The Power of Focus – How We Manifest our Reality without Realizing It

Posted On January 29, 2021 / Written by Dr. Linda Gadbois

The things that come most natural to us often go completely unrecognized because we do them without a direct awareness of what it is we’re doing and what it causes. What prevents people from understanding the power of their own mind usually comes because we don’t know how to step outside of our own tendencies and thinking patterns and view them from a neutral and detached state that’s non-personal and objective. We’re so caught up in our feelings and emotions about things and living out of the imaginary realities we create out of them that we can’t clearly see what it is we’re doing that’s causing them. We tend to live out of a state where we imagine everything is happening “to us†and we create our reality out of an unconscious and automatic reaction most of the time. When we’re not directly reacting to a stimulus of some kind, we’re replaying the thoughts and imaginary scenario’s over and over of our reactions, keeping us locked into the reality of our own making, usually, without ever realizing that we are in fact the one creating our own experiences as a reaction.

The most primary power of our mind in creating reality comes by what it is we choose to focus on and give our attention to. As we direct our attention onto something we direct our life-force energy into it and bring it to life inside of us by shaping it into a reality of some kind. While many people view attention as a passive force, it’s actually an “active force†which stimulates, separates out, and brings to the foreground whatever it is we’re focused on. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, dull or exciting, problems or blessings. It works equally to create evil as it does good. It’s a neutral and unbiased force that simply creates by bringing passive ideas into an active development where they begin naturally expressing to produce our experience of reality. As we place our attention on something and begin thinking about it, we begin building it into a possible reality in our imagination by defining and shaping it with sensory details that elicits a particular feeling in response to it. How we shape it into an inner experience invokes and calls forth a corresponding emotion, which becomes the motivating force that not only determines how it will express in creating an outer experience of the same type, but also shows us what feeling-emotion the experience will give us more of.

Ideas that are created on the inner planes of imagination, don’t serve as a specific type of situation as an actual manifestation, but form more of a representation for an idea that’s symbolic and metaphorical in nature, much like an archetypal idea. It represents a “type of experience†we want to create based on the feeling it’s infused with that will determine how it’s applied to varying situations as a means of generating and giving us more of the same feeling. It’s a representation of a certain type, kind, and form of experience that can be applied to any number of comparable situations as a means of generating more of that same type of feeling. The inner representations act in a similar way to our own memories, which are used as the basis for creating more and more experiences of the same kind as the past based on the same emotion that’s being expressed through them. Whenever we dwell in a thought-form or memory, thinking about it replaying it in our mind as a scenario, and shaping it in a slightly different way each time based on what’s going on in our daily life, we’re literally programming our own subconscious to construct the reality that will provide us with more of the same type of experiences. It’s a primer, so to speak, as a “type†(archetype).

This idea is very easy to understand by simply observing how your own mind operates to develop an internal representation. If you learn how to employ what’s called your “witnessing facultyâ€, which can be thought of as forming an objective, detached, and impersonal perspective that stands off to the side and “watches†your normal thoughts as they flow by and play out in your imagination without censoring or latching onto them, you can prevent yourself from getting lost in the thoughts themselves, while simply “observing†them. Focus your attention on anything around you that has meaning or significance, and simply think about it. As you begin thinking about it you begin infusing it with attributes and sensations, and through a chain of association to other ideas or memories of a similar nature, you begin developing it into an inner reality. Once it becomes an inner reality, usually after only a few seconds or minutes, if you continue to think about it, you continue to develop it in a way that invokes a natural emotional response to it. The emotion that comes in response to it based on how you formed the idea in your mind and what memories you associated with it, becomes the force that motivates activity of some kind, and is what begins the process of actively structuring and organizing the same type of reality outwardly as an “experience†of the same kind.

As we define, shape, sensationalize, and bring the inner reality to life with feeling and emotion, it forms a “perceptual filter†that we transpose over the outer reality (look through) and use to shape the outer world to be a correlating expression of the same idea. Our inner reality, which is always under our control, forms what we can think of as a “template†that’s metaphorical in nature and acts as an “organizing principle†for connecting us with the same elements in our outer environment that can be used to shape and create the same type of reality that will lay the foundation and set the stage for creating an equivalent experience. Not as an actual material construct, necessarily, but as a corresponding experience that gives us more of the same “feelingâ€. We tend to confuse the idea of “manifesting†with an actual material construct without seeming to realize that the material construct only acts as the means for the feeling (spiritual force) as an emotion to express through. The creative factor in any situation isn’t the material construct itself, which only serves as a dwelling or vehicle for the spirit, it’s the feeling as an energetic force that expresses through the material construct. How it transpires and formulates outwardly may take on many different “appearancesâ€, but how it makes us feel is always the same.

The reason for this is due to the fact that our entire material reality is actually produced and maintained by our subconscious (which is the group mind of the collective unconscious). Our subconscious differs from our conscious mind in that it functions to create “subjective experience†using symbolic representations and metaphors (archetypes) as a form of “theme†for producing specific types of experience. Symbolic ideas are formed out of attributes, qualities, and characteristics that cause “specific sensations†to rise up out of them naturally. How we form a representation of an idea (archetype) in our imagination serves to “put us in touch†with the natural forces associated to that idea, which comes as an inner feeling. All “experience†is formed out of the feeling we experience both internally and externally due to the association formed between them. While the outer appearance that sets the stage for creating our experience may vary considerably and take on many different forms and scenarios, the feeling that results from it is consistent.

A symbol, metaphor, or archetype “represents†an idea as qualities and characteristics, and can be applied to any number of situations to produce an infinite variety of possibilities born out of the same archetypal idea as a set of inner qualities. It’s the inner qualities that shape the outer appearance and determine how something behaves. What this shows us is that what’s truly creating in any situation that we act to manifest outwardly as an actual reality, isn’t the picture itself formed in our mind as a possibility, but the inward feeling as qualities that births and determines how we shape and define the idea as a “symbolic template†that also sets the prerequisite for “how†we experience it. As we create our experiences, we simultaneously “create our self†by how we associate with our own creation. We first set forth the request by providing our subconscious with a symbolic representation for producing reality that will bring us a specific kind of experience, and then we gain a “sense of ourselves†through and as that experience, and “identify†with it as a result. We literally build our own identity, which is “who we are†(I Am), out of our own self-made experiences formed by how we program our own subconscious through what we focus on, channel our life-force energy into, and the thoughts we build into realities in our imagination, usually without having any real awareness of what we’re doing and how it is we’re doing it.

Experience is holistic in nature, and comes as the harmonious unity and interaction of every aspect of our mind and consciousness as a coherent whole. The whole function of our mind (soul) in creating our reality is to produce an “experience of ourselves†within the “reality of our thoughts†formed and vivified in our imagination. One of the most common mistakes people make in “manifesting†is that they think it’s about manifesting the actual reality of the idea they picture in their mind, or acquiring a specific type of material object or situation, and so they concentrate and “visualize†what they want as an experience of having it, without realizing the “thing itself†is only a symbol that represents a feeling that will be attained through a corresponding outer experience. If we “wish for moneyâ€, for example, the wish is born out of the feeling of not having money, and instead of manifesting unexpected funds, we create instead more feelings of not having any. And then, even when we do manage to attain what we wish for, it doesn’t bring the experience we thought it would, and we feel discouraged and confused, and think, well, this doesn’t work. Yet whatever the imagined reality represented may come in many other ways, and we don’t recognize it because it didn’t show up the way we wanted it to and as we visualized it.

A person may wish to be successful because they don’t already feel successful, and so they imagine what it would be like to be successful while harboring feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, which is what’s motivating their desire, only to produce more feelings of inadequacy and lack of achievement that serves to give them more of the same feeling. It’s what’s “motivating†our desire that’s actually the creative factor, not the image of the desired “outcome†as a certain type of reality. Then, when they do manage to produce a situation or event that would normally indicate success, they either don’t realize it as such, or it doesn’t give them the feeling they wanted because they approached it by dwelling in the feeling they didn’t want or were trying to alleviate. Whatever feeling we dwell in and use to imagine scenarios out of, we’re literally telling our subconscious to “give me more of this†and, the subconscious being the faithful servant to the conscious mind, obeys without questioning and brings more and more experiences of the same feeling. This is the same process we use to create when we dwell in memories of the past. Memory and emotion are always connected, and one serves to stimulate and call forth the other.

What this tells us is that if we choose to focus on all of our problems, we only act “on ourselves†to produce more of the same type of problems. If you focus on your pain and limitations, you accentuate and increase them by telling your subconscious that you want more of the same experiences. If you focus on painful memories of the past and things or people that hurt you, you attract more of the same type of people and work together to create more of the same type of pain. If we walk into every situation looking for what’s wrong with it and where the problems lie, and we look for imperfections and what irritates us about people, we act to “bring out†those imperfections in them by activating them, and develop and increase them as a result. We produce more of the problem because we channel our life-force into it, bring it to life in the situation, and maintain it by continuing to give it our attention. Whatever we expect in a situation we get, because we “look for it†by sifting through everything that’s available within the situation, abstracting only what matches and can be used to build the reality of our expectation as our perception.

In a like manner, when we choose to walk into any situation looking for what’s good about it, and we actively place our attention only on those aspects, we serve to bring them out in the situation and actively develop them through how we interact within our own self-made reality. When we approach people with an attitude of finding what we have in common with them, and we interact based on that, we strengthen and develop those qualities in them and in ourselves through the nature of the interaction. If we look for and only speak to the good in others, then we act to bring the good out in them while simultaneously bringing out that same quality out in ourselves, strengthening it in both by creating a joint experience. Whatever we focus on, look for, pay attention to, connect with, build inwardly as an idea, and speak to, we stimulate, bring into an active and expressive state, and multiply to produce more of the same qualities as characteristics.

So instead of letting your thoughts run on auto-pilot in an habitual manner, or always focusing on past memories that caused painful feelings, or going into a brand new situation with expectations on what you’re going to find, learn how to attend to your thoughts with awareness, let painful memories of the past go and discipline yourself to quit thinking about them, and create an attitude of deciding what you want and direct your focus and attention accordingly. As you catch yourself thinking about what you don’t want while picturing it in your mind, stop yourself and change your focus to what you do want while picturing that in your mind. Learn how to utilize your thoughts as the creative tool they actually are for creating the type of experiences you want as the means of shaping yourself by way of those experiences.

Dr. Linda Gadbois