“Let’s make law of attraction detox centers around the country…we’re almost at that point.”

-Matt Kahn

Working on manifesting a goal can be exciting and even feel magical at times. But what if your desire to manifest something is less unicorns and pixie dust and more anxiety and despair?

For many people who learn about manifesting techniques such as affirmations and visualization, there’s an initial excitement and feeling of expansiveness. Despite their appeal, however, manifesting techniques don’t always deliver the instantaneous quantum leaps people expect.

It can take time to manifest an important goal even if you are doing everything right. What do you do in the meantime?

Do you live in the moment or constantly worry about the outcome? If focusing on manifesting no longer feels good, it may be time to evaluate the toll it’s taking on your mental health and consider a temporary break to reset and center yourself.

3 Signs You Might Need a Manifesting Break

1. Your Efforts are Affecting Your Emotional Health

If focusing on manifesting is contributing to anxiety, mood instability, or despair, you know that it’s time to take a break.

Anxiety related to manifesting might look like: chronic worry about running out of time to manifest your goal; trying to force yourself to be happy all of the time because you believe that negative emotions repel and positive emotions attract; excessively worrying that your negative thoughts will come true; trying to suppress negative thoughts; anxiety about not being high vibe enough; being excessively afraid of people because you believe that their low vibes will harm you; and fear-fueled impulsive actions that create more problems than they solve.

I’ve seen this type of anxiety increase in my private practice over the last few years as the cultural interest in manifesting and “good vibes only” has grown. I call it Low Vibe Anxiety.

Sometimes Low Vibe Anxiety is a passing phase that occurs in the beginning stages of a spiritual journey.  At other times, it starts a vicious cycle of overcomplicating your life that impairs functioning and contributes to a diagnosable anxiety disorder.

In some cases, the extreme concerns and behaviors around manifesting beliefs and practices are indications of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) rather than anxiety. For example, if you have OCD, your beliefs about the law of attraction could cause you to become so afraid of intrusive negative thoughts that you constantly try to mentally “delete” them. If you are interested in learning more about the law of attraction and OCD, I address the topic in depth in another post.  

Mood instability related to manifesting goals might look like: excessive elation when things are going well quickly followed by rage or despair when things don’t go your way; lack of emotional balance; being emotionally triggered easily and often; and moods being tied to goals and productivity levels.

Despair related to manifesting might look like: hopelessness; feelings of worthlessness; blaming yourself for something negative you believe you attracted; spiraling into guilt and shame about what you have and have not manifested; loss of energy; lack of purposeful action; and helplessness.  If this type of despair continues, seeking treatment for depression may be warranted.

2. Your Search for Signs and Solutions is Becoming Unhealthy

Looking for signs and solutions is something that many of us do when we feel lost and confused. We need some guidance and welcome the opportunity to get it. However, when our search turns into an obsession with needing answers, it’s likely that an unhealthy level of fear has taken over. These obsessions and behaviors can indicated OCD.

An excessive search for signs and solutions is often fueled by two things: 1. The belief that we need perfect certainty that something bad has not or will not happen. 2. The belief that there is one correct solution to every problem and that anything less than perfect is inadequate.

An unhealthy search for signs and answers might look like: an intolerance of uncertainty; fearing that something bad will happen if you don’t get the answer; constantly asking everyone for their opinions and reassurance; and not being able to go about your normal activities because you are consumed with the search for signs and solutions.

If you identify as spiritual, this might also look like constantly pulling oracle cards and excessively searching for lucky numbers or signs that you are headed in the right direction.

Again, behaviors such as looking for lucky numbers can be healthy and normal in moderation. If they create a significant level of concern or impact your functioning, however, consulting with a mental health professional would be warranted.

3. You’ve Checked Out of the Present

Once you check out of the now in anticipation of the future, you’re less likely to experience and enjoy the flow of life. When you’re in the flow, you feel a sense of curiosity and wonder and have a genuine appreciation for the ordinary. You’re also more likely to experience calm and resilience as you pursue your goals.

The flow is also how you connect to your intuition. Yes, helpful synchronicities will be more likely to show up and you’ll be more likely to notice them. Rather than obsessing over having a constant supply of synchronicities, however, you’ll be delighted by their appearance and move on to the next moment.

If you live in the present moment, you feel fulfilled because you’re experiencing the fullness of being alive. A deep sense of calm washes over your goals because they’re just icing on the cake of feeling alive. That’s where you want to manifest from because you already feel abundant.

According to spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, if you’ve checked out of the present, you won’t feel the fullness of life.  Instead, you’ll feel lack and seek it from somewhere in the future.

Checking out of the present might look like: you live as though you’re just waiting for something to happen; you live in your head and are rarely present in your body; you spend an excessive amount of time thinking about, talking about, imagining, and planning for the future; you’re desperately attached to specific outcomes; or you over-focus on doing and spend little time being.

It’s important to remember that the manifestation journey isn’t just a means to an end. Life is meant to be lived, not anticipated. If you live in a constant state of anticipation, you are going to miss the very thing you’re here for.

Manifesting can be a wonderful practice, but not if it harms your life or makes you miss it entirely.  

Tips for Taking a Manifesting Break

If you decide that a manifesting break is something you need, what do you focus on instead?

Focusing on emotional wellness is the fastest way to reclaim your emotional health and recover the vitality you’ll need to eventually reengage with your goals in a healthy way.

Here are 3 tips for making the process of reclaiming your emotional health easier.

1. Seek Support

Consider therapy if your emotional health has declined and is affecting your functioning. Whether over-focusing on manifesting has contributed to or even caused anxiety, depression, or OCD symptoms, you don’t have to suffer in silence. In addition to therapy, find spiritual communities and friends who support your mental health as well as your spiritual development. If they don’t support your mental health, it might be wise to ask why that’s the case.

2. Be Compassionate with Yourself

Be kind to yourself when you’re tempted to over-focus on manifesting again. Remember that self-compassion is an ongoing practice rather than an arrived at state. Practice saying kind things to yourself when you’re struggling such as: This is a hard moment.  May I be kind to myself right now. May I give myself what I need.

3. Evaluate the Health of Your Beliefs

The reality is that something can be both true and unhelpful at the same time (and yes, some things can be just untrue and unhelpful).

For example, while the original intention behind a spiritual belief such as the law of attraction may be to empower you, it can also wreak havoc on your emotional life if it triggers an inflated sense of responsibility and substantially lowers your tolerance for the normal ebbs and flows of positive and negative thoughts and emotions.

Take some time to evaluate some of the beliefs you have around manifesting and spirituality and see if they are too rigid to be healthy for you right now. For example, if you hold the manifestation belief that “thoughts become things” and it contributes to feeling anxious and policing all of your thoughts, you could consider altering the belief to thoughts are just thoughts and my heart’s intentions become things.

Hopefully, you’ll soon discover that loosening your grip on manifesting and allowing flow and emotional vitality back into your life is possible. Once you start to feel better, try to stay open, flexible, and detached from the outcome.  Most importantly, remember to take occasional mental health breaks rather than give up on your dreams prematurely.

If you’d like to get help with healing from manifestation beliefs and practices that are triggering or exacerbating mental health symptoms, I created a course called Healing from Negative Manifestation Experiences.

I’d love to hear from you. Do you stop to take a break from manifesting when you need to?