I think I’ve been doing it wrong.
(This post was originally published on Adventures of an Ungifted Psychic, pameladellpalmer.substack.com, on April 20, 2026)
I had an epiphany this week that feels huge. Because I think I’ve been looking at manifesting wrong. Like, all wrong.
I’ve been telling myself that I haven’t figured out how to manifest what I actually want. But that doesn’t feel right—because I love my life. I love my freedom, my little apartment with the amazing view, the beauty of my town, and the peace and harmony that fill my days.
But did I manifest these? Maybe? I didn’t do it on purpose, not exactly. I just followed the energy and things worked out.
You know the saying that life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans? I think maybe true manifestation sneaked up on me while I was focusing on trying, unsuccessfully, to manifest other things.
I’ve been thinking of manifesting as a technique that I can use to control my life. Like an action, or a whole lot of actions, that I take to heal something, or to bring something into my life, or to accomplish something, like an easy trip down I-95.
To this end, I’ve employed numerous techniques that I’ve learned over the years – vision boards, visualization, ‘remembering’, affirmations, etc. All with little to no success.M
Here’s the funny part that I’m just realizing. While the things I’m trying to manifest remain frustratingly out of reach, the things that I’m not actively trying to manifest — because I already have them — have been expanding and growing, mostly without me noticing.
Take ease for example. I’m not trying to manifest ease in my life because my life really couldn’t be much easier. I work from home, my little apartment is a breeze to keep clean, and I have no one I have to take care of except me.
I’ve always been a fan of ease, but my active appreciation of it exploded during the pandemic when I discovered Instacart and started having my groceries delivered straight to my door. I’d never particularly loved grocery shopping, so every single time one of my orders arrived, I felt a powerful rush of happiness and gratitude.
Apparently, that joyful appreciation manifested more ease in my life.
This realization struck me in a powerful way this past week when I asked Google Gemini to create an image to go with my post about the Washington, D.C. Remembering Center.
All I asked Gemini for was an image of a newspaper, titled Future News. But since I asked while I had my article open, Gemini read the post and created an image that literally brought the piece to life.
A year ago, I’d have had to find an artist willing to create a bespoke image, pay him or her a lot of money, and probably wait weeks. It wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have even known where to start.
As I stared at that image — at my words on that newspaper page, at the NO LIMITS on the woman’s t-shirt, at the kids playing ball and gardening — I experienced full body chills, and was almost breathless with wonder. I was stunned by the perfection, the miracle, of that creation.
Gemini created it in six seconds.
‘Ease’ has made a quantum leap in my writing life (or at least my Substack life), without me even realizing it, let alone asking for it, or focusing on manifesting it, or working at it in any way.
What if this was the answer? What if I’ve been doing it all wrong?
Because, while I’ve been unsuccessfully struggling to manifest certain things, other things that I’ve simply loved and appreciated, have expanded and grown. Things like peace, ease, beauty, freedom and harmony.
Suddenly a host of puzzle pieces snapped into place for me. Watch your thoughts. Focus on things that make you happy. Gratitude is everything. The vibration you put out is what you’ll get back.
MY EPIPHANY
It’s all about the feeling.
This is really, really important. It’s not about the thing I’m wanting. It’s all about the emotion.
When I try to manifest something that I want, I’m doing it from a place of lack, or a wish to control some circumstance. Like trying to manifest more money, or the healing of some health issue, or a trafficless drive on I-95.
But the universe responds to vibration — to emotion — offering more experiences of the same. Lack begets lack. Joy begets joy. Fear begets more things to fear.
When I focus on what I don’t have, I align with the vibration of not having.
Should I just give up, then, and accept what is? Yes and no. And there’s more power in this than it seems. In fact, I suspect this is where all the power lies.
Let me give you an example.
A young gardener, who fancies himself a miracle worker with all green things, adopts four dying plants from a brown-thumbed friend. (A friend he happens to have a crush on.) None of the four plants are doing well, but the only one the friend really wants back is the violet.
As a result, although the gardener loves all the plants, the only one he’s really invested in saving is the violet. He puts most of his attention there, and yet, oddly, it’s the only one that doesn’t respond to his green thumb.
The gardener is confused. He tries talking to the violet. “Grow, little one. I know you can do it. What do you need?” Clearly, it’s failing to thrive and his crush is counting on him!
Meanwhile, the other three plants have fully recovered, and are looking healthy and beautiful. The gardener loves that, of course, and loves them. As he enters his greenhouse each morning, he speaks to them all.
“Petunia, looking good! Pink is your color, girl!”
“Ficus, you’re rocking the green today, my friend. Well done.”
“Look at you grow, sunflower! You’re going to be taller than me, soon.”
But the joy drains from his voice as he approaches the fourth rescue plant. “Violet, what are we going to do to help you? Maybe we just need to visualize you healthy.”
He prints out a photo of a healthy violet plant and sets it beside the flower pot. Then he tries ‘remembering’ how the violet became healthy again and his crush was so amazed and pleased.
He tries all of his manifesting tricks, yet none of them work. Why not?
You’ve probably heard about the IKEA experiment where kids bullied one plant and complimented another, and the “bullied” plant withered and died after 30 days. (I know it’s sad. I should have put a trigger warning at the top of this article. Sorry.)
In that experiment, the bullying was intentional. But it doesn’t have to be intentional to do damage. Our young gardener’s peaceful, undemanding love and care of the first three plants allowed them to recover with ease.
But the violet’s recovery mattered too much, and he treated the plant with a stress, urgency, and frustration that unintentionally kept it from thriving.
He tried to battle the violet into health, instead of simply loving it there. And I think this is how I’ve been approaching manifesting.
TIME TO TAKE THE BOXING GLOVES OFF
I think I need to stop trying to manifest…at all. Just stop.
The answer, I believe, is gratitude. It’s a badly overused word, but I think I finally get it.
If all I do is feel gratitude and appreciation for the things that please me, I’ll attract into my life more things that please me.
If I appreciate the ease in my life, I’ll draw more ease to myself. And not necessarily of the type that I already have. Yes, my shopping for groceries has gotten easier and easier, in often ridiculous ways. (I was randomly pulled out of a long check-out line last week by one of the managers who took me to the service counter and personally checked me out there.)
Call me lucky, but it’s more than that. The ease has expanded into other areas of my life, as well. Such as bespoke AI images for my Substack posts.
So, instead of trying to manifest an easy drive down I-95, maybe I should just notice ease elsewhere in my life and give thanks for it, let go of the need for anything in particular to happen, and then follow the energy, which might inspire me to leave before or after I’d originally planned, or to travel on a different day.
I can absolutely ask the universe for a pleasant drive before I hit the road, but not specify what that means. Don’t try to micro-manage it. And then decide, before I get in the car, that I’m going to enjoy my drive, regardless of the traffic. Maybe turn on an audiobook.
Relax. Don’t fight it. Don’t fight anything.
Maybe it really is just about giving thanks for the things already in my life, and watching them grow.
If manifesting specific things is working for you, I’m in awe, and I want to know how you do it. In the meantime, I’m figuring it out, one lesson at a time.