

I’m remembering how hard I wished for my beloved baby boy in the four long years we were trying, with not so much as a whisper of a second line on the pregnancy test. Hurt, heartbroken and angry, I cursed the universe, demanding, ‘why everyone else? Why not me?’ Was I trying too hard? Was I showing the universe that I was lacking? As it happened, it was on our final attempt, when we had made the decision to let our dream go for good after this one last shot, that against all odds, that second line appeared and my son was born into existence.

So, whilst I thought fondly of those buns, I left them to it and purchased a carrot cake instead, which we all enjoyed. The very next day, I found the last packet of yeast at the back of the shelf in my local shop. “You were lucky,” they said. But was I?

Later that evening, my husband showed me a photo online of a beautiful house for sale, it was Victorian, with high ceilings and a garden with a tree big enough to build a treehouse in. ‘One day,’ we agreed. It isn’t quite the right time, or quite the right place, but the seed has been planted…

Emma’s 5 steps to manifestation

1. Ask

It’s really important to know exactly what you want and to be specific.

2. Believe

The universe has a set timeline for you, and everything will manifest at exactly the right time.

3. Let go

If you want or need something so much that you get desperate about it, then you’re putting out a lack vibe; and just like karma, that’s what you’re going to attract back.

4. Trust

Essentially, this means acting as if you already have your desire.

5. Receive

You may receive signs, numbers or even intuition that your manifestation is on the way